A short section devoted to my school- the Bavarian International School at schloss Haimhausen in kreis Dachau
Schloss Haimhausen then and now
In
1281 schloss Haimhausen was listed as a castle (castrum) in a gazetteer
of Upper Bavaria. It was destroyed in the Thirty Years War and rebuilt
in 1660 as an ornate Baroque structure by Andreas Wolff. In 1747 and
ensuing years, Francois Cuvillies the Elder enlarged the villa by seven
bays on each side and added two wings. The external form of the house,
with the high roof typical of the region, has remained unchanged to this
day. Cuvilliés was also responsible for such famous buildings as the
Munich Residenz, the Residenz Theatre, the manor Amalienburg in the
grounds of Schloss Nymphenburg, and rooms in Schloss Brühl, near Bonn.
The ceiling murals in both the Golden Room and the Chapel were executed
by the famous Augsburg artist, Johann Bergmüller in 1750.
Haimhausen
schloss became the property of the family Butler v. Clonebough, after
having been awarded to the Irish officer Walther Butler (known as the
"Wallenstein murderer") in thanks for his fulfilling a contract to
deliver Wallenstein "dead or alive" on February 25, 1634. Friedrich
Schiller immortalised Wallenstein in the dramatic trilogy that bears his
name (completed in 1799). He did not enjoy his success for long,
passing away in 1635 after being wounded. The schloss was rebuilt in
1660 after a fire in the Thirty Years' War and has been expanded ever
since. Under Reichsgraf Karl Ferdinand Maria von und zu Haimhausen, from
1743 to 1749 a major renovation was carried out by François de
Cuvilliés the Elder. Since then, the late baroque chapel Salvator Mundi
with stucco work and altars by the Flemish artist Egid Verhelst and his
sons and the ceiling painting by Johann Georg Bergmüller, which was made
in 1750, has been a special gem within the castle. 
The
property was then passed from generation up until Theobald, who had a
close relationship to Count Stauffenberg. Theobald, the last heir to the
Butler von Clonebough line, was born
in Shanghai on July 15, 1899. His father Arthur died when Theobald was
not yet five years old. He was sent to Munich, he became a lieutenant in
1918 and studied mechanical engineering, where he also did his
doctorate. In 1937 he married Irene Rosewsky in Riga with whom he had
four children, one of whom died in 1941. The family lived in
Neubrandenburg, north of Berlin. During the Second World War, Theobald
had an important position in the armaments industry and by 1943 he lived
alone in Kempten in the Allgäu. As early as 1944, he is said to have
repeatedly urged his wife to move away from Neubrandenburg to join him
in Kempten which was not allowed by the local Nazi district leader. In
March 1945 Theobald left Kempten by car in an attempt to save his wife
and children from the approaching Soviet troops. In the end he is said
to have poisoned his wife and three children on April 29, 1945, then set
the house on fire before shooting himself. So ended the line of the
Counts of v. Clonebough gen. Haimhausen on April 29, 1945.
The
war memorial on the high street is flanked by two flag poles, neither
of which can hoist any flag under which those commemorated died for.
Further down the high street on the right is the memorial to both world
wars.
During the turn of the century and as the Bavarian International School today
Showing the balcony erected in front of the chapel for owner Haniel's wife who had suffered an accident shown in 1939
Bavarian International School's chapel then and now. It owes its splendour to its ceiling painting, again by Bergmuller- the Salvator Mundi, dated 1750- as well as the delicate Rococo stucco work by Verhelst.
Directly above is this fascinating representation of the return of Christ on the throne 0f the Trinity; the largest Salvator Mundi of its kind
in which God holds the Flaming Sword of Judgement and has the left hand
on the empty seat to his right whilst in the centre a kneeling Christ
with the cross rises over a world in flames, depicting the four
continents known at that time. But what makes this painting remarkable
is the representation of the Holy Spirit in human form. This is
expressly forbidden by the Catholic Church, as Pope Benedict XIV
declared in October 1745 just before this painting was created, and and
today is only permitted in the form of a dove. As a Catholic colleague
remarked upon entering, "God is not present," noting the lack of a
sanctuary lamp.
On the right is a close-up during the 650,000 euro renovation of the chapel completed in 2010. An interesting touch on the ceiling is the expulsion from Paradise on the right, showing Adam and Eve being followed by a dog and snake hopping along, and at the other end above the altar Christ on the Mount of Olives, with the snake making a reappearance with apple in mouth.
On the right is a close-up during the 650,000 euro renovation of the chapel completed in 2010. An interesting touch on the ceiling is the expulsion from Paradise on the right, showing Adam and Eve being followed by a dog and snake hopping along, and at the other end above the altar Christ on the Mount of Olives, with the snake making a reappearance with apple in mouth.
During the 1944 bombing, the library's collection was distributed throughout 28 sites in Oberbayern. The photos above from 1949
show the thousands of books from the Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek
that were stored for safety in the Haimhauser Schlosskapelle in today's
Bavarian International School during the Second World War.
Moving the books postwar back to the Staatsbibliothek on Ludwigstraße
showing the necessity for having relocated its collection. Between 1949
and 1975 the Schloss was used by the Bavarian Legal Aid School and
later the Munich Police Academy. Between 1976 and 1986 the International
Antiques Salon occupied all rooms with its period exhibits.
The
role the schloss played in preserving our shared past and passing it on
to future generations free from war and violence makes Bavarian
International School's logo particularly resonant. In 1944 the
Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek was bombed along with most of Munich’s
centre. Fortunately, just before, it had distributed its collection of
books to 28 different sites around Oberbayern. One of those sites was
our Schloss chapel used today in the service of our students. I always
felt it rather touching to think that the logo was a representation of
this- that something vital and profound was preserved for future
generations even after this country’s darkest period when none knew what
would be left at null stunde when there was nothing left to believe in.
And there it is- our Schloss, like Pandora’s box in stone, from which a
single book is presented in hope and expectation to inspire success.
What a lovely proud logo that was- it couldn’t have been designed for
any other school on earth. Sadly, it was decided to replace it, at
considerable expense, with the kind of thoughtless logo that any Grade 6
child could have designed in a single lesson shown in the centre.
Fortunately the outcry was great enough that the old logo returned,
albeit with the Mussoliniesque motto "Believe, Inspire, Succeed" only
for it to be replaced yet again in 2021 with a styised 'B' which could
represent anything.
Bavarian International School yacht ensign
In front of the Golden Room and inside today. This banqueting hall, with its ceiling painting of The Four Seasons by Bergmuller (dated
1750) and its two rare Nymphenburger porcelain stoves, forms the visual climax
of the state apartments of schloss Haimhausen.
At the start of the 2019 school
year I received the following remarkable email from Mr. Tim Gillespie of Oregon
whose father had been stationed at our schloss after the war before being in
charge of American forces in the Dachau camp, guarding ϟϟ prisoners before the
upcoming war crimes trials, charged with guarding the books from the state
library that were being protected from wartime bombing here in our school's
chapel:
A selection of extracts from his father's letters home relating to the schloss with assorted GIFs I made from the photographs he kindly donated to the school:In going through some long stored-away boxes of my parents after they passed away, I recently found some photographs of Schloss Heimhausen [sic].
My father, Claud Schmidt Gillespie (whose mother's family were Schmidts who emigrated from Germany to the United States in the late 1800s), was in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war was over, he was in charge of a company of U.S. soldiers that was stationed there. In the box of photographs I found this note, hand-written by my father: "Schloss Heimhausen is in Germany--not too far from Munich--where I lived for awhile (with my rifle company) in 1945 after the war was over. Our mission was to protect hundreds of books stored in the schloss by the Germans to protect them, most from libraries in Munich. (We also kept an eye on the German civilians, especially the teenagers.)"I should also tell you that during that time my father was also put in charge of the U.S. Army's command of the Dachau concentration camp. After its survivors were liberated and taken away by the Red Cross, the Dachau camp was used as a temporary prison for ϟϟ officers--many thousands of them--being tried in the postwar trials. My father was in charge of running the camp and guarding the ϟϟ prisoners. He came home in 1946. Needless to say, he had very powerful memories of his time in Germany during the war and after the war. In any case, in the box were over 40 photos (most less than a foot or 30 centimeters in length) of various indoor and outdoor scenes from Schloss Heimhausen. [sic] These were not war photos but appear to be formal photographs showing the Schloss in its glory days before the war, with ornate furniture and decorations---and no people shown at all. Though none of them are dated or labelled, they are quite remarkable and in pretty good condition.
In thinking of what to do with these old photos from 1945, I did not want to simply throw them away, so I did some research on Schloss Haimhausen and happily discovered that your school is now using the site. These were clearly photos that my father took to remind him of his time there, but he is long gone. The most appropriate place for them is to be returned to the site itself, I think. If you are interested, I would be very happy if you would like to become the custodians of these historic photos.
Sunday 30 Sept 1945
Dearest Phyl:
…Our new home, the Castle, is really
beginning to look better. Friday I told the boys to fix up the ballroom for our
“Day Room” where the boys can read + write. So the Sgt in charge put a Polish
GI on the job. Now this boy is one of those who looks + talks like a rather
rough character but he must have the soul of an interior decorator because it’s
the fanciest job I’ve ever seen. He took the rugs off all the stairways +
completely covered the floor. Then he found furniture - beautiful chairs,
settees + tables + little desks - all of which go beautifully with the way the
ballroom is decorated - and arranged them so it looks as grand as anything I
ever saw…It always amazes me the hidden talents that all men have if you happen
to give them a chance to show such talent…
You’d go nuts if you could see the things
still left in the castle - even after it seems that it has been looted. It’s
unbelievable how grand the place must have been. All the walls in the main room
are covered with very luscious cloth instead of paper or paint. And the
drapes are still hanging in many windows and though I know nothing of cloth etc
it’s not hard to see they’re almost priceless. And there are still about 20
paintings - all huge and most of them dated in the 1700s.
Some rooms have
murals on the walls - the ballrooms has one huge painting covering almost the
entire ceiling. And there are dozens of small, medium, + huge tables + cabinets
- hand carved, inlaid with mosaic, marble topped + very finely polished. Joe
Schroeder [a fellow officer and close friend] and I were looking around today +
found large supplies of fancy china, glassware (gold rimmed) and vases ’n
stuff. I found us 5 fancy metal “swizzle sticks” to mix our drinks. Much of the
stuff is too fancy to suit me but if it were possible to send you stuff we
could furnish about half our house without any trouble. I get socialistic ideas
when I see such evidence of wealth surrounded by many countryfolk who have so
little. For example the other day I took the chief electrician for the town…over
to see about repairs and he spotted a fancy fireplace screen which he claimed
was worth “fil” (many) dollars. [He meant “viel” in German.] In fact he
said thousands of dollars. And his weekly wage is about $7.00.
Some rooms have
murals on the walls - the ballrooms has one huge painting covering almost the
entire ceiling. And there are dozens of small, medium, + huge tables + cabinets
- hand carved, inlaid with mosaic, marble topped + very finely polished. Joe
Schroeder [a fellow officer and close friend] and I were looking around today +
found large supplies of fancy china, glassware (gold rimmed) and vases ’n
stuff. I found us 5 fancy metal “swizzle sticks” to mix our drinks. Much of the
stuff is too fancy to suit me but if it were possible to send you stuff we
could furnish about half our house without any trouble. I get socialistic ideas
when I see such evidence of wealth surrounded by many countryfolk who have so
little. For example the other day I took the chief electrician for the town…over
to see about repairs and he spotted a fancy fireplace screen which he claimed
was worth “fil” (many) dollars. [He meant “viel” in German.] In fact he
said thousands of dollars. And his weekly wage is about $7.00.
Still
have the problem of getting the water + heat fixed but they’re doing pretty good considering that
the place is over 800 years old + has had much alteration + repair. Had to dig
one main water pipe out of walls which were about 4 feet thick - there was a
leak. Guess I told you we had a fire that burned out about 25 feet of roof -
defective chimney…
Oct. 6 1945
…Made a trip to our castle this p.m. +
things are going pretty good. Look like we might get our water system working
OK + we now have most of the parts to fix the heating system. Big problem now
is to find a cable to run from a power house for our electricity. Pretty hard
to find - the big stuff - about 1 inch,
I think, + we need about 600 yards of it. Have the roof almost completely repaired
now where we had the fire. And our officers quarters are shaping up
beautifully. Wish you could see some of the fancy china + glassware we located
+ may use to throw a party some day. Have some scouts out now to try and get
some coffee cups + some silverware…
It’s just 7 p.m. + the radio program has
changed to a hillbilly program (like the Saturday Barn Dance program) and it’s coming from the Hofbrau Keller in
Munich (of all places - that’s where Hitler planned his original “putsch” - +
and it is now made over into a Red Cross club). Podden me whilst I change to
another station. You’d be amazed at the dozens of stations you can get over
here now. It seems so strange at times to tune in on some good American music +
then when the record stops to hear some Kraut announcer talk in German…I can get programs in English, German, Italian,
French, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and one which sounds like Chinese or
Japanese. The Krauts play a lot of waltzes and what sound like Polkas + Schottischen. Have seen some of these dances +
they look like they’d be fun - slapping their knees + feet ’n stuff. Right now
they’re playing something and some Kraut is talking like he was calling a
square dance…
I’m still looking for lace but it’s
kinda hard now. Except in large places, outside of Germany, you don’t see
anything like that. May be able to arrange to have the local natives make me
some. We cannot buy at stores here, and except for foodstuffs I’ve seen no
stores anyway. I suppose it’s hared to imagine towns or cities without things
like department stores but that’s the way it is. In places large enough to have
such stores the bombing has destroyed most of them…
[Later] As I write this I’m listening to the 5th game of
the World Series coming by short wave from the States…
…Today and yesterday have been beautiful
days - clear and sunny- and very welcome after two weeks of almost continuous
rain and cold. Sunday and Monday night we had very heavy frosts which have
quickly changed the leafed trees into huge masses of red, gold, and brown. It
is comparatively warm yet there is a crispness in the air. It reminds me of the
fall football days back in Nebraska.
Thursday
11 Oct 1945
…Today and yesterday have been beautiful
days - clear and sunny- and very welcome after two weeks of almost continuous
rain and cold. Sunday and Monday night we had very heavy frosts which have
quickly changed the leafed trees into huge masses of red, gold, and brown. It
is comparatively warm yet there is a crispness in the air. It reminds me of the
fall football days back in Nebraska.
…This week has included the usual daily
training and more intense work on the new castle. There sure is a lot of work
necessary to do on that place just to get the facilities - light heat +
plumbing - in order. Today I made a trip down near Munich to try and pick up my
cable for the electricity but got stymied. I had an order from General Ladd but
they wouldn’t come through as they claimed that they had orders from General
Ike himself to let nothing go out of the place. It was formerly the Bavarian
Motor Works [BMW] (made good cars) and in spite of much bombing there is
still a tremendous amount of material there - much of it underground. So
tomorrow I’m going to try a place near Augsburg as our Ba Cmdr says we will
move in next week - lights or not. Wish me luck, Bub.
…Did I tell you that our castle has an
organ? It’s in a huge and very beautiful chapel. Unfortunately the organ does
not work and the chapel is now full of thousands of books from the Munich
libraries…
The
grounds on our estate have not been damaged nor has the building. Only damage
was caused by vandals + looters who broke in here and there and tried to burn
it in one place…
Sunday 14 October
…this p.m. went to Dachau to arrange to
get two trucks to pick up a big electric cable tomorrow.
That’s about the last thing we need to
complete repairs on our castle as they now have most of the plumbing fixed.
Tomorrow they try the central heating system + keep your fingers crossed for
me, honey. Yesterday they pumped water into the system (it’s hot water type
heat) and about a dozen leaks sprung out + almost flooded the place. The
plumber got those fixed but left the pressure on + this p.m. another leak
started and partially flooded all three floors but now he thinks he has that
fixed too. All this has been with cold water + tomorrow they put heat on
+ then - holy mother, I hope it works! In any event, we move Wednesday because
a week from today we start on maneuvers [sic] for one week + must be moved before
then.
Saturday 20 Oct 1945
..How
do you like this for stationery? [Letter written on quality blue paper with embossed initials FH under
a little crown and Haimhausen München at the top] The former
owner of the castle placed this at my disposal recently. Ho-hum! -wonder what
the poor people are doing today…
Haimhausen
Monday night 29 Oct 1945
Monday night 29 Oct 1945
…Our town of Haimhausen is just about 4
miles closer to Dachau than we were before. We’re about 15 miles from Munich. [Draws
map]
Sunday Nov 4 1945
Sunday Nov 4 1945
…We’ve
been trying to get settled in the
castle since we returned from maneuvers a week ago. Wed it was announced
that
we would have to take over the area of the 3rd Battalion while they went
on
maneuvers. So yesterday I took about 95 of my men to Freising - about 45
minutes northeast of here + set them up to guard a couple of DP camps -
mostly Polish people. I’ve been tearing over there and back
here trying to keep both places running…
Honey,
I miss you so much it gets under my skin at time. And I have a fairly tough
hide. Soon it will be our 11 month anniversary [since he proposed just before he left for his
overseas duty]. Irv +
I were talking about how long it has seemed + we both agreed that we probably
shouldn’t kick too much as so many of our buddies will never go back…
Freising
is a large place - about 25000 + they have 2 movies [theaters?] which the boys
really go for. They also have “fil”
(many) [viel] frauleins and polsky which in plain language means that
the German + Polish gals are plentiful + very good looking + the boys also go
for that. They spaziren (walk) + dance with the gals although I personally can’t
see most of them - they are all mostly interested in seeing how much food or
cigarettes they can chisel…as for me I’ll take any American gal in preference
but mainly one in particular - guess who?…
You
should see the desk I am writing on. It’s another little number they had around here and
shows much work + probably cost a young fortune. It has very fancy metalwork on
inlaid wood on the front and a carved leather top…
The dining room with the Israelites' Gathering of Manna on the ceiling. A reference to Exodus XVI (and possibly supplemented through Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities III), it relates the story of the Israelites travelling en masse across the desert after having left Egypt and crossing the Red Sea
when, famished, they were miraculously provided with water, quails, the
fine, white manna which covered the ground like a heavy frost.
My classroom at Bavarian International School- a work in progress:
Having the honour of welcoming Mr. Bill Glied to my school January 28, 2013.
The Schlossbrauerei
next to our school during the Third Reich and today. Founded in 1608
when Duke Maximilian I granted Theodor Viepeckh the right to build a
brewery in Haimhausen. The building was demolished around 1750 because
it had become dilapidated due to war and neglect. Karl Ferdinand von Haimhausen
rebuilt it in he 18th century on the site that still exists today.
Under Theobald Sigmund Butler, the brewery became a worry again because
he had previously invested heavily in new brewery technologies and was
running out of money. The brewery only experienced an upswing again with
Theobald Graf Butler-Haimhausen. After years of good economic
development, he sold it in 1890 to the Haniel family. The brewery has
remained in the family since, however after 400 years, it ceased
production at the end of 2019 owing to the drop in sales in addition to
the increased costs due to the oversized operating space as well as the
ancient building and machinery. After no investor was found to invest in
the brewery, the municipality is now trying to ensure that the site
does not degenerate into a disused industrial building, especially as
large parts of the company are under monument protection.
Schönbrunn
At
the end of the 18th century, the schloss passed to the Counts of
Butler-Clonebough (later Butler-Haimhausen) through female succession.
Viktorine von Butler-Haimhausen founded a poor girl's house here in
1861, but moved it to Schönbrunn Palace in 1863. A
number of our students volunteer through our CAS programme at the
Franziskuswerk Schönbrunn- working with people with physical and
mental disabilities and at outreach houses with those who are more
independent. Schönbrunn belongs to the municipality Röhrmoos, but is a
separate village with an unusual history. The village hosts a facility
for people with disabilities; in the centre of the village is a small
schloss which had been acquired in 1862 by an extraordinary woman:
Countess Victoria Butler-Haimhausen. Her aim was to create a home for
old and dependent women and enable young women and girls through
education and training. To support this endeavour, she enlisted the
help of a community of sisters from Munich, which later developed into
the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Schönbrunn.
Photos
on the left by ϟϟ photographer Franz Bauer, Himmler's personal
photographer, taken on February 16, 1934 of children at Schönbrunn
suffering from Down's syndrome. From 1940 to 1945 a few hundred
residents, mostly children and young people, were deemed lebensunwert
("unworthy of life") and killed. During this time a total of 905 residents were transferred to other institutions, mostly to the Haar district hospital. Of these, 546 people were murdered as part of the Nazi killings, 196 of them in the Nazi killing centre in Hartheim near Linz. From 2007 to 2017, the subject of historical research was to what extent the director of the institution, the clergyman Joseph Steininger, accepted the deportation and, as a consequence, the murder which he possibly considered as the lesser evil to maintain the institution because, as a result of this cooperation, the institution was not confiscated and expropriated, but made available to accommodate hospitals and old people's homes that had been evacuated from Munich. After 1945, this pact with the Nazis was systematically concealed by Steininger. The extent of this cooperation and the actual number of victims only slowly became known as a result of the more intensive preoccupation with the euthanasia murders from the 1990s onwards. The sisters knew about the "Action T4" that had started in 1940 and about the importance of the transfers, but due to their position within Schönbrunn they could not counteract this. Contemporary witnesses reported that they had embellished patient files or that residents were hidden. They also reported that one deportation, unknown to them beforehand, had taken place while they were praying in the church.
Photos
on the left by ϟϟ photographer Franz Bauer, Himmler's personal
photographer, taken on February 16, 1934 of children at Schönbrunn
suffering from Down's syndrome. From 1940 to 1945 a few hundred
residents, mostly children and young people, were deemed lebensunwert
("unworthy of life") and killed. During this time a total of 905 residents were transferred to other institutions, mostly to the Haar district hospital. Of these, 546 people were murdered as part of the Nazi killings, 196 of them in the Nazi killing centre in Hartheim near Linz. From 2007 to 2017, the subject of historical research was to what extent the director of the institution, the clergyman Joseph Steininger, accepted the deportation and, as a consequence, the murder which he possibly considered as the lesser evil to maintain the institution because, as a result of this cooperation, the institution was not confiscated and expropriated, but made available to accommodate hospitals and old people's homes that had been evacuated from Munich. After 1945, this pact with the Nazis was systematically concealed by Steininger. The extent of this cooperation and the actual number of victims only slowly became known as a result of the more intensive preoccupation with the euthanasia murders from the 1990s onwards. The sisters knew about the "Action T4" that had started in 1940 and about the importance of the transfers, but due to their position within Schönbrunn they could not counteract this. Contemporary witnesses reported that they had embellished patient files or that residents were hidden. They also reported that one deportation, unknown to them beforehand, had taken place while they were praying in the church.
It wasn't until January 2012 that a
memorial was erected at Schönbrunn located directly to the south side of
the church of St. Joseph consists of a stained glass cross behind which
the names of the 546 children killed are listed. The names are in
different sizes and fonts to make the uniqueness of each person visible,
and every January 27 the victims of the Nazis are commemorated. The memorial was designed by the Benedictine monk Thomas Hessler which has the basic form of a cross consisting of coloured glass of which its outline is designed as a tree with branches, thorns and three hands. According to the artist, this arrangement commemorates the Last Supper, the supper of Judas' betrayal and Jesus' supper of atonement. In his speech at the inauguration in January 2012, Brother Thomas Hessler referred to the betrayal of Jesus by Judas at the last supper. The sign of the meal has an effect on the present so that we are reminded and not forgotten and is therefore serve as a reminder.
