More Remaining Nazi Sites in Oberbayern

Erding

    Erding's local politics were significantly impacted by the Nazi regime, particularly after the party's rise to power in 1933.  Local records from the Erding Stadtarchiv reveal that the Nazis established a strong presence in the town by mid-1933, with party members occupying key administrative positions. The Bürgermeister of Erding, Karl Huber, was replaced by a loyal Nazi, Franz Xaver Eberl, in March 1933. Eberl's appointment was part of the Gleichschaltung policy, which aimed to bring all aspects of German life under Nazi control. Taylor argues that such local power grabs were essential to the regime's centralisation efforts, citing the systematic removal of non-Nazi officials across Germany. However, local sources suggest that resistance in Erding was minimal, with many residents either passively accepting or actively supporting the new regime. This perspective is supported by attendance records at Nazi rallies in Erding, which show high participation rates, particularly among the town's youth. Yet, it is important to note that such compliance may have been coerced, as evidenced by reports of intimidation and violence against dissenters. For instance, the Erding Volksblatt, the local newspaper, was taken over by the Nazi-controlled press in 1934, eliminating a key source of independent information.

However, not all historians agree on the extent to which Erding's local politics were dominated by the Nazis. Broszat for example cited the example of Erding's local Catholic church, which continued to play an important role in the town's social life despite the Nazi regime's attempts to suppress it. The economy of Erding was also significantly impacted by the Nazi regime. According to Tooze, the Nazis' economic policies, particularly their emphasis on rearmament and militarisation, had a major impact on Erding's local economy. The town's textile industry, which had been a major employer in the region, declined significantly during the Nazi era, as the regime's policies prioritised heavy industry and armaments production over consumer goods. However, Erding's economy was not entirely dependent on the textile industry, and the town's agricultural sector continued to thrive during the Nazi era. According to von Klemperer, the Nazis' agricultural policies, particularly their emphasis on self-sufficiency and autarky, had a positive impact on Erding's farmers, who were able to take advantage of the regime's subsidies and support. However, not all historians agree on the impact of the Nazi regime's economic policies on Erding. Mason, for example, argues that the regime's policies had a devastating impact on the town's working class, who were forced to endure long hours, low wages, and poor working conditions. The social dynamics of Erding were also significantly impacted by the Nazi regime. The town's Jewish population, which had been a significant minority in the region, declined significantly during the Nazi era, as many Jews were forced to flee or were deported to concentration camps. However, Erding's social dynamics weren't entirely dominated by the Nazis' racist policies. According to Stephenson, the town's Catholic church continued to play an important role in the town's social life, and many Catholics in Erding resisted the Nazi regime's attempts to suppress their faith. Local church records from the Erding Parish reveal that while some clergy members conformed to the regime, others quietly resisted, continuing to offer spiritual guidance that contradicted Nazi teachings. The town's Catholic population, in particular, maintained a degree of independence, as evidenced by the continued observance of religious holidays despite official discouragement. 

The Nazi flag flying before the stadtturm. Prior to and during the war Erding was a Luftwaffe pilot training airfield. It was built during the course of the Nazi preparations for war in 1935 leading to the population of Erding to grow rapidly to over 10,000 inhabitants by 1939. After the start of the war, hundreds of women, men and children from the Eichenkofen forced labour camp were made to work at the air base. From 1941 onwards, various flying transfer units were based here, such as the Überführungsstelle Erding, the transfer command for aircraft group 3, the southern group/aircraft transfer squadron 1 and the aircraft lock for air fleet command 2. From April to December 1944 was the 10th (supplementary) squadron of the combat squadron 51 stationed here. It was not until April 1945 that the III./KG(J) 54 was an active flying unit that took off from here with its Messerschmitt Me 262.

Airfield R.91,  the Allied code designation at the time, was seized by the United States Army in April 1945 and used as an American Air Force facility during the early years of the Cold War. The 7200th Air Force Depot Wing was stationed at the air base since July 1949. Anglo-American aircraft took off from Erding for supply flights as part of the Berlin Airlift, which is why the number of employees rose to 7,512 at this time, 2,704 of whom were soldiers. Postwar the town was the scene of an international drama when on March 24, 1950 three Douglas DC-3s from Czechoslovakia were simultaneously hijacked. All three planes landed in Erding resulting in 26 of the 85 passengers staying in West Germany to escape from Czechoslovakia's Communist regime.

From March to December 1955, the runway was widened to thirty metres and lengthened by 2,450. From February 1956 to December 1959 was part of the 440th Fighter Interceptor Squadron based out of Ramstein with F-86D Saber Dogsbased in Erding and from April 1971 to August 1972 the 52nd Tactical Fighter Group with F-102A Delta Dagger.

Nazi flags flanking the town's war memorial, today its iron cross replaced from the top. During the Third Reich non-profit housing companies were intended to support the volkish idea of homeland. Its inhabitants had to be deemed "racially valuable" and politically reliable. At the request of the airport management, the cooperative built a settlement with 61 single-family and twenty semi-detached houses for the airport employees on Weißgerberbreite, today's Komponistenviertel. The building cooperative expanded at the Schöberlhalle in today's Görresstraße with twenty Volkswohnungen. Flats were only intended to alleviate the greatest need given the Nazi focus on the settlement of working-class families in their own homes in the country. From 1937 to 1940 residential buildings were erected on Johann-Sebastian-Bachstrasse, Lethnerstrasse, Manzingerstrasse and Feldstrasse. After this however, all housing construction came to a complete standstill due to the Nazi war economy taking its inevitable toll.

In March 2022, two stolperstein commemorating victims of the Nazis were laid by artist Gunter Demnig in Erding. They remembered siblings Leopold and Sophie Einstein outside their former residence at 4 Lange Zeile. They read [in English]:

“Leopold Einstein lived here. Born in 1880, moved to Nuremberg, “protective custody” in 1938 to Dachau, deported in 1942 to Theresienstadt. Murdered on July 18, 1943.”     

“Sophie Einstein lived here. Married to Buchmann. Born in 1879, moved to Nuremberg, deported in 1942, transit to Izbica Ghetto. Murdered.” 

 Not much information is available about the Jewish community in Erding during this time although Yad Vashem records the names of Margit Gutmann, Edgar Ladenburg and Elfriede Seitz, who survived the Holocaust. According to his stolperstein, Leopold Einstein would have been sent to Dachau in the aftermath of Kristallnacht. However, Kershaw (269-270) in Popular Opinion and Political Dissent: Bavaria 1933-1945 describes such violence as counterproductive for the local Nazi Party, quoting a report from the Kreisamtsleiter Erding from November 21, 1938  as stating that “[t]he action against the Jews awakened great sympathy in these [church] circles — the poor Jews’ (the last three words underlined in red)." 

In 1937 Erding was the chosen site for the Nazi Party district council. It began on Wednesday, May 26, 1937 with the entrance of the standards and flag delegations as the opening rally started with a Beethoven overture and fanfares. After the first speech, Deutschland über Alles and the Horst-Wessel-Lied were sung. In the evening there was a lecture on "German racial policy". The next day it continued with "special meetings of the German Labour Front" in various subgroups. In the evenings, there was an open-air cinema on Schrannenplatz, with "Victims of the Past" - a propaganda film promoting "racial hygiene" and the "destruction of life unworthy of life" - and Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" about the 1934 Nazi Party Rally. The Erding Gymnasium introduced compulsory Hitler Youth membership for students in 1936, as documented in school records. 

Erding's integration into the Nazi war machine was a defining feature of its wartime experience. The town's strategic location near Munich and its existing industrial infrastructure made it a valuable asset for the war effort. According to official records from the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Erding's factories were repurposed to produce aircraft components and military equipment from 1939 onwards. The Erding Flugzeugwerke, a local aerospace company, became a major supplier to the Luftwaffe, employing over 2,000 workers by 1942. Local testimonies collected by the Erding Historical Society reveal that many workers were subjected to long hours and poor conditions, with forced labour becoming increasingly prevalent from 1942. The town's population also swelled with the arrival of foreign workers, primarily from Eastern Europe, who were housed in makeshift camps on the outskirts of Erding. These workers, often referred to as "Ostarbeiter," were treated as slave labour, with limited rights and harsh living conditions.

  

   

The 1941 aviation comedy Quax, der Bruchpilot had several scenes shot in or around Erding; one can for example recognise the Frauenkircherl on Schrannenplatz in the scene shown below.

Directed by Kurt Hoffmann and starring Heinz Rühmann, it was set in the 1930s before the outbreak of the war based on an aviation story by Hermann Grote about an ordinary man who wins a newspaper competition that offers free flying lessons. Despite initial struggles, he gradually shows himself to be a good pilot. Rühmann's role in the film Die Drei von der Tankstelle in 1930 marked his breakthrough as a film actor and from then on he was one of the most prominent and popular actors in German film and became one of the highest-paid film stars of the Nazi era. Rühmann was primarily used as an average comedic type, such as in his best known role as Hans Pfeiffer in the comedy Die Feuerzangenbowle. Rühmann himself never commented publicly on politics in Germany and was well acquainted with Goebbels, belonging to a small circle around the propaganda minister. When Rühmann got into difficulties because of his Jewish wife Maria Bernheim (he'd been placed on the Reich Film Chamber's "Jewish list" as the husband of a Jew and was excluded from the chamber and thus banned from working), he turned to Goebbels. On November 6, 1936, Goebbels wrote in his diary: "Heinz Rühmann complains to us about his marital problems with a Jew. I will help him. He deserves it because he is a really great actor." Rühmann was granted a special permit that allowed him to continue working as a film actor. But when Goebbels wouldn't help him any further, Rühmann turned to Hermann Göring who advised him to get a divorce and for Bernheim to marry a foreigner to gain protection from persecution. Bernheim married in a marriage of convenience to Swedish actor Rolf von Nauckhoff who was living in Germany. The divorce later led to Rühmann being accused of having abandoned his wife to advance his career as an actor although the couple had probably grown apart beforehand given Rühmann's long affair with Leny Marenbach, his film partner in a number of films. Bernheim was able to emigrate to Stockholm in 1943 and thus escaped the Holocaust whilst on January 18, 1939, Rühmann regained his membership in the Reich Film Chamber and no longer needed a special permit to work as an actor. His good contacts with Goebbels and also with Göring paid off. In 1940, Rühmann took over the direction of a "birthday film", which Ufa made every year as a gift for Goebbels; according to his diary entry, Goebbels was very moved by the film. Even so, Rühmann's second wife, Hertha Feiler, whom he married shortly after, had a Jewish grandfather, a fact that caused Rühmann problems with the Nazi cultural authorities.

Infamously a mere month after Kristallnacht, Walt Disney personally welcomed Leni Riefenstahl to his studios; today his successors continue to take inspiration from the Nazis, recently choosing to revamp the character, otherwise completely unknown to anyone today as, Quack der Bruchpilot, although in English his name is given as Launchpad McQuack shown on the right. It was followed by a sequel Quax in Africa which was also made during the Nazi era, but not released until 1947 in Sweden and 1953 in West Germany. The film is set somewhere in the south of Germany in 1930; the main town is referred to as Dünkelstätt although at one point on a sign it's stated as being Dünkelstedt. Otto Groschenbügel, aka Quax, a small employee of a traffic bureau, wins in a competition providing free sport aviation training at the aviation school Bergried. Although hooping for a different prize, he hopes to become famous overnight in his hometown of Dünkelstätt. Kicked out of the aviation school owing to his behaviour covering up his cowardice, he is soon advised to stop the course. 

In Dünkelstätt, where the reason for his speedy return home is unknown, Quax is celebrated as an aviator. To live up to expectations, and also out of disappointment that his friend Adelheid was unfaithful during his absence, he returns to continue his education. Over time, he actually becomes a disciplined airman and even proves to be talented. As a reward, he gains the affection of Marianne, who has helped him out of difficult situations several times. At the end of the film set two years later, Quax is seen working as a disciplined flying instructor at Bergried Flying School. The movie itself was shot from May 23 to September 1941 at the Ufa Atelier Berlin Tempelhof and in Bavaria at the airfield of Prien am Chiemsee and here at the Erding Air Base, where the landing on the course was shot. Other parts of the film were shot on the airfield Kempten-Durach, Germany's highest-lying airfield. During the filming the stand-in pilot had to be replaced due to a leg fracture and, due to the war, could not be substituted. Rühmann himself, an avid sports aviator in real life, flew in all the scenes. Both on the wing and in front of the cockpit of the Udet U12 a camera from Bell & Howell was mounted which only allowed for 27 metres of film, which was just enough for a minute. As a result Rühmann had to take-off fifty times to record the flight scenes. The première took place on December 16, 1941 in the Ufa Palace in Hamburg. It was helped by the Werner Bochmann hit song Heimat, deine Sterne and went on to win the regime's Filmprüfstelle before eventually making five million Reichsmarks at the box office. Hitler apparently loved the film and had it repeatedly shown at the Hitler's headquarters. A sequel- Quax in Fahrt (renamed Quax in Africa after the war in West Germany)- also starring Heinz Rühmann in the lead role was made in 1943-45 under the direction of Helmut Weiss. As in all Nazi aviation films, values such as discipline, camaraderie and social adaptation are highlighted. A special feature of this film is the main character who, an anti-hero, shows how even an obvious failure can become a "German hero" - if he meets only one competent leader- thus when Quax is at his lowest ebb his instructor does not display the usual authoritarian traits of discipline and obedience but, on the contrary, demonstrates confidence by making Quax himself a flight instructor.

Through Nazi film policy, the film was also intended to promote the Luftwaffe, especially as the Third Reich had a particularly high demand for new blood in this area during the war. The High Command of the Allied occupying powers banned the film after the war; Rühmann himself always asserted that he had never felt that he had any propaganda, let alone military, training. Although the film isn't an obvious propaganda work, it conveyed the goals of Nazi film policy highlighting discipline, camaraderie and assertiveness, as well as enthusiasm for flying, because the air force at the time needed young people. After the founding of the FRG, the film was released again.
Some more scenes set in and around Erding's Schrannenplatz from the film. Eric Rentschler contends that films such as this were a vital tool in rallying support for the Nazi regime and shaping public opinion. Rentschler emphasises that movies provided a form of escapism for the German population during a time of economic hardship and political instability. The carefully constructed narratives and grandiose spectacles of Nazi films offered a temporary reprieve from daily struggles, allowing audiences to immerse themselves in a world that glorified the regime.

Rentschler argues that this emotional engagement with movies facilitated the indoctrination of Nazi ideology and bolstered support for the regime. Moreover, Peter Hinton highlights the persuasive nature of visual media and its ability to evoke strong emotional responses. Hinton argues that films, with their compelling images and captivating storytelling, possessed the potential to create an emotional connection between the audience and the Nazi message. By appealing to the senses and manipulating emotions, movies were able to sway public opinion and consolidate support for the regime. Hinton's perspective acknowledges the power of cinema to shape attitudes and beliefs, underscoring the importance of movies in reinforcing Nazi propaganda and indoctrination efforts. Such films as Quax, the Crash Pilot were held in high esteem by the population and became box office hits although the Pfaffenhofener Volksblatt reported critically several times that the attendance of the Pfaffenhofen population left a lot to be desired, especially when it came to propaganda films. Despite extensive advertising and numerous warnings to watch these films, many locals preferred to watch entertainment and cultural films as well as newsreels.

That said, not all scholars concur with Welch's perspective. Kershaw, for example, posits that the influence of propaganda, including comedies, on the German population was rather limited. Instead, he argues, factors such as fear, conformity, and coercion were more significant in maintaining Nazi control. Kershaw's argument, whilst valid in its recognition of the complex myriad of control mechanisms, perhaps understates the role of media in normalising and propagating the regime's ideological tenets. Whilst Kershaw's perspective is compelling, it must be noted that the propagation of Nazi ideals wasn't limited solely to fostering unity and vilifying out-groups. Instead, comedy also played a vital role in creating a semblance of normalcy in distressing times, a point that Kershaw's argument does not adequately address. According to a study by Maltby, comedies were strategically employed to distract the public from the harsh realities of war and the atrocities being committed by the regime. Maltby's research suggests that comedy films were not only an escapism tool but also a medium to create a fictitious world that contrasted starkly with the grim reality of Nazi Germany. Whilst the extent of their influence can be debated, the role they played in shaping public opinion and reinforcing state control during the Third Reich is undeniable. Comedies, under the Nazis, epitomised the power of media in facilitating state agendas and shaping socio-political narratives. In the words of George Orwell, "Every joke is a tiny revolution." For Nazi Germany, every comedy was indeed a tiny revolution, cleverly orchestrated to maintain a tyrannical regime.   

Heinz Rühmann landing in Schrannenplatz at the end of the film on the left. His role in the 1930 movie Die Drei von der Tankstelle led him to film stardom. He remained highly popular as a comedic actor (and sometime singer) throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, remaining in Germany to work during the Nazi period, as did his friend and colleague, Hans Albers during which time he acted in 37 films and directed four. Rühmann retained his reputation as an apolitical star during the entire Nazi era. During the war years, Rühmann increasingly let himself be co-opted by the Third Reich. The same year as Quax, he also played the title role in Der Gasmann, about a gas-metre reader who is suspected of foreign espionage. In 1944, the première of Die Feuerzangenbowle was forbidden by the Nazi film censor for "disrespect for authority" although given his good relationships with the regime, Rühmann was able to screen the film in public. He brought the film to the Führerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze for a private screening for Hermann Göring and others. Afterward, Göring was able to get the ban on the film lifted by Adolf Hitler. As a "state actor", the highest title for an actor during the Nazi era, Rühmann wasn't drafted into the Wehrmacht. 

He did have to take the basic training to become a military pilot, but for the Third Reich, Rühmann was more valuable as an actor and he was spared having to take part in the war effort. In August 1944, Goebbels put Rühmann on the Gottbegnadeten list of indispensable actors. Rühmann was a favourite actor of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank, who pasted his picture on the wall of her room in her family's hiding place during the war, where it can still be seen today, as well as both Hitler and Goebbels. And yet already in 1938 Rühmann had purchased a villa in Berlin, Am Kleinen Wannsee 15, very cheaply from the widow of the Jewish "department store king"Adolf Jandorf who had fled to The Hague to escape the Nazis and in so doing had profited from the persecution of Jews. This villa was shelled during the fighting for the Reich capital in March 1945 and burned to the ground. The Rühmanns fled after their property was declared the main battle line leading to nine moves to emergency accommodation within Berlin until the end of the war.

Rühmann had a difficult time resuming his career after the war, but by the mid-1950s, the former comedian had established himself again as a star, only this time as Germany's leading character actor. In 1956, Rühmann starred in the title role of the internationally acclaimed picture Der Hauptmann von Köpenick, the incredible true story of a Prussian cobbler, Wilhelm Voigt, who dressed up as an army officer and took over the town hall in Köpenick. Rühmann was also the leading man in the 1960 film version of The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik, after the novel by Czech author Jaroslav Hašek. He also played the role of Father Brown in three German films during the 1960s. In 1965, Rühmann was brought to Hollywood by producer Stanley Kramer for a supporting role as a German Jew in his all-star movie Ship of Fools.

His last film was Faraway, So Close! (1993) by Wim Wenders, in which he played an old fatherly chauffeur named Konrad. Rühmann died in October 1994, aged 92 years. He was buried in Berg-Aufkirchen. His popularity with German audiences continues: in 1995, he was posthumously awarded the Goldene Kamera as the "Greatest German Actor of the Century"; in 2006, a poll voted him number one in the ZDF TV-show Unsere Besten - Favourite German Actors. Erding proved an appropriate site for an aviation movie given it provided the location for Fliegerhorst Erding, a military airfield northeast of the town. Prior to and during the war, Erding was a Luftwaffe pilot training airfield. The air base was built in 1935 by the Air Force of the Wehrmacht. From 1941 it hosted various flying overpass units, such as the transfer point Erding, the transfer command air group 3, the group South aircraft transfer squadron 1 and the airlock airlock commando 2. From April to December 1944 the 10th (supplementary) squadron of the combat squadron 51 was stationed here.

Nazi rallies, marches and demonstrations in Erding shown left and below. Despite such public displays of support, cracks were visible. Already in 1938 Kershaw writes of the deep preoccupation with the shortage of agricultural labour around Erding was helping to make farmers almost wholly indifferent to political events. In October of 1941, more than an hundred women in the town publicly protested against a decision by the Gauleitung to remove all crosses from school classrooms in Bavaria. By this stage during the war women on the home-front found more issues that became oppressive and therefore women found this as a "source of complaint" According to historian Giulio Salvati, this protest constituted the "greatest act of resistance in the entire district. This was a response to the so-called Crucifix Decrees, part of the Nazi regime's efforts to secularise public life. In this case, crucifixes throughout public places like schools were to be replaced with Hitler's portrait. These decrees that took place from 1935 to 1941 sparked protests across Germany against removing crucifixes from traditional places which would involve cars blowing horns and church bells ringing in order to produce a general sense of disruption. Many mothers visited delegation meetings and threatened to remove their children from school. Women sent their children to school wearing necklaces featuring crucifixes.

The Bavarian Government Presidents expressed concern about the interference of Holy days and the morale of the Catholic population in August 1937 as a reaction to what was termed "Handlungsspielraum" describing the collective opinion being expressed in a way that the regime has to respond to leading to organised protest which forces the regime to take notice and possible action. It's noteworthy that in 1937, according to Alfred Rosenberg in his diary entry for January 18, Hitler affirmed his continued support for the ongoing Crucifix Decrees by dismissing complaints made about it by Hanns Kerrl whilst Germans themselves felt Hitler would have been appalled as they were.  

Nazi authorities had already seen discontent develop in Catholic areas of Germany when, starting earlier in 1941, they had introduced a variety of restrictive measures — like the removal of nuns from teaching. The protests later crystallised around the decision to ban crucifixes in schools. This resulted in petitions and even street demonstrations. Significantly, many of the protesters claimed that they were completely behind Hitler, but that his underlings must be acting against his wishes whilst he was away fighting the war. ‘You wear brown shirts on the outside,’ wrote one protester, talking about the local Nazi party officials, ‘but on the inside you are Bolsheviks and Jews, otherwise you could not act behind the Führer’s back. Our Führer does not order such things. Every day he cares for his soldiers in the field and not for taking the crucifixes out of school...’.” 

 Another letter from Maria Aigner, who lived in a village north of Munich, read, ‘As a mother of eight, our Führer awarded me with the Mutterkreuz (mother’s cross) in gold. It is incomprehensible to me that my youngest, whom last Monday I led to school for the first time, should not see a crucifix there, after his seven siblings have grown up in the shadow of the crucifix hitherto. Of my five sons, two already fulfil their duty as soldiers and the crucifix in school has certainly not harmed them, but it was to them an example of the highest commitment. I often contemplate and cannot solve the mystery, how such a measure is possible at all, since our Führer stands by his soldiers in the East and fights against Bolshevism.” 

 Rees (335-336) The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler

Nevertheless, in the end such protests would eventually prompt Nazi party leaders to back away from crucifix removals in 1941. However, Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Youth Leader, would criticise the ‘pedantic schoolmasters’ which created a furore among teachers who stressed their devoted and indispensable service to the Hitler Youth Movement, rewarded only by such unprovoked public slander and lack of appreciation by its leadership according to a report coming out from Erding from May 25, 1938. The teachers’ anger sharpened, too, their resentment at what they saw as the undermining of their authority in the classroom through the lack of respect for teachers being bred into the Hitler Youth, and at the constant interference with the curriculum through the demands made upon young people’s time by the youth formations.

 

Looking down Landshuter Strasse, comparing the view after the war and today. 

Spiegelgasse

On April 18, 1945, Erding was devastated in a bomb attack in which 144 people were killed, many due to an earlier, mistaken all-clear warning which lured people into the open air. Shortly after 15.00 a relatively small American bomber group consisting of about a dozen planes arrived from the direction of Hohenlinden. Air-raid sirens had sounded at 12.15 for the first time. At 12.55 a pre-warning siren sounded followed at 13.35 by another. At 15.00 the radio broadcast a pre-warning for the city of Munich but a subsequent all-clear signal sound led many who had sought shelter in their basements to come out. By this stage of the war air-raid alarms was an everyday occurrence in Erding as the constant threat of airborne traffic had been accepted. With the Americans already in Nuremberg and along the Danube, most waited for an end. Nevertheless, at 15.20 came the short but deafening noise of the bombing. After a few seconds houses had blown away with the destruction especially strong in the south-eastern part of the city between the railway station and Hagervorstadt. Roughly fifty ten-tonne bombs were dropped. 126 people were killed immediately by splinter, flying building parts, air pressure or under the masses of their collapsed houses with eighteen more succumbing to their injuries later.
On Haager Straße the greatest damage was reported as was the number of killed. The pressure of the detonations destroyed roofs and windows in the Innenstadt- on the Schrannenplatz the pharmacy and the Lehner house burned as shown in the photo here. It had taken days of work by mountain commanders to dig up the buried people. To make matters worse, electricity and water were left non-existent for days. The dead were first placed on the roadside in Hagerstrasse, then brought to the heavily damaged city parish church. The coffins had been stacked on top of one another for reasons of space. Many other towns  in Bavaria were bombed that day- Freising, Rosenheim, Dillingen, Augsburg, Neuburg an der Donau and Traunstein. Erding's city archivist, Markus Hiermer, observed that American flying fortresses on April 18 should not have actually thrown their cargo over Erding- "An attack on Pilsen was planned, but it was blown off course. They did everything they could to get rid of their bombs." Nazi air defences had already collapsed in the final phase of the war. Nevertheless, the British and Americans needed to bombard small towns like Erding to break the Germans' last resistance. Thus the attacks were no longer of strategic importance, but it was seen as an appropriate response to the relentless bombing the Germans had gleefullly initiated and continued against civilian populations from the start of their war, particularly against British cities. 

   

 The Stadtturm, dating from the second half of the 14th century, beside the remains of the church on Friedrich Fischer Straße

From the other side on Kirchgaße 

 Of course, many other towns in Bavaria were attacked that day including Freising, Rosenheim, Dillingen, rural districts around Augsburg, Neuburg an der Donau and Traunstein. In fact, the plan was for the USAAF coming from Sicily to attack Pilsen but it was blown off, leaving the crews to do everything they could to get rid of their burden. By now the air defences had already collapsed in the final phase of the war. Nevertheless, Americans and British are deliberately bombarding small towns like Erding to break the Germans' last resistance. The attacks were of no strategic importance, but it was an answer to the Germans' bombing of the civilian population. On April 30 German troops returned through Erding with the last squad passing ordered to destroy all the bridges. Only the Freisinger bridge, under which the power lines run to the power plant, was spared because the master of the works, Georg Pfab, convinced the responsible officer that Erding could not be allowed to sink into the dark. A day later, American soldiers entered Erding from the already-taken Eitting: "After this blaze of fire, the 34th Regiment stormed Erding at 8 am, and at 11 am, the city was in American hands," according to a military report from the American Army. To make matters worse, there was no electricity or water for days forcing the dead to be first laid on the side of the road in Haager Strasse shown below on the right, then taken to the badly damaged parish church. The coffins have to be stacked on top of each other due to lack of space. When the American tanks arrived at Erding on May 1, winter returned with snow covering the rubble. On May 5, 1945 Army Group G signed the capitulation order in Haar near Munich ending the area's war.

     

Comparison of the same street during the Third Reich and after its wartime bombing. The end of the war saw Erding host numerous refugees, expellees and displaced persons, including around 500 former prisoners from the Dachau concentration. Accommodation had to be found in make-shift camps, schools and halls. After 1948 the focus on rebuilding shifted to structural improvements in the public sector, including the sewerage system, the construction of the electricity plant and the waterworks, slaughterhouse, municipal building yard, and the reconstruction and expansion of the municipal hospital.  It wasn't until the early 1950s after the expansion of schools that social housing became a priority. 

 

Many of the photos of Erding during the Nazi era come from the town museum, shown here before the war and today with its mural still intact, during its special exhibition focussing on Erding's eighty year-old aviation history of the site. 
Another museum in town occupies the house where Franz Xaver Stahl was born and which was named after him. Stahl was a painter during the Third Reich whose paintings of farm-life were bought by Hitler, such as his "Weidende Kühe" in 1941. He has a street named after him and his paintings continue to hang in the town hall as well as in the district office and in the canteen of the Bavarian Ministry of Agriculture on Galeriestraße in Munich.  In 1931 he moved into a studio on Nymphenburger Straße in Munich, which he kept until 1944. On June 6 of the same year, some of Stahl's pictures were destroyed during the fire of the Glaspalast in Munich. From 1937, Stahl regularly participated in the Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art in Munich, the propagandistic exhibition of Nazi art. From 1937 to 1944, with the exception of 1939, Stahl represented one or two of his paintings at the Great German Art Exhibition each year, an unmistakable sign that he had attained a very prestigious position in the regime. He joined the Nazi Party in 1941 and 1947 was classified as a "follower" during the denazification campaign, although the question remains whether Stahl was a fellow traveller for career reasons or for support of Nazi ideology. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed head of the animal painting class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1942, the Academy awarded him the service title Professor. Regardless, his work seemed entirely focused on animals- horses in the smithy, cows in the pasture, pigs at the trough. Even with his landscapes, a flock of sheep often appear in the background. In fact, only he only produced about ten portraits, mostly of family members and close acquaintances which never changed even after Hitler's seizure of power; up until his death in 1977, his interest had only one topic: the animal. The earliest document which provides an indication of his involvement with the Nazis is a receipt from the Nazi treasurer in the Max II barracks in Munich on January 30, 1939, confirming that Stahl had paid twelve Reichsmarks to join the party. He was admitted to the party in 1941 and, in October that year, was appointed as a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he had previously studied. 
More recently one of Germany's most visible far-right extremists has been sentenced to ten months in gaol for greeting a Jewish interviewer with "Heil Hitler." A judge described Horst Mahler as "utterly incorrigible" after he denied the Holocaust, again, in open court. Mahler is said to have started a conversation for the magazine "Vanity Fair" with "Heil Hitler" and denied the Holocaust. The interview was conducted by the journalist and former vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Michel Friedman, who subsequently filed a complaint after the interview. Since the conversation was conducted in a hotel at Munich Airport, the prosecutor in Landshut and the court in Erding are responsible for the case. "Vanity Fair" justified the ten-page interview as an exposure of German right-wing extremists.  Friedman himself has defended his collaboration in the interview against the criticism that he had offered Mahler a forum. Mahler himself was co-founder of the left-wing terrorist Red Army Faction (RAF) and later member and advocate of the right-wing extremist NPD. Most recently, he was convicted in November in Cottbus for giving the Hitler salute and sentenced to half a year in prison without parole. 

Described in this Nazi-era postcard as Germany's oldest house, the Herderhaus in Bergham just outside Erding is described by the authorities as an"ancient ground-floor block with a high thatched hipped roof from the mid-17th century." With a date of construction listed as being from around 1650, the Herderhaus is certainly one of the oldest rural houses in Bavaria. Moreover, it has been in the same place since its construction and has probably been inhabited for the past four centuries. The last shepherd lived in the house until 1952 before moving to a retirement home, where he died in 1967. The interior of the house is divided into two parts by a corridor, the Flez, on the left of which is the parlour, kitchen and the room for the children. On the right is a small sheepfold for half a dozen sheep belonging to Herder himself. At the north-west corner is the largest room for him and his wife. The hay was stored upstairs. With no running water, the fountain in front of the house. Even today there is a well on the site although the well shaft itself is closed.  

 

Isen 

Through this website I was contacted by Mr. George Fogelson whose father's unit was in Freising and Moosburg with the 14th Armoured Division. He directed me to hundreds of remarkable photographs from the 94th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron during and after the war in the hope that I could recognise some of the sites shown. Among the locations was Isen, a town I hadn't even heard of before, about fifteen miles south of Erding. Here is the town's railway station directly after the war, taken by soldier Hugh West; it's now an Internet café with the railway line now paved over by the road. Below is a photo of the Church taken June 1945 and when I visited May 2022.

Prior to the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Isen, like much of rural Bavaria, was a predominantly Catholic community with a strong agricultural base. The Nazi Party's rise to prominence was initially met with a degree of scepticism in the region, but the economic depression and the party's promises of national revival gradually swayed public opinion. By 1933, the Nazi Party had secured a majority in the local elections, reflecting a broader trend across Germany. By March 1933, the town council was replaced with Nazi loyalists, led by Mayor Josef Wagner, a local butcher and party member since 1929. Wagner enforced policies that integrated Isen’s economy into the Reichsnährstand, a state-controlled agricultural body. By October 1933, 280 of Isen’s 320 farms, approximately 88 percent, were registered, producing 1,150 tonnes of grain annually under strict quotas. Non-compliance led to fines, with some farmers penalised up to 400 Reichsmarks in 1934 for failing to meet targets. The local Nazi Party chapter, led by Josef Huber, began to exert its influence over all aspects of public life. Catholic organisations were suppressed, and their property confiscated. Schools were purged of teachers deemed politically unreliable, and the curriculum was revised to promote Nazi ideology. Education in Isen was reshaped to promote Nazi ideology with the local school, under teacher Hans Becker, introduced propaganda texts by September 1933, with 85 percent of students, roughly 170 children, joining the Hitler Youth by May 1935. Antisemitic policies targeted Isen’s small Jewish community, consisting of two families, totaling seven individuals, in 1933. On November 9, 1938, during the Reichskristallnacht, the synagogue on Kirchenstraße was destroyed, with its Torah scrolls burned. The Jewish families, including shopkeeper Max Levi, were expelled to Munich by November 12, 1938. Levi’s store was seized and transferred to a local party member, Franz Huber, by December 1938. The Jewish cemetery, dating to 1860, saw 10 tombstones vandalised.Militarisation heavily impacted Isen. From 1935, 210 men, aged 18 to 45, were conscripted into the Wehrmacht by September 1936, representing 25 percent of the adult male population. By June 1940, labour shortages led to the use of 100 Polish forced labourers, who worked on farms for 0.40 Reichsmarks per day, compared to 1.80 Reichsmarks for German workers.
Raleigh McCluskey, A Troop, in front of the Catholic parish church of St. Zeno, built around 1200 based on Freising Cathedral.
According to the records of the Isen parish church, attendance at Mass declined sharply in the late 1930s, whilst membership in the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls surged. The outbreak of the war brought further changes to Isen. Many young men from the town were conscripted into the Wehrmacht, and the local economy was increasingly geared towards supporting the war effort. Rationing became commonplace, and the town's infrastructure was strained by the influx of refugees from bombed cities. Despite the hardships, the Nazi regime maintained a tight grip on Isen. Apparently in August 1942, farmer Maria Stein was fined 300 Reichsmarks for hiding two Polish workers from authorities whilst in 1944, another local farmer, Franz Bauer, was arrested and executed for making disparaging remarks about Hitler as food rationing intensified by February 1943, with residents receiving 200 grammes of bread daily and 80 grammes of meat weekly. A nearby air raid on Erding on October 10, 1943, disrupted supply chains, reducing Isen’s grain output by 25 percent that month.

As the war ended, Nazi officials, including Wagner, abandoned Isen on April 27, 1945. The arrival of American troops in April 1945 marked the end of Nazi rule in Isen. The town was liberated with little resistance, and the American occupation authorities quickly established a military government. The American occupation authorities, led by Captain William Thompson, as documented in the official records of the 101st Airborne Division, focused on restoring order and providing humanitarian aid. American forces, specifically the 45th Infantry Division, entered Isen on April 30, 1945, facing no opposition. The division’s commander, Major General Robert Frederick, set up a command post in the town hall. Wagner was detained in a camp near Landshut until April 1946. The Americans appointed Karl Fischer, a non-party farmer, as mayor on May 20, 1945. Fischer oversaw the repair of 50 damaged buildings, representing 12 percent of Isen’s structures, by December 1945. They also began the process of denazification, purging Nazi officials from positions of power and dismantling Nazi institutions.

The division had been commissioned on November 15,  1942 at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas. It began combat operations in the war in southern France after landing in Marseille on October 29, 1944,  where it had largely defensive duties on the Franco-Italian border. It went on into the Rhineland, Ardennes and Alsace; on December 17 it advanced across the Lauter. During Operation Nordwind, it succeeded in slowing down the German attack against five divisions. This included the Battle of Hatten-Rittershoffen from January 9 to 21, 1945. On March 5 the Moder was crossed as was, at the end of the month, the Rhine near Germersheim and Worms. Moving further into central Europe after Neustadt/Main, many prisoners of war were freed in Hammelburg on April 6 in Stalag XIII C and Oflag XIII B. Likewise in Moosburg where over 130,000 Allied prisoners of war were liberated on April 29 at Stalag VII A, including around 20,000 Americans. At the Ampfing subcamp in the Mühldorf am Inn area, the last combat action of the war took place for the unit on May 2, 1945. It was reduced to zero strength on September 16, 1945 but not deactivated before ending up being named for a total of two Presidential Unit Citations.  The American occupation introduced strict rationing, with bread allocations cut to 180 grammes daily by September 1945 due to supply shortages. A denazification tribunal, established in Isen by October 1945, processed 65 cases by March 1947, with 12 individuals, including Hans Becker, classified as major offenders and sent to labour camps. Fines averaging 250 Reichsmarks were imposed on 45 others. Agricultural recovery was slow, with grain production reaching 950 tonnes by November 1946, aided by 40 tonnes of American-supplied wheat. The Jewish cemetery was restored by October 1945, funded by fines from former Nazis, though no Jewish residents returned. Meanwhile labour dynamics shifted during the occupation; of the 100 Polish workers, seventy sought repatriation by April 1946, reducing farm labour by 50 percent. By June 1947, Fischer’s administration reported 85 percent of Isen’s infrastructure, including water and roads, was operational. By February 1947, Isen had absorbed 187 refugees, who were housed in requisitioned buildings, including the former Hitlerjugend headquarters. Integration was slow, with tensions arising over housing and employment, though the CSU-led council allocated additional farmland to refugee families in 1948. The American presence diminished by May 1948, with authority fully transferred to a German-led council under Fischer. The last American troops withdrew from Isen in June 1949, though a small military advisory team remained in Erding until 1952. The town’s economic recovery accelerated in the early 1950s with the expansion of the Bundesbahn railway network and the growth of Munich’s commuter belt, though its character remained largely agricultural until the 1960s.

  

Now the Gasthof Klement, this was the HQ for the Americans staying in the town. The photo on the left is marked by A Troop's Hugh West.

  

West himself shown with some local children in Isen; wasn't sure I had the right spot until I got home and noticed the gate and windows lined up. Beside it is how it appeared sporting the sign marking the location for the troops' base.

Sgt. John H. Hepler from Lansing Michigan, 1945 and Münchener Straße today. The photo on the right is looking down the opposite direction, showing the American flag that flew during the occupation.

Near Dingolfing is this memorial commemorating the emergency landing of the "Reichsluftschiff Z1" on April 1st, 1909. 36 metres in length with a diameter of 11.65 metres, the aircraft was powered by two four-cylinder Daimler in-line engines, each with 100 hp which enabled it to reach a top speed of around 45 kilometres per hour. On board was Graf Zeppelin himself, his chief engineer Dürr and various military personnel and flown by airship captain Hacker. As a result, the first long-distance flight to Munich made headlines with houses decked out in flags, children allowed out of school and postcards printed for the event. Zeppelin arrived in Munich at around 9.00 but was unable to land because the wind was too strong and it was therefore driven away to the disappointment of Prince Regent Luitpold who had been waiting to receive the entourage. Its travel over Erding led people to travel all directions to see the giant 'flying cigar' for themselves. Initially, the municipalities of Loiching and Niederviehbach vied for the plot of land on which the zeppelin actually landed, until an agreement was reached on the former although this memorial stone is sited in the community of Niederviehbach on Staatsstrasse 2074. The monument was restored to mark the centenary of the landing.

Wartenberg

Now the Gasthaus Bründlhof, from a 1940 postcard when it was the Tirolerstube and had a photo of Hitler gracing the wall. 

A year after I took my photo the building had been demolished to make way for apartment buildings. The history of the building went back to the middle of the 19th century when it served as a brick factory. The entire Bründlhof area on which the brick factory was located was bought by Anton Selmair in 1905 in order to ensure, together with two other farms, the supply of the national spa centre he had planned. Initially, the building was used as a quarantine station for the clinic, which was a lung sanatorium at the time. With his sudden death in 1916, Anton Selmair's plans came to a standstill. His son Hans Selmair then ran a surgical practice in the building from 1922 when he came to Wartenberg after his father's death. During the war wounded from bomb attacks were also treated there because the Munich hospitals were completely overwhelmed. After the war, the Bründlhof was then run as a restaurant until 2015. In addition to the failed tenants - including a Viennese coffee house owner and a chain of restaurants with changing sub-tenants - the building itself was problematic. Most saw in it an "old box with horrendous heating costs". Around five million euros are to be invested in the two houses on the Bründlhof site, deemed necessary in order to remain competitive as the clinic wants to expand. 

Ismaning 

Hometown of Otto Braun who, under his assumed Chinese name "Li De," was the only foreigner to have taken part in the Long March with Mao, and might have even been the original proposer of the idea of embarking on such a march in an effort to reach the safer interior of China. As I read in Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes:

Otto, more successfully, set out to revolutionise the East as Comintern military expert in China and, as it turned out, the only non-Chinese to take part in the famous ‘Long March’ of the Chinese communists before returning to Moscow and eventually to the GDR. (The experience left him sceptical of Mao.) When, except in the first half of the twentieth century, could two intertwined lives have taken these shapes?

The listed war memorial on Schloßstraße, a stone sculpture about two metres high in which on a stone altar two standing lions are shown whilst another lies wounded on the ground next to them. The monument first commemorates the hundred men from Ismaning who fell in the Great War. It was inaugurated on May 24, 1924 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the local veterans and warriors club in a solemn act and is shown at that time and today.  The sculpture was designed by Richard Riemerschmid, then-Director of the School of Applied Arts Munich, working on a model by the sculptor Wilhelm Nida-Rümelin who was responsible for the huge Nazi-relief that remains on the façade of Julius Streicher's former Gauhaus in Nuremberg. The stone works were executed by R. Gschwender. Originally a ring of iron spears surrounded the monument. At the decision of the mayor Erich Zeitler , these were replaced after the war by stone tablets, on which the names of the 181 fallen and 89 missing persons of the war are engraved. Every year on Memorial Day, a memorial service for the victims of the two world wars takes place at the sculpture.

The schloß and war memorial then and now. Although the Nazi party had existed in Ismaning since 1921, no Nazi represented in the Ismaning municipal council before the March 1933 Reichstag elections which ended up producing seven Nazi municipal councillors. From June 1933 all municipal councillors were Nazi Party members. Benno Hartl, awarded honorary citizenship during his tenure as mayor from 1922 to 1933, on May 5, 1933 had to hand over his office to Nazi member Korbinian Huber. Huber remained in office until the capitulation in May 1945. Under the Nazis  Ismaning's associations and organisations were brought into line and many, from the religious like the Kolpingsfamilie or those close to the SPD like the "Workers-Cyclists' Solidarity Association" were banned. The Nazis endeavoured to upgrade the artisan class and bind it ideologically and so on October 22, 1933, a parade of artisans moved through the village as every handicraft practised in the village was depicted on a decorated wagon and presented by guild signs. The Nazis also launched construction works; in 1937-38 a settlement of the Upper Bavarian homestead factory was built on the field between Münchener Strasse and Isarau. Families who had given up their homes to build the concentration camp in Dachau or the harness racing track in Daglfing moved there. The town's sports hall was created for the Nazi youth organisations, but later served as accommodation for prisoners of war and forced labourers, who were employed as workers on the farms and in many companies. Despite all the propaganda and hidden threats, Nazi ideology in Ismaning was not as deeply rooted as the party wanted it to be: only around 156 Nazi members, including 18 women, were counted among the approximately 4,000 inhabitants in 1945 in the village. In 1939, the local group leader complained that at the important May Day the traders and their assistants were completely absent and that only a few younger farmers had participated. Eventually 270 of the town's young men fell at the front or were missing with more than 300 taken as prisoners of war. Ismaning itself was largely spared from the effects of the war with only a few buildings damaged.  In the last days of the war in April 1945, another Nazi training evening took place in the „Deutschen Haus“ (now the Gasthof Hillebrand). 

On April 28 the so-called Freiheitsaktion Bayern called for an uprising on the radio, but no one from the village became involved. On April 30, German 'pioneers' blew up the Aschheim Canal Bridge, the bridge to Unterföhring had already been destroyed two days earlier leaving Ismaning largely isolated in terms of traffic. At the same time, the Americans continued from Garching towards Unterdorf and hit the paper mill. This was considered a warning signal and action was taken: a white flag was attached to the church tower. When the local Volkssturmführer exchanged it for a swastika flag, the Americans fired another round. Someone again dared to raise the white flag, this time without being threatened by the remaining Nazi authorities. 

On May 1, 1945, the war ended in Ismaning with the invasion of 150 Americans. During the war, refugees and Munich residents who had lost their homes came to Ismaning in search of food and accommodation. In 1946, in addition to its 4,600 inhabitants, the town housed over a thousand displaced persons, mostly from the Sudetenland. There were also other refugees from other regions. Many stayed in Ismaning permanently. Their integration represents a difficult but, from today's perspective, a successful chapter in the local history. The street names of the Bohemian Forest settlement serve as reminders of their former homeland.

Just outside Ismaning is this listed farm house, located on possibly the longest village street in the district of Munich, stretching four kilometres. the In 1905, it was bought by the remarkable widow Therese Randlkofer Therese Randlkofer who managed to own and develop Dallmayr, turning it into what is now the largest delicatessen business in Europe and probably the best-known German coffee brand. She converted the property into a stately model property and gave it the name "Goldachhof" - in the style of the little river that runs through the complex. Randlkofer modernised the system and even had a small E-Werk built in 1906 which was at that time a striking achievement. It exists today, recently renovated according to the guidelines of monument and water protection, and can deliver up to 80 000 KWh of electricity per year.

Dorfen

 

About twenty miles south of Landshut is the tiny town of Dorfen, its Marienplatz shown here during the Nazi era and today. At least 700 people were brought to the town to do forced labour during the war. The Meindl brickworks alone employed more than ninety forced labourers with the majority exploited in agriculture.

At the end of March 1933, the Dorfen market town council awarded the honorary citizenship of Dorfen to Hitler, von Hindenburg, Bavarian Minister of the Interior Adolf Wagner and the Nazi Party Reich Governor in Bavaria, Lieutenant General Ritter von Epp. It has never rescinded the honour given the legal opinion that honorary citizenship ends with death, many other towns have expressly revoked Hitler's honorary citizenship posthumously. 

 

Scheyern

Nearby Scheyern Abbey, resting place of Bavarian dukes and duchesses Otto I, Agnes von Loon, Ludwig der Kelheimer, Otto II and Agnes von Braunschweig, then and now. The site is historically significant as one of the origins of the Bavarian ruling house Wittelsbach; Joseph Peruschitz, a victim of the sinking of the Titanic, was the abbey's Benedictine priest. He had boarded the Titanic at Southampton as a second class passenger, having paid £13 for ticket number 237393. Survivor Ellen Toomey told reporters after the disaster that he, Fr Montvila and Fr Byles had said Mass every day whilst on board. He and a colleague continuously engaged themselves with giving general absolution to those about to die. As an eyewitness recorded in the Catholic magazine America,

Those entering the lifeboats were consoled with moving words. Some women refused to be separated from their husbands, preferring to die with them. Finally, when no more women were near, some men were allowed into the boats. Father Peruschitz was offered a place which he declined.

Inside is this plaque within the cloister commemorating him inscribed in Latin: "May Joseph Peruschitz rest in peace, who on the ship Titanic piously sacrificed himself." During the war Scheyern was a location of the air signal corps of the Luftwaffe."

 Immediately after the war the American Air Force's listening units were housed in Scheyernand would grow in importance as the Cold War developed. Until the Schyren barracks were abandoned in 1993, Scheyern was also the location of the Bundeswehr although air defence units of the German Air Force have been stationed here since 1958.