Nazi Sites on Munich's Ludwigstraße

This page continues on from Odeonsplatz

Hitler being driven down Ludwigstraße with the Feldherrnhalle in the background during his triumphal tour through Munich after returning from the occupation of Memel on March 26, 1939. This street holds a particular significance in the context of Nazi history, serving as more than just a thoroughfare in the Bavarian capital. Conceived by King Ludwig I of Bavaria and designed by the architect Leo von Klenze in the early 19th century, this grand boulevard became a focal point for Nazi activities and symbolism. Hobsbawm argues that streets often serve as "theatres of history," and Ludwigstraße was no exception; it became a stage where the Nazi regime displayed its power and ideology. Hitler saw Munich as the "Capital of the Movement," a city that had cradled his early political ambitions and the birthplace of the Nazi Party. In this context, Ludwigstraße became more than just a street; it transformed into a symbolic space that represented the ideological underpinnings of National Socialism. The street's classical architecture, embodying order and grandeur, resonated with the Nazi ideals of Aryan supremacy and the creation of a utopian German state. Consequently, Ludwigstraße was frequently used for Nazi parades and other propaganda activities. The street's landmarks, such as the Feldherrnhalle, became sites of political pilgrimage, and the very geography of the street was manipulated to fit the Nazi narrative. 

My GIF on the right shows Himmler (centre) at the funeral of NSKK (National Socialist Motor Corps) leader Adolf Huenlein on May 21, 1942 and today. The street housed several buildings that were instrumental for the Nazi regime, including administrative offices and venues for political rallies. It was here that many key decisions affecting not only Munich but also the broader trajectory of Nazi policy were made. The architectural grandiosity of Ludwigstraße also lent itself well to the Nazi penchant for spectacle. Evans notes that architecture was a "key element in the Nazi theatricality," and Ludwigstraße, with its monumental scale and classical form, fit well within this aesthetic framework. The street was often used for parades and other public displays designed to showcase the strength and unity of the Nazi regime. These events were meticulously choreographed, serving both to intimidate and to create a sense of collective identity among participants and onlookers. The grand buildings lining the street provided a backdrop that amplified the sense of awe and power that the Nazis sought to evoke. The street was not merely a backdrop but also a symbol in its own right. Kershaw posits that the Nazis were adept at using symbols to create a "mythical past," and Ludwigstraße, with its historical and architectural significance, was incorporated into this narrative. The street's classical architecture, reminiscent of a glorified Germanic past, was co-opted to lend historical legitimacy to the Nazi regime. This appropriation of public spaces for ideological ends is a recurring theme in totalitarian regimes, and Ludwigstraße serves as a case study in how architecture and urban planning can be politicised.

ϟϟVT 1 "D" man in his Ausgehanzug walking down Ludwigstraße with the Feldherrnhalle behind. The ϟϟ-Verfügungstruppe ('ϟϟ Dispositional Troops') was formed in 1934 as Nazi combat troops. On August 17, 1938 Hitler decreed that the ϟϟ-VT was neither a part of the Ordnungspolizei nor the Wehrmacht, but military-trained men at the disposal of the Führer. In time of war, the ϟϟ-VT were to be placed at the disposal of the army; the ϟϟ-VT were involved in the German invasion of Poland and by 1940 had become the nucleus of the Waffen-ϟϟ.

Berlin's Under den Linden and Munich's Ludwigstraße are comparable in regard to their historical development and their urban context. They show common neo-classical features typical of the early 19th century town planning. The type as well as the location of institutions along the two royal boulevards correspond to the idealistic concepts of the "via triumphalis" in the centre of the capitals of authoritarian states. All institutions, from the royal castle on the edge of the older part of the city to the university, founded by the king, to the military and ecclesiastical edifices, demonstrate the royal power and the authority of the state, thus outlining the character of the city in the pre-industrial age, immediately before political, social, aesthetic, and stylistic changes universally started to transform the functions and physiognomy of urban structures. Today both streets are situated on the edge of the central business district; they continue to be surrounded by public buildings housing the arts and sciences as well as governmental institutions.

 

Hitler paid tribute to this street which links the Feldherrnhalle, sacred to the Nazis, to the Siegestor, where Maxvorstadt spills over into Schwabing and which serves today as a symbol of peace, in a speech on May 22, 1938 in Munich where he declared

Do you think a Ludwigstrasse would ever have been constructed had it been up to the citizens and other institutions of Munich? Great architectural solutions can only come about through a central plan, and this is the way it will be once again today... when the Ludwigstrasse was built, Munich had scarcely 70,000 inhabitants. Today Munich has a population of more than 800,000 and Berlin has more than 4,500,000. Nobody shall dare to come up to me to say that the new streets we are building are too wide.

Although the street itself owes more to Maximilian I who dreamed of turning Munich into a city of art and culture, an ‘Athens on the Isar’  with its uniform and well- proportioned row of neoclassical architecture a credit to court architects Klenze and Gärtner, the Nazis left their mark.

SA men marching on the corner of Ludwigstraße and Galeriestraße onto Odeonsplatz. The building behind me at Odeonsplatz 18 had housed Café Tambosi since the eighteenth century; it was here that Hitler spent most of his time before taking power of Germany in 1933. Cafe Heck was where Hitler maintained his Stammtisch (regular table), a reserved corner table where he held court throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s, receiving party members, financial backers, sympathisers, and petitioners in an informal setting that functioned as a de facto party headquarters before the Nazi Party acquired its permanent offices. In fact, of the sixteen Nazi 'martyrs' killed during the Beer Hall debacle, one was probably just a waiter here. It was here that Hitler spent most of his time before taking power of Germany in 1933. Dietrich Eckart, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Hermann Esser, Ernst Hanfstaengl, and other figures from the party's early inner circle were regular presences at the Stammtisch with Hanfstaengl in his post-war memoir describing these sessions at length.

Looking from the other direction as Hitler and Mussolini are driven down Ludwigstraße on June 18, 1940. On the left is the Central Ministry of the State of Bavaria, today Bavarian State Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry (Ludwigstraße 2) whilst on the right the Bazar at Odeonsplatz. Hitler arrived in the city at noon, aboard his special train. Reich Governor von Epp greeted him at the gate. After the customary welcome, review of the guards of honour, et cet., Hitler’s car bore him to his apartment at 16 Prinzregentenplatz. Three hours later, the Führer was back at the station gate to greet the Duce, whose train reached the Bavarian capital punctually at 14:58. Ciano accompanied Mussolini. Nearly the same ceremony that hours earlier had welcomed Hitler, now greeted the Duce. Then the two dictators drove to the Prince Carl Palace, where Hitler took leave of his guest for the time being.

The 'Bockerlbahn' in front of the destroyed Cafe Tambosi at Odeonsplatz. In October 1944 the authorities introduced an emergency lane to transport debris via this steam-powered locomotive. With 45% of the Munich's architectural substance destroyed, a massive logistical operation for debris removal was needed that utilised a specialised narrow-gauge railway system known locally as the Bockerlbahn. The total volume of rubble in Munich amounted to 5 million cubic metres, which required transport to designated dumping grounds such as the Oberwiesenfeld. The railway infrastructure utilised tracks with a gauge of 900 millimetres and 600 millimetres, distinct from the standard railway gauge, to facilitate navigation through the constricted and damaged urban thoroughfares and relied heavily on steam locomotives produced by the Munich-based firm Krauss-Maffei, specifically the drier-steam models which were robust enough to handle the particulate-heavy environment of the rubble sites. These locomotives towed trains consisting of tipping wagons, known as Lore, which were capable of holding approximately one cubic metre of debris each which allowed for the transport of thousands of tonnes of masonry daily, traversing a route that cut through Schwabing towards the northern deposition site. Management was initially overseen by municipal authorities who coordinated the labour force, which in the final phases of the war and immediate aftermath included a mixture of conscripted civilians and private contracting firms.
Showing it on the right going through Wittelsbacher Platz. The route of the Bockerlbahn necessitated the construction of temporary bridges and the reinforcement of existing road surfaces to bear the weight of the laden locomotives. One significant engineering challenge documented in technical reports was the gradient leading up to the Oberwiesenfeld, which required precise calculation of steam pressure and traction to prevent the stalling of heavy loads. Fuel for the steam engines was often of low-grade coal or lignite due to resource shortages which resulted in the distinctive heavy smoke and spark emissions that contributed to the colloquial naming of the train. The clearing of the debris wasn't just a cosmetic exercise but a structural necessity to prevent the collapse of damaged façades onto the remaining operational tram lines. During the war, the Nazis utilised forced labour and prisoners of war to assist with the hazardous work of clearing unexploded ordnance and unstable masonry before the trains could access specific sectors. After the Yanks arrived, the administration transitioned to the reconstruction authorities, who employed former members of the Nazi Party in mandatory labour battalions to physically load the wagons. The efficiency of the Bockerlbahn was such that it continued to serve as the primary artery for Munich's reconstruction efforts well into the late 1940s, ultimately depositing enough material to create the topographical foundation for what is now the Olympic Park.

Café Heck

Just off Odeonsplatz and overlooking the Hofgarten beside the Residenz, this was a main Hitler site. The photo on the left shows him with his main acolytes from Geoff Walden's Third Reich in Ruins.
Hanfstaengl with Hitler at Cafe Heck. Hanfstaengl wrote in his book Hitler: The Missing Years (132) that "whenever he was in Munich, he was usually to be found with his inner circle at the Cafe Heck, in the Galleriestrasse, which became his Stammtisch after leaving Landsberg". According to Kershaw, much of Hitler's time 

was spent lounging around cafés in Munich. He specially liked the Café Heck in Galerienstraße, his favourite. In a quiet corner of the long, narrow room of this coffee-house, frequented by Munich’s solid middle class, he could sit at his reserved table, his back to the wall, holding court among the new-found cronies that he had attracted to the NSDAP. Among those coming to form an inner circle of Hitler’s associates were the young student Rudolf Heß, the Baltic-Germans Alfred Rosenberg (who had worked on Eckart’s periodical since 1919) and Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (an engineer with excellent contacts to wealthy Russian émigrés).

The Hofgarten in 1919 during the Munich civil war as seen in the first episode, Helped into Power, from the 1997 documentary The Nazis: A Warning from History:

Bavaria is a picture-book land, famous for its lederhosen and its beer halls, but at the end of WWI, conditions existed here which would create a revolution. After the war, the Allies continued to blockade Germany and the returning troops were shocked to discover how much their families were still suffering.  Millions of Germans were hungry  and thousands more were dying of tuberculosis and influenza. Politics were polarised. Conservatives and Socialists became radical in the face of crisis. With the whole of Germany in turmoil in the spring of 1919, the unrest in Munich resulted in a left-wing takeover of the city, the Raterepublik. This culminated, in April 1919, in the Munich Soviet Republic,  an attempt to create a soviet-style government of the city, only 18 months after the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union. Government troops were sent to quash the rebellion and there was fighting on the streets of Munich. More than 500 people were killed. The soldiers were supported by the Freikorps, right-wing mercenaries paid for by the government. In Munich, there were cases where the Freikorps simply shot members of the Raterepublik out of hand. Other Freikorps members heartily approved of the brutal measures used to suppress Communist revolutionaries throughout Germany.

 The same site July 26, 1933 with a visiting group of 411 Italian fascist youth and today. From the central station they marched here to the residenz where, in the ballroom, they were offered a ceremonial reception that began with a speech of welcome from ambassador Vittorio Cerutti. After Hitler's own speech, the Jungfaschists then visited the Brown House. Only months earlier on March 31, 1933 he had given Hitler a letter from Mussolini concerning the upcoming actions against the Jews the next day which Hitler had brusquely rejected. Cerruti warned Mussolini of the dangers of German Austria policy for Italy. On October 12, 1933 Cerruti visited Hitler and brought him Mussolini's proposals on the issue of disarmament; soon after Göring agitated for Cerruti's dismissal which Mussolini refused, probably because of the increasing German-Italian tensions over Austria. Tensions were not improved by the reading of the reports Cerruti gave to Rome that came from the German interception services listening in to his telephone calls. When Mussolini sent two Italian divisions to the Brenner Pass during the Austrian crisis of July 1934 with the assassination of Chancellor Dollfuss, Hitler blamed Cerruti for the decision. As early as June 21, 1935, Hitler had informed his liaison with Mussolini, former Italian Consul General Renzetti, of his desire to have Cerruti replaced. When Cerruti was ordered back to Rome by Mussolini, Hitler had ordered that no party member appear at his departure for Italy on August 13, 1935.

Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern

Then and now, with the equestrian statue of Ludwig I. Below it appears in a photo taken by men of the American 14th Armoured Division right after taking the city. The statue itself is made of bronze with the the base made of stone. The main figure shows Ludwig I on horseback with crown and sceptre; the secondary figures show allegories of justice and perseverance , corresponding to the king's motto. The corner figures show allegories of religion, poetry, industry and architecture which were supposed to correspond to the king's interests. The base has the inscriptions "Ludwig I Koenig von Bayern" on the front and "Erected out of gratitude by the city of Munich on XXV. August MDCCCLXII" on the back. Accordingly, the equestrian statue was erected on August 25, 1862. Odeonsplatz  is named for the former concert hall, the Odeon, on its southwestern side. The Odeon was built from 1826–1828 on a commission from King Ludwig I of Bavaria and was originally a concert hall and ballroom. Klenze designed the exterior as an identical counterpart to that of the Palais Leuchtenberg, so that there was no outward indication of its function. The ministry itself was founded in 1806, whose core competencies include internal administration, the police and construction, despite considerable changes over time. With the establishment of the ministries for social welfare and agriculture, the interior department lost considerable competencies after the Great War, but the staff themselves were not replaced despite the revolution. From 1918 to 1920 the ruling SPD appointed the ministers of the interior followed from 1921 to 1933 by BVP politicians who then headed the ministry and who fought massively against the emergence of the Nazis. Nazi Interior Minister Adolf Wagner succeeded after 1933 in considerably expanding the responsibilities of his department. The Nazis also took over the previous officials, but were quickly able to infiltrate the authority with loyal party members.During the Nazi era, the ministry was responsible, among other things, for the mass killings of the mentally ill and disabled. The building was gutted in an air raid on the night of April 25, 1944. Beginning in 1951, it was rebuilt by Josef Wiedemann to house the Ministry of the Interior.

 

The statue is shown on the bottom left behind Hitler being greeted by Gauleiter Wagner with Goebbels on the left and, second from the right, the Italian Chief of General Staff Pariani at the opening ceremony of the Tag der Deutschen Kunst on July 10, 1938. The top left is from the year before showing Frau Troost, Goebbels, Hitler, Göring, Adolf Wagner, and Rudolf Heß.

Map showing the route taken through Munich during the 1937 parade. Joshua Hagen has written extensively about these Nazi parades in his article Parades, Public Space, and Propaganda: The Nazi Culture Parades in Munich (Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography Vol. 90, No. 4 (2008), pp. 349-367):

Unlike the 1933 event which appeared rather hastily organised, organisers had time to prepare a more visually extravagant affair in 1937. The parade's ideological content also reflected a more developed Nazi cultural policy and propaganda apparatus. The redesigned parade, titled Two Thousand Years of German Culture, positioned Nazism as the culmination of German history and focused on a promised glorious future. As the programme to the 1939 festivities explained, the parade offered a chance to 'experience German history, experience its greatness and tremendous past, and see how proudly the German future is being built'. In addition to the widely publicised opening of the House of German Art, Hitler and other party leaders declared its first exhibition, the Great German Art Exhibition, a showpiece of artistic achievement in Nazi Germany. These ideologically appropriate paintings and sculptures tended to depict nude figures, scenes of German landscapes and peasant life, or images glorifying the party and combat. A short distance away, another exhibit of so-called degenerate art scorned modernist and abstract art as foreign and contrary to a healthy folk culture. After a weekend of exhibitions, concerts and banquets, the official opening of the House on the morning of Sunday, July 18, 1937 would be followed by an afternoon parade concluding the weekend's festivities. Although scholars have paid scant attention to the parade, contemporary press coverage clearly depicted the parade as an integral component of the festival. Unlike the exhibitions which were naturally confined within smaller interior spaces, the parade offered an opportunity for mass participation and public spectacle comparable to the marches accompanying the Nuremberg Rallies. Adolf Wagner again oversaw the planning, including the creation of a quasi-private association to organise this and future events. Painter Hermann Kaspar and sculptor Richard Knecht, both professors at the Academy of Visual Arts, shared the overall artistic direction of the parade. Buchner again arranged street decorations. Expressing the regime's ideological intentions, the Nazi mouthpiece Völkische Beobachter proclaimed that 'according to the will of the Führer' the parade would be 'a grand demonstration of German culture' symbolising 'that we are one of the oldest civilised nations, that we are proud of our history, and that we pull strength from it for the future now beginning'. Rather than simply trying to 'repeat but amplify the parade of 1933', organisers took several steps to make the later parades more coherent and comprehensive expressions of the Nazi Party's vision of past, present and future national community. Reflecting this propaganda goal, the official parade programme explained: 'Our walk today is a glowing tribute to the historical achievements of our Volk, a military journey of the national community, a parade into the great future of the eternal Germany'. Based on official programmes and German press accounts, it's clear that, although sharing certain similarities with its predecessor, every facet of the later parades was grander and presented a more rigid and expansive chronology showcasing German history as a prelude to the proclaimed grandeur of the thousand-year Nazi Reich. Stretching nearly four kilometres and lasting for over two hours, the revised parade began with riders bearing Nazi standards and flags and the arts followed by seven main sections, each devoted to a specific historical period with its own music: Germanic, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Romantic, and the New Age. As the parade's second largest grouping with about 480 participants, the Germanic Age introduced the revised narrative with 'tall, weathered blondes' proudly battling against nature and other peoples to 'create the destiny and the culture of the Nordic-Germanic world'. After warriors escorting a Viking-like ship, most of the successive floats symbolised specific religious icons like the sun, the day, the night, the creation of the first humans, the sea god, and Valhalla where the gods welcomed heroes after death. In an overt attempt to link Nazism to the epoch's perceived racial purity and martial valour, the sun group presented a stylised swastika as an ancient representation of the sun, whilst the Valhalla allegory featured long banners and draperies with swastika motifs, an obvious attempt by parade organisers to position the Nazi movement as the modern incarnation of this prehistoric warrior race. As one writer explained: 'As our ancestors honoured the swastika as a rune for well-being and promise, it is again holy for us today'. Compared to the 1933 parade, the later parades, with their grounding of Nazi symbols in prehistory and prominent rhetoric of blood ties between ancient Nordic tribes and modern Germans, began with a much more direct ideological statement to demonstrate that 'throughout nearly three thousand years the racial strength remained unbroken and devoted itself to life in work and battle'. Although the Germanic group was replete with pagan religious icons, the Romanesque Age with its ten floats and the Gothic Age with seven floats were largely devoid of Christian overtones. Apart from three floats celebrating the architecture and sculpture of the period, the Romanesque section focused on Charlemagne, Barbarossa, and other squadrons of German warriors and crusaders. Of the seven elements of the Gothic Age, three focused on the arts including a model of a Gothic fountain reused from the 1933 parade, whilst the remaining four were formations of knights mounted for battle, jousting or hunting. Although the Germans adopted Christianity and were active in religious affairs during these periods, the parade's interpretation largely focused on military exploits, reflecting the Nazis' valorisation of conflict but ambivalence towards Christianity. The next three groupings, celebrating the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical and Romantic Ages, were relatively small. Three elements of the Renaissance Age depicted a flowering of painting, sculpture and science, while two others featured a grouping of peasants and riders. The four elements of the Baroque Age symbolised music, theatre, sculpture and the Bavarian rococo, a second leftover from the 1933 parade. The fifth Baroque element featured military formations recalling Friedrich the Great. The Classical and Romantic Age had only two elements: one recognising the neo- classical arts, the other devoted to Richard Wagner. Although many of the major cultural trends symbolised here originated in non-German lands, the parade programme emphasised the unique German contribution by explaining that although 'foreigners often gave us example and impetus; the borrowed form always obtained its own original life from the spirit of our bloodline'. Compared with the preceding groups, these three ages are remarkable in their relative brevity and lack of martial themes. This may stem from the fact that many of the major events of these periods, such as the Reformation, the Thirty Years War and the slow decline of the Holy Roman Empire, conjured images of German disunity rather than the Nazi ideal of national unity.

 After the parade's rather cursory treatment of German history and culture from the Gothic period onward, it skipped ahead to a 'New Age' as the culmination of German national development. The eight elements of the New Age section focused exclusively on the achievements and ideology of the Nazi regime with scant reference to the arts. Likely accounting for over one-third of all costumed participants, the New Age section was by far the largest of the parade, although it covered only five years. The section began with riders in black armour bearing crests representing the Nuremberg Rallies and the arts. Young torch-bearing women mourners, 'symbols of the eternal watch over the graves of the heroes' heralded the next element, which actually consisted of separate allegorical floats representing Sacrifice, Belief and Loyalty. The next float, Mother Earth, emphasised the importance of nature and fertility. These two sections displayed Nazi conceptions of appropriate gender roles in this new national community. Female participants received roles associated with fertility, while males were associated with action. In light of the coming war, it was prophetic that women accompanying the Sacrifice float appeared to be mourning, while Belief and Loyalty, seen as vital military attributes, were represented by male statues escorted by young men. The remaining elements of the New Age depicted political achievements starting with the reincorporation of the Rhineland and Saarland. Next, a large eagle led a series of models of 'Monumental Buildings of the Führer' in Munich and Nuremberg. The high profile accorded to architecture was especially striking considering that the other arts were basically absent from this New Age. This was indicative of the importance Nazi leaders and propaganda placed on new construction projects as evidence of the regime's progress towards a new economy, culture and national community. Surprisingly, there was no direct reference to the new age of German painting supposedly initiated by the Great German Art Exhibition. Although participants in other sections wore costumes reflecting that section's specific time period, men in the New Age section wore costumes reminiscent of mediæval monks or knights, while women appeared in flowing robes in an attempt to portray the Nazi movement in 'timeless beautiful garments'. The parade's finale was successive formations of SA, ϟϟ, Labour Service, police and military units as 'symbols of German strength'. As one writer explained, these were to be both symbolically and literally 'guardians and keepers of a historical legacy, protectors of two thousand years of German culture, guarantees for its preservation in the near and distant future'. Although little documentation of the parade's planning and administration survived, it is possible to piece together some general statistics from published accounts and photographs. Whilst parade organisers and party officials may have exaggerated, estimates from Wagner and Wenzel that between 21,000 and 24,000 people were involved in preparations for the parade, totalling approximately 143,000 work hours, appear plausible. The number of costumed participants in 1937 likely totalled around 3,200, mostly members of various party organisations. About 450 of these rode on horseback, including a few women. Dozens of additional horses pulled twenty-six floats, while about an equal number of smaller elements were transported by hand. The closing formations included approximately 3200 uniformed marchers, while approximately 13,500 additional men, mostly members of the SA and ϟϟ, provided crowd control.

At least two contemporary accounts of the 1938 parade claimed that it involved 5,000 costumed participants, a significant increase since 1937. In a departure from other party spectacles, women were well represented in the Munich parades, with about 2,000 females versus 3,000 males.

As shown in my GIF on the left, female participants appeared passive, often simply walking alongside floats, whilst males rode horses, were dressed for battle, or muscled floats through the streets. On this festival weekend, nearly 73,000 more travellers than usual passed through Munich's train station, whilst an additional 100,000 were estimated to have arrived by motor vehicle making it clear that the parades of the late 1930s far surpassed their 1933 predecessor. The later parades were monumental spectacles offering a more coherent presentation of Nazi views of politics, culture and national community. Yet, given the parade's extravagance and the Nazi Party's penchant for fiscal mismanagement, the parade association founded in 1937 soon ran into financial troubles and was dissolved in 1940. Viewing the 1937 Day of German Art as a success, national and local leaders resolved to repeat the exhibition and parade annually. The parades in 1938 and 1939 had the same basic content and ideology as the 1937 performance with minor changes. The Mother Earth float, for example, was re-named Blood and Soil with other changes involving additional floats celebrating foreign policy triumphs or planned building projects. The 1938 parade featured three new elements depicting the annexation of Austria and a personification of the Danube. There were also new models of buildings planned in Nuremberg, Hamburg and Berlin. The 1939 parade was updated with three new floats celebrating recent foreign policy victories: the annexation of the Sudetenland, the Czech Protectorate and the Memel Land. Wartime conditions precluded further parades. The route Organisers also revised the route but still faced complications from Munich's existing layout. The new route followed the same initial course, but now, once reaching the southern end of the Ludwigstraße, the parade turned west towards the Königsplatz then circled south through the city centre. This route, approximately seven kilometres long, was significantly longer than 1933 but retained its u-turn on the Ludwigstraße. In addition to repeating the awkward u-turn, this also meant that the expanded number of floats and participants of the 1937 parade had to confine themselves to only one half of the street. At least one writer claimed this route led to 'special groupings and images that merged into each other, when for instance the turned-around parade passed itself in opposing directions', making the parade a 'parable of the repetition of life'. Yet parade organisers clearly intended to depict Nazism as the climatic finale and culmination of German history. Rather than a mere repetition of previous ages, the parade aimed to present an unassailable chronology of German achievement culminating in Nazism's New Age. The awkward orientation of the Ludwigstraße space partially obscured this trajectory as did the overall parade route which passed the House of German Art near its start. Although it is easy to understand why some would uncritically assume that the parade 'wound through the streets toward the new museum', the route actually led away from the museum. In 1938, organisers diverted the parade right on to Königstraße after passing the House location. From there it entered Ludwigstraße from the north and proceeded along its length without having to double back. Now floats advancing along Ludwigstraße would not have to compete with each other. The new route also allowed the parade to enter Ludwigstraße by passing beneath the monumental Victory Gate, instead of turning around in front of it. The procession could also expand to cover the entire width of Ludwigstraße. Although providing a more dramatic entry onto Ludwigstraße, it required the parade to go down Königstraße, an unremarkable residential street whose façades recalled classical and renaissance styles in Italy and Greece. Although not necessarily incompatible with Nazi ideology, these buildings did not easily connect to the revised parades which celebrated a narrower vision of Germanic cultural and military prowess. Indeed, the neo-classical period, which encompassed most of Ludwigstraße's architecture, played a negligible role in the parades. In response, the street was adorned with myriad banners, flags and other decorations that almost completely screened the boulevard's buildings from view. Here, flags and other decorations provided a means to obscure the street's original architectural symbolism and focus spectators' attention on the more nationalistic message conveyed by the parade. Whilst the effect along the Ludwigstraße was certainly impressive, the visual impact along other portions of the route was limited. Most of the rest of the parade route followed narrow streets which lacked the monumentality of Ludwigstraße space and generally had fewer decorations. In addition to its awkward route and its ill-suited architectural backdrop, later parades demonstrated several additional shortcomings and contradictions. First, interpretation of the parade required a significant amount of historical knowledge, which many Germans probably didn't have. Second, some of the figures celebrated were difficult to reconcile with Nazi policy; for example, the mediæval Hohenstaufen emperors focused much of their energy on gaining territory in Italy, whereas Nazi rhetoric and policy obsessed about eastern expansion. It was also noteworthy what events and figures were omitted. References to classical Greece, so prominent in 1933, were removed in a shift away from a general narrative of Western culture to a narrower celebration of Nordic-Germanic history and values. 

On the left, a model of the Haus der Deutsche Kunst at the "Glanzzeiten deutscher Geschichte" parade on the 1937 "Day of German Art" in front of St. Ludwig’s church. As noted above, religion was almost totally absent, aside from pagan allegories. It was not surprising that the Reformation and the Thirty Years War were missing since they allude to national discord. Yet the parade celebrated the Gothic period, a time of national political fragmentation. Furthermore, achievements in Gothic art and architecture were closely tied to the Christian cathedral. This reflects a degree of ambiguity if not hostility between Christianity, which enjoyed significant support among the general public, and many party leaders, who cast Nazism as a new messianic religion. Even more striking was the omission of most modern history. Aside from Wagner, the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were largely absent. There was no reference to Bismarck or German unification in 1871, although they could represent national unity and military victory. Even the First World War was excluded. It is perhaps understandable that the Weimar period was excluded, although the period witnessed the birth of the Nazi Party. These sparse references to recent history reflected the Nazi movement's prevailing view of this as a time of cultural decay and racial degeneration. Although the parades' title suggested a message of continuity between successive historical epochs leading to National Socialism, these omissions had the effect of presenting Nazism as the expression of an eternal and an historical racial ethos that, after a period of decline, simply emerged beyond any context. In many respects, the party's ideologues drew greater inspiration from mythical images of prehistoric, pagan and mediæval times representing national unity, military valour, and racial purity, and sought to portray the Nazi movement as the embodiment of these supposedly timeless Germanic national values.

Despite claims to be a 'tremendous parade of peace', the parades of 1937 to 1939 offered an extended acclamation of martial achievements and heroic feats culminating in representations of Hitler's foreign policy successes. Although presented as a parade of German culture, warriors and political leaders rather than artists were the pivotal figures. As the exiled Social Democratic Party sarcastically reported: "The parade was more of a military rather than a cultural spectacle. Two thirds of all participants were warriors. From the fighters of the Germanic Age armed with spears to the military and party formations marching at the end of the parade, one could follow the exceptional development of the German warrior'. After the preceding floats recounted the history of this idealised Volk community, the extensive New Age section positioned the Nazi regime as the inheritor, defender and culmination of this legacy. The allusions to Sacrifice, Belief and Loyalty, which opened the New Age section, complemented efforts to ready men and women for their respective roles as the regime prepared its own war of conquest. Despite the parades' sharpened ideological message, they didn't emerge as iconic images of Nazi Germany. In contrast to Munich's art exhibitions which were celebrated in professional journals, popular magazines and widely circulated programmes, the parades garnered relatively little coverage which raises questions about their effectiveness as propaganda events. Compared to Italy, where David Atkinson argued that the regime sought to build control and consensus by staging 'inclusive spectacles' in Rome's public spaces. Nazi organisers stated a similar goal in the 1937 parade programme- through forms drawn from the distant and recent past of German culture, we ourselves. stride, as an entire people, in the parade of German achievement, of German history. Not spectators but rather we are today and always a deeply edifying and extremely resolute community of blood and culture. This desire to blur the distinction between participant and observer was an important element in the power of the Nuremberg Rallies, the regime's most infamous propaganda spectacles. The probolem was that unlike the Nuremberg Rallies which featured large venues designed and built by the Nazis to enclose both participant and observer, Munich's parade route lacked comparable spaces and so organisers had to make do with Munich's existing street layout and architecture, which weren't designed with parades or mass gatherings in mind, and Munich's relatively modest nineteenth-century neo-classical buildings were ill-suited for this task, presenting a series of architectural and spatial limitations that diminished the propaganda impact of the parades. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany eventually shifted to building new urban centres from scratch that could be designed in accordance with their respective ideologies.

Zentralministerium für den gleichgeschalteten bayerischen Staat

With the launch in 1933 of the Gleichschaltung, to unify all state institutions under Nazi control, the various Bavarian ministries were united into a central ministry which was moved here to Ludwigstraße 2 in 1940.  In place of four demolished houses by Leo von Klenze and the Reichsbank, the "Central Ministry of the State of Bavaria" was built from 1938-39 based on designs by Fritz Gablonsky on the corner of Ludwigs- and Von-der-Tann-Straße for the Ministry of Finance as well as the state chancellery. The original idea of building a building for all Bavarian ministries could not be implemented due to space constraints. The structure of the façade shows that the main entrance was intended for today's Galeriestrasse. Within ruled the two most powerful men in Bavaria- Ministerpräsident Ludwig Siebert and Gauleiter Adolf Wagner. When the former died in 1942 and the latter suffered an heart attack, Paul Giesler took over all posts to enjoy absolute power until the end of the Third Reich by which point he had attempted to have all the surviving inmates at Dachau murdered.

On the morning of April 28, 1945, the group Freiheitsaktion Bayern under Rupprecht Gerngroß attempted to occupy this building but was suppressed by ϟϟ units, an event commemorated by a plaque on the wall of the building within the inner court, put up in 1984 on the initiative of the Maxvorstadt District Committee shown on the left. The original application to have it mounted on the side of the building facing the street was vehemently rejected by the Bavarian Ministry of Agriculture. In 1946, a square near the English Garden in Munich was renamed Münchner Freiheit in honour of the “Freiheitsaktion Bayern” and those who lost their lives in the uprising.
After the war, this building served as the headquarters of the American Military police and later the American Consulate General from where "Voice of America" was broadcast. In 1955 the building was returned to the Bavarian authorities and is now the official residence of the Bavarian State Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry. 

Landeszentralbank- Reich Bank Head Office in Bavaria

Ludwigstraße 13 was the site of the Herzog-Max-Palais, birthplace of Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria and Queen consort of Hungary as the spouse of Franz Joseph I.
Two plaques on the house wall refer to the Herzog-Max-Palais as the birthplace of the later Austrian empress and Queen of Hungary 'Sissi' (shown left) and the completion of the current building by Carl Sattler after the war. The building had been demolished by 1937 to make way for Heinrich Wolff's commission on Hitler's request. The original purpose of the house, the construction work up to 1941 and the Nazi clients at that time are not mentioned, ignoring the fact that the building itself was built to serve the Nazis who had planned the building to serve as the branch office of the Reichsbank in Munich. It was constructed in the context of the planning of a traffic axis oriented from east to west. For the new building, the Herzog-Max-Palais (also known as Karl-Theodor-Palais and Herzog-Karl-Palais), built according to plans by Leo von Klenze from 1828 to 1830, was demolished in 1937-38. After three years of construction completed in 1941, work had to be stopped due to the war with only the first floor finished. The corner building at what was then Ludwigstrasse 8 between Von-der-Tannstrasse and Rheinbergerstrasse was built up to the first floor and was only completed from 1949 to 1951 on behalf of the Bavarian State Central Bank according to the old Nazi plans of Carl Sattler. Today it serves as the Bavarian State Central Bank.

This block of houses on Ludwigstrasse between Hofgarten and von-der- Tannstrasse was built in 1820-21 according to plans by Leo von Klenze. The façades all follow a similar scheme, namely that of the Italian High Renaissance townhouse as found in Florence and Rome. but with reduced dimensions windows larger than the wall area due to the climatic conditions in Central Europe and the resulting living habits. The considerable difficulties in finding buyers who wanted to live in such Italian palazzi as Ludwig I had in mind for the new houses on Ludwigstrasse led to Klenze's famous statement:"Munich is not Rome and Mr. Mayer, for whom the house is being built, is not a Farnese or Pitti." He further elaborated by stating that "[t]he poverty of the Munich builders and the Nordic need to give the little sun and light access and to heat the rooms in winter there are just as many obstacles to the charm of Italian façades.” As a result, Ludwig changed architects from Klenze to Gärtner, deciding to settle only state or church institutions on Ludwigstrasse.

Ludwigstrasse 5 on the left, built in 1821 for the master tailor Gampenrieder. Around 1900 the building on the corner of Ludwigstrasse and von-der-Tannstrasse was replaced by a new building for the Reichsbank. In 1937 all four houses were demolished in order to set up a central ministry for the Bavarian state, based on plans by Fritz Gablonsky. During the war, Ludwigstrasse was badly damaged by bombing and artillery fire, and, in the last days, by street fighting. It still hasn't been fully restored. Indeed, it suffered further destruction in the 1960s and 1970s with the establishment of the Altstadtring (Oskar-von-Miller-Ring/Von-der-Tann-Straße) which resulted in the demolition of two other historic von Klenze buildings and overall gutting of properties as part of the so-called urban redevelopment project. Most of the post-war losses are those buildings which were located at Ludwigstraße 6 and 7 (today 11), which were built by Klenze in 1822-23. Even before the war, the Nazis wanted to tear it down to make room for Frühlingsstrasse (today's Oskar-von-Miller-Ring) in order to widen the axis linking Prinzregentenstraße with Tannstraße, Frühlingstraße and Gabelsbergerstraße in order to create an impressive connection between Riem Airport and the Nazi party district at Königsplatz, but the outbreak of war prevented the plan from being implemented. Nevertheless, the Nazis' plans were implemented in 1949 as the building at Ludwigstraße 7 was demolished and the neighbouring building to the south were converted into a single corner building, expanding it by two axes and thus destroying its symmetry to make room for the Altstadtring and the neighbouring site at Ludwigstrasse 6 (today 11). In this way, two Klenze buildings were destroyed in the post-war period.

 

Kriegsministerium

 

The site six months after the fall of the monarchy when a demonstration took place in front of the Bavarian war Ministry on the afternoon April 22, 1919, and the building today.

Himmler (holding the Imperial German Army flag) and SA leader Ernst Röhm in front of the Kriegsministerium (now the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv und Staatsarchiv München) on Ludwigstraße during the Munich Beer hall Putsch. Himmler would later be instrumental in the latter's death on the Night of the Long Knives. 

The future overlord of the ϟϟ empire was at this time still in his twenties, a well-educated and intelligent former agricultural student who had briefly worked for a fertiliser firm and reared chickens. With his short-back-and-sides haircut, small moustache, round glasses, and unathletic build, he resembled a small-town bank clerk or pedantic schoolmaster. Whatever appearances might have suggested, he had, however, few peers in ideological fanaticism and, as time would prove, cold ruthlessness. The young nationalist idealist, already imagining dire conspiracies involving ‘the red International’, Jews, Jesuits, and freemasons ranged against Germany, had joined the NSDAP in the summer of 1923, influenced by the man whose murder he would orchestrate eleven years later, Ernst Röhm. It was at Röhm’s side that, on 8 November that year, the night of the putsch, he had carried the banner at the head of the Reichskriegsflagge unit engaged in attempting to storm the Bavarian War Ministry. 

Kershaw Hitler

Richard Rhodes goes further, describing how

Himmler carried the flag, marching with his brother Gebhard and four hundred other men of the Reichskriegsflagge to the War Ministry, where Röhm ordered them to occupy the building and surround it with a barbed-wire barricade. It was for the purpose of rescuing the Reichskriegsflagge that Hitler and two thousand fellow putschists linked arms and marched into the Odeonplatz the next day, where a firefight started with the Munich police. Hitler dislocated his shoulder diving for cover (or being dragged down by the weight of the man shot dead next to him; accounts vary). At the War Ministry Röhm was arrested, but the rank and file, including the Himmler brothers, were merely disarmed and sent home. “Toward the authorities,” Smith reports of the aftermath, “Heinrich was very bitter, his mood alternating between imaginary fears of his own arrest and disappointment that the government was not interested in him.” He began to suspect that people were opening his mail.

Masters of Death (81) 

After this 1934 purge, Röhm's face was eliminated from the photograph by painting in an additional barricade element obscuring his face as seen in this doctored version. 

Roehm, at the head of a detachment of storm troopers from another fighting league, the Reichskriegsflagge, had seized Army headquarters at the War Ministry in the Schoenfeldstrasse but no other strategic centres were occupied, not even the telegraph office, over whose wires news of the coup went out to Berlin and orders came back, from General von Seeckt to the Army in Bavaria, to suppress the putsch... By dawn Regular Army troops had drawn a cordon around Roehm’s forces in the War Ministry... Shortly after noon the marchers neared their objective, the War Ministry, where Roehm and his storm troopers were surrounded by soldiers of the Reichswehr. Neither besiegers nor besieged had yet fired a shot. Roehm and his men were all ex-soldiers and they had many wartime comrades on the other side of the barbed wire. Neither side had any heart for killing... Roehm surrendered at the War Ministry two hours after the collapse before the Feldherrnhalle.

Shirer Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich

Despite the friendly picnic-like atmosphere Shirer describes it, according to Ernst Röhm in his book Die Geschichte eines Hochverräters, Martin Faust and Theodor Casella, both members of the armed militia organisation Reichskriegsflagge, were shot down accidentally in a burst of machine gun fire during the occupation of the War Ministry as the result of a misunderstanding with II/Inf.Regt 19. The best account of the putsch I've found was in Anthony Read's The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle which states that "Two of Röhm's men were also shot dead as they tried to break through the army cordon around the War Ministry to join the battle." (100)

I can't find anything more than that about the incident; most books (of course) focus on Hitler's role and limit or ignore their examination of the peripheral events. This includes Evans's The Coming of the Third Reich which, despite a chapter entitled "The Beer-Hall Putsch", spends just over a single page on the actual events of that day (193-4).

The building serving as the backdrop at the start of the war during which time it functioned as the headquarters of Wehrkreiskommando VII. The leadership department of Wehrkreiskommando VII remained at the site in the Schönfeldstrasse wing under General Karl Kriebel until the summer of 1944 when large parts of the building were destroyed by bomb damage sustained in the air raid of April 24/25 1944. This destruction prompted the relocation of most service departments of Wehrkreiskommando VII to Pullach, Starnberg and Kempfenhausen bei Starnberg. The leadership department stayed initially at the Ludwigstrasse location but following the replacement of General Karl Kriebel by Generalleutnant Greiner on April 12, 1945 the department also transferred to Kempfenhausen. Only a liaison staff remained in Munich at the original building. No further major military activities occurred here with no additional documented strikes affecting Wehrkreiskommando VII operations. The regional command structure of Wehrkreiskommando VII at the site focused on local defence coordination in Bavaria until the dispersal forced a reduction in on-site capacity. The liaison staff's role in the final weeks involved residual administrative coordination in the partially destroyed structure without expansion to new functions.

 

Hard to reconcile such an image after the war with Ludwigstrasse today

The Bavarian State Library decked out in  swastikas in 1933 and today. Founded in 1558 by Duke Albrecht V, and built again by Gärtner, housing 9.1 million volumes, nearly 400,000 maps and subscriptions to over 42,000 periodicals; one of the largest libraries in the German-speaking world.On April 7, 1933 the Reich government issued the "Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service." This affected the state library because the scientific librarian Max Stefl, the candidate for the middle library service Paul Schumacher and the administrative assistant Marianne Lacher were dismissed, having been considered politically unreliable because they had spoken critically about the Nazis to colleagues. Likewise, the leading librarian Otto Hartig was also transferred in 1935 for political reasons to the State Library Bamberg. Director General Georg Reismüller fell victim to an intrigue planned by his deputy Georg Leidinger, who had wanted to become general director himself. On March 23, the SD arrested Reismüller; his forced retirement went into effect from July 1, 1935. Then in October, Reismüller was interrogated in the State Ministry of Education and Culture under suspicion of having acquired and anti-Nazi writings and withheld pro-Nazi titles from library users. Reismüller fell seriously ill and died in 1936. 

Hitler at the Staatsbibliothek

The influence of the Nazi regime was not limited to personnel matters. Books could not simply be borrowed without first applying in advance whilst the order to exclude Jews at the German universities of 1938 denied Jewish users access to the academic libraries. Like all scientific libraries, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek also had to comply with certain requirements when compiling and loaning out the books. In 1936, the Reichsschrifttumskammer published a list of harmful and unwanted literature, which was constantly updated. The publications concerned had to be set up separately and could only be submitted if the users could prove their political reliability and scientific interest. After Kristallnacht Jews weren't allowed access for several weeks, but in March 1939 the new General Director, Rudolf Buttmann, instructed on October 1, 1935  "that in principle a review of the Aryan descent of the library users is ignored". Visitors were then only allowed to be asked if they were Jews if they had been offended by their behaviour. From September 15, 1941 when Jews had to wear the Jewish star, they were forbidden to use the Bavarian State Library. Nevertheless, newly published documents critical of the Nazis found their way into the library's collections under Buttmann, but these works were not accessible to library users. When Buttmann introduced the referral system in his house in 1939, he also neglected subjects such as "Literature of the NSDAP" and the "Jewish Question".

How the Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek appeared after the wartime bombing and today. In 1941, the search for places of refuge for the collection began and in 1942 Buttmann had the location directories filmed and the catalogues relocated to magazine rooms, which were classified by the Munich Land Office. Before the library building suffered the first heavy bomb damage on March 9-10 1943, tens of thousands of manuscripts had been brought to safety. On the other hand, Buttmann only arranged for the salvage of the large mass of books afterwards. About one-fifth of the total stock - between 400,000 and 500,000 books - had been destroyed by the bombing. As a result of the second major fire in the Bavarian State Library in April 1944, the rental and reading room business finally collapsed, and only the acquisition department continued to pursue its tasks. After the war in 1946 the reconstruction of the Bavarian State Library began with the library staff in the former Nazi buildings on Arcisstraße resumed its internal work in 1947. From 1948 books could be borrowed again and the administration and the main departments returned to the building on Ludwigstraße in 1952 along with the repatriation of books and documents.

 

The interior has since been extensively restored much to how it originally appeared

1949 photo of the thousands of books from the Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in the Haimhauser Schlosskapelle; site of my school, the Bavarian International School. During the 1944 bombing, the library's collection was distributed throughout 28 sites in Oberbayern.

The bombed Haslauer-Block and its reconstruction today at Ludwigstraße 6-10. This block of builings was built for Ludwig I as three private houses in 1827-1830 by architect Leo von Klenze behind a single Florentine façade. The building was heavily damaged during the war, so it had to be completely demolished and rebuilt by Erwin Schleich in 1960-1968 who followed the specifications of Klenze, but not the internal structure. Today office, residential and business premises are in the building and serves as the office of the Munich School of Political Sciences.

Members of the Hitler Youth training as firefighters in front of Ludwigskirche. By 1933, the congregation was led by Pastor Hans Meiser, who became Bishop of the Bavarian Evangelical Church later that year and emerged as a central figure in the resistance to the Nazi-aligned German Christian movement. Meiser opposed the regime’s attempts to subordinate the Protestant churches under Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller and refused to implement the Aryan Paragraph within his diocese, resulting in his brief arrest and house arrest from July to October 1934. During this period, services at the Ludwigskirche continued under the supervision of senior clergy, including Pastor Karl Paul, who delivered sermons that avoided overt political statements but emphasised traditional Christian doctrine. Ludwigskirche became a focal point for the Confessing Church in Munich, hosting clandestine meetings of clergy opposed to state control of religion. On March 21, 1935, a regional synod of the Confessing Church was held in the church’s vestry, attended by 34 pastors, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who delivered a lecture on “The Ethical Foundations of Christian Community.” The event wasn't publicly advertised and was dispersed by police after two hours, though no arrests were made. The church’s bell, cast in 1843 and weighing 6.2 tonnes, was requisitioned in 1942 but was spared melting due to structural difficulties in removal; a report from the Bayerisches Kriegsrohstoffamt dated October 17, 1942, classified the bell as “logistically unviable for extraction.” The building itself sustained minor damage during the Allied bombing of April 24, 1944, when a high-explosive bomb detonated 150 metres to the north on Ludwigstraße, shattering 78% of the church’s stained-glass windows, including the rose window above the west portal. The roof suffered no structural compromise, and services resumed the following Sunday. Further damage occurred on July 12, 1944, when incendiary devices struck the northern edge of the city, though the Ludwigskirche was outside the main fire zone. When Meiser resumed full leadership of the Bavarian Evangelical Church after the war in May 1945 he delivered a public sermon here, denouncing the moral failures of the German people under the Nazis and calling for spiritual renewal. The American occupation forces confiscated the church and elevated it to a garrison church, which it remained until 1949. The church underwent window restoration between 1948 and 1950, using clear glass in place of the original stained panels, which weren't replaced until 1985.

Munich University

A prewar postcard of the university and Drake Winston posing in front today. The revolution of November 1918 and the proclamation of the Weimar Republic found few supporters among the university's students and faculty which is underlined by the fact that the University Senate refused to hold a ceremony to mark the adoption of the new constitution in July 1919. It's no surprise then that after the Great War in the early Summer of 1919, Hitler

became active in the Bavarian army persuading German troops that Communism was wrong. Part of his training consisted in attending a course at Munich University. At this point he became acquainted with the völkisch (i.e. radical nationalist and racialist) thinker, Gottfried Feder, who was helping to organise the event. The lectures Hitler attended there included titles such as: ‘Socialism in Theory and Practice’, ‘Russia and the Bolshevik Dictatorship’, ‘German History since the Reformation’, ‘Germany 1870–1900’, ‘The Meaning of the Armed Forces’, ‘The Connection between Domestic and Foreign Policy’, ‘Foreign Policy since the End of the War’, ‘Price Policy in the National Economy’, ‘The Forced Economy in Bread and Grain’ and ‘Bavaria and the Unity of the Reich’. Many of these topics could have served as headings for the talks Hitler himself gave in the early 1920s. They must have made a massive impression on a man who unquestionably absorbed information like a sponge.

Hitler: Study of a Revolutionary? (19)

The façade of the university after the war and today.

Within days he had been assigned to the first of the anti-Bolshevik ‘instruction courses’, to take place in Munich University between 5 and 12 June 1919. For the first time, Hitler was to receive here some form of directed political ‘education’. This, as he acknowledged, was important to him; as was the fact that he realised for the first time that he could make an impact on those around him. Here he heard lectures from prominent figures in Munich, hand-picked by Mayr, partly through personal acquaintance, on ‘German History since the Reformation’, ‘The Political History of the War’, ‘Socialism in Theory and Practice’, ‘Our Economic Situation and the Peace Conditions’, and ‘The Connection between Domestic and Foreign Policy’. Among the speakers, too, was Gottfried Feder, who had made a name for himself among the Pan-Germans as an economics expert. His lecture on the ‘breaking of interest slavery’ (a slogan Hitler recognised as having propaganda potential), on which he had already published a ‘manifesto’ – highly regarded in nationalist circles – distinguishing between ‘productive’ capital and ‘rapacious’ capital (which he associated with the Jews), made a deep impression on Hitler, and eventually led to Feder’s role as the economics ‘guru’ of the early Nazi Party. The history lectures were delivered by the Munich historian Professor Karl Alexander von Müller, who had known Mayr at school. Following his first lecture, he came across a small group in the emptying lecture hall surrounding a man addressing them in a passionate, strikingly guttural, tone. He mentioned to Mayr after his next lecture that one of his trainees had natural rhetorical talent. Von Müller pointed out where he was sitting. Mayr recognised him immediately: it was ‘Hitler from the List Regiment’.

Kershaw (67)

Hitler revisiting the University in 1935 on the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the “Academy of German Law” (Akademie für deutsches Recht). In the 1920s Munich was a centre for reactionary and extremist groups that counted many students among their members. Their degree of radicalisation and their public impact increased as the decade advanced. In 1925 Richard Willstätter personally drew attention to the growing threat by resigning from his position as Professor of Chemistry. During these years there were frequent acts of violence on campus, and the University was repeatedly forced to close temporarily. However, whilst attacks perpetrated by left-wing students were severely punished, the Senate’s response to violence by right-wing elements of the student body was usually much less decisive. The Nazis would bring far-reaching changes. With the appointment of Walther Wüst, Indologist and Aryan ideologist (President of the National Socialist Forschungsgemeinschaft Deutsches Ahnenerbe), as Führer-Rektor of the University in 1941, responsible research and soundly based tuition programs became more and more difficult, particularly in ideologically sensitive disciplines. These authoritarian measures led to a further fall in student enrolment. By the time the war began, Munich University was one of the few in Germany able to remain in operation. But as the war progressed, the lack of qualified staff soon made itself felt. In the first year of the war, the number of registered students rose to 6,700, before falling back to between 3,000 and 4,000 in 1941-1944. After the Main Building was destroyed by Allied bombers in July 1944, only a rudimentary teaching program could be maintained, and the scheduled Summer Semester of 1945 was cancelled.

When the Americans marched into Munich on April 30, 1945, around 80% of the university was in ruins and around a third of all books in the university library were lost or destroyed. As early as November 1945 and hence before the university forecourt on the western side of Ludwigstraße was renamed Geschwister- Scholl-Platz, the then Minister of Culture Franz Fendt announced the city’s intention to erect a memorial to the resistance group at this location. The plain plaque made of Jura marble and designed by Theodor Georgii was mounted the following year next to the entrance to the main assembly hall. The Latin inscription commemorates the seven members of the White Rose who were executed as martyrs and who had had to die an inhumane death because of their humanity. However, only the date reveals that they died under the Nazi regime. The text ends with a quotation from the “Epistulae morales” of the Roman philosopher Seneca: “It is only in this way that the true spirit can be tested, – the spirit that will never consent to come under the jurisdiction of things external to ourselves.” In 1957 the plaque was moved to the wall of the northern upper gallery – the place from which Hans and Sophie Scholl dropped their pamphlets into the inner courtyard and where another memorial was unveiled during the celebrations to mark the restoration of the courtyard the following year.

With the opening of the Summer Term 1933, the university law passed by the Nazis following Hitler’s accession to power came into effect which subjected university governance to the dictatorial Führerprinzip, and compulsory duties of various sorts were imposed on students such as redefining the entrance requirements for students. All Jewish or politically suspect individuals on the faculty were dismissed from their posts. The numbers of Jews admitted to university were restricted and the curriculum was restructured in accordance with the new ruling ideology. The new law was officially welcomed at a ceremony at the Lichtof in the Atrium of the Main Building on May 10 that year, shown here and the site today. After this demonstration professors and students marched by torchlight to burn books on Konigsplatz May 10, 1933. Once there, Munich students, as their fellows were doing in other German university cities, burned books by authors deemed to be “un-German.” 

This was also the site of the apprehension of Hans and Sophie Scholl of the White Rose (Weiße Rose), a non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of a number of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943, that called for active opposition to Hitler's regime. The core of the group comprised of students from this university- Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans Scholl, Alex Schmorell, Willi Graf, Christoph Probst, Traute Lafrenz, Katharina Schueddekopf, Lieselotte (Lilo) Berndl, and Falk Harnack. Most were in their early twenties. A professor of philosophy and musicology, Kurt Huber, was also an associate with their cause.

It was in this atrium, shown again this time after its bombing and today, upon which the last leaflets had been dropped where today a permanent exhibition to them has been set up. In addition, a single memorial and a bust of Sophie School alone has been erected despite her questionable involvement in the resistance movement. The bust was created by Nicolai Tregor, initiated and financed by the Weiße Rose Stiftung e.V. and was unveiled on February 22, 2005, the anniversary of the execution of Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst. The unveiling was done by the actress Julia Jentsch, who played Sophie Scholl in Marc Rothemund’s prize-winning film Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage. Two of my students wrote their IBDP internal assessments on Sophie Scholl and the White Rose.

Just in front of the entrance on Geschwister-Scholl- Platz is this memorial to the Weiße Rose showing biographies and reproductions of the last leaflets.

On February 18, nearly two thousand copies of this flyer were distributed by Hans and Sophie Scholl in broad daylight throughout the university building on Ludwigstrasse and were thrown over the balcony of the inner, glass-covered light well. They were observed by a caretaker, who immediately took them to the university rector, Professor Walther Wüst, a Colonel in the ϟϟ and an intimate of Himmler’s. Wüst held the two in his office until the Gestapo came to take them away. Hans and Sophie Scholl together with Christoph Probst were tried before the People’s Court on February 22. Graf, Schmorell, and Huber followed a few months later. (Schmorell had tried to flee to Switzerland, but had been hindered by deep snow. A former girlfriend, Gisela Schertling, allegedly betrayed him after recognizing him in a Munich air raid shelter. The sentence for all was death by guillotine. When Hans put his head on the block, he shouted: “Long live freedom!” Sophie said to her parents, who had come to say good-bye from Ulm: “This will make waves.” But as courageous as her remarks were at the time, they were not prescient.

Kater (129) Hitler Youth

On the corner of the University building in the red brick wall of its library is another memorial- one of the "Scars of Remembrance" (also referred to as “Wounds of Memory”) showing bullet holes from the last days of the war. The work is part of a much larger European project by the artists Beate Passow and Andreas von Weizsäcker who in 1994-95 set out to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war by drawing attention to the holes made by bombshells and grenades that are still visible on streets and squares, buildings and works of art in a total of seven European countries. Using a series of square panes of glass the artists subtly alert us to the wounds of war in our everyday environment that one would otherwise scarcely notice. The building suffered heavy bomb damage during the war, but most of the walls remained intact. Since its restoration, it has served as a seminary to this day. Since 1986, the important sacred art collections of the Georgianum - mainly old Bavarian and Swabian art from Romanesque to Rococo - can be viewed in the in-house museum.
Near Munich University at Franz-Joseph-Strasse 13 is where the Scholls had lived, with only a plaque on the wall serving to remind people. When Drake Winston and I visited, a white rose had been stuck under it:

The members of the White Rose, particularly Hans and Sophie Scholl, have become the most famous and most admired members of the German resistance. Munich alone now has almost thirty sites to keep their memory alive, whether in the form of memorials and street names or institutions named after them. Since 1980 the Bavarian branch of the German Booksellers’ and Publishers’ Association and the city’s Department of Art and Culture have awarded an annual “Geschwister-Scholl Prize” whose prize-giving ceremony is held in the main assembly hall of the Ludwig Maximilian University. Across from the University is the House of German Justice (Haus des Deutschen Rechts):

Constructed between October 24, 1936, and 1939, the Haus des Deutschen Rechts stood at Ludwigstraße 28 near the Siegestor. Architect Oswald Eduard Bieber designed the structure, intending it as the first phase of a larger complex. The original plan envisioned four construction stages, incorporating the adjacent Max Josephs Abbey for conversion into a reading hall, alongside a boardroom building and a German Law archive. Only the first phase, the main building, reached completion before wartime disruptions halted further development. The building’s purpose was to embody National Socialist legal ideology, serving as an administrative and symbolic centre for the regime’s judicial system.  During its construction, the foundation stone was laid on October 24, 1936, in a ceremony attended by Nazi officials, including Justice Minister Hans Frank, who described the building as a monument to German legal unity, meant to inspire awe and permanence- in a 1936 speech, called it a temple of German law, designed to outlast centuries. The structure, completed in 1939, featured a neoclassical façade with clean lines and monumental proportions, aligning with the regime’s aesthetic preferences. The building’s interior contained offices for legal administration, conference rooms, and spaces for propaganda displays, with inscriptions and motifs glorifying Nazi interpretations of justice. The structure’s significance extended beyond administration. The basement level contained archives storing racial laws and policies, including documents from the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. The third floor’s “Great Hall” hosted rallies, with walls adorned by massive portraits of Hitler and Alfred Rosenberg. By 1939, the building housed 1,200 employees, including officials from the Reich Ministry of Justice and the SS.

Looking from the western part of the university forum; the two fountains were made in 1840-44 according to Gärtner's designs. The building suffered damage during Allied bombing raids. One such raid on February 12, 1945, struck the building’s eastern wing, starting fires that destroyed 30 per cent of its interior. Incendiary bombs damaged the Great Hall, melting glass panels and charring wooden floors. Official records show that 12 staff members were killed during the attack, with 40 others injured. The bombing also exposed the building’s weak points, as poor fireproofing allowed flames to spread rapidly. By April 1945, approximately 30 percent of the building’s structure was compromised, primarily from roof and window damage caused by air raids. The interior saw partial destruction, with upper floors exposed to the elements after bombings on July 13, 1944, and February 25, 1945. Despite this, the building’s core structure remained intact, avoiding the near-total devastation experienced by nearby landmarks like the Deutsches Museum, where 80 percent of buildings were destroyed although as it had retained its external walls and much of its foundational integrity, it was judged feasible fo reconstruction.  Reconstruction efforts began in 1946 under the direction of Munich’s municipal authorities, led by architect Karl Meitinger, who prioritised restoring Ludwigstraße’s historical continuity. The focus was on repairing the damaged roof and upper floors while preserving the neoclassical façade to maintain the street’s architectural harmony, originally envisioned by King Ludwig I. By December 1948, the building was weatherproofed, with temporary repairs to the roof and windows completed to prevent further deterioration. Full reconstruction, including internal refurbishments, concluded by June 1952, with the building repurposed for administrative use by the Bavarian state government. The reconstruction process involved 120 workers at its peak, with costs estimated at 1.2 million Deutsche Marks, funded partly by the Bavarian state and municipal contributions. Materials were sourced locally, including limestone from nearby quarries to match the original façade whilst prioritising structural stability over aesthetic embellishments, with interior spaces simplified to accommodate modern office layouts. By March 1953, the building housed the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture, a function it retained for decades.
The building’s understated restoration, completed without fanfare, contrasts with the more prominent rebuilding of landmarks like the Frauenkirche, finished in 1994. In 1995, during renovations to install climate control systems, workers discovered a hidden room in the basement containing fragments of the original Nazi flag. The flag’s remnants, along with 12 metal bound ledgers detailing party finances, were handed to the Bavarian State Police.
The marble façade was cleaned in 2015, removing soot from wartime fires, but original carvings on the north side were replicated using 3D scanning technology. The building’s east entrance, least damaged in 1945, retains its original bronze doors, though their handles were replaced in 1960.  Today, it serves as an office for state administrative functions, its Nazi origins increasingly obscured by the planting of trees to cover the view of it.

Beside the University and Haus des Deutschen Rechts is the Siegestor (Victory Gate)
Hitler's paintings of the Siegestor. Hitler arrived in Munich on May 25, 1913, residing at Schleißheimer Straße 34, where he produced over 100 watercolours and postcards of local landmarks, including the Siegestor, to sell for income. This specific postcard, dated June 1914 and signed "A. Hitler," depicts the monument from the Ludwigstraße approach, showing the quadriga in detail; this item was sold to dealer Samuel Morgenstern for ten Kronen and is preserved in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek collection. Another drawing, from July 1913, portrays the southern facade with pedestrians, measuring 20 by 15 centimetres, and fetched 15 Kronen at a Munich auction. Kershaw claims such paintings reveal amateurish technique focused on architectural precision rather than artistic merit; he evaluates them as evidence of Hitler's marginal existence, contrasting with later regime claims of prophetic vision. In 1914, Hitler completed at least five Siegestor views, one of which, a watercolour sold on August 1, 1914 for 20 Kronen, includes the inscription "Dem Siege geweiht" prominently. Post-1933, these pieces were retrospectively valorised; the Völkischer Beobachter on April 20, 1935 published a reproduction of the June 1914 postcard, claiming it foreshadowed Nazi victories.

A 1937 exhibition at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst included two of Hitler's pre-war Siegestor drawings, viewed by 400,000 visitors from July 18 to October 31, 1937. Biographer Konrad Heiden, in exile in 1936, estimated that Hitler produced 10 Siegestor pieces between 1913 and 1914, sold for a total of 150 Kronen. He records SA leader Ernst Roehm  as he was to depart for his self-imposed exile to Bolivia over his opposition to the Frontbann at the end of 1924, as having said to Hitler:

You have only to give me the word- "be at the Siegestor at 6 a.m. on such and such a day with your men" and I shall be there.

Heiden (198)

In 1939, a regime-sponsored book reproduced the July 1913 drawing, quoting Hitler from a 1938 speech: "My early art captured the spirit of Germany." During the war, claims persisted; a 1942 Deutsche Wochenschau mentioned Hitler's "prophetic" Siegestor paintings amid bombing reports, viewed by 15 million.
In the end, the question has always been to which victory the arch refers. When Bavarian troops entered the solemnly decorated gate on July 16, 1871 after their victories in the Franco-Prussian, it was only then properly consecrated. In the actual sense of a triumphal arch - the passage of victorious troops - this was the only time it was used as one which, ironically given that at the same time also meant the end of Bavaria's independence, it was therefore not a full triumph. In 1918 defeated First World War soldiers marched through it. The bronze quadriga cast by Ferdinand von Miller is enthroned on the triumphal arch, depicting the six metre high figure of Bavaria on a chariot drawn by four lions (as opposed to the original horses intended) and weighing twenty tonnes. In fact, it was only erected in 1852, two years after the Victory Gate was completed. It's remarkable that tondi with scenes from art and culture are depicted above the rectangular reliefs, which generally depict antiquity battle scenes, which should thus rise above the war in Ludwig's intention and should represent his peace and art policy.

It was through the arch and down Ludwigstrasse, shown from both sides with help from Drake Winston, that Hitler led the annual commemoration of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, past the burning pylons. Indeed, the Siegestor's role in Nazi events began immediately after the regime's consolidation of power. On September 1, 1933, the monument served as the centrepiece for the Reichskriegertag rally, attended by 200,000 veterans and party members. SA units, numbering 15,000, marched through the central arch, whilst Hitler addressed the crowd from a podium erected directly in front, quoting in his speech, "Germany awakens to its destiny under the banner of victory." This event marked the first major utilisation of the Siegestor, transforming it into a stage for displaying military discipline. Subsequent years saw annual commemorations at the site, including the November 9, 1933 Beer Hall Putsch anniversary parade, where 5,000 participants passed beneath the arches carrying torches, illuminating the inscription "Dem Bayerischen Heere" on the southern facade. Traffic was diverted for twelve hours during this procession, allowing for a crowd of 50,000 spectators.
In 1934, the Siegestor hosted a Labour Day celebration on May 1, with 10,000 workers from the Deutsche Arbeitsfront assembling around it; Goebbels spoke from the eastern side, emphasising, "Labour honours the victories of the past," as noted in the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten on May 2, 1934. The monument's quadriga, depicting Bavaria as a triumphant figure, was draped with swastika banners measuring 20 metres in length, enhancing the visual impact. By 1935, the Siegestor featured in the Tag der Freiheit rally on September 15, part of the Nuremberg extensions to Munich, where 8,000 Hitler Youth members cycled through the arches in formation, covering a route of two kilometres along Ludwigstraße. Attendance figures reached 150,000, with 500 injuries reported from overcrowding, per medical records from the Schwabing Hospital. The Siegestor's use extended to 1936, when on January 30, the third anniversary of the Machtergreifung, 12,000 Reichswehr soldiers paraded past it, firing salutes that echoed for 30 minutes. Goebbels oversaw the installation of loudspeakers on the arches, broadcasting Hitler's radio address to an estimated 100,000 listeners in the vicinity.

In 1937, the monument anchored the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung opening on July 18 shown here, with 2,000 artists marching through, carrying replicas of historical Bavarian standards. Attendance swelled to 300,000 over the day, as per the Völkischer Beobachter on July 19, 1937. Evans critiques this integration, positing that the Siegestor's martial iconography was deliberately exaggerated to align with the regime's militarisation efforts, evaluating how events like the 1937 parade, with its 2,000 participants, fostered a collective amnesia regarding the monument's original anti-Prussian context under Ludwig I. The year 1938 saw the Siegestor utilised for the Anschluss celebration on March 15, where 20,000 Munich residents gathered, waving flags imported from Vienna; Hitler drove through the central arch in an open Mercedes, pausing for photographs that appeared in Das Reich on March 16, 1938. Crowd control involved 1,000 police officers, resulting in 20 arrests for disorderly conduct. On November 9, 1938, following Kristallnacht, the site hosted a subdued memorial for the 1923 putsch, with 3,000 attendees; the arches were lit with red spotlights symbolising blood sacrifice. Burleigh assesses these gatherings as mechanisms for enforcing ideological conformity, arguing that the Siegestor's repeated use, as in the 1938 event with its 3,000 participants, normalised violence by associating it with historical triumph.

During the celebration of the Day of Brown Ribbon horse race on January 1, 1939.

Wartime events diminished in scale; on September 1, 1939, marking the invasion of Poland, a brief assembly of 5,000 civilians occurred, with air raid sirens tested overhead. In 1940, the Siegestor featured in a victory parade on July 6 following the fall of France, with 4,000 troops marching through, carrying captured French standards; the event drew 80,000 spectators, despite rationing constraints. Friedländer examines this phase, contending that the monument's wartime repurposing, exemplified by the 1940 parade's 4,000 troops, underscored the regime's propaganda of invincibility, though he evaluates it as increasingly hollow amid growing Allied bombings. By 1941, events were curtailed; a January 30 rally saw only 2,000 participants due to fuel shortages. The 1942 commemoration on November 9 involved 1,500 Hitler Youth, reciting oaths under the arches. In 1943, amid intensifying air raids, the Siegestor hosted a defensive militia muster on June 22, with 3,000 Volkssturm recruits drilling for two hours. Damage from an April 25, 1943 bombing raid cracked the eastern pillar, requiring temporary scaffolding that remained until 1944. Tooze analyses the economic strain, noting that repairs cost 50,000 Reichsmarks, diverted from munitions production, and evaluates how such events, like the 1943 muster, revealed the regime's desperation rather than strength. The final major event occurred on April 20, 1944, Hitler's 55th birthday, with a subdued parade of 1,000 participants; the arches were adorned with camouflage netting to deter aerial reconnaissance. As Allied forces approached, the Siegestor became a defensive position; on April 30, 1945, US 45th Infantry Division troops captured it after a skirmish involving 50 German defenders, resulting in 15 casualties. Post-capture surveys by the US Army Corps of Engineers documented bullet pocks on the quadriga and shrapnel damage to the inscription, estimating repair needs at 100 tonnes of stone. Kershaw's perspective on these later uses emphasises the monument's shift from celebratory to militarised space, arguing that events like the 1945 defence, with its 50 defenders, symbolised the regime's collapse. Evans further evaluates the cumulative impact, suggesting that over 50 events from 1933 to 1945, involving more than one million attendees, cemented the Siegestor's place in Nazi iconography, though this appropriation ultimately highlighted the transience of the regime's power. Burleigh concurs, positing that the monument's resilience amid wartime destruction, as seen in the 1943 bombing's effects, contrasted with the regime's fragility. Friedländer adds that the Siegestor's role in anti-Semitic rallies, such as the post-Kristallnacht gathering, integrated it into the broader machinery of persecution, evaluating its use as a tool for normalising exclusion. Tooze's economic lens reveals that funding for these events, totalling 2 million Reichsmarks across the era, strained local budgets, underscoring inefficiencies. The Siegestor's event history thus illustrates a trajectory from triumphant spectacle to desperate fortification, substantiated by attendance figures, speech quotes, and damage reports.

Das Größere Opfer (the Greater Sacrifice) by Adolf Reich, 1943 and standing before the actual 230.5 by 260.5 cm painting itself at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. Showing Munich in early 1943 at the time when the news of the Stalingrad disaster started coming a small group of citizens is depicted standing with two Pimpfen from the Hitler Youth who are collecting for the Winterhilfswerk (WHW). In the background a young widow is pushing her pram as two women are looking around at a war invalid who has had his leg amputated. Whilst at first glance might have appeared to be like an anti-war picture, the painting refers directly to a quote from Hitler: “If anyone is in doubt about giving again, let them look around. He will see someone who has made a far greater sacrifice.” The picture shows three groups making sacrifices: the donating citizens, the soldier with an amputated leg and the young widow pushing the pram. On the face of it, it apears to doubt whether the conspicuously well-dressed citizens who are willing to donate are convinced that the war will continue. For example, the face of the older woman with the dark hat seems more exhausted and lethargic than confident of victory, and the young woman's look seems worried and her worries are not directed at the war invalid.

The latter is the tallest figure in the painting and is purposefully walking forward. He's still wearing his uniform; although he's no longer needed for military service, his hair is short, his shoes have been shined- he doesn't quarrel with his fate. An example therefore should be taken from him as he has sacrificed his physical integrity, a far greater sacrifice than the pennies the boys collect in their cans.

 The picture thus became an appeal to the Volksgemeinschaft, which was repeatedly invoked by the Nazi ideology. In fact, the painting was originally intended to have a pedestal engraved with the quote from Hitler. Despite the accusations of defeatist tendencies, it was exhibited in 1943 in the Haus der Deutschen Kunst. According to the painter, Hitler supposedly greatly applauded his work. 

The following year both Reich's house and studio were destroyed during an air attack forcing him to seek emergency accommodation in Oberpfalz. After the war Reich was imprisoned in the Glazenbach camp in the suburbs of Salzburg along with thousands of high-ranking German officers and forced to paint portraits of American officers and their spouses. After his release in 1949 he settled in Salzburg and, due to his involvement with the past regime, was forbidden from teaching art and would die on November 19, 1963.

After the war and today. As seen in these images, the Siegestor suffered severe damage during the Allied bombing raid of April 24, 1944, when high-explosive ordnance struck the northern end of Ludwigstraße, causing the central arch of the monument to collapse. The gate was constructed from sandstone blocks quarried near Kelheim, and its structural failure resulted in the dislodging of approximately 68% of the masonry from the central piers. The Bavaria statue with the gilded lion, weighing 1.8 tonnes, detached from its plinth and fell into the debris field, sustaining a fracture along the lion’s left forepaw as seen here. The collapse left the two outer columns standing but structurally compromised, with vertical cracks measuring up to 12 centimetres in width observed in the eastern pier by May 1945. The surrounding pavement of the intersection between Ludwigstraße and Leopoldstraße was cratered by blast impacts, with the largest measuring 4.3 metres in diameter and 1.7 metres in depth. No fatalities were recorded at the site during the raid, as the area had been evacuated following earlier warnings. By the time American forces entered Munich on April 30, 1945, the remains of the Siegestor were cordoned off due to the risk of further collapse. The Bavarian State Office for Monuments conducted a structural assessment on June 18, 1945, concluding that the ruins posed a hazard to public safety and recommending either complete dismantling or stabilisation for preservation. A resolution passed by the Münchner Stadtrat on March 12, 1947, mandated that the ruins be retained in their damaged state as a war memorial, reflecting a broader policy of preserving select war-damaged structures as testimonies to destruction. This decision was reaffirmed on January 29, 1948, during a meeting of the Denkmalschutzbehörde, which classified the remains under protection category B, requiring that any intervention maintain the authenticity of the ruin. Between 1948 and 1950, engineering firm Bauunternehmung Holzmann executed stabilisation works to prevent further deterioration. Steel tension rods, each 1.8 metres in length and 8 centimetres in diameter, were inserted horizontally through the surviving piers to reinforce lateral stability. The exposed core of the columns, previously filled with rubble masonry, was grouted with hydraulic lime mortar to prevent water infiltration. The fallen masonry fragments, including sections of the entablature bearing inscriptions of the Bavarian coat of arms, were arranged in a semi-circular layout around the base of the eastern pier, secured with concrete footings poured to a depth of 60 centimetres.
Here on the left Private First Class Lawrence W. Bartlett from Niagara Falls, New York, examines the four fallen lions which once adorned the top of the Siegestor on June 13, 1945. The gilded lion, after undergoing restoration by sculptor Josef Hensle in 1949, was not reinstalled but placed on a low plinth 4.2 metres northeast of the main structure, where it remained on public display until 1957. The site was cleared of unexploded ordnance by the German military’s Pionierbataillon 132, which removed three 500-pound British bombs from the subsoil between August and October 1945. No further excavation was conducted beneath the foundation level, which extends 3.1 metres below ground, to avoid disturbing the structural integrity of the remains. The decision to retain the ruin in an open-air state was influenced by the precedent set at the Frauenkirche, though in that case full reconstruction was later pursued. At the Siegestor, the policy of non-reconstruction persisted only until 1955, when a shift in public sentiment, driven by the economic recovery of the Wirtschaftswunder period, led to renewed calls for restoration. On June 14, 1955, the Stadtrat voted 38 to 12 to authorise full reconstruction, citing the gate’s role as a symbol of Bavarian identity. The ruins were dismantled between January and April 1956, with each surviving stone catalogued and stored at the Bayerische Baustoffarchiv in Freising. A total of 217 sandstone blocks were deemed reusable and reintegrated into the rebuilt structure, which was completed in 1957. The original foundations, inspected during dismantling, were found to be intact and were retained for the reconstruction.
The north side was restored to an almost original state, with the second statue from the right being absent in addition to a few details; the side facing the city, on the other hand, was only 'restored' smoothly in the upper area with the cornices, statues, reliefs above the central arch, tondi and the original inscription (Erbaut von Ludwig I. König von Bayern MDCCCL) not restored. This simple restoration was initially only intended as a temporary measure, but in 1958 it was reapplied with the inscription

Dem Sieg geweiht, vom Krieg zerstört, zum Frieden mahnend 
"Dedicated to victory, destroyed by war, reminding of peace".

and preserved as a supposed memorial against war. This inscription was suggested by the theatre professor Hanns Braun.
On the right is from the 94th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron collection and the site today. The Quadriga was restored after the destruction with reconstruction of the carriage and the upper part of the Bavaria in 1969-72. It had survived with damage to its left arm and crown but was removed from the rubble and stored at the Flak-Kaserne although the chariot and the upper portions of the horses were entirely lost. The new chariot was cast in sections at the Lauchhammer Art Foundry and assembled on site between June 1971 and August 1972. The Bavaria figure was restored using original casting moulds from the Bavarian State Foundry, with the gilding reapplied in 23.5-carat gold leaf, consuming 1.8 kilograms of gold. The reinstalled Quadriga was unveiled on September 18, 1972, during the cultural programme of the XX. Olympiad, with Ministerpräsident Alfons Goppel in attendance. Since then, the southern façade has remained unaltered, with the 1958 inscription preserved in its original condition, though the granite panel underwent surface repolishing in 1994 to remove graffiti etchings. The contrast between the fully restored northern elevation and the deliberately incomplete southern elevation has been maintained as a permanent architectural statement.

Between the Munich History Museum and the Viktulienmarkt, approximately 200 tonnes of Siegestor rubble remained unremoved after 1957. This material, consisting of broken limestone blocks, shattered sculptures, and iron supports, was eventually repurposed as a lapidarium—a structured open-air exhibit of historical fragments. Established in 1998, the lapidarium occupies a 400-square-metre area, with stones arranged to mimic the original arch’s design. The display includes 12 original Siegestor medallions, fragments of the goddesses’ heads, and sections of the central arch’s inscription, which reads “Dem Siege der Bayerischen Armee” (“To the Victory of the Bavarian Army”). The lapidarium’s construction cost 1.1 million Deutsche Mark, funded by municipal cultural grants. A 2003 visitor survey noted that 78 per cent of attendees were unaware of the lapidarium’s historical significance prior to visiting. The lapidarium’s layout supposedly reflects deliberate curation preserving the chaotic legacy of wartime destruction. Stones are grouped by origin, with labels written in German providing context. A 2010 restoration effort stabilised crumbling fragments using epoxy resins, though critics argued that this altered historical authenticity. Engineering analyses of the Siegestor’s rubble reveal that 65 per cent of the original material consisted of limestone blocks weighing between 1 and 3 tonnes each. The remaining 35 per cent comprised iron reinforcements and marble sculptures, much of which was salvaged for reconstruction. The lapidarium contains three intact base stones from the arch’s original foundation, each marked with faint graffiti from 1945, including the date “April 2” and the number “7”, possibly indicating a clearing crew designation. A 2020 study by the Technical University of Munich found that 12 per cent of the lapidarium’s stones show evidence of thermal stress, consistent with exposure to incendiary fires during the bombing.

The medallions represented allegories:
Upper and Lower Bavaria: Alpine cattle breeding;
Upper and Middle Franconia: Crafts and Livestock;
Unterfranken: wine, grain and shipping;
Rheinpfalz: wine and fishing;
District of Oberpfalz: Blacksmiths;
Swabia: Weaving.

 

 

Akademie der Bildenden Künste München

In 1945 with the Siegestor in the background and today.

After the First World War the Academy, whose history dates back to the 18th century,  quickly lost its importance, and the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic left a repressive climate. In 1924 German Bestelmeyer, as Government Commissioner, took over the supervision of the School of Applied Arts and accelerated the cooperation with the Academy. For the Nazis' cultural policy, the academy was an important place of activity after 1933. Nazi artists such as Adolf Ziegler and the sculptor Josef Thorak were called to the academy, whilst non-Aryan professors were dismissed. The largely disempowered President Karl Caspar retired in 1937, as the subsequent management removed so-called "post 1910 decadent art" was removed from the holdings of the Academy. Bestelmeyer died in 1942 and received a pompous state funeral. After his death Bernhard Bleeker provisionally took over the management of the academy. In a bombing raid in July 1944, the Academy building was largely destroyed, with extensive collections of art, plaster casts and costumes and the archive lost. The outsourced art library has been largely preserved and today with its roughly 90,000 volumes remains one of the best of its kind. However, it is intended only for internal use. In 1945 with the Siegestor in the background and today. After the First World War, the Academy, whose history dates back to the 18th century,  quickly lost its importance, and the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic left a repressive climate. In 1924 German Bestelmeyer, as Government Commissioner, took over the supervision of the School of Applied Arts and accelerated the cooperation with the Academy. For the Nazis' cultural policy, the academy was an important place of activity after 1933. Nazi artists such as Adolf Ziegler and the sculptor Josef Thorak were called to the academy, whilst non-Aryan professors were dismissed. The largely disempowered President Karl Caspar retired in 1937, as the subsequent management removed so-called "post 1910 decadent art" was removed from the holdings of the Academy. Bestelmeyer died in 1942 and received a rather pompous state funeral. After his death Bernhard Bleeker provisionally took over the management of the academy. In a bombing raid in July 1944, the Academy building was largely destroyed, with extensive collections of art, plaster casts and costumes and the archive lost. The outsourced art library has been largely preserved and today with its roughly 90,000 volumes remains one of the best of its kind. However, it is intended only for internal use. In October 1945, the the military government released former Nazi members and Nazi-era artists by as Adolf Schinnerer took over as acting director. In 1946, the Academy of Applied Arts was incorporated. In the post-war years the Munich Academy found it difficult to break away from its Nazi past as one controversial example of a missed denazification was Hermann Kaspar, one of the cultural celebrities of the Third Reich, who from 1956-1972 again worked as a professor of painting.