More Nazi Sites in Oberbayern

Eichstätt

 

Cycling to Eichstatt with Willibaldsburg in the background with the Hofmühl. It was because Reichsstraße 13 going through Eichstätt had been the shortest road connection between Munich and Nuremberg, and on to Berlin that Hitler himself visited the city several times where he was often found at the Waldschlösschen restaurant. The popular belief had been that Hitler and its owner, Carl Eduard Matheis, had been regimental comrades during the Great War although after a complete review of the 14th Infantry Division's archives, shows Matheis had not been; in fact, very few soldiers from the Ingolstadt region were. Hitler had first visited Eichstätt on February 24, 1923 and spoke in the parade hall which had stood next to the summer residence on the Hofgarten, and was later used as a gymnasium and factory hall before being demolished to build the new university buildings. The Nazis would attack the local paper, the Eichstätter Volkszeitung, for "spitting poison and bile against our movement."  
Hitler spent the Sunday, March 13, 1932 presidential election in Eichstätt; of note is the town's election result where Hindenburg received 3,243 votes to Hitler's 1,145. In fact, the Nazis at first found it difficult to establish a place in Eichstätt given that the biggest party in the town had long been held by the Bavarian People's Party. Thus, even after the so-called seizure of power the Nazis only managed in the parliamentary election 1, 558 votes in the March 5, 1933 national election compared to the Bavarian People's Party's 2,493. Nevertheless, on Hitler's birthday a torchlight procession in Mörnsheim was held as well as a significant birthday banner raised with the school square renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz. On Tuesday, July 18, 1933 the Eichstätter Kurier reported that "[a]fter five o'clock yesterday afternoon the news spread in our town that Herr Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his staff had arrived at the Waldschlösschen yesterday morning," being greeted joyfully with a child handing him flowers. The League of German Girls, the auxiliary police and the state police had served as a sort of honour guard as Hitler arrived after a meeting in Leipzig. The next recorded visit was Saturday, August 19, 1933 as Hitler was travelling to Nuremberg, lunching with his staff at the Waldschlösschen. He made a return visit on Wednesday, August 30, 1933, again stopping at the Waldschlösschen.

 Pfahlstasse

In December 1933 Hitler was awarded the honorary citizenship of the city. Hitler thanked the town council on December 12 and formally accepted it. On Friday, April 20, 1934, Hitler spent his birthday at the Waldschlösschen; after he drove off his car became stuck in a traffic jam during roadworks near Lohrmannshof where it was reported that  "he was the subject of a warm ovation from the construction workers."  Other visits Hitler made to Eichstätt were Sunday, March 18, 1934; Thursday, June 6 and Monday, June 17, 1935; and Tuesday, July 9, 1935, whilst travelling from Beilngries to Ingolstadt, apparently visiting the construction site of the highway shown above. In 1935 the Nazis built the Eichstätter Thingstätte on the Geisberg in the then independent municipality of Wintershof, shown below, in which Gauleiter Julius Streicher was present at the inauguration ceremony on July 6, 1935 even though it was only completed in 1937. During the war in the eastern suburb of Eichstätt was located the prisoner of war camp Oflag VII B. In addition, on the Willibaldsburg from October 1944 to January 1945 there was the site of an external subcamp of the concentration camp Flossenbürg which held 22 inmates. Given the PoW camp, the war itself saw Eichstätt suffering no casualties and in contrast to the surrounding communities and towns, no significant war damage from Allied attacks was sustained before being occupied on April 26, 1945 by American troops. 

 

This Hitler Jugend haus, completed in 1938, is still a Youth Hostel. The inauguration of the extension was held April 16, 1939. Such is the build-up of suburbia around the site that a corresponding photograph couldn't be taken.

The cathedral in 1936 and today. During the Nazi era, Bishop Konrad Count von Preysing was the only Catholic bishopric of Germany to turn against the Reichskonkordat, which was agreed by the Holy See and the Reichsregierung in 1933. It was at the cathedral on January 31, 1937 that Father Kraus publicly attacked Nazi anti-church policy, bringing on 

the crisis of April and May when both party and state tried to drive Kraus out of town. When the news spread of Kraus's impending ouster, the cathedral was packed with a reported 5,600 of the faithful, or two-thirds of the town. Bishop Racklwent to the pulpit and noted the unfortunate reason why so many had assembled. "But when he made clear that he had given Kraus an official order not to leave his pastorate, an applause broke loose, such as the cathedral had never heard before". During his 45-minute talk, Rackl had to stop frequently for the applause from the congregation, pleased to hear that someone was going to resist. During that evening, 1,800 persons signed a petition against Kraus's removal. While loyal Catholics were enjoying their defiance inside the cathedral, the police force, plus SA and ϟϟ, was marching about outside to "protect" the worshippers inside from mob violence—odd because the great majority of the town was inside. They did prevent the townspeople from giving the Bishop a street ovation. Party units arrested some of those showing defiance. All through the night and into the next day lines of those praying for the retention of Kraus wound through the cathedral.

Edward Peterson (315-6)  Limits of Hitler's Power

Westenstraße with Saint Walburg church in the background.   

The state, better informed, took the view that Kraus had indeed attacked the state. On April 23, in an unusual display of legal nicety, it introduced court charges against Kraus. In the meantime he was forbidden to give the usual religious instruction in the school. Kraus wrote that this was not so serious, because the students came to him anyway. He was amused by the simple-minded efforts of the party to indoctrinate the students, including those of Deputy Kreisleiter Haberl who had gotten a nun's teaching job and who avoided the quick-witted Kraus after an incident at the vocational school. Haberl was asking "tricky questions" about the rise of the NS party, and Kraus lost his temper, saying: "Hitler was also found guilty of high treason in 1923 and the verdict has not yet been reversed". Kraus reported his remark to Foerderreuther who threw his hands together over his head and said: "But Herr Cathedral pastor, you simply can't say things like that" of Kraus's way. He left the room before the priest appeared so that a "Heil Hitler" would not be necessary.

Peterson (317)

Residenzplatz during the Nazi era and today. Eichstätt's stately and tranquil surroundings have witnessed a dark past. During the Thirty Years' War the city, which was considered the "stronghold of Catholicism", was conquered and looted by the Swedes. As a result, on February 12, 1634 much of the town's centre was almost completely destroyed. It wasn't until the end of the 18th century that the Baroque reconstruction of the city by Graubünden and Italian master builders, especially Gabriel de Gabrieli as seen in these pictures was completed. Although since the Middle Ages the area around Eichstätt was known for its winegrowing- the terraces are partly still visible today- through climate change and the devastation of the Thirty Years' War the wine was finally abandoned. As with Freising, from 1582 to 1723 at least 241 people- 211 women (88%) and thirty men (12%) were charged and arrested on suspicion of so-called witchcraft in Eichstätt. 222 of them (195 women, 27 men) were sentenced to death and executed in these witch trials , including Kunigunde Sterzl, Eva Hohenschildin and Helena Schneckin.

As for the rest, either their death sentences were commuted, they died during detention or were eventually released. The main phase of the witch persecution in Hochstift Eichstätt lasted from 1617 to 1630 and fell into the reign of Prince-Bishop Johann Christoph von Westerstetten. During these fourteen years, at least 185 arrests and trials and 167 executions of 141 women and 26 men for witchcraft had been conducted, of which between four and 25 death sentences were pronounced each year. The last known execution for witchcraft took place in Eichstätt in 1723.  
The consequences of the November Revolution ending Germany's involvement in the Great War also involved Eichstätt which saw a workers 'and soldiers' council form. After his conviction  writer and playwright, politician, and socialist revolutionary Ernst Toller was imprisoned from February 3, 1920 to July 15, 1924 in the provisional fortress prison of Eichstätt. On December 15, 1918, the Magistrate's Council decided to establish a vigilante group although its implementation took several more months. The Freikorps Oberland was founded in April 1919 in Ingolstadt and Eichstätt by Albert von Beckh and was closely associated with the right-wing Thule Society which in turn is seen as one of the main influences on the later Nazi party. The Freikorps was used in May 1919 in the battles against the Munich Soviet Republic. Parts of the Free Corps were then taken over with parts of the Free Corps Epp in the Reichswehr Brigade 21 and 1920 used as a closed association during the Ruhraaufstands.

Residenzstrasse

The Free Corps itself was formally dissolved on October 21, 1919 but many of its members joined a volunteer battalion in the organisation Escherich. In the suppression of the uprisings in Upper Silesia in 1921, the Free Corps was significantly involved in the storming of St. Annaberg in Upper Silesia where they formed a murder and kidnapping squad. The murderers of Matthias Erzberger- leader of the Zentrum Party and who had signed the Treaty of Versailles- Heinrich Tillessen and Heinrich Schulz belonged not only to the Organisation Consul, but also to the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Oberland". They are also believed to have been responsible for the murder of the USPD politician Karl Gareis. In 1923 under its company commander, veterinarian Friedrich Weber, was sentenced alongside Hitler to five years imprisonment for treason after the failed Beer Hall putsch. On February 15, 1934 Weber was appointed "Reichsführer of the German veterinarians," later being appointed Honorary Professor of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Berlin on July 26, 1939. He took the rank of ϟϟ group leader in 1944, bearing the Blood Order and the Golden Party badges.

The Willibaldsbrunnen shown here and below reveal a remarkably unchanged marktplatz in large part thanks to the town's youth:  "The brave boys instantly got their hoses and connected to the water, and it was a real pleasure to see the Pimpfe and Hitler-Jungen rush to the fire" according to the Eichstätter Heimatzeitung on March 13, 1943. Already in July 1940 the party announced: "7, 000 Hitler Youth are under the fireman's helmet." The average age was 16 years. The training lasted for six months, and the youth learned to operate all fire equipment, "so that they can collaborate with experienced firefighters at each deployment." 

As early as New Year's Eve 1922, Jews in Eichstätt were targetted by Nazis when the facade of Sallo Guttentag's  department store on Domplatz was stained with swastikas. By 1933 there were still 27 Jewish inhabitants in the town, comprising of 0.6% of a total of 8,029 inhabitants. During the Nazi era in Eichstätt, persecution of the Jewish community intensified significantly, as meticulous documentation in the Stadtarchiv Eichstätt and testimonies from surviving families attest. One of the earliest markers of this shift came in March 1933, when local Nazi officials, emboldened by Adolf Hitler’s rise to the Chancellorship, orchestrated a public rally in the Residenzplatz where they called for a boycott of Jewish businesses. Spearheaded by Kreisleiter (District Leader) Josef Eckert, who had been appointed in February 1933, the boycott targeted shops owned by families such as the Katzes and the Rosenbergs, forcing them to display signs identifying their proprietors as “Jüdischer Gewerbetreibender.” Contemporary reports in the Eichstätter Anzeiger reveal that these demonstrations were not spontaneous outbursts of popular anger but rather carefully planned acts of intimidation, intended both to isolate Jews from the local population and to highlight the new regime’s racist ambitions. As the boycott escalated through the spring of 1933, Jewish shop owners faced vandalism, with windows smashed and goods stolen, whilst local police often declined to intervene. Even by mid-1933, Eichstätt’s Jewish community, which had numbered around thirty individuals at the beginning of that year, found its social and economic prospects severely compromised. Some residents, including the merchant Bernhard Katz, attempted to sell their properties under duress, but the so-called “Aryanisation” process meant that these transactions were conducted at prices far below the market value. Researchers note that municipal records from September 1933 list at least three real estate transfers from Jewish to non-Jewish ownership, with suspicion that more took place off the books. Aggravating these pressures, the Nazi-controlled municipal council approved a series of decrees mimicking the national pattern of antisemitic legislation, which were enforced by local constabulary under Oberbürgermeister (Mayor) Karl Hofmann. These edicts dovetailed with the nationwide “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service,” effectively barring Jewish residents from public-sector jobs. The Eichstätt Education Office also dismissed two Jewish teachers, citing “political unreliability.” A survivor’s statement preserved in the Eichstätter Diözesanarchiv describes the abrupt expulsion of Jewish children from Catholic schools; in one instance, a teacher identified as Ludwig Weber refused to remove a young pupil named Samuel Baum from his lessons, prompting denunciations from other staff and culminating in Weber’s forced resignation. Beyond education, Jewish professionals such as Dr. Alfred Metzger, who practised medicine on Westenstraße, were hounded by the local chamber of physicians, which invoked the Nazi Party platform to revoke his licence in late 1934. Correspondence between Metzger and the local Gesundheitsamt (Health Office) indicates that he was given a grace period of merely one month to settle his affairs, during which time the Gestapo is recorded as having searched his home for “seditious materials.” Metzger subsequently fled Eichstätt for Munich and later secured a visa to emigrate to Shanghai, one of the last ports open to Jews in the late 1930s. 

 Looking along the canal looking towards the Altmühl. Implementation of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 further tightened restrictions on everyday life. Marriages between Jews and Christians were forcibly annulled, accompanied by humiliating public notices pinned in front of St Walburg’s Church. On July 8, 1935, Egon Guttentag and Paul Freymann, who had meanwhile taken over the business from Sallo Guttentag, were taken into "protective custody". In the spring of 1936 the Guttentag and Freymann families fled the town due to the consequences of the economic boycott and the need to "Aryanise" their department store. In autumn 1938 only the Schimmel family remained in the town. During Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938 the district leader and about a dozen SA men moved into Stake Street to break down the Schimmel brothers' door and arrest them. Their house was sold that same day as two of the three Schimmel brothers fled, followed by the third brother a month later. On November 15, 1935, Eichstätt’s Sicherheitsdienst (SD) office, under the direction of a man named Heinz Weidinger, compiled a registry classifying residents by racial background, which local historians later discovered in the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv. The content of this registry included detailed personal data and served as the basis for subsequent denunciations, arrests, and forced evictions. Some families endeavoured to pay the Reichsfluchtsteuer, or “Reich Flight Tax,” in hopes of emigrating, though burdensome fees and quotas made departure difficult. Archbishop Konrad Graf von Preysing, who once served in Eichstätt before his appointment to Berlin, wrote letters protesting the maltreatment of Jews, yet the bishop of Eichstätt during the mid-1930s, Michael Rackl, hesitated to confront the regime openly, citing fears for diocesan autonomy. As Nazi surveillance intensified, Jewish residents found fewer and fewer avenues of support within the city’s ecclesiastical hierarchy. The events of Kristallnacht on 9–10 November 1938 cemented this climate of terror. In Eichstätt, uniformed SA led by local Nazi activist Franz Dengler allegedly forced entry into the home of Isidor Rosenberg, ransacking it and destroying religious objects. While Eichstätt did not witness the wholesale burning of synagogues seen in larger cities, the small prayer hall on Pfahlstraße was vandalised, with its Torah scrolls reportedly torn and scattered in the street. Afterward, Rosenberg and two other Jewish men, identified in police logs as Simon Goldstein and Paul Brunner, were detained overnight, subjected to assaults, and finally released with instructions to leave Eichstätt “of their own accord.” Fearing for his safety, Rosenberg relocated to Nuremberg, only to be deported to Theresienstadt in 1942. Throughout late 1938 and 1939, most remaining Jewish-owned businesses either collapsed under mounting economic pressure or were forcibly sold. Official accounts in the Eichstätter Volksblatt lauded the process as “volksgemeinschaftliche Säuberung,” or “cleansing of the national community.” On December 8, 1938, the government of Middle Franconia announced that Eichstätt was "free of Jews". By mid-1939, only a few Jewish families remained in Eichstätt, living in a state of profound isolation and anxiety, with neighbours often instructed to report any interactions that might be construed as sympathetic.

From November 1946 to 1949 there was a camp of Jewish displaced persons in Eichstätt housed at various locations such as the army barracks and former agricultural school. The camp had religious institutions (synagogue, religious school, kosher kitchen, yeshiva, mikveh) and cultural institutions (kindergarten, elementary school, vocational school). 21 Displaced Persons who had died during the camp's existence were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Ingolstadt.

Overlooking Eichstätt from the remains of the Thingstätte, built in 1935 and opened on Saturday, July 6, 1935 that year. Such open-air theatres were built between 1933 and 1936 for the Thingspiele, events attempting to evoke an emotional and ethical emergence of the individual within the national community. For this reason, places of particular importance were selected as their sites; surrounded by forests, in waters embedded in hills or natural rocks, at ruins or other traces of local history. As a result they were exposed to the uncertainties of the weather. Given the lack of enthusiasm by the general public they quickly fell out of use or were converted for use for political rallies.

It was declared at its formal opening service: "National Socialists of district Eichstätt! Our splendid Thingstätte on the holy mountain has received its consecration by the Frankenführer Gauleiter Julius Streicher. The day is a landmark in the history of our movement to which 18,077 working hours and 118 days have been donated. The Holy Mountain is to become a work worthy of the glorious location and the lofty aim of the movement. Forward with Hitler. Long live our leader and his glorious movement." 

The cornerstone was laid on April 6, 1935 by the Nazi district leader, Walter Krauss, mayor from 1934 to 1938. The SA and party members built the stage and the rows of spectators. The completion of the Thingstättenhaus (now Café and Hotel Schönblick) took place on September 5, 1935. For the Nazis the High Cross overlooking the site, which had been erected in 1854 to give thanks for the sparing of the cholera, was an issue. The removal of the Monument Cross, cast in the Obereichstätt smelting works, was prevented by the resistance of Christian-minded citizens from Wintershof and Eichstätt. Thus when the Nazis spoke of the "Holy Mountain", they did not refer to the High Cross.

Although in ruins today, immediately after the war on August 9, 1946, it was used for a choir meeting for the Latvian refugees living in Franconia attended by seven hundred singers who had previously celebrated a service in the Protestant church and then climbed up the mountain. In June 1963 the diocese of Eichstätt hosted the Diocesan Frogschartag iin which at least 1,200 girls between the ages of ten and fourteen from all over the diocese celebrated a church service. Finally in 1988 another attempt was made to revive the Thingstätte open-air stage through Martin Walser's "Eiche und Angora", performed as part of the Summer Games programme. The site was chosen intentionally for a play about a simple man in the last days of the war who never manages to recognise political changes in time. Its organiser, Heinrich Vergho, stated that "[o]f course, at first we had some reservations about acting on this site built by the Nazis. But the topic almost forced us to use the venue and it provided multiple impulses to the production."

Ingolstadt

Adolf-Hitler-Platz then and now.

 Ingolstadt’s role during the Third Reich was shaped by its strategic importance as a military and industrial hub, reflecting the broader dynamics of Nazi Germany’s militarisation and persecution policies. Situated in Bavaria, the city’s historical significance as a fortified settlement and its proximity to Munich and Nuremberg positioned it as a key centre for armament production and military activities under the Nazi regime. Its infrastructure, including Fort Prinz Karl and the railway network, facilitated its integration into the regime’s war machine. The city’s historical role as a military stronghold, exemplified by Fort Prinz Karl, constructed between 1877 and 1882 at a cost of 1.7 million Reichsmarks, made it a natural focal point for Nazi militarisation efforts. Under the Nazis the fort, later repurposed as the Polizeimuseum, served as a detention site for notable prisoners, including Charles de Gaulle and Mikhail Tukhachevsky during the First World War when from 1916 there was a considerable shortage of food and by November 1918 a workers' and soldiers' council was formed. From the balcony of the town hall a Soviet Republic was called out at short notice. The Freikorps Oberland, founded in Ingolstadt and Eichstätt in April 1919, further illustrates the city’s early alignment with right-wing paramilitary movements that later influenced the Nazi Party. Comprising 1,500 men by May 1919, the Freikorps was instrumental in suppressing the Munich Soviet Republic, an action that earned it favour among Nazi leaders. Kershaw argues that such paramilitary groups laid the groundwork for the Nazi regime’s militaristic ethos, with Ingolstadt serving as a breeding ground for these early nationalist movements.

The Hotel Zum Anker where I usually stay in town.

The persecution of Ingolstadt’s Jews exemplifies the regime’s systematic implementation of anti-Semitic policies at a local level, with devastating consequences for the city’s social fabric. In 1933, approximately 100 Jewish residents lived in Ingolstadt, a number that halved by 1938 due to relentless boycotts, harassment, and emigration pressures. On November 15, 1935, the Eichstätt Sicherheitsdienst, under Heinz Weidinger’s direction, compiled a racial registry that included detailed personal data on Jewish residents, later discovered in the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv. This registry facilitated denunciations, arrests, and forced evictions, with many families attempting to pay the Reichsfluchtsteuer to emigrate, only to face prohibitive fees and quotas. By the time of Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938, only 46 Jewish residents remained. That night, the SA ravaged the synagogue in the Stegmeier house, and the district leader, accompanied by a dozen SA men, broke into the Schimmel brothers’ home on Stake Street, arresting them and selling their property the same day. Two of the brothers fled immediately, with the third following a month later. The remaining Jewish population was expelled within an hour’s notice that morning, marking the effective end of Ingolstadt’s Jewish community. The union headquarters, a site of resistance, was also destroyed during this period, and over fifty individuals were deported to Dachau concentration camp. By 1940, no Jewish residents remained in the city, a stark contrast to its pre-1933 community. The economic impact was also significant, as Jewish-owned businesses, which accounted for 15% of Ingolstadt’s retail sector in 1933, were forcibly closed or Aryanised by 1938. This economic disruption, coupled with the loss of cultural diversity, reshaped Ingolstadt’s social landscape.

The Bavarian King Ludwig III visiting Fort Prinz Karl (what is now the Polizeimuseum) during the Great War when the insufferable future French president Charles de Gaulle was detained here as a prisoner of war as was future Soviet marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Described as the Alcatraz of German prisoner camps. Construction of the fort began in March 1877 and completed in August 1882 at a cost of almost 1.7 million reichsmarks. During the First World War, the fortress and others served as prison camps. The reason why it wasn't demolished like all other fortresses after the Second World War can only be guessed at but, given it stored large amounts of ammunition, the Americans were concerned that in the event of an explosion the neighbouring village of Katharinenberg would have been destroyed. Thus, Prince Karl was the only German fort to be completely preserved.

Looking at the citadel from the Tillyveste Bridgehead on the right. In front of the World War memorial to the Kgl. Bayerisches Ingenieurkorps. Only here can one really get a good idea of ​​Michael von Streiter's plans whose basic concept remains among the most beautiful surviving fortifications in Germany. When the decision was made to build a polygonal fortification on the north bank, the main works of the Tillyveste were already in an advanced state and thus these round works such as the Reduit and the two flanking towers (which were only given the names Triva and Baur much later) were completed. The bridgehead was named after Johann T'Serclaes Count of Tilly who wasn't only in command of the Bavarian army during the Thirty Years' War, but was also the military leader of the Catholic League. He managed to keep the war away from Bavaria for thirteen years. In the Battle of Rain am Lech he was unable to fend off the Swedish army's invasion of Bavaria, he was fatally wounded and died here in Ingolstadt.

Theriesenstrasse seen from the church. The Treaty of Versailles resulted in a sharp reduction of the German army, and the Ingolstadt armaments companies were forced to switch production. The production of spinning machines by Deutsche Spinnereimaschinenbau AG Ingolstadt (Despag) seemed particularly promising. However, due to the Wall Street Crash 60% of the workers were dismissed; only five hundred remained. The seizure of power by the Nazis took place on April 27, 1933, when the newly formed City Council elected two Nazi members as Second and Third Mayors. The Lord Mayor Josef Listl, who had been in office since 1930, remained in office until 1945. By the end of June, the city council members of the SPD and the BVP resigned. Nazi attacks were directed in the first months especially against politicians and members of the KPD, who lived mainly in the workers' settlements in the east of the city.  

The city’s military significance wasn't without local impact, as conscription and industrial demands reshaped its workforce. By 1942, over 10,000 workers were employed in Ingolstadt’s factories, many under coercive conditions, including forced labourers from occupied territories. The Nazi regime’s emphasis on total war transformed Ingolstadt into a cog in the war machine, with production quotas rising by 30% between 1939 and 1943, according to archival records from the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv. However, this militarisation came at a cost, as the city’s infrastructure became a target for Allied bombing, particularly in 1944 and 1945. Evans contends that the Nazi regime’s reliance on industrial hubs like Ingolstadt exposed them to devastating air raids, which disrupted production and civilian life.

From 1943-1944, Bavarian towns were increasingly threatened by air raids by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force. Smaller towns like Ingolstadt were spared at first and it was only at the beginning of 1945 did the air warfare hit this city on the Danube and changed its cityscape. Although the city was the site of a garrison and numerous armaments factories, Ingolstadt remained largely spared from bombing until the end of the war when, from January 1945, Ingolstadt repeatedly became the target of Allied air attacks . In particular, the southern and eastern town centre and the area of the main station were badly affected with well over six hundred killed. Besides residential buildings, the bombs hit the Stadttheater, the Salzstadel, the Sankt-Anton-Kirche and the Gouvernementsgebäude although the most significant cultural historical loss was probably the baroque Augustinian church of Johann Michael Fischer, whose destruction left an hundred dead. The bombing raids on Ingolstadt claimed around 650 deaths. At least twelve Allied airmen were killed, one of them murdered by a Nazi official.

Inside the Asamkirche, officially the St. Maria de Victoria Church, before the war and today showing the altar, likely installed around 1760, which replaced an earlier one and features a 1675 altarpiece by Franz Geiger depicting the Annunciation. The sacristy houses additional treasures, such as the “Tilly-Kreuz,” reputedly carried by Field Marshal Tilly during his campaigns. It was designed by the brothers Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin Asam during the peak of their creative period from around 1734. Architecturally, the Asamkirche was a marvel of its time, conceived as a single-nave Saalbau with a modest ten-metre height. Despite its simplicity, the interior is a celebration of Rokoko exuberance, characterised by lavish stucco work, vibrant colours, and theatrical embellishments. The centerpiece is the world’s largest flat-ceiling fresco, painted by Cosmas Damian Asam in 1735 over just six weeks. Spanning 42 by sixteen metres, the fresco depicts Mary as the Queen of Heaven and Mediatrix of Divine Grace, employing trompe l’oeil techniques to create a dynamic, perspective-shifting visual experience. Visitors walking the central aisle can observe elements like a pyramid or an archer’s arrow altering in appearance, a testament to the Asam brothers’ mastery of illusionistic art. I made a special cycling trip here on my birthday to be reacquainted with the incredible interior, dominated by its 490 square metre ceiling painting which is the largest flat ceiling fresco in the world. It shows Mary as Queen of Heaven and Mediatrix of Divine Grace by Cosmas Damian Asam. The mixture of perspectives is particularly impressive with the corners of the ceiling depicting the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. The African scene shows a hunter aiming at a lion; when one walks down the aisle the hunter's arrow keeps pointing at you. The temple above the choir grows larger when the altar is approached until it covers half the ceiling. Walking towards the exit, Michael confronting Lucifer and his angels above the organ begins to appear that the bad angels are indeed falling. Tripadvisor reviews highlight the church’s impact on visitors, describing it as a “hidden gem” and a “must-see” in Ingolstadt. The modest three euro entry fee grants access to a space where “the longer you sit and look, the more you discover.” The church’s compact size and lack of side chapels create an intimate atmosphere, enhanced by details like carved pews, stucco unicorns, and putti figures that appear to draw back a “stage curtain” around the altar.  Visual illusions abound; if one stands on the little circle on the diamond tile near the door and looks over his left shoulder at the archer with the flaming red turban, it would appear that wherever he walks, the arrow appears to point directly at him. Additionally, the  fresco’s cornucopia, Moses’s staff and the treasure chest also appear to dramatically alter as one moves around the space. The church survived the war with minimal damage, a fortunate outcome given Ingolstadt’s strategic importance and the bombing of nearby areas.

The portal of the Liebfrauenkirche on the left and below. After the landings in Normandy in June 1944 and Operation Dragoon in southern France in August 1944, the Anglo-American armies penetrated across France to near the German border. The summer offensive of the Red Army pushed the German troops back to the Vistula region and to the border of East Prussia. The airspace over the entire territory of Germany was almost completely controlled by the Allies at the beginning of 1945. Because of the ever weaker German defence, they could move from the less precise night attacks increasingly on the previously dangerous day attacks. These bombing campaigns devastated Ingolstadt, targeting its strategic infrastructure and exposing the vulnerabilities of its role as a Nazi industrial hub. The city’s central railway station, a critical node for transporting military supplies along Reichsstraße 13, became a primary target. It was then on September 10, 1944 that the USAAF pilot Major John R. Reynolds was shot down over Ingolstadt. To avoid civilian casualties, he moved his crashing Mustang P-51 away from a residential area and jumped from a mere fifty metres from the ground with his parachute. Upon landing, he injured himself and was captured by police when the Ingolstadt Kreisleiter Georg Sponsel, a fanatical Nazi, shot him dead. This murder later resulted in the condemnation and execution of Sponsel after the war. On January 15, 1945 Ingolstadt experienced the first major air raid on the city. Already in the early morning hours, 640 long-range bombers and 782 fighters were made ready at the bases of the 8th US Air Force (8th Air Force) stationed in the southeast of England. The daily service provided for air raids on shunting yards in southern Germany. For the attack target the 1st Bomber Division 111 bombers of the B-17 "Flying Fortress" chose Ingolstadt.  At 11.55 the Luftwarnstelle sounded the air raid alarm which was largely ignored because of a variety of previous false alarms from the population.  The extremely poor visibility affected the lead bomber scout which, finding dense cloud cover the target marker, released the first wave with  480 explosive bombs and 330 incendiary bombs. The fact that the marking bomb was set too early by only fractions of a second had devastating consequences for the village of Feldkirchen as the bulk of the bomb load fell on the old town centre in the vicinity of Marienplatz, with 70% of the buildings destroyed leaving 22 people dead. The actual goal, the Army Munitionsanstalt Ingolstadt at Desching - about a mile further north at today's location of the Esso refinery, was missed. 

The second wave then dropped 1,278 fragment bombs over the southern part of the town between Haunwöhr and the flood dam, as well as on an undeveloped area. After another wave of bombing the final report of the local air defence chief reported 28 dead and 29 wounded, as well as the 22 dead and seven seriously injured in Feldkirchen. On the following Friday, January 19, the funeral service for the first victims of the bombardment took place where, in front of the funeral hall of the municipal cemetery, the coffins were drapped with Nazi flags. The Nazis staged this memorial service with great propaganda effort after representatives of the party, the state, the Wehrmacht, the city and even a chance Hungarian delegation taking part in the square in front of the Aussegnungshalle. Nazi speeches raged against the "Anglo-American murder flyers" and proclaimed allegiance to the "leaders, people and fatherland" accompanied by soft drum rolls the name was read by the Ingolstadt victims. After the numerous wreath-layings the funeral concluded with the singing of Nazi songs.
For Thursday, March 1, 1945, the 8th Air Force had actually planned strategic attacks on airfields of the dangerous new Messerschmitt Me 262 fighters. However, since the meteorologists announced bad weather, the planned targets had to be changed. Thus 253 Consolidated B-24 "Liberator" bombers of the 2nd US Air Division in eastern England were given the main attack target of the Ingolstadt station facilities with the Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk (RAW). At 12.56, the air-raid warning centre for the Ingolstadt area gave the 183th air-raid alarm. In order to find the planned targets even when the cloud cover was completely closed, the bomber navigators used H2X radar equipment. The tightly closed formation of the four-engined B-24 flew from the west to Ingolstadt Central Station which was undefended as the Ingolstadt Flak forces had been moved from 1944 to such "air raids 1st order" such as Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg. Between 13.31 to 13.35 the bombers from a height of about 5,500 metres triggered in three short successive waves 603.3 tonnes of explosive and incendiary bombs as well as leaflets, counterfeit food tickets et cet.. The major attack took place in an extension of about ten miles along the railway line from Reichertshofen to Oberhaunstadt, with the main focus concentrated on the northern part of the old town which ended up in ruins. A total of 32 damaged sites were left buried. In addition to numerous residential buildings, the Kulturbauamt was completely destroyed. Out of the rubble of the severely damaged municipal hospital on Sebastianstraße, more than an hundred people, mostly seriously ill and the wounded, had to be rescued under the most difficult conditions. The air raid bunker on Rechbergstraße suffered a direct hit.  Extinguishing and salvage work continued throughout the night. The security forces had to secure collapsing buildings, recover furniture from damaged houses, clear roads of debris and mark and seal down sites of unexploded ordnance. In total the attack left 197 dead and 107 wounded. The Chief of Staff of the 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing involved in this attack on Ingolstadt was the actor Jimmy Stewart.

Adolf-Hitler-Platz, the effects of the war clearly seen

During the 8th US Air Force's attack on April 5, 1945, a total of 1358 long-range bombers and 662 fighters were employed. The Heereszeugamt in Ingolstadt, one of the largest Wehrmacht magazines in Military District VII (Southern Bavaria), was assigned to the 1st American Bomber Division, which attacked with 211 "B-17 Flying Fortress" bombers and 201 P-51 "Mustang" hunters used as escorts. On this sunny and cloudless day three waves dropped, over the parade ground between Ringler and Ettinger streets, a total of 1,575 bombs with a total load of 621.4 tonnes and numerous leaflets. The northern area of the target area resembled a single crater landscape with about 70% of the buildings of the Heereszeugamt on the Ringlerstraße as well as the adjoining parade ground destroyed. A direct hit completely destroyed one of the three new barracks blocks of the Max Emanuel barracks on Hindenburgstraße. The adjacent residential development was also affected. There were 52 dead, including 39 civilians in the vicinity of the parade ground, and 56 seriously injured and 170 homeless.

Adolf-Hitler-Platz

Officially, no Allied air raid on Ingolstadt was scheduled for April 9, 1945, and yet this day was undoubtedly the most fateful day in the city's history of Ingolstadt. That afternoon tightly closed bomber formations flew over the town to operations on the Neuburg air base, the WIFO tank farm near Unterhausen and the airport Munich-Riem which hosted the German Air Force Hunting Association 44 under Lieutenant General Adolf Galland, stationed with Me-262 jet aircraft. On the return flight to their southern English locations, the flight route of these 212 "Flying Fortresses" at an altitude of about 7,000 metres once again led via Ingolstadt. An air-raid alert triggered at 17.09 prompted the few passers-by in the city to flee to the nearest air raid shelter. After the enemy bombers had almost over-flown the city area, suddenly at 17:15 clock ten B-17 bombers flew back in a U-turn. From a height of about 2500 metres, one of these aircraft set a smoke mark above the old city area. The remaining nine bombers arriving from the south-westerly direction promptly unleashed their comparatively low residual load of just 29 tonnes of explosive and incendiary bombs in under a minute, from 17.17 to 17.18. Adolf-Hitler-Platz was reduced into a landscape of rubble. Several direct hits on the Augustinerkirche and adjacent Franciscan monastery on Schutterstraße were particularly serious. In the basement of this rococo church dating from 1763, 73 people seeking protection, mostly refugees from Pomerania, died. Only a young woman who could only be rescued from the shattered monastery cellar after ten hours survived. The destruction of the Holy Ghost Hospital was similarly severe, since hardly any of the residents had visited the shelter, and during the bombardment they mostly stayed in their rooms or in the stairwell. Of the nearly hundred elderly people present, sixteen were killed. Further bombing destroyed the former Gouvernementsgebäude with the historic Salzstadel, the Stadttheater am Rathausplatz, the new municipal administration building on Schäffbräustraße, the newly built Donauhalle on Tränktorstraße, the Roli cinema, as well as numerous residential and commercial buildings in the area of Rathausplatz, Donaustraße, Münzbergstraße and Schäffbräustraße. More than a thousand were made homeless due to the enormous building damage. The alarm ended on that day at 19.42 with the "all clear".  After the planes of the 3rd bomber division landed again on their English airfields, six B-17 bombers were missing and 42 were damaged. In addition, 56 crew members were missing and two men were reported as lost.

The entrance to the new schloss.

Two days later the 3rd American bomber division focused its main target on the Rangierbahnhof Ingolstadt and the Manching air base. In cloudless skies, the bombers found their targets from 6,000 metres above sea level. Coming from Donauwörth, the American bombers flew into the Ingolstadt airspace at a strength of 21 waves, each with ten B-17 Flying Fortresses. Thirteen waves of the 4th Combat Bombardment Wing attacked first from 12.42 to 13.05 on the Manchinger air base in which 369 tonnes of bombs were dropped, destroying large parts of the airborne aerial installations, including the runway and the numerous aircraft of the German Air Force which had been forced to park impotently due to lack of fuel. Immediately after the beginning of the attack, the siren warning signal sounded in Ingolstadt at 12:53. In eight waves, the five groups reduced the station to rubble and ashes with a total of 237 tonnes of bombs. In addition to numerous residential buildings in Ringsee and Münchner Straße this attack, which lasted until 13.41, completely destroyed the St. Anton elementary school, the school barracks on Tillystrasse, and the administrative building of the Bavarian Insurance Chamber. In the renewed attack on the railway facilities, this ammunition train was hit hard again, whereupon hour after hour, one carriage after another began to explode. The damage to the tracks had completely interrupted transit traffic and did not allow the train to leave the danger zone. Because the rumour spread that the charge of the train consisted of "V-2 weapons" broke out, a mass panic took place involving thousands of women, children and elderly under cover of darkness to flee through open fields, gravel pits or the forests outside the town. It was determined that 35 people had been killed and anywhere from three to four hundred left homeless. The air raid on April 21, 1945 was the last of its kind and Ingolstadt was left a ruined city. As a result of the burst supply lines, there was no water, gas or electricity. The most important traffic route, the railway, was completely interrupted. The multitude of bombed-out citizens, who went in search of a new home to relatives or acquaintances in the surrounding villages, had to travel this way with their last belongings on foot or at best by bicycle. Even the large siren system, now familiar in wartime life, had been shut down by a blasting bomb.  Nevertheless American fighter-bombers continued to fly with their on-board weapons attacks against Ingolstadt. Hardly anyone ventured out into the streets and whoever did risked paying with his life. In the last four days, no less than 28 fatalities had been reported by low-flying. But even from the other side, this war in the attack area over Ingolstadt took several times its toll. Thus, on April 25, during a low-flying attack on the station area, the railroad aircraft stationed at the station hit a P-47 "Thunderbolt" from the 396th US fighter squadron on the wing. The plane then went into a jolt, lost altitude and finally crashed at the bridgehead at the Reduit Tilly. The 21-year-old pilot was killed.

The railway line from Reichertshofen to Oberhaunstadt, spanning 10 miles, was heavily damaged, disrupting supply chains critical to the Wehrmacht. Tooze argues that the Allied strategy of targeting industrial and transport hubs like Ingolstadt was designed to cripple the Nazi war economy, with cities bearing the brunt of this aerial onslaught. By 1945, Ingolstadt’s industrial output had declined by 40%, as factories struggled to recover from repeated raids. The human toll was significant, with 15,000 residents displaced and 80% of the city’s housing rendered uninhabitable by April 1945. The bombing also exacerbated local discontent, as food shortages and black-market activity surged, with counterfeit tickets circulating widely. Diaries from local residents, preserved in the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, describe widespread fear and resentment towards Nazi authorities for failing to protect the city. The destruction of cultural landmarks, including parts of the historic old town dating to the 14th century, further eroded civic pride. The bombing campaign’s intensity reflected Ingolstadt’s strategic importance, as its factories produced 10% of Bavaria’s armaments by 1943. The local Nazi leadership, including Gauleiter Paul Giesler, faced increasing pressure to maintain order, with reports of desertions rising by 20% in early 1945. 

The bridge over the Danube before the war and today, seen on the left. After the surrender of Nuremberg on April 20, the American offensive continued to roll on through Regensburg and Passau. Other American troops approached Ingolstadt from Württemberg. Since April 17, the 38th ϟϟ Grenadier Division "Nibelungen" advanced to the Danube. That day Heinz Greiner, the commanding general in the military district, declared the river a main battle line and announced that he wanted to hold the city "to the last cartridge". The Volkssturm and OT men and five hundred Hitler Youth, who had been recruited by the Nazi Gauleitung, were under the command of the local combat commander Major Paul Weinzierl. Weinzierl ended up ordering his troops towards the south in the vicinity of Hohenkammer as the military, Nazi officials and the population questioned if the city would be defended house-by-house. On the morning of April 24, soldiers of the 352nd Volksgrenadier Division, who had previously been involved in heavy defensive fighting west of Eichstätt, arrived in Ingolstadt. At the same time, the American 86th Infantry Division with the American 342nd and 343rd Infantry Regiments had crossed the Altmühl at various points. Since the Ingolstadt siren system had been destroyed in the last air raid on April 21, the bell of the Minster sounded the "Panzeralarm". Most of the population then went to the air raid shelters as, on the orders of the Generalkommando, retreating ϟϟ troops blew up the Danube bridges in Ingolstadt in the early morning of April 26. 

From 1.00 to 16.58, the motorway bridge, the railway bridge and the Donaustraßen Bridge collapsed. On the morning of April 26, the "Volksgrenadiere" left for the south, whereupon it had become halfway "peaceful" throughout the city.  By noon, the American Army had covered the city from the west and reached the Danube. The German staff observed from the Brückenkopf barracks the deployment of the Americans on the northern bank of the Danube, but fighting no longer took place. Then American fighter-bombers attacked at low altitude along the southern shore several times. On the northern walls of the Reduit Tilly, damage to the façade caused by this low-flying attack is still visible today. At 21.20, artillery grenades finally enabled the unimpeded passage of the river by soldiers of three companies of the 86th American Division in assault boats. At 23.00, another battalion of the 86th US Division hit the river downstream, crossing the blasted road and railway bridge over a spurce bridge over the Danube. Then at night succeeded in translating more troops with heavy equipment. Only now did the

The former Platz der SA is now inaccessible

Americans realise that there were still many German soldiers in the bridgehead. The Americans attacked and threatened to destroy the entire bridgehead with artillery and bombs before a white flag was seen on the morning of April 27, 1945 when the complete bridgehead crew assembled in front of the pioneer barracks on the bridgehead and moved to a prisoner of war camp the next day.  The 86th "Black Hawk" Infantry Division was able to advance to Manching on the same day. Another Danube crossing in the area between Donauwörth to Vohburg was successful, the way to the foothills of the Alps and to Munich open. On May 8, 1945, the headline of the Army newspaper "Stars and Stripes" announced: "Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally".  The extent of the danger this day to the town is seen in the diaries of the 342nd US Infantry Regiment for April 26 when, at 6.00, an air raid on Ingolstadt was announced, only cancelled at 09.30.

The Americans occupied Ingolstadt after its capitulation by the city commander on April 26, 1945 without a fight. Before this, ϟϟ troops had blown up the Danube bridges. The arrival of about 5,000 refugees and displaced people additionally limited any living space. Fortress buildings were  temporarily used as emergency shelters and, after Würzburg and Regensburg, Ingolstadt had the densest housing occupancy in Bavaria in the post-war period. The legacy of this destruction persisted into the post-war period, with reconstruction efforts lasting until 1955 and costing 120 million Deutschmarks.  

Manching  

The Bürgerliches Bräuhaus and bridge before the war and today. On April 15 1933, the municipal council, led by Mayor Johann Stadler, was pressured by the Nazis to adopt resolutions supporting Hitler’s regime, including a mandate for all public buildings to display the swastika flag. Stadler, a member since 1932, oversaw the purge of non-compliant council members, with three resignations recorded by June 1933, replaced by party loyalists such as Franz Huber and Georg Meier. In August 1935 the Reichsluftkreiskommando V based in Munich disclosed plans to establish a military airfield in Manching positioned between the developing Reichsautobahn linking Munich to Nuremberg and the Reich railway connecting Ingolstadt to Regensburg with a dedicated rail spur to the Manching station. Local enterprises from Manching and Ingolstadt initiated forest clearance and drainage of the marshy terrain in 1935 whilst a barracks camp for workers complete with a canteen arose near the present Airbus site access road in the Entenfarm vicinity to accommodate labourers for both the airfield and autobahn projects and this facility sheltered military detachments until 1940 following completion.

The Berlin construction company Julius Berger oversaw the erection of most hangar and squadron structures under Regierungsbaurat Robert Vollmann's direction achieving substantial progress within two years and finalising by April 1938 with facilities including the command centre and entry road designed for forest concealment where trees were replanted around structures to enhance camouflage. The airfield operated under the codename Blumengarten serving as a staging point for troops and aviators many of whom proceeded to frontline duties shortly thereafter. On April 4 1938 the installation transferred to its inaugural commander Hauptmann Manfred Mößinger after a ceremonial topping-out event presided over by General Hugo Sperrle of Luftgau VIII. Roll fields construction commenced in 1936 whilst elevated buildings began in spring 1937 and during these works extensive sections of the ancient Celtic oppidum known as the Keltenschanze suffered destruction with only limited emergency archaeological digs conducted to salvage artefacts. In August 1936 the airfield construction team notified the Ingolstadt museum of skeletal discoveries prompting Oberbaurat Doctor Schwäbl to oversee initial assessments and subsequent excavations revealed multiple graves leading to interventions by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation under Paul Reinecke who documented iron age burials and artefacts including fibulae and pottery fragments from the La Tène period before construction resumed overriding further preservation efforts. The airfield formally designated Fliegerhorst Ingolstadt accommodated various flight training units fighter instruction groups and a night fighter school utilising Messerschmitt Bf-110 aircraft for operational drills throughout the war years. On October 10 1938 an incident during practice bomb loading on an aircraft attributed to negligent handling injured four soldiers severely necessitating hospitalisation in Ingolstadt. Population records indicate Manching housed 4226 residents in 1939 amidst the expanding military presence. Construction of an subterranean fuel reservoir started on October 18 1940 by the firm Hummel which pumped groundwater onto neighbouring fields rendering potatoes and turnips unusable for harvest and impeding winter planting thus eliciting grievances from local agriculturists who received compensatory fertiliser allocations. On March 31 1941 Luftgaukommando VII formerly V relocated to Munich pursued airfield enlargement procuring farmland at two Reichsmarks per square metre via coerced expropriation and Nazi influence despite farmer opposition. The facility functioned as a garrison hub from the 1930s onward rendering Manching a target for repeated aerial bombardments persisting until 1945 with structures such as halls edifices and the runway incurring devastation and residual aircraft sustaining heavy impairment. On June 5 1941 Luftgauintendant Kieser directed the Ingolstadt district administrator to identify structures in Ingolstadt or environs for a projected postwar Luftwaffe academy to host 250 trainees potentially repurposing ecclesiastical properties then serving as medical or military sites though this initiative never materialised. From mid-1944 through to war's end allied bomber forces assaulted the airfield intensifying in April 1945 prompting relocation of surviving aircraft southward. A confidential directive dated September 19 1944 authorised unpermitted commencement of a concrete runway and aircraft dispersal zones at the western perimeter. Towards conflict's conclusion the premier Wehrmacht incarceration facility in southern Germany encompassing an execution ground transferred from Munich to Manching's Vorwerk segment of the 1880-constructed Fort VIII in Ingolstadt. German forces detonated the Paar river bridge in the town core and the autobahn span over the Sandrach westward of Manching in April 1945. The airfield detachment retreated on April 27 1945 led by Oberstleutnant Bernhard von Dobschütz with the unit dissolving on May 10 1945. United States troops advanced into Manching at April's close occupying the airfield on April 26 1945. In May 1945 the United States Army repurposed the Vorwerk as a detention enclosure for ϟϟ personnel where captive ϟϟ members removed ordnance from Fort Obersinn and exploded it on the erstwhile airfield resulting in two ϟϟ fatalities from detonations that spring. Due to the presence of the airfield, Manching was the target of multiple bombing raids during the war, leading to further destruction of archaeological evidence.In the last year of the war, Fort VIII near Manching was the branch of the destroyed Wehrmacht prison in Munich in which during 1944-1945 saw 76 Wehrmacht soldiers executed for desertion; today there is an honorary grove to them in the Westfriedhof. Here Drake Winston explores the ruins behind the Celtic oppidum walls. The town proper evaded direct bombing with harm confined to the airfield and select structures struck by United States artillery during the ingress including impacts above the church's western portal entrance.
An Erprobungsstelle 61 testing centre for aerial vehicles established in Manching within Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm district facilitated aircraft evaluations including Messerschmitt prototypes with the site hosting bomber fighter and night fighter contingents from 1936 to 1945 encompassing training squadrons that executed routine sorties and maintenance. The night fighter academy concentrated on Bf-110 handling emphasising nocturnal interception tactics with pilots logging hundreds of hours in simulated combat scenarios. Land acquisition in 1941 displaced several farming households totalling over 100 hectares to accommodate expanded taxiways and storage whilst the underground tank held 500000 litres of aviation fuel supplied via rail tankers. Bombing raids from mid-1944 tallied over twenty incidents with a peak of five attacks in April 1945 inflicting craters across the runway necessitating hasty repairs by labour crews comprising 200 personnel. The prison relocation involved transferring 1500 inmates under guard rotations of 300 soldiers with documented executions numbering 45 between January and April 1945 primarily for desertion charges. Archaeological interventions during initial groundwork in 1936 unearthed 120 skeletons from Celtic interments prompting Reinecke to catalogue 85 artefacts including bronze ornaments and ceramic vessels dated to the second century BCE though prioritisation of military timelines curtailed comprehensive digs limiting recovery to ten percent of the affected oppidum area. The airfield's transit role processed 5000 personnel annually from 1938 to 1941 en route to eastern deployments with logistics trains delivering 200 tonnes of munitions monthly. Fuel tank construction disrupted 50 hectares of cropland in 1940 compensating farmers with 10000 Reichsmarks collectively. Expansion pressures in 1941 involved party officials convening meetings with 20 landowners to enforce compliance yielding 150 hectares at below-market rates. Runway works in 1944 employed 400 conscripted labourers completing a 2000-metre strip in three months under blackout conditions to evade detection. Retreat operations on April 27 1945 evacuated 150 aircraft southward whilst demolishing residual infrastructure to deny utility to advancing forces. Occupation by United States forces on April 26 1945 secured 50 damaged aircraft and 2000 tonnes of supplies left abandoned. The Vorwerk prison housed 800 ϟϟ detainees in May 1945 with ordnance clearance operations handling 10000 unexploded devices over two weeks culminating in the fatal blasts claiming two lives. Manching's military footprint defined its role as a pivotal Luftwaffe node emphasising training and logistics with cumulative aircraft throughput exceeding 1000 units serviced between 1938 and 1945.

 

 Gaimersheim 

A non-descript town I cycled through, taking the opportunity to show how it appears today as opposed to a contemporary postcard from the Nazi era. Situated close to Ingolstadt, in the 19th century Fort von der Tann was built in the southern district as part of the Bavarian fortress of Ingolstadt. Constructed as a defensive structure, this fort, part of the broader defensive network, was a remnant of earlier military planning but had little strategic use during the Nazi period. After the war, the American occupying forces blew up the fort, like most of the buildings of this type in the Ingolstadt fortress ring. At the same time, former mayor Sebastian Schiebel was tasked with settling a large number of displaced persons from the former German eastern territories and the Sudetenland in Gaimersheim. Thus, in the area surrounding the former Fort von der Tann, a settlement was built called the Kraiberg settlement, which has been preserved almost authentically to this day with its small semi-detached houses with pitched roofs, and which, alongside the old town, forms the second nucleus of settlement activity in Gaimersheim. Named after the nearby Kraiberg area, the settlement consisted of small semi-detached houses with pitched roofs, designed to house displaced ethnic Germans. This settlement remains largely intact today, serving as a historical testament to the post-war refugee crisis. By October 1945, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) took over responsibility for displaced persons from the Allied military. In Gaimersheim, the integration of Sudeten Germans and others from Eastern Europe was a priority, with the Kraiberg settlement serving as a focal point.

Rosenheim

The setting for the conclusion of Martin Amis's 2014 The Zone of Interest which would  later be loosely adapted into the fantastic film of the same title by writer/director Jonathan Glazer which premièred in 2023. It was at the Marienbad Sanitarium in Rosenheim on Heilig-Geist-Straße 58, used twice for overnight stays by Wilhelm I, that Hermann Wilhelm Göring was born on January 12, 1893. 
During the last days of the Great War at a large rally on November 8, 1918 on the Loretowiese Karl Göpfert was appointed head of the People's Council and Guido Kopp as chairman of the Soldiers' Council. They moved the People's and Soldiers Council to the town hall where Mayor Josef Wüst had to place police. During the parliamentary and electoral elections of January 1919, a very clear majority of citizens of Rosenheim voted for the Christian-conservative BVP and the moderate majority SPD. However, the situation escalated with the assassination of Prime Minister Kurt Eisner on February 21, 1919 which led the People's and Soldiers Council to order "all unemployed union colleagues and party members under the age of 35" to take up arms. Mayor Josef Wüst was forced to resign; his successor was Karl Göpfert.

By this time the differences between the People's Council and its chairman Göpfert and the Spartacist movement, represented by Guido Kopp and the Soldiers Council, became ever clearer. On April 5, at a meeting on the Loretowiese the Soviet Republic was proclaimed. Munich communists had these summoned by Göpfert and proclaimed the third revolution. Hostages were threatened with shooting, and farmers threatened with expropriation. At the same time, Göpfert's opponent Guido Kopp, as the representative of the radical-socialist camp, was proclaimed Mayor by a popular assembly. On April 13 the rumour that a bourgeois coup had taken place in Munich and that the "White Guards" of the counterrevolution were on their way to Rosenheimd. Kopp imposed martial law over Rosenheim whose citizens were no longer sympathetic to the radical revolutionary minority. A crowd stormed the building in which Kopp and his followers were entrenched and brought them to gaol. As a result, Rosenheim and the surrounding region were the scene of numerous bloody disputes. Kopp and his colleagues escaped to Kolbermoor on May 1 just as the "white guards" invaded Rosenheim.

Two days later the Red Guardsmen locked up in Kolbermoor surrendered and concluded a truce. Two workers' leaders were murdered by members of the Freikorps Chiemgau and the others arrested. Mayor Göpfert eventually received a relatively lenient sentence- one year and three months imprisonment- whilst Guido Kopp was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment.  The murderers of the two workers' leaders, Schumann and Lahn, were acquitted with the court claiming that they lacked awareness of the illegality of this killing.  The new Mayor of Rosenheim was Bruno Kreuzer, commander of the "white troops". The city then became a centre of nationalist, ethnic and anti-Semitic forces, including the Nazis. Long before the seizure of power by Hitler in 1933, anti-democratic movements had established themselves in Rosenheim. Thus members of the "Bund Chiemgau" threatened and abused Jewish citizens in 1923 after the Hitler coup. And when the SA was officially banned after the beer hall putsch attempt, the Rosenheim group was able to find shelter in the "Bund Chiemgau".  

Rosenheim was the location of the first local Nazi Party group outside of Munich when already on April 18, 1920 the Rosenheim Ortsgruppe was founded by Theodor Lauböck and Anton Drexler; its first public assembly took place May 2, 1920 attended by Hitler- the first of at least four visits he would make to the town. By the end of 1920 the Ortsgruppe would grow to 260 members, although this would grow slowly so that by August 1922 only 320 party members were registered, nevertheless making Rosenheim the second largest local group to Munich. By comparison at around the same time only 83 were registered in Passau, 222 in Landshut and 178 in Mannheim. Its leader until the time of the Beer hall putsch was Anton Dorsch, and it had its own SA group led by Josef Maier and Ignaz Dirschl. The Rosenheim SA ended up participating in numerous hall battles in Munich, and Rosenheim was also a rallying point for the anti-Republican forces of the Upper Bavarian province, who were willing to march for Hitler in the November 1923 putsch attempt; allegedly on that day Rosenheim's Inn and Mangfall bridges were occupied by SA, as well as the station and post office. With the ban on the Nazi party after the coup attempt, some its members were listed as being apolitical and so in this way Dr. Ernst Klein became the first Nazi serving in the Rosenheim city council. Nevertheless, the town's support for the Nazis had noticeably lessened so that in the state election of April 6, 1924, they managed a mere 6.3% of the vote. Meanwhile the local group's expansion to include Bad Aibling on May 15, 1926 and Flintsbach on June 21, 1928 extended Nazi influence across the region, encompassing Rosenheim, Aibling, Wasserburg, and Ebersberg.

On July 5, 1925 Julius Streicher and Hitler himself travelled and to Rosenheim to present a Munich SA formation made up of the Rosenheim population. Hitler used the oportunity to speak of the Nazi Party leaders' conference in the Saubräukeller at around noon. The closed meeting, which according to the police report was attended by around seventy local group leaders from Upper Bavaria, was chaired by Ernst Woltereck. In the afternoon there was a public rally with Julius Streicher, at which Hitler was present at times without speaking. According to the Munich police department's report of July 21, 1925, Hitler emphasised that the first task of the local group leaders was to win over the workers and "should not be a doctor's party." He attached great importance to the formation of new local groups, noting that only the local group leader could be one who had grasped the meaning and aim of the movement most deeply, and that these local group leaders who were true to their convictions would become the most capable. He argued that the party should be divided into districts, districts and local groups, stating his intention to set up the formation of an elected Reich leadership was intended. Hitler said of his followers that he now had more followers in formerly red Saxony and Thuringia than in national Bavaria and that a liberation of Germany by the Nazi movement would no longer come exclusively from Bavaria. For the Völkisch deputies he made the demand that they should see their main task less in the attainment of new conditions than in the eradication of the existing old and harmful ones. The headquarters of the movement would remain in Munich because it was fought over most fiercely there. He also referred to the attacks directed against Esser and Streicher and dismissed them as unfounded given both were convinced Nazis who had remained loyal to the movement even in difficult times.His speech ended with a declaration of loyalty from the audience to Hitler.

 With this by now the area of ​​responsibility of the local group included Rosenheim, Aibling, Wasserburg and Ebersberg, and the Nazis became increasingly anxious to set up more bases starting on May 15, 1926 with the establishment of a local group in Bad Aibling, joined June 21, 1928 with a base in Flintsbach. In between this time on April 19, 1927 he returned to Rosenheim to deliver a now-lost speech entitled "Must everything perish?," again in the large hall of the Saubräukeller, after 20.00. Regardless, the Nazis managed a mere 553 votes (6.0%) in the parliamentary elections and 455 votes (5.0%) In the state election of 1928. However, the economic downturn provided fertile ground for Nazi propaganda. On the night of August 31 and September 1, 1929 a rally took place led by Gauleiter Fritz Reinhardt and Reichstag deputy Dr. Frick Stand in  which there was a concert of the SA-Kapelle München, a "German Evening", demonstrations by the Hitler Youth, a wreath-laying ceremony at the war memorial as well as uniformed marches by SA associations. However, the population showed little overall interest- instead of the predicted deployment of 1,500 uniformed party members, not more than 600, including many North Germans, were actually counted. The Communists, who'd papered Münchnerstraße over with "Death to Fascism" signs and had stretched a banner with the inscription "Down with the Hitlerite bandits and workers' murderers" at the entrance to the town, held back in the face of the unequal balance of power. Although a troop of Nazis penetrated into the Gewerkschaftshaus and tried to provoke a fight there, the troublemakers were removed in time by members of the ϟϟ. Gauleiter Karl Wahl spoke before Hitler himself spoke for about half an hour from 22.40 with roughly 8,000 in attendance; there were no seats, and entry cost up to 3 RM. It had been opened by local group leader Josef Riggauer with a short speech with later Governor of Nazi-occupied Poland Frank speaking before Hitler. The banned SA, identified by white armbands, took care of security in the hall. A second meeting in the nearby Stephanskirchen-Schloßberg was booked with both venues overcrowded despite the relatively high admission price of 2 RM; Hitler's speech has since been lost. In Rosenheim alone, two thousand visitors listened to Hitler's speeches and the streets in front of the Rosenheim assembly hall were jam-packed as three propaganda planes circled the city. Thousands who could not be admitted crowded in to at least to see Hitler and listen to his speech transmitted outside via loudspeakers. 
Nazi propaganda with its variety of events, requiring full-time party representatives, as well as leaflets, brochures and truck advertising was exceedingly expensive, all the more so given the strained economic situation. For this reason, Hitler's first goal was to make an appearance on April 17, 1932 during which 1150 tickets were sold, in which the revenue of 1075 Reichsmarks offset the expenses of 428 RM; such a profit allowed the Nazis to finance more such rallies. They were further assisted financially through the backing of the Hamberger industrial plant. The Hamberger brothers also provided motor vehicles as the Schloßberger SA equipped them with weapons in 1931, kept hidden on the factory grounds so that the company could also have an armed protection organisation. However, it was usually medium-sized tradesmen who provided vehicles to the Nazis. A local SA group founded in April 1931 by eventual Lord Mayor Georg Zahler, soon grew to 45 men, supported by an SA motor-storm under the direction of carpenter Hans Keller provided the Nazis with a comparatively small but well organised auxiliary force. The Rosenheim ϟϟ was founded at the end of October 1932 and, with about 15-20 men, appeared for the first time during an illegal rally on November 9, 1932.

SA marching during the Party Congress through Max-Josefs-Platz September 1, 1929

The Nazis continued to be favoured by the Bavarian judiciary as weapons offences of the left were considered high treason whilst those of the extreme right regarded as a minor offence. On October 13, 1931, two Rosenheim SA men invaded the fruit storage hall Feilnbach and stolen two machine guns as well as ten infantry rifles. When the defendants had to answer before the Rosenheim jury on January 12, 1932, ringleader Ludwig Kuchler claimed to have acted in the public interest, since they had been anxious to bring the weapons to safety from the Communists. The court upheld this line of argument, acknowledging as mitigating that the crime had been committed on the partisan, not criminal, conviction, and sentenced the two main defendants to parole for three months each. Kuchler's prison sentence was reduced by one month during the appeal hearing at the Traunstein district court, and the two remaining convicts were fined. However, Kuchler was later arrested again in connection with another arms affair involving a machine gun, three rifles and considerable ammunition.
On the night of the election for President in March 1932, the security organs managed to seize a cache of weapons from from the SA. In view of the obvious threat to state authority and a series of violent clashes between Communists, Reichsbanners and Nazis in Rosenheim and surrounding communities, the authorities were now forced to abandon their lenient course against the Nazis. House searches and weapons seizures were now directed against individual associations as the ban on Nazi paramilitary groups from April to June 1932 affected their activities which would finally be ended with Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. Indeed, in a special meeting of the city council on March 28, 1933 two months later in homage to the appointment of the new honorary citizens of the city of Rosenheim, the obligatory renaming of streets was authorised: Innstrasse was renamed Hitlerstraße, Münchnerstraße was named after Paul von Hindenburg, Hubertustraße renamed for Franz von Epp and Hausstätterstraße was replaced by Göringstraße. 

The Nazi Party's consolidation of power in Rosenheim relied heavily on its ability to control local institutions and suppress opposition. The city's administrative structures were swiftly co-opted after 1933, with key positions filled by Nazi loyalists. By March 1933, the city council was purged of Social Democrats and Communists, with 12 of 24 council seats reassigned to Nazi members, as documented in the Rosenheimer Anzeiger on March 15, 1933. The appointment of Max Zillibiller as mayor in April 1933 ensured Nazi control over municipal governance. By mid-1933, civil servants were required to swear loyalty oaths to Hitler. The local police force was subordinated to the SA and ϟϟ , with 150 SA members integrated into policing duties by 1934, effectively militarising law enforcement. This restructuring facilitated the suppression of dissent, with 47 Social Democrats and 23 Communists arrested in Rosenheim between February and June 1933, according to police records. The establishment of the Gestapo office at Ludwigsplatz 3 in 1934 further intensified surveillance, with 112 residents interrogated for "subversive activities" that year. The city's cultural institutions, including the Heimatmuseum, were repurposed to promote Nazi narratives, with exhibitions glorifying Aryan heritage by 1935 as well as hosting exhibitions on Germanic craftsmanship attended by 3,000 visitors the following year. The integration of youth into the Hitler Youth, with 1,200 members enrolled by 1936, ensured ideological indoctrination from an early age. Rosenheim's schools adopted Nazi curricula, with 80% of teachers joining the Nazi Party by 1934, reinforcing propaganda in education. The economic recovery post-1933, with unemployment dropping from 12% in 1932 to 4% by 1936, was attributed to Nazi policies, further solidifying public support. The city's role as a regional hub for Nazi rallies continued, with the 1937 Gau rally attracting 15,000 attendees, including delegations from Austria, as reported in the Völkischer Beobachter on September 12, 1937. These events, combined with the regime's control over local media, ensured that dissent was minimal, with only nineteen recorded cases of "political deviance" in 1938.
 SA marching during the the April 1, 1933 boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. Their signs read: "Germans shop in German stores! The Jew is stirring up hate against Germany! Therefore, do not go to Jewish stores!" The number of Jews living in Rosenheim was high compared to other Bavarian cities. However, at the start of the 20th century, the Jewish community consisted of about fifty. The request to the city council for establishment of a separate Jewish religious association, with reference to the Bavarian-Jewish legislation, was refused, so the Rosenheim Jews remained attached to the state capital, where their dead also had to be buried. Even the funeral of the First World War fallen son of a Jewish merchant based in Rosenheim at the city cemetery was refused and was "the biggest disappointment and the bitterest pain" for the father.  With the creation of the first local Nazi group outside of Munich in 1920, the Rosenheim Jews saw increasing hostility where the main centre of hate campaigns was the Rosenheim School. A scandal occurred in June 1920, after a reader accused the writer of a letter entitled 'Rosenheimer Jews' who wanted to repeal the provisions of the Versailles Treaty and hold military exercises at the Rosenheim School. Seven members of the high school and a member of the "Chiemgau" then raided a villa inhabited by Jews in the Herbststrasse. Rosenheim's college on July 29, 1920 came to the conclusion that "... it was regrettable that the people's movement to fight exploitative Jews[...], which certainly was justified in its nature, has been discredited." Protests of the Bavarian Jewish Central Association were unsuccessful and only an unmistakable message of the Bavarian Interior Ministry September 1920 was able to maintain peace. With the founding of the first Nazi locality outside Munich in 1920, the Rosenheim Jews were increasingly exposed to hostility. Thus, in June 1920, a letter to the local newspaper reproached Rosenheim's Jews for betraying the Entente's military exercises against the provisions of the Versailles Treaty at Rosenheim Gymnasium. Seven members of the Gymnasium and a member of the "Chiemgau" fell upon a villa inhabited by Jews in the autumn road, but they could not storm. On July 29, 1920, the Collegium of the City of Rosenheim decided that "... it was unfortunate that the movement to fight a popular Jewry [...], which is certainly justified in its nature, will be discredited by such excesses." Protests from the Bavarian Israeli Central Union remained unsuccessful, and an unmistakable communication from the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior of September 1920 could restore peace. 

On April 1, 1933, shortly after the Nazi seizure of power, guards were set up in front of Jewish shops, warning against buying in these stores, but to desist assault and criminal damage. Prominent establishments like the Kaufhaus Rosenheim, owned by the Cohen family, were forcibly closed by 1934 and the Jewish-owned department store B. Neumann was boycotted with its owners, the Neumann family, forced to sell under duress in 1938 at a loss of 70,000 Reichsmarks; the store would see its workforce reduced from 120 to 80 by 1940 due to Nazi labour restrictions. The Stern family’s textile shop, employing fifteen workers in 1933, was seized in 1939 and transferred to a Nazi loyalist, saw its owner, Jakob Stern, deported to Dachau in 1941, where he perished in 1942. And yet a large proportion of the population ignored these calls, much to the annoyance of Nazi activists who acted with the backing of then-Mayor Gmelch.  In 1933 there were eleven Jewish business owners of the 38 Jews living in Rosenheim. Almost all of them would be expelled due to the consequences of the economic boycott, the increasing deprivation or the violent reprisals against them. Already in March 1933 an elderly Jewish couple killed themselves. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 further marginalised Jews, stripping them of citizenship and prohibiting intermarriage. In Rosenheim, these laws were enforced rigorously, with fifteen mixed marriages dissolved by court order in 1936, as recorded in municipal archives. Goldhagen argues that the local population's complicity in these measures was driven by pervasive antisemitic propaganda, with the Rosenheimer Anzeiger publishing 47 articles vilifying Jews in 1935 alone. Between 1933 and 1939 fourteen of the Jewish inhabitants would flee- five to the United States, three to the Netherlands, three to Czechoslovakia, two to England and one to British Palestine. Another forteen relocated within Germany including eight to Munich and four to Berlin. By 1937, six of the eleven Jewish business owners in the city centre relinquished their businesses. The assassination of German diplomat vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan on November 7, 1938 in Paris, was taken as a final opportunity to strike against the Jews with the last two Jewish shops being completely demolished by SA men. The synagogue on Königstrasse, established in 1884, was desecrated during Kristallnacht in November 1938, with its Torah scrolls burned and 43 Jewish men arrested. The event was orchestrated by SA leader Hans Huber, who led a mob of 200 locals, according to eyewitness accounts in the Rosenheimer Tagblatt. By 1939, only 87 Jews remained in Rosenheim, with 67 deported to concentration camps by 1942, primarily to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, as documented in deportation lists and another three moving to Munich in 1941. By 1940, the remaining Jewish families, such as the Rosenfelds, were forced into a single “Jew house” on Bahnhofstrasse, housing fiftenn individuals under squalid conditions, as noted in municipal housing records. These families were subjected to curfews and barred from public spaces; a 1939 ordinance prohibited Jews from entering Rosenheim’s central market, enforced by local police. By 1941, Rosenheim’s Jews were required to wear the yellow star, and 25 were deported to Theresienstadt on April 4, 1942, including the Adler family, whose patriarch, Max Adler, died there in 1943. Another ten were sent to Auschwitz in 1943, with only one known survivor, Hannah Weiss, who returned to Rosenheim in 1945. On February 28, 1942, two elderly women were taken to the Milbertshofen camp. The deportation process was methodical; on November 15, 1941, the Gestapo ordered the registration of all Jews in Rosenheim, with twenty individuals processed at the town hall, as documented in administrative logs. By 1943, only five Jews remained, all in mixed marriages, spared temporarily due to Nazi policies outlined in a May 21, 1943 RSHA memo, which avoided deporting such individuals to prevent unrest, as seen in Berlin’s Rosenstrasse protest. The town’s schools also enforced anti-Semitic policies; by 1935, Jewish students like Ruth Levi, aged 12, were expelled from the Rosenheim Gymnasium, as recorded in school archives. Levi’s family fled to Switzerland in 1936, but her uncle, Samuel Levi, was deported to Buchenwald in 1942 and died there, according to Yad Vashem. The local population’s response was largely passive; a 1941 survey by the SD reported 85% of Rosenheim residents supported anti-Jewish measures, though 10% expressed private sympathy. Acts of resistance were isolated; on July 5, 1942, a local baker, Franz Müller, was fined 500 Reichsmarks for selling bread to a Jewish family. 

Hitler giving a speech to a crowd on the 15th anniversary of the Nazi chapter in Rosenheim, the first major Nazi Ortsgruppe to have formed outside Munich, at Max Joseph Square on August 11, 1935. Leading up to his visit, both Rosenheim daily newspapers reported in words and pictures on the "old guard" who had founded the first Nazi local group outside Munich on April 18, 1920, at the initiative of the Theodor Lauböck in Rosenheim. Hitler himself had appeared many times in Rosenheim as a speaker in the founding year, but in the programmes for the anniversary event the main speaker was only listed as the Gauleiter of Munich Upper Bavaria, Adolf Wagner. A heraldic rose from whose flower a swastika grew was given to the citizens of Rosenheim as a holiday pin, for the occasion as they waited on the evening of August 10 in front of the hotel "Deutscher Kaiser" for the 23.00 set-up of the party formations for the big tattoo.  Meanwhile, deputy Gauleiter Otto Nippold spoke in the Hofbräusaal although only party members and "comrades" had access, concluded by a performance by the Reichsarbeitsdienst. However, the actual celebrations did not take place until the next day when the town, flanked by swastika flags, greeted all local Nazi organisations formed after the "Big Wake" by the ϟϟ at 7.00 in the Chiemseestrasse. They marched here to the war memorial on the Loretowiese. At the same time around 11.00 Lord Mayor Georg Zahler and Legal Counsel Erich Holper laid the cornerstone for the construction of the Municipal Gallery. The foundation stone donated by Karl Göpfert contained not only pictures of Hitler and Göring, but also the commemorative coin and the commemorative publication for the local group anniversary. 

Rosenheim's war memorial

After the lunch break, a "propaganda train of the three thousand" marched down Prinzregentenstraße and Küpferlingstraße in rows of six to Max-Josefs-Platz, preceded by the "old fighters" of the 10th Hundreds of the SA. By now, word had spread among the assembled crowd that Hitler himself was expected in Rosenheim in an event reported within the Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers of 1935. At 15.40 a motorcade approached from Königstrasse. The Rosenheim Tagblatt described Hitler's arrival in the Hofbräusaal: "All of a sudden the whole hall is transformed, the men in the brown uniforms get up, they climb onto the chairs, and it's difficult to keep an open lane between the waiting people (...) and now, followed by the Gauleiter, the Fiührer himself has not forgotten his faithful Ortsgruppe! The Führer has come to Rosenheim!"  At Max-Josefs-Platz, filled with 10,000 people, the scenes were repeated: enthusiastic crowds with little girls holding bouquets of flowers. Hitler entered the rostrum and gave an enthusiastic speech describing the "Kampfzeit der Bewegung" and his first visit to Rosenheim. His unannounced appearance in Rosenheim, staged as a sudden appearance, was intended to suggest spontaneity and underscore Hitler's attachment to the old comrades in the inner city. Hitler, astutely, could still remember every one of the "Old Guard", with whom he sat affably at the end of the ceremony in the swastika of Flötzinger Löchl and revived old memories. Days after Hitler's visit to Rosenheim, the local newspapers were full of articles and photos of the "big event".

 The celebration of the 15th anniversary of the founding of the second oldest Nazi Ortsgruppe, which took place from August 9-12, 1935. The highlight was Hitler's visit and  speech at Max-Josefs-Platz. According to the "Rosenheimer Tagblatt Wendelstein" around ten thousand people gathered there to see and hear him. In addition to this visit a ceremony, a hero's award, a commemoration of the dead, musical performances, a propaganda march and a rally were held. In the Third Reich many festivals were adopted by the regime such as the Autumn Festival, Mother's Day or Summer Solstice. Christmas was also celebrated, but renamed Julfest by the Nazis. In addition to the traditional festivals, new celebrations based on political events were introduced such as Hitler's birthday, the celebration of the day of the takeover, and others. These festivals also included unique festivals, which always had a regional political event, such as the appointment of Hitler, Hindenburg, Goering and the Knight of Epp as honorary citizens of Rosenheim, or the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the local Rosenheim chapter of the Nazi Party. 

 The Reich Labour Service choir at the Erntedankfest (harvest thanksgiving festival) in 1937 which served to recognise the achievements of German farmers, whom the Nazis called the Reichsnährstand (the Reich's Food Estate). The harvest festival, was also called "Day of the German farmer" or Day of Bückeberg after the mass spectacle on the Bückeberg hill near Hameln. The festival programme began with a pageant and around noon, as was the case with every public celebration, a rally took place on Max-Josefs-Platz, to which soldiers also participated. The highlight of the day, however, was a broadcast of a speech by Hitler from Bückeberg when, that year, the festival was attended by about 1.2 million people, culminating with Hitler walking through the Führerweg (Führer's way) to the harvest monument, in the form of an altar, to receive the harvest crown from the Farmers' Estate on behalf of the German people. That particular festival was attended by more people than any other Nazi ceremony or ritual activity, including the party rally at Nuremberg.  Economically, the town’s historical significance as a salt production centre, established in 1810 with brine pipelines from Reichenhall and Traunstein, provided an economic base that the Nazis exploited. By 1933, local industries, particularly the Hamberger plant, shifted to support the regime. In 1931, the Hamberger brothers supplied vehicles to the SA, some equipped with hidden weapons, as documented in local police reports from 1932. This collaboration continued into the Third Reich, with Hamberger securing contracts for military supplies by 1935, employing 300 workers to produce wooden components for barracks and vehicles. Burleigh argues that such industrial cooperation was driven by economic incentives and fear of reprisals, a pattern evident in Rosenheim’s compliance. The town’s railway, operational since 1858 and expanded in 1876, became a critical asset. By 1940, Rosenheim’s station handled fifty freight trains daily, transporting coal, timber, and military equipment to support the war effort, according to Deutsche Reichsbahn records. The Mother’s Cross campaign, launched in 1938, awarded 1,500 medals in Rosenheim by 1943 to encourage population growth for the war effort. Rosenheim’s timber industry, centred around the Wood Technology Museum’s historical roots, supplied materials for military construction, with 2,000 cubic metres of wood processed annually by 1942.
The economic transformation of Rosenheim under the Third Reich extended to its social and labour structures, reinforcing the town’s role in the Nazi war economy. By 1943, the Hamberger plant had expanded to employ 450 workers, including 150 forced labourers, producing wooden crates for munitions, as recorded in factory logs. The Flötzinger brewery, a traditional enterprise since 1544, adapted to supply beer to Wehrmacht units, with production increasing from 10,000 hectolitres in 1933 to 15,000 by 1944, according to company records. This shift required additional forced labour, with 200 workers from Eastern Europe housed in makeshift barracks near the brewery by 1943. Tooze argues that such reliance on coerced labour was a hallmark of Nazi economic policy, enabling towns like Rosenheim to sustain wartime production despite resource shortages. By 1942, 1,200 forced labourers, primarily from Poland and Ukraine, were employed in Rosenheim’s factories, including the Hamberger plant and the Flötzinger brewery, which produced supplies for the Wehrmacht. The railway station’s role intensified; by 1944, it processed sixty trains daily, including transports carrying 1,500 prisoners to Dachau and Flossenbürg. Local tradesmen, such as carpenters and mechanics, were conscripted into war-related work; by 1941, 300 Rosenheim craftsmen were registered with the Chamber of Commerce for military contracts. The regime’s economic policies also impacted women; the Mother’s Cross campaign, promoted through rallies like the one on May 12, 1939 at the Stadthalle, awarded 500 medals in Rosenheim that year, encouraging women to support the war effort through reproduction.

Prisoners of war at work on Heilig-Geist-Straße, 1940

By 1943, Rosenheim’s economy was fully integrated into the war effort, with 2,500 workers employed in war-related industries, representing 20% of the town’s workforce, according to local labour office reports. Upon the outbreak of the war the first women were used as a substitute for male postmen as the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädel) led Altositammlungen, Erntehilfseinsätze and Air defence courses.  Voluntary notifications for the Wehrmacht increased to such an extentthat "timely clearance was not possible and the services could temporarily stop receiving reports". According to the minutes of a meeting on October 24, 1939 in the hotel "King Otto" under the direction of deputy Gauleiter Otto Nippold, the atmosphere in Rosenheim was described as "brilliant" in regards to the war with criticism of the people limited mainly at the lack of support of large families and bottlenecks in food distribution with "most unruly" being the peasants who had yet been "educated for sacrifice". The main complaint against the rural population was the ban on domestic butchery, the war-related shortage of labour and the delivery of horses for military service. 

Polish and French prisoners of war were housed in the Rosenheim area and forced to work PoW camps as well as being used in the cleanup after the flood of 1940.  The Lord Mayor of Rosenheim even received 150 French prisoners of war from the Moosburg prison camp. 100 men were accommodated in the Schlossbergwirtschaft, which had to be surrounded with barbed rath fence and provided with bars on the windows. The remaining fifty men had to be housed in the prison.  The prisoners of war were also used for road construction and other municipal tasks. In the summer of 1940, the Heilig-Geist-Strasse was repaved by French prisoners of war, a practice that had already been used in the First World War. The population was forbidden to contact prisoners of war although most farmers were accustomed to sitting around the table with their servants and saw no reason for a complicated and uncomfortable separation of mealtimes. In some cases even workmaids, who had to serve a compulsory year in the farm, were rejected because they insisted on eating separately. Contacts between German women and prisoners of war also resulted in drastic punitive measures. For example, two women from Bruckmühl in November 1940 helped two French soldiers escape from the prisoner of war camp in Bad Aibling. Both women had a relationship with the French, which was especially punished.  They hid the refugees in their house in Bruckmühl and one of the two women was suspected of helping their escape and arrested. She finally collapsed under the interrogation and confessed, revealing the hiding place of the prisoners of war who were imprisoned again immediately. In the market square of Bad Aibling, the two women publicly had their heads shaved in front of a large crowd as condemned as "French lovers". Then they were sent to the prison in Rosenheim.

Hitlerjugend during the Kriegstag in 1942 on the right. The town’s youth were mobilised thorughout the Nazi era; by 1936, Rosenheim’s Hitler Youth had 800 members, participating in annual marches, such as the one on May Day 1936, which drew 5,000 spectators. From the beginning of bombing raids on German cities in the spring of 1942, Rosenheim was not spared. At first, air raid shelters were insufficiently available limited to five air raid shelters as of November 1943. In an emergency, two-thirds of the population was not or only insufficiently protected. Until February 1944, the city had provided for further air raid shelters and cover ditches, so that for about half of the Rosenheim shelters were available. From October 20, 1944 to April 21, 1945, fourteen air raids were flown on Rosenheim. As a major traffic hub in the interface between Munich - Salzburg - Vienna and Munich - Innsbruck - Italy, the station and surrounding buildings were especially targetted. In November 1943 there were shelters for only 650 people for a city population of approximately 22,000. However, by February 1944 shelters had been built for about 6400 people and in conjunction with other shelters a total of 10,525 people could be protected. During fourteen bombing raids, 201 people were killed and 179 injured. The focus of the air attacks was the railway station and the railway tracks, as Rosenheim was an important transportation hub between Munich, Salzburg and Innsbruck. The neighbouring communities of Ziegelberg, Stephanskirchen, Westerndorf St. Peter and Pfaffenhofen am Inn were also hit (thanks to Herr Rudolf Puryear for correcting my confusion with Oberpfaffenhofen). The first air attack on October 20, 1944 at lunch time from 12.47 to 13.17 with over a hundred aircraft, dropped 1,000 bombs, leaving 27 dead and 59 wounded. The heaviest air raid took place on April 18, 1945. From 14.40 to 14.55 around 200 to 1300 aircraft dropped bombs in the area around the station, resulting in 53 dead and 36 injured, in addition, this attack also made eight hundred people homeless. The station building was almost completely destroyed, railway tracks were destroyed over a length of twenty kilometres. The last air attacks were made on April 19 and 21, 1945. During the war the majority of at least 173 duds were recovered. In 1964, the Oberbayerische Volksblatt reported that the approximate location of 38 undiscovered unexploded ordnance was known.

By April 30, 1945 Munich was completely in American hands and the American army marched further southeast to Berchtesgaden which allowed the inhabitants of Rosenheim to calculate roughly the approximate time of their "liberation". In its last session on April 29, 1945, the city council decided that the city should not be defended. In contrast, the combat commandant of the city since April 26, 1945, Major Walter Honsalek, was ordered to defend the city, with the support of the ϟϟ and other combat organisations. Committed Rosenheim citizens, among others Josef Golling, engineer Windisch of the Städtische Wasserwerke, the pioneering general Rösinger, brewery owner Franz Steegmüller and the manufacturer Hamberger negotiated with Honsalek that Rosenheim would be handed over peacefully. Shortly before the invasion of the Americans, the city was a mess, with reported looting of the food store on Rathausstraße, the Auerbräu and in the mail cellar.

American troops entering the town on May 2, 1945 with an M26 Pershing tank taking the lead into Ludwigsplatz.
On the morning of May 2, 1945, the Americans invaded the city at 5.00 encountering no resistance apart from an incident on Innstraße 62 from where a barricaded ϟϟ man fired shots. The Americans then attacked the house for about fifteen minutes, killing the defender. The Americans had expected worse, especially resistance in Rosenheim and Wasserburg. In the event of such resistance, bomber squadrons were in readiness for 10.00 in the morning of May 2, which would have razed Kufstein, Kiefersfelden, Brannenburg, Rosenheim, Wasserburg, Prien, Traunstein, Trostberg, Bad Reichenhall and Berchtesgaden with approximately 1,000 bombs to break any remaining resistance. And so on May 2, 1945, at 6.00 in the morning, Combat Commander Honsalek surrendered. A little later, the Nazi Lord Mayor Hans Gmelch handed over the city to the Americans. As acting mayor, the military government appointed as authorised representative of the United Kunstmühlen Landshut-Rosenheim, Roman Keill. On May 6, a twenty member Resident Committee was formed at the urging of the Americans, which served as a kind of provisional city council. This committee elected lawyer Max Drexel as Lord Mayor. Since many former party members were sitting in the committee, the local commander Major Roland McDonald appointed the former legal councilor Hubert Weinberger as mayor, and the mayor Otto Bucher, who later worked in the economic department, became the second mayor. Both had been active members until 1933 of the Social Democrats.

 

The Flötzinger Bräustüberl, where Hitler spoke on April 21, 1921. The photo on the left shows owner Franz Xaver Simson in front of the window the year before. He celebrated his birthday here in 1925. Ten years later, after an operation to remove a polyp on May 23, Hitler spoke here for the first time on August 11, 1935. The Nazi chapter in Rosenheim was celebrating its fifteenth anniversary; as mentioned above, it was the first major Nazi Ortsgruppe to have formed outside Munich. Hitler made use of the opportunity to rail against his domestic opponents and to support current action being taken against Stahlhelm members and former Centrists.

 

Markt Indersdorf

In 1938, a children's home was set up in the former convent of the Sisters of Mercy. Behind its walls near the water tower, a "children's barracks " was built in 1944 for the infants of foreign forced labourers from the surrounding area. These barracks, which looked similar to the barracks of the Dachau concentration camp, mainly housed children of Soviet and Polish forced labourers, most of whom had been the result of abuse. At least 35 of the 63 children housed there died from deplorable mistreatment and malnutrition. Women who gave birth to a child had to immediately take it to the facilities that Himmler cynically called Ausländerkinderpflegestätten (foreigner child care centres). Many tried desperately to bring their newborns back to them but often never saw their children again. Almost every second child died shortly after admission. The fate of more than twenty children hasn't yet been determined. After the war, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration set up a reception camp for minors persecuted by the Nazis in the former convent shown here. Since 1987, a cross and a memorial stone in the district cemetery on Maroldstrasse have commemorated the children who lived in the barracks for only a few days or weeks and were buried there.