More Nazi Sites in Swabia

Augsburg has its own dedicated page

Memmingen

Rathausplatz in a Nazi-era postcard and when I cycled through in July 2024. Self-described as "at the gateway to the Allgäu," Memmingen in the fourth largest town in Swabia. It has also come up with the slogan "Memmingen - City of Civil Liberties" as a reference to the historical Twelve Articles. These were among the demands that peasants made against the Swabian League in Memmingen during the German Peasants' War in 1525. Despite the Magna Carta dating over three centuries earlier, they are promoted by the town as one of the first written demands for human rights and civil liberties in Europe calling for a kind of constitutional assembly that "attributes political power, albeit only in basic terms, to certain institutions".

To mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Memmingen renamed its observation tower the "Bismarck Tower" in 1908. The GIF shows the observation tower on Hühnerberg on October 14, 1904, a few weeks after its inauguration, and today. Bismarck's coat of arms, originally coloured and made by master stonemason Georg Pöppel, and a Bismarck relief, made by sculptor Gustav Adolf Daumiller from Memmingen and cast by Christoph Lenz from Nuremberg, were subsequently attached to the bay window. Below the Bismarck coat of arms was the Bismarck motto IN TRINITATE ROBUR. Today the motto no longer exists and the coat of arms has since been painted over in white with the entrance bricked up. Between 1943 and 1945, the Bismarck Tower served as a listening post for the nearby prisoner of war camp, Stalag VIIB. In 2000, the tower was renovated and the white paint was renewed. On July 28, 2011, unknown persons set fire to the tower with material damage amounting to 5,000 euros. 

For some reason, an art installation  commemorating the centenary of the Beer Hall Putsch was placed within sight of it when I visited. Titled  "Alles stammt Heil,"it's supposed to symbolically show the beginning of the Hitler putsch, and thus also the beginning of the abolition of democracy using violence, propaganda and intimidation. The chair, as the main element of the installation, is described as an artistic appeal to society to- again, not clearly explained- resolutely oppose the right-wing extremist, anti-Semitic and misanthropic tendencies of the present day. Hitler stood on a chair on November 8, 1923 when he and an armed squad attacked a meeting of patriotic associations in the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich in order to make himself heard before firing a shot into the ceiling, shouting "[t]he national revolution has broken out. The Bavarian government has been deposed. The Reich government has been deposed. A provisional Reich government will be formed."

The plan was for the installation to travel, especially to inform schoolchildren about the events of that time which, given this was seemed to be randomly placed in a car park on the outskirts of the town seven months after the anniversary, seemed to defeat the purpose. 

Hitler came to Memmingen to speak at a Nazi Party meeting on January 18, 1928. His speech, "Die deutsche Not und unser Weg" (The German Distress and Our Way) was held at the Schiffsaal from from 20.00 to 22.30. The public meeting, which according to the local paper, the Memminger Volksblatt, was attended by about 1,200 people, was led by the local group leader Wilhelm Schwarz. The Nazis took 35% of the vote in Memmingen in the July 1932 national election which was slightly above the national average. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, the city was run by the Nazis under the mayor Heinrich Berndl who would hold this position until the invasion and occupation of the town by the Americans. The Americans dismissed him in May 1945 but would be re-elected mayor "as a candidate of the CSU and the Free Voters" in 1952. Today there's a Dr.-Berndl-Strasse in the town. Hitler was awarded honorary citizenship of the city (as in almost all German cities) and the Weinmarkt was now renamed Adolf Hitler Platz. A Youth Day was held throughout Bavaria on May 7 that year when all of Memmingen's schools took part in planting an Hindenburg and an Hitler oak in front of the festival hall in the Volkspark 17.00.

Hitler Youth paying on the ruins of the former synagogue, destroyed during Kristallnacht. When the Nazis took power, there were 161 Jews in the town. Immediately their lives suffered as the Nazis imposed an economic boycott with the newspaper "Allgäuer Beobachter" listing all Jewish businesses by name and urged the population not to enter them. As Kershaw (121) writes in Popular opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich 

 Fears of inflation and war together with general uncertainty about the future, widely reported in 1934 and increasing during the preparations for the Saar plebiscite in January 1935, also sharply affected the mood of the commercial middle class. In addition, the continued thriving of Jewish department stores and ‘single-price shops’ (Einhettspreisgeschafte) remained a thorn in the flesh for small shopkeepers. In Memmingen tradesmen were saying bitterly that ‘such department stores would probably only be closed when the small business men have been robbed of their existence.’

By 1936 Jewish cattle dealers were no longer allowed to enter the town slaughterhouse. By 1940 there were only about forty Jews left, 37 having emigrated or moving to other communities. The economic boycott was carried out particularly vigorously by the city's population. As a result, the Jewish community members had to sell their houses and other possessions very quickly. In the summer of 1939, the last community members (about 60) had to live in five houses, and in 1941 the 40 people still alive had to move into a house with two apartments. In the spring of 1942, 25 Jews from Memmingen were brought to Fellheim, from there deported and killed in the concentration camps in the east of the Reich. 

During Kristallnacht the Nazi district leader of Memmingen received orders from Augsburg to arrest all Jews in the town, burn down the synagogue and confiscate the community archives. After the benches and candlesticks had been removed from the synagogue and prayer books and other ritual items had been removed, the building was blown up with TNT explosives and demolished under the direction of the Nazi district leader, helped by many townspeople including schoolchildren and their teachers. Some of the demolition workers put on the top hats they had found in the synagogue. The destruction took a whole week with the Jewish community forced to cover the costs of 12,000 Reichsmarks. This memorial stone on the site of the former synagogue commemorates the event. The house of the Jewish religious teacher was also destroyed, as were another 23 houses and three shops on Kramerstrasse, Herrenstrasse and Moltkestrasse. Kershaw (263) goes on to write how "[i]n a smaller town like Memmingen, where the organised destruction of the synagogue and accompanying outrages took place a day later than everywhere else in the Reich, both approving and disapproving voices could be heard from the assembled crowd, though most were careful to hold their tongues."

Memmingen was targeted by the Allies during the war in particular because of the Luftwaffe 's Memmingerberg air base in nearby Memmingerberg built in 1935 and 1936. Between 1944 and 1945 there were five air raids, most of which targeted this air base. The first major attack on the base took place on March 18, 1944. Two bombing raids on the city itself took place on July 20, 1944 and April 9, 1945 during which almost the entire southern old town and the tanners' quarter were razed to the ground which the GIFs here try to convey. A third major raid on the city took place shortly before the end of the war on Hitler's birthday on April 20, 1945. In total, over 30% of the residential buildings were destroyed, including buildings such as the Siebendächerhaus shown here on the left, which was immediately propped up and thus saved from total destruction. Commissioned in 1601, the building had been built on the foundations of a 13th century building that had previously been demolished and used by the tanners' guild as a communal house for drying the hides until it eventually became an inn. It's thanks to the interlocking half-timbering that it's still standing today as when the detonation of the bomb on the tanner's square blew out all of the filling material of the half-timbering, only the half-timbering remained leaning. Dedicated Memmingen citizens propped up the house immediately after the bombing raid using an extremely complicated cable pull device and painstakingly reconstructed it using the original parts. Its eventual reconstruction took place from 1946-1951. 

Looking further to the right onto Gerbergasse. The photo taken the day after the bombing comes from an information board set up by the town council which includes the following from Professor and artist Hans Weis, author of "German Language Games", "The Lantern of Diogenes - Anecdotes from Antiquity" and "Cheerful French," after walking through the devastation on April 21, 1945:

In these fields of rubble, one finds it "quite OK" that there is no order at all here. That sheet music, cactus, dented cake tins, Curtius's Greek History, hats, corpses, scraps of metal and wire lie peacefully together next to toilet bowls. The style of destruction also includes the gas stoves and bathtubs hanging high up in rooms, the scraps of clothing on the splintered trees.

The train station district was also completely destroyed which is how Memmingen got its third train station, which remained until the end of the 20th century. The bombed station at the end of Maximilianstraße after the July 20, 1944 raid and its replacement is shown on the right. 630 people lost their lives in the bombings. 635 buildings were completely or largely destroyed. 300 apartments were totally destroyed and 975 were severely damaged. Air raid warnings or advance warnings were given 437 times in the last sixteen months of the war. A police report dating from August 1944 reported how there was “no doubt that the fear of a lost war is much greater today than it was in 1918. he vast majority of the people fear the terrible consequences that this lost war would bring.”

The Reichshain and Frauenkirche after the April 20, 1945 bombing showing the destroyed town walls which also would not be rebuilt until 1951. Because the city was never attacked from the south during sieges and the city fortifications were secured there with the large roundabout and the so-called gschwöllt Wasser, the church itself escaped war damage. This however changed during the bombing raid on April 20, 1945 during which the four-part cross-ribbed vault in the west bay of the northern aisle collapsed. Luckily the frescoes in the main nave and the arcade arches remained intact; whitewashed in 1602 and only uncovered at the end of the 19th century, they're considered today amongst the most valuable of the late Gothic period. That said, the pressure waves caused all 43 of the church's windows to burst, including the large choir windows. The roofs were blown off and the main portal was torn apart by the air pressure. It wasn't until 1955 that the traces of the bombing were completely removed and the original condition restored as far as possible. 

A few images of the destruction of Schmiedplatz along Hintere Salzgasse. The Ottobeuren Volkssturm was ordered to Memmingen at 3.30 in the morning with pickaxes and shovels, bicycles, and a day's worth of food to clean up the rubble, and several bombed-out Memmingen residents found shelter in Ottobeuren. Remarkable photos of the aftermath of the bombing taken photographer authorised by the Nazi district leadership are available here. They show, among other things, the Reichshain 'ploughed up' by several waves of bombs being left with nothing more than a field of craters, Maximilianstrasse, Waldhornstrasse, the destroyed building of Josef Eisele (which is now Reischmann sports shop), the burnt-out Frauenmühle, the Siebendächerhaus on Lindentorstrasse, the destroyed Pfeffer company at the freight station, Salzstrasse, Schmiedplatz and the destroyed railway facilities. 

Looking down Hintere Salzgasse on the left. The building on the right, the Salzstadel, was rebuilt between 1470 and 1474 for the salt delivered from Bad Reichenhall. An example of the importance of the building is shown by the fact that in 1468 citizens took their oath before the council inside.

 The end of the building is shown here below from a photograph taken by a former American prisoner of the Stalag, Ray Sherman, soon after his liberation from Stalag VII B on April 26, 1945, with the caption: "Two Ex POWs after a shopping round which [sic] the aquired [sic] new head gear."

On its information board the following cynical directive from the Memmingen Nazi district leadership published in the Allgäuer Beobachter a month earlier on March 23, 1945 is quoted:

Leave the first flowers standing! The sunny days after the long winter have caused the first flowers to sprout from the ground: the white of the snow is replaced by the friendlier white of the snowdrops. It is only too understandable that the children pounce on these first spring flowers because they believe that everyone has the right to take as much of nature's gifts as possible. But that is not the case. All people should have an equal share in what nature produces, and especially now, when so many of us have lost our possessions, untouched nature is the greatest consolation and the best relaxation. Those who love nature protect it. Those who do not protect it are committing a crime against the national community.

The editor of the editor of the Allgäuer Beobachter was Wilhelm Schwarz. Schwarz was the Nazi branch leader and from 1927 district leader in Memmingen. He was born in Memmingen in 1902, joined the Nazi Party in 1926 and set up legal practice in the town in April 1930. He was a gifted public speaker and was the leading light in the local party. In 1928, Schwarz joined the Association of National Socialist German Lawyers. From 1929 to 1935, he was a city councillor in Memmingen; for the first four years, having led the Nazi Party faction there. In September 1930 he was given a mandate in the Reichstag which he held until 1945. The stain glass on the left depicting the town hall surrounded by Hitler salutes commemorating the Nazi seizure of power was given to him in 1942 for his 40th birthday. At the end of the war he fled Memmingen and was captured by American troops in Markt Rettenbach on April 26, 1945 and subsequently interned. In 1948 would be sentenced to two years in prison for destroying the synagogue a decade earlier

On April 26, 1945, the city was peacefully handed over to the Americans. 15% of the living space was destroyed. The housing shortage was exacerbated by refugees streaming into the city; mass accommodation was set up. Of the town's total population of 25,343, 6,691 displaced persons were living in Memmingen in 1950. By 1968 the population had risen to almost 35,000.

What particularly drew me to cycle all the way to Memmingen on a July day was this photo album from a liberated American PoW from Stalag VII B prisoner of war camp for enlisted men and non-commissioned officers. It was a camp in Wehrmacht District VII for the administrative district of Swabia, which was built in the summer of 1940 in the former SA sports school and was intended to relieve the pressure on Stalag VII A in Moosburg. The capacity of the main camp was initially designed for around a thousand and finally around 1,700 PoWs. In addition to the command post, the camp complex contained a military office for registering prisoners for work, a civilian office of the employment office, a post office, clothing office, supply office, chapel and a hospital. The dead were buried in the town's Waldfriedhof. The prisoners were distributed across numerous work commands in Swabia and deployed in agriculture or industrial operations. Attempts to escape were punished with transfer to the Dachau concentration camp.

As part of the so-called Commissar Order, Soviet prisoners of war were brought to Dachau in the fall of 1941 and murdered there, most notably in the nearby Hebertshausen ϟϟ shooting range. Stalag VII B was liberated by American troops on April 26, 1945 from when these photos date. The town was then handed over by Mayor Dr. Berndl on April 26, at 16.45 without a fight. Roughly a thousand armoured infantry with forty to 80 heavy tanks and 100 other motorised vehicles of the 10th Armoured Division of the United States Army under the command of General Patton entered the town from Heimertingen. As seen here, the Union Jack and Stars and Stripes were hoisted at the town hall. Lieutenant Colonel Wolter then became the city commander with Mayor Berndl remaining provisionally in office.

These and the photos that follow are from Corporal Sherman's album.

He had originally been assigned to Company "L" of the 302nd Regiment, 94th Infantry Division. He was taken captive on February 16, 1944 after the Anzio landings and arrived in Memmingen on June 16. 

Arrived at Stalag VIIB, Memmingen. Registered, had my picture taken, and was issued prisoner # 12048. Received a British parcel. Got nothing on the four hour train ride in boxcars again. The country is nice but cool. I slept in a large tent on wood shavings. We carry all of our possessions with us wherever we can.

The location of the photo on the left was literally pointed out to me by one of the ladies at the tourist office from the window, the wall being directly across and the cars parked in front of the town hall. 

During his time as a prisoner of war Sherman kept a diary written on strips of paper torn from a cement bag. He'd made three attempts to escape, his last three days before liberation when he writes 

We were in the haymow, when at 5:30 PM we heard motorized vehicles. We heard the lady shout, "Americanishe Panzer!" We peeked out and saw some thirteen vehicles going on the road. They were not familiar to us, but we went out to greet the Fourth Armor Division. The first thing I asked for was a pair of socks and a K-ration. We were taken to Horgau to Division Headquarters.

By April 1945, the Anglo-American forces had already crossed the Rhine River and were rapidly advancing eastward. The American Seventh Army, under the command of General Alexander Patch, was tasked with clearing the area south of the Danube River, which included Memmingen. The 45th Infantry Division, led by Major General Robert T. Frederick, was ordered to capture the town. The division consisted of three infantry regiments: the 157th, 179th, and 180th. The 157th Infantry Regiment, commanded by Colonel Charles W. Yuill, was responsible for the assault on Memmingen. The invasion itself was led by elements of the 12th Armoured Division, known as the "Hellcats," a unit of the American Seventh Army. The division, commanded by Major General Roderick R. Allen, had been advancing through Bavaria, taking towns and cities as the Allies closed in on Germany's southern regions. The 12th Armoured Division had previously faced heavy fighting, but by the time they reached Memmingen, German resistance had significantly weakened. As mentioned, upon entering Memmingen, the American forces encountered little to no organised resistance. The swift occupation was a result of the crumbling German military infrastructure and the rapid retreat or surrender of remaining Wehrmacht units. The Americans quickly established control over the town, taking over key infrastructure and strategic points shown in some of Sherman's photographs.   

The Americans making their way down Weinmarkt. Following the occupation, the Americans established a provisional administration to manage the town and maintain order. It was responsible for disarming any remaining German military personnel, arresting Nazi officials, and securing key infrastructure. The occupying forces also undertook efforts to provide humanitarian aid to the civilian population, addressing shortages of food and medical supplies that had arisen due to the war. 

Stalag VII B at liberation held approximately 30,000 Allied PoWs, primarily from the United States, United Kingdom, Dominion of Canada, and the Soviet Union. The camp was under the command of Oberst Ludwig Schmahl who, upon learning of the American advance, ordered the camp's evacuation on April 26, 1945. Around 18,000 prisoners were forced to march westward whilst the remaining prisoners were left behind in the camp with inadequate food, water, and medical supplies. When the 157th Infantry Regiment's Company G, led by Captain Robert L. Gallagher arrived, they found approximately 12,000 prisoners.

Whilst the liberation of Stalag XII-B marked the end of a long period of suffering for the PoWs, the immediate aftermath brought its own challenges. The town's infrastructure had been severely damaged during the fighting, and the large influx of liberated PoWs placed a significant strain on Memmingen's resources. The American military established a temporary hospital in Memmingen to treat the sick and injured PoWs. By early May 1945, most of the liberated PoWs had been transported to reception centres in Britain as well as France.  The US military maintained a presence in Memmingen for several months after the invasion. The 45th Infantry Division was replaced by the 10th Armoured Division, which oversaw the town's occupation and demilitarisation.  

Nördlingen

The town of Nördlingen was unknowingly built inside a meteorite impact crater, and now all of the buildings are composed of tiny diamonds. It wasn't until 1939 that Nördlingen again reached the population of 1618 at the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, an historical turning point of which was the siege of Nördlingen and the subsequent battle of Nördlingen in 1634, in which the Swedish-Protestant forces were decisively defeated by the imperial - Habsburg troops for the first time. The city had to open up to the victors, but wasn't plundered by the victorious troops after high reparation payments. However, during and after the siege, the city lost more than half of its population to starvation and disease. Also in the War of Spanish Succession, the city was affected by the effects of the nearby Battles of Höchstädt. After the war, trade shifted to the seaports - another reason why Nördlingen lost its importance as a trading centre. Due to the forced standstill, the medieval townscape was well preserved.

The town hall and Zur Sonne in 1935 and standing in front today. Four days after Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, torchbearers of the SA and ϟϟ from Nördlingen, Oettingen, Wallerstein, Wemding and other nearby villages marched alongside a drum corps and the Nördlingen city band through the city centre. In the Hotel Deutsches Haus Theodor Hippler was announced the Reichsbahninspektor and Nazi Kreisleiter, proclaiming that a new chapter of German history had begun, which will be "once overwritten: dawn on Germany". The hotel itself was bombed on the night of October 12-13, 1941 when the mediæval town experienced the force of modern warfare for the first time as British airmen became aware of a light in the town centre. The main wing of the Deutschen Haus hotel with its dining rooms and guest rooms on the ground floor and the guest rooms on the upper floors located on the north side of Löpsinger Straße became the target that night. Under the rubble were four dead and four seriously injured. A second explosive bomb hit the courtyard of the restaurant "Zum Rad" that night, damaging the roof. In the spring of 1945, a total of 33 people were killed in air raids at the end of the war. The station and several dwellings were destroyed and the St. George church was heavily damaged. The almost complete rest of the historic old town remained spared.

The rathaus, known historically as the Stone House and cited as the oldest stone town hall in Germany, shown in Nazi-era postcards and today. Before 1933, the town was governed by a coalition of local political parties, predominantly the Centre Party and the Social Democrats. The Centre Party had held significant influence due to the town’s strong Catholic identity. The Social Democrats, representing the working class, also had a substantial presence. This political diversity meant that the initial acceptance of the Nazi Party in Nördlingen wasn't as straightforward as in other regions. The Centre Party’s resistance to the Nazis was rooted in their religious convictions and fear of losing political power, illustrated in the town council’s minutes from 1932, where Centre Party members expressed concerns about the Nazis' anti-Catholic rhetoric and their potential to disrupt local governance. However, this resistance was ultimately futile as the Nazis employed coercive tactics to dismantle opposition. On March 9, 1933, local stormtroopers hoisted the swastika flag on the roof of the building, replacing the republican colours of the Weimar era. The large exterior Renaissance staircase, constructed in 1618, became a focal point for propaganda events. The Nazi District Leader and other party functionaries utilised the stone landing of the staircase as a podium to address mass gatherings in the Market Square below. The imposition of Nazi governance in Nördlingen began with the Gleichschaltung process, which aimed to synchronise all aspects of German life with Nazi ideology. Through this the town’s mayor, a member of the Centre Party, was replaced by a Nazi appointee, Dr. Hans Schmidt, in April 1933. Schmidt’s appointment was part of a broader strategy to ensure Nazi control over local administration. The town council was reconstituted with Nazi members, and all local organisations, including schools, churches, and social clubs, were brought under Nazi influence. The imposition of the Nazi-controlled Deutsche Arbeitsfront in 1933 further marginalised non-Nazi workers’ organisations, effectively silencing dissent. Following the seizure of power in 1933, the local Nazi leadership appropriated the Town Hall to demonstrate their authority over the city. The building's architecture, with its massive quarry stone masonry and timber-framed upper stories, was idealised by Nazi cultural theorists as a representation of the durability and tradition of the German people.  Administratively, this was the site where the racial policies of the Nazi state were implemented at the local level. The civil registry office within was responsible for processing the Certificates of Aryan Ancestry required by the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of April 7, 1933, and later the Nuremberg Laws of September 15, 1935. During the war, the municipal administration was responsible for the distribution of rationing cards for food, clothing, and coal. Citizens were required to report to the Town Hall to collect coupons for bread, meat, and fats. The building also housed the administrative unit responsible for the allocation of forced labourers to local businesses and farms. During the air raid of April 20, 1945 whilst the USAAF bombed the railway facilities and the eastern gates, the shockwaves from the high-explosive ordnance impacted the city centre with the windows of the town hall shattered, and the roof tiles dislodged by the blasts. However, unlike the residential buildings in the immediate vicinity of the Deininger Gate, the massive mediæval walls of the Stone House withstood the concussion without structural collapse. The deep vaulted cellars of the Town Hall, originally used for the storage of goods in the Middle Ages, served as a public air raid shelter for the employees of the municipal administration and civilians caught in the city centre during air alarms.

Wife and son on the stairs of the rathaus which date from 1618- the year the Thirty Years War broke out- and the same stairs as depicted in 1927 by the painter Richard Benno Adams (now in the stadtmuseum). Richard Adams was married to Margarete with whom they had two daughters, living at Prinzenstrasse 30 in Munich-Neuhausen. From the spring 1940 Richard Berndl's son Otto and his wife Lilo Ramdohr rented an apartment on the first floor. After Otto's death in May 1942, Alexander Schmorell, Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst often came here, and boxes of White Rose leaflets were deposited here. In February 1943 Falk Harnack was visiting Lilo Ramdohr when, through her mediation, he made contact with the White Rose. Schmorell found shelter in Adam's house on February 18-19, 1943, at the beginning of his fateful escape. In March-April 1943, Richard Adams's widow, Margarete, and daughter Margit were interrogated by the Gestapo without success. 

It wasn't until the first year of the war in 1939 that the town's population reached the level it had been at the start of the Thirty Years War in 1618. I highly recommend the animated historical documentary series created by Youtube channel Kings and Generals; this one on the Thirty Years' War concerns the Second Battle of Nördlingen in 1645 in the aftermath of the battle of Jankow. The rathaus itself has been used continuously since 1382.

Hitler spoke in Nördlingen on October 11, 1932 attacking von Papen’s Government:

Either they govern as we wish—then we will bear the responsibility—or they do not govern as we wish—then the others bear the responsibility. I do not believe in any regime which is not anchored in the Volk itself. I do not believe in an economic regime. One cannot build a house from the top, one must begin at the bottom. The foundations of the State are not the Government, but rather the Volk. And my answer to the bourgeois parties and politicians who have been sleeping since November 1918 while National Socialism has been working is this: now your time is up, now it’s our turn. When Herr von Papen says: “Herr Hitler, you are only here because there is a crisis,” my answer is, “Yes, and if good fortune were here, I would not be needed, and I would not be here, either!”

The Bergertor in a Nazi-era postcard and today. On June 18, 1940, Hitler had met in Munich with Mussolini. On the way Hitler's special train stopped briefly for roughly ten minutes at the main Nördlinger railway station. The Nazi district leadership had been informed in time, and managed to organise about a thousand people to cheers at the station with barrier posts barely able to push people away from the special train. The schoolchildren had been specially released from school to see Hitler and a BdM girl handed a bouquet of flowers to the dictator. Soon after Augsburger Straße was renamed after Mussolini. The following month an infantry regiment was quartered in the city, and the arrival of the soldiers became a local spectacle with the marketplace crowded with onlookers around the specially constructed podium. Deputies from the party, their divisions and associations took part along with wounded from the Maria Stern reserve hospital and their nurses. The regiment had marched 1,200 kilometres from France to Nördlingen.
During the war prices for basic foodstuffs increased dramatically so that eggs for some were no longer affordable. Up to 85 reichsmarks had to be paid for suckling pigs on the Nördlingen pig market an increase of fifty percent from peacetime. Not even during the hay harvest was even enough beer delivered. The increasing bottlenecks in the food supply, led the Nazis to focus on the management of fallow land. In April 1940 Nördlingen joined Hermann Göring's exhortation to provide fallow land for the use of the gas factory.

Seeking refuge from the rain within the Deininger Tor and as it appeared before the war. Deininger Gate an the other four town gates- Berger, Baldinger, Loepsinger and Reimlinger gates- remained the sole points of vehicular entry into Nördlingen's town centre throughout the Nazi era. Nördlingen possesses one of the few completely preserved medieval defensive walls in Germany and under the Nazis this fortification system was integrated into the ideological and military apparatus of the Third Reich. To them the circular wall, with its covered sentry walk and five city gates, as a tangible representation of Germanic strength and racial continuity. The preservation of the cityscape was prioritised by the Reich Chamber of Culture to serve as a model of the ideal German hometown. Ideologically, the Nazis utilised the walls as a stage for mass propaganda events such as the Ries Homeland Days festival in 1937 when the local party organisation decorated the gates with swastika banners and oak leaf garlands. The sentry walk, which circumnavigates the town for just under two miles, was used for torchlight processions by the Hitler Youth and the ϟϟ, intended to link the mediæval defenders of the city with the paramilitary forces of the Nazi state. The Daniel, the 90-metre tower of the St. George Church located at the centre of the walled city, served as a platform for flying the swastika flag, which was visible from all points along the wall.
On the right is the Löpsinger Tor then and now. The physical constriction of the walls facilitated the surveillance of the population by the local police and the ϟϟ. During Kristallnacht for example, the walls acted as a containment zone. The synagogue, situated within the wall perimeter near the market area, was sacked by Nazi stormtroopers. The Jewish community, which had resided within the protection of these walls for centuries, was systematically isolated within the fortifications before their deportation to extermination camps in occupied Poland. From that time onwards, the function of the walls shifted from ideological display to passive air defence. The Nazi air raid protection league established observation posts on the prominent towers along the wall and atop the Daniel. These lookouts were tasked with monitoring Allied bomber formations heading towards targets in Munich or Nuremberg. The thick masonry of the city walls and the gate towers provided makeshift shelter for civilians during air raid alarms, although the primary shelters were located in the deep cellars of the private houses and breweries within the city centre.
As the Allied ground forces approached the Bavarian border in the spring of 1945, the Nazi district leadership declared Nördlingen a defensive strongpoint. On March 28, 1945, the local district leader issued orders to fortify the city against the advancing United States Army. The Wehrmacht and local ϟϟ units requisitioned forced labourers and members of the Volkssturm to construct anti-tank barriers at the five city gates. These barriers were substantial engineering works designed to stop armoured vehicles. At the Deininger Gate and the Baldinger Gate, workers drove heavy timber logs vertically into the ground and the roadbed. The spaces between the logs were filled with stones, earth, and debris, effectively sealing the archways. The Nazi command intended to force the American tanks to breach the historic walls with artillery fire, thereby buying time for the retreating German units to regroup across the Danube.

Here and below is the Bergertor then and now, seen from both sides. The war arrived directly at the walls of Nördlingen on April 20, 1945. At 11:15 in the morning, bombers from the United States Army Air Forces initiated an attack on the Nördlingen railway station. The station is located immediately outside the southeastern section of the wall, between the Deininger Gate and the Loepsinger Gate. The proximity of this strategic transport hub to the medieval fortifications resulted in significant collateral damage. High explosive bombs struck the area around the Deininger Gate. The blast wave and shrapnel destroyed the roof structure of the gate tower and collapsed sections of the adjacent sentry walk. The Spitzturm, a defensive tower situated on the wall segment between the Deininger and Loepsinger gates, sustained severe structural damage.The bombing raid on April 20, 1945, killed 14 civilians and destroyed 33 residential buildings within the walled city. The gas works, located just outside the walls near the Deininger Gate, were also hit, severing the municipal energy supply. Following the raid, chaos ensued within the fortifications. The local ϟϟ commanders insisted on defending the city to the last man, despite the damage to the defensive perimeter. They positioned machine gun nests in the towers and along the sentry walk, aiming through the medieval arrow slits and embrasures.
On April 21, 1945, and April 22, 1945, elements of the US Army 12th Armoured Division approached Nördlingen from the west and northwest. American reconnaissance units identified the blocked gates and the manned positions on the walls. To avoid a protracted siege that would necessitate the heavy shelling of the historic centre, the American artillery fired warning shots onto the outskirts. The situation within the walls became critical as the local population feared the complete destruction of the city. On the morning of April 23, 1945, the resistance of the local Nazi leadership collapsed. The Kreisleiter and high-ranking ϟϟ officers fled the city, leaving the Volkssturm and a few Wehrmacht soldiers to man the barricades. Recognising the futility of defence, local police officials and citizens defied the standing orders to fight to the death. They ascended the Daniel tower and hoisted a white flag, signalling surrender to the American forces positioned on the surrounding ridges. Simultaneously, white sheets were displayed from the battlements near the Berger Gate and the Reimlinger Gate. The Yanks entered Nördlingen on April 23, 1945. Because the main gates were blocked by the heavy anti-tank barriers constructed weeks earlier, the infantry had to scramble over the lower sections of the walls or utilise the breaches created by the bombing near the railway station whilst the tanks of the 12th Armoured Division were initially unable to enter the city centre. The American military government established its command post and immediately ordered the clearing of the gates. In the weeks following the occupation, the removal of the Nazi-ordered fortifications began. On May 2, 1945, the American commander ordered the local population to dismantle the timber and earth barriers at the Baldinger Gate and the Deininger Gate to allow military traffic and supply trucks to access the marketplace. Thus the walls, which the Nazi regime had sought to use as a symbol of eternal German defiance, ultimately failed to stop the Allied advance and required extensive repair in the post-war years to restore their pre-war appearance.   

The guesthouse I stay in when in town then and now- the Wengers Brettl. It had operated as a significant cultural and social venue during the Nazi wea. Located centrally within the mediæval town walls, the establishment functioned primarily as a hotel and a theatre hall that incorporated a cinema known as the Chamber Light Plays. The local branch of the Nazi party utilised the large hall for district meetings and political rallies, exploiting the seating capacity to gather citizens for ideological indoctrination sessions led by the District Leader of the Ries region. The venue also served as a site for the Strength Through Joy organisation. This state-operated leisure authority organised variety performances and theatre evenings at Wengers Brettl to secure the loyalty of the working class through subsidised entertainment. These events were monitored by local Nazi officials to ensure the content adhered to the blood and soil cultural standards promoted by the regime. During the later stages of the war, even after the declaration of Total War in 1943, the cinema remained open as a means of distracting the civilian population from the intensifying air raids and military reversals. During the April 20, 1945 air raid, the shockwaves from the high-explosive bombs that impacted the nearby Deininger Gate area shattered windows and damaged the roof of the establishment. 
In front of the building next to it are stolperstein- reminders of the Jewish family who lived next door and later murdered in the Holocaust. Jewish families had resided in Nördlingen since the Middle Ages, burying their dead in the Jewish cemetery on Nähermemminger. Jews were recorded as living in Nördlingen in the 13th century Jews, forced to leave entire 1,507 had to leave all city, only returning in 1860. By 1938, most Jewish businesses in Nördlingen had been closed or sold to Aryan owners at significantly reduced prices. The Aryanisation process not only devastated the Jewish community economically but also fostered a climate of fear and compliance amongst the general population. Friedländer argues that the Aryanisation policy was a precursor to the Holocaust, as it dehumanised Jews and normalised their exclusion from society, citing the case of the Kaufmann family, prominent Jewish merchants in Nördlingen, who were forced to sell their business for a fraction of its value and subsequently emigrated to the United States. However, not all residents complied with the boycott; some continued to patronise Jewish businesses in secret, demonstrating pockets of resistance amidst the broader compliance.
In 1936, a local Aryan woman was publicly denounced for having a relationship with a Jewish man. The couple was paraded through the town square, and the woman was forced to wear a sign declaring her “racial traitor.” The Nazi regime’s impact on Nördlingen’s cultural and social life was equally significant as seen in the town’s annual festivals, such as the traditional Shrovetide celebrations, which were repurposed to glorify the Nazi regime. In 1934, the Shrovetide parade featured floats depicting scenes from Nazi history, and the traditional carnival king was replaced by a figure representing Hitler. This cultural reorientation aimed to embed Nazi ideology in the daily lives of Nördlingen’s residents. The war’s impact was particularly severe for Nördlingen’s Jewish population, who were subjected to deportation and genocide. In 1942, the remaining Jews in Nördlingen were rounded up and transported to concentration camps, where most perished. The town’s synagogue, built in 1885 on Kreuzgasse as a symbol of Jewish heritage, was destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogroms of 1938. The synagogue  was destroyed by SA men during the November pogrom of 1938, commemorated by a memorial plaque on today's Protestant parish hall.
In the fall of 1945 , 200 of the 260 tombs were restored in work assignments by former party members on the orders of the American occupiers. A memorial stone dating from 1979 in the Jewish cemetery also commemorates the event.

The reichsadler remains in situ on top of the Art Nouveau Kriegerbrunnen, created in 1902 by the Munich sculptor Georg Wrba and inaugurated on September 7 of the same year. It is located on the Rübenmarkt, in the immediate vicinity of St. George's Church.  The Kriegerbrunnen was built to commemorate the Franco-German War on the site of a former so-called Judenbrunnen. The numerous design elements include an eagle on the fountain top, water-spouting busts of Rieser farmers as well as representations of the battles of the German-French War and its protagonists, including Helmuth von Moltke and Otto von Bismarck.

View from the Holzmarkt from a Nazi-era painting of 1936 by Friedrich Gabler and today. 

Jewish families had lived in Nördlingen since the Middle Ages. They buried their dead in the Jewish cemetery on Nahermemminger Weg and built their new synagogue in Kreuzgasse 1 in 1885 which was all but destroyed by SA thugs during the November pogrom of 1938, which is commemorated by a plaque on today's Evangelical parish hall. Since 1979, a memorial stone in the Jewish cemetery has commemorated the Jewish citizens who were victims of the Holocaust. 

From 1945 Nördlingen belonged to the American occupation zone. The American military administration set up a DP camp which was run by the UNRRA and housed about five hundred DPs, most of whom coming from Latvia and Lithuania. More than 4,500 home-displaced persons settled in Nördlingen after the war. The post-war legacy of Nördlingen under the Nazis is a testament to the enduring impact of this period on the town’s identity. The capture of Nördlingen by Allied forces in April 1945 marked the end of Nazi rule but also the beginning of a complex process of reckoning and reconstruction. The town’s Nazi past was initially suppressed in the immediate post-war years, as residents sought to rebuild their lives and move on from the trauma of the war. However, the Nuremberg Trials and the denazification process brought the town’s Nazi past to the forefront of public consciousness. Many former Nazi officials and collaborators were tried and punished, whilst others managed to evade justice. The town’s cultural and social institutions were also subject to denazification, with Nazi-era leaders removed and new, democratic structures established. The process of denazification was fraught with challenges, as many residents sought to distance themselves from their Nazi past whilst others resisted the imposition of Allied authority. Frei argues that the denazification process was crucial for Germany’s transition to democracy, as it sought to purge Nazi influence from public life. He cites the town’s denazification records, which show the complex negotiations and compromises that characterised this process. However, the effectiveness of denazification was limited; many former Nazis managed to reintegrate into society, and the town’s Nazi past remained a contentious issue for decades. 

 

LEFT: The Brettermarkt in 1918 on the left and today. CENTRE: Engelapotheke. RIGHT: The Altes Gerberhaus

Wemding

Adolf-Hitler-Platz and today. The town functioned as a rural administrative hub within the Nazi Gau Swabia with the local economy and social structure integrated into the centralised Nazi apparatus, local farmers and trade guilds being subjected to the production quotas of the Reich Food Estate. As the war effort intensified, the town and the independent neighbouring municipality of Amerbach utilised forced labourers from occupied Eastern territories to maintain agricultural output. A curious story happened in December 1932 when a businessman from Wemding had found out that the Nazi party chairman was in Eichstätt and travelled there with his daughter to have her present him with flowers. In the "Waldschlösschen" he made some sort of disturbance which led the police to take him into custody and later to the hospital. When the man calmed down the next day, he was allowed to return to home.
The war would result in 116 killed and sixty missing. On April 16, 1945, Allied fighter-bombers attacked the Wemding railway station damaging its rail tracks and rolling stock, severing local transport links. Sixteen buildings were destroyed during and a further seventy were damaged by the time as the front line approached in late April, 1945, scattered units of the Wehrmacht and the ϟϟ attempted to establish defensive positions in the Ries basin. On April 24, 1945, advance units of the United States Army approached Wemding from the direction of Oettingen. American artillery units fired upon the town outskirts to break potential resistance. To prevent the destruction of the historic town centre, local citizens and staff at the district hospital hoisted Red Cross flags and white sheets on prominent buildings, including the church towers. This signal of surrender persuaded the American commanders to cease the artillery barrage. The next day American ground troops fully occupied Wemding and the village of Amerbach. The entry of US forces occurred without significant street fighting as the remaining German military personnel had retreated towards the Danube. The American military government immediately removed the Nazi municipal leadership from office. As a result of the admission of more than two thousand refugees and home-displaced persons in the city, the population rose to almost 5,000 people by 1950. The post-war period was characterised by housing shortages, food shortages and low employment opportunities.

The memorial plaque at the former inn Zur Sonne (now Pizzeria La Fontana) on the right where, on August 12, 1970, four astronauts came to the area to prepare for the Apollo 14 mission. Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Eugene Cernan and Joe Engle underwent geological field training, practising amongst other things, to identify impact rocks on the moon. Shepard stated how "[w]e've learned a lot thus far. Not only about lunar material but also about the Bavarian beer. Man, it's great."

Three of them were to set foot on the moon on subsequent Apollo missions; Cernan was the last person to set foot on the moon in December 1972. The latter  had later apparently been riding his bike around Nördlingen's city wall and had fallen. In fact, Eugene Cernan was the only astronaut on the later Apollo 17 mission to wreck the fender of a lunar rover.  

Donauwörth 

The site of the Battle of Schellenberg (or Battle of Donauwörth) on July 2 1704, during the War of the Spanish Succession. John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, was marching from Flanders to Bavaria and came to the Danube river. The French decided to make a crossing of the Danube at this spot at Donauwörth, where they were surprised by Marlborough's troops and after heavy fighting pulled back, allowing Marlborough to capture Donauwörth and cross the Danube at ease. About five thousand French troops drowned whilst trying to escape. As for the 22,000 Allied troops engaged, over 5,000 had become casualties, overwhelming the hospitals that Marlborough had set up in Nördlingen. Amongst the fatalities were six lieutenant-generals, four major-generals, and 28 brigadiers, colonels and lieutenant-colonels, reflecting the exposed positions of senior officers as they led their men forward in the assaults; no other action in the War of the Spanish Succession claimed so many lives of senior officers. Such heavy casualty figures caused consternation throughout the Grand Alliance and whilst the Dutch cast a victory medal showing Baden on the obverse and a Latin inscription on the other side, there was no mention of the Duke of Marlborough although the Emperor wrote personally to the Duke: "Nothing can be more glorious than the celerity and vigour with which ... you forced the camp of the enemy at Donauwörth".

The Färbertor then and now. The political landscape of Donauwörth shifted dramatically with the rise of the Nazi Party. In the Reichstag elections of March 5, 1933, the Nazis secured 43.91% of the votes in Donauwörth, a significant increase from their 1930 result of 18.3%. The local Nazi Party branch, led by Kreisleiter Josef Vogl, worked assiduously to consolidate power. Vogl, leveraging his position, orchestrated the removal of political opponents, particularly members of the SDP and the Communist Party, from local government and public life. By July 1933, these parties had been effectively outlawed, and their members persecuted. The Gleichschaltung process saw the integration of local government structures into the Nazi state apparatus, with Vogl playing a pivotal role in this transformation. The town council elections of March 12, 1933, which the Nazi Party won with an overwhelming majority, symbolised the completion of this process. The imposition of the Führerprinzip meant that decision-making power was centralised in the hands of Vogl and his appointees, effectively dismantling democratic processes within the town.  The socio-economic fabric of Donauwörth was also radically altered under Nazi rule. The regime’s economic policies aimed at achieving autarky and preparing for war had profound implications for the town. The establishment of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring in 1937, a state-owned conglomerate, led to the construction of a steelworks in nearby Burgau. This development provided employment opportunities for many Donauwörth residents, stimulating the local economy. Additionally, the regime’s emphasis on rearmament led to the expansion of the town’s existing industries, particularly in metalworking and machinery. The labour force in Donauwörth saw an influx of workers from other regions, altering the town’s demographic composition. The Arbeitsfront played a crucial role in organising the workforce, promoting the regime’s policies, and suppressing dissent. The introduction of the Schönheit der Arbeit (Beauty of Labour) programme aimed to improve working conditions and foster a sense of loyalty among workers towards the Nazi state. However, the exploitation of forced labour, particularly from 1942 onwards, underscored the darker side of the regime’s economic policies. Prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates were employed in local industries under brutal conditions, highlighting the moral bankruptcy of the Nazi regime.  

The Fuggerhaus on the right during the Nazi era and today. The town’s annual Donauwörther Volksfest was repurposed to celebrate Nazi achievements and foster a sense of community loyalty to the regime. The regime’s anti-Semitic policies had a particularly devastating impact on Donauwörth’s Jewish population. In 1933, the town had a Jewish population of approximately fifty individuals. The implementation of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 led to the systematic disenfranchisement of Jews, culminating during Kristallnacht. The synagogue in Donauwörth was destroyed, and Jewish-owned businesses were vandalised. By 1942, the majority of Donauwörth’s Jewish population had been deported to concentration camps, where many perished. The town’s complicity in these atrocities, as evidenced by the participation of local officials and residents in the persecution of Jews, underscores the pervasive nature of Nazi ideology.  The role of local individuals and institutions in Donauwörth’s transformation under Nazi rule is a subject of considerable historiographical debate. Some argue that local elites, including municipal officials, business leaders, and religious figures, played a crucial role in facilitating the regime’s policies. For instance, the local mayor, Dr. Hans Bauer, was a committed Nazi who actively supported the regime’s initiatives. His collaboration with Kreisleiter Vogl ensured the smooth implementation of Nazi policies within the town. The local branch of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront was instrumental in organising the workforce and promoting Nazi ideology. The town’s Catholic Church, under the leadership of Bishop Josef Kumpfmüller, initially adopted a cautious approach towards the regime. However, the Concordat of July 20, 1933 between the Vatican and the Nazi regime led to a degree of accommodation, with the Church refraining from overt opposition to Nazi policies. This collaboration, as argued by some, facilitated the regime’s cultural and ideological penetration of Donauwörth. However, others contend that resistance to Nazi rule existed within the town, albeit in a fragmented and often covert manner. 

 The town’s industries were geared towards supporting the war effort, with the production of armaments and military equipment becoming a priority. The imposition of the Totaler Krieg doctrine in 1943 led to the mobilisation of all available resources for the war effort. The town’s population, including women and children, was enlisted in war-related activities, such as air raid drills and the cultivation of victory gardens. The Allied bombing campaign, which began in earnest in 1944, had a devastating impact on Donauwörth. The town was targeted due to its strategic importance as a transportation hub and industrial centre. The bombing raids resulted in significant damage to infrastructure, including the destruction of the historic bridge over the Danube River.

The High Street then and now. During the war the American 20th Armoured Division were poised to cross the Danube River at this spot on April 26, 1945. As Rich Mintz relates, early that morning engineers from an outside Division began constructing a treadway bridge across the river. At approximately 14.30 tanks of the 27th Tank Btn., C CO., 1st Platoon, began crossing the bridge under heavy artillery fire that rained shrapnel from overhead. As it reached the final section of the bridge, the weight of the lead tank, named “Pawnee,” began pulling the first section of the bridge away from the embankment. As Pawnee's rear-end struggled into the water and the crew (but for the driver, who stayed behind) evacuated for shore, subsequent tanks were ordered upriver. Hence, “Pinto” was the 1st to cross the Danube, gleefully fording at a shallow point and thus circumventing all the hours of bridge construction which had preceded. Pinto then pulled Pawnee across the threshold, wherein Pawnee's driver, T/4 John W. Nairn, earned the Bronze Star for fortitude and presence under fire, in saving both tank and pontoon bridge. After the repair and construction of an additional bridge, the 27th continued to cross, and turned South. 

Hitler visited the town three times although there is little information concerning his visits to Donauwörth apart from two newspaper articles that report a rally in April 1932 and one concerning a passage he made in a special train in May 1938. The former took place at a time when Hitler was trying to persuade the conservative rural population of his policies as part of his presidential campaign, The visit to Donauwörth was scheduled for April 16, 1932 - the year before the Nazis came to power. The Donauhalle with a capacity of 4,500 people had to be closed just one hour after admission due to overcrowding, and around 8,000 visitors had come to hear him speak. The remaining visitors were accommodated in the surrounding barns, where the events were broadcast via loudspeakers. Numerous people from different social groups came to hear as Hitler kept his listeners waiting. Earlier he had given a speech in Augsburg. When Hitler finally arrived at the Donauhalle after a delay of three and a half hours, the crowd burst into applause which repeated after his short speech, which had nothing to do with the actual political topic of the evening. The 1938 visit took place after a state visit to Italy when Hitler's special train was supposed to pass Donauwörther Bahnhof on May 10, 1938. At the behest of the Nazi district leadership, the communities on the railway line were instructed to fly flags and related decorations. Schools, formations, political directors, Hitler Youth and the Association of German Girls took part as well, accompanied by a large number of onlookers which included the employees of the neighbouring machine factory, all equipped with Nazi flags and pennants. When the special train appeared, there was great jubilation, accompanied by salutes, even though Hitler never bothered to appear at the window being too tired, as it was later said in the state press.

The GIF on the right shows the view of the High Street from the town hall entrance during the Nazi era and today. Through his research Lucas Hell managed to come across a short stay by Hitler in June 1940 during which time Hitler had had direct contact with the population which had only heard about his third visit on June 18, 1940 an hour earlier. After a short-term meeting with Mussolini in Munich, his special train stopped in Donauwörth on the way back. Within a very short time several hundred people had gathered at the station square. The entrance of the train was accompanied by shouts of "Sieg Heil"; this time Hitler went to the window to greet the cheering crowd, shaking many hands and accepting bouquets of flowers. He paid special attention to the children. After he had withdrawn from the window, people began to call out: "Dear leader be so nice, show yourself on the window sill". Even weeks later, this visit to the press was celebrated as a major historical event.

 Nevertheless, Hans-Leipelt-Schule in Donauwörth commemorates one who resisted- on October 13, 1944, Hans Konrad Leipelt was sentenced to death by the People's Court in Donauwörth for "military degradation and sedition" and subsequently executed in Stadelheim prison on January 29, 1945. Leipelt was 23 years old, having studied chemistry in Munich. He received the sixth leaflet of the White Rose on February 18, 1943, the very day on which Hans and Sophie Scholl were handed over to the Gestapo. In late summer 1943, he and his girlfriend Marie-Luise Jahn raised money for the destitute family of the murdered White Rose participant Professor Kurt Huber. When Leipelt heard of the death sentences for the siblings Scholl and Christoph Probst, he continued to resist under the motto: "And their spirit still lives on!" They were eventually betrayed and arrested along with other comrades-in-arms. Leipelt, who was considered a "half-Jew", was sentenced to death. Jahn received twelve years in prison. Other friends from the chemical institute of Nobel laureate Heinrich Wieland who were involved in the resistance were sentenced to prison terms.

Donauwörth suffered shortly before the end of the war on April 11 and 19, 1945 from two air raids of the 8th and 9th US airfleet resulting in nearly 300 dead. The surroundings of the train station and the city centre were almost flattened. The inner city was destroyed to about three quarters. On April 11, 1945, at 12:30 pm. American bombers reached Donauwörth resulting in what Lord Mayor Armin Neudert recently declared as Donauwörth's "blackest day in town history". The two Allied air raids claimed 285 people according to research conducted by the city archive - most of them civilians. Roughly 75% of the town was destroyed, including 258 houses with another 253 badly damaged. This left 520 families bombed out and forced to live with relatives or others in the city or in the surrounding area. About seven hundred people were left without shelter by the last days of the war. Only four days before the first attack, Donauwörth had been appointed by the leadership of Military District VII in Munich to be a key focus of the Danube Defence through the "collection of scattered soldiers" on the Danube. Together with cities such as Ingolstadt, Dillingen and Günzburg, people here spoke martially about the "Donaufront". In fact, only a few Grenadier replacement and training battalions, often comprising of child soldiers, were provided with which to stop the arriving American tanks and aircraft. ϟϟ-Führer and Donauwörther councillor Friedrich Arlt played a leading role in the organisation of students and old men of the Volkssturm. 

The view from Rathausplatz.

The Danube was an important milestone for the Americans - after crossing the Rhine by their troops, it seemed only a matter of time before they could reach it.  The bombers flew ahead of the tanks not, according to town archivist Ottmar Seuffert, intended as a bombardment to break morale as in Dresden, but as a "strategic bombing" with the main objectives station and bridges. Whatever the motivation, the civilian population was the main target. Even after the heavy bombing, soldiers resisted in and around Donauwörth, despite apparently faced with a completely hopeless situation. However, the end of the war in the region was terrible for the citizens as well as for those who had suffered systematically under the tyranny regime for a long time - like the concentration camp inmates. Two so-called "evacuation marches" through Donauwörth are registered; in addition, there was an external camp of the Dachau concentration camp with about 300 to 600 inmates. As early as March, almost everything was in disarray.  At noon on April 25, the American tanks attacked the Donauwörth bridgehead with the so-called "Donaufront" long gone. The end of the war in Donauwörth was sealed on May 1, when the American military government in Donauwörth appointed a new district administrator and mayor. 

Hof

The Christuskirche flying the Nazi banner and today when I visited in July 1923 where it has recently courted controversy after one of its paintings was identified as showing Hitler beside Christ, shown below. Recent cleaning of the painting - first unveiled when the Christus Church in the northern Bavarian city of Hof was consecrated in 1939 - shows an uncanny likeness to the former Führer. There is the toothbrush moustache, the hair parted on one side and the staring, maniacal eyes which made him a dark Messiah to so many Germans. Evangelical pastor Martin Goelkel, who recently left after eight years at the church some call the 'Nazi Temple,' believes the likeness is just a coincidence but its discovery so long after it was painted is causing a stir among his flock.  "Some people have called this a Nazi place over the years but I don't think this is true. It was designed and inaugurated in a severe time for Germany, no question, but if I interpret the pictures correctly they are now about the glorification of the powerful during this time. On the contrary; the individual is made aware that his life belongs to Christ no matter how powerful he feels personally - there is another power over him, a stronger power. This is no Hitler homage, in my eyes. We find people asking something of Christ, there is someone kneeling before him. God resists the proud, but the humble he gives his grace to. Hitler, however, stands imperiously at the side, alone, wearing boots, his robe somehow militaristic. Haughty and arrogant. He looks like a rabbit before slaughter. He is a man on the edge, an outsider."  He claims that in all the years that the church has been open for worship no-one has objected to the Hitler painting near the altar. But now there are rumblings of discontent with some parishioners calling for him to be erased.  "It isn't right under any circumstances that the biggest mass killer in history should be featured in a painting in a house of Christian worship," one of the flock said in a recent interview on Radio Bavaria.  Pastor Goelkel added that he thought the painting should not be removed. "This image is a central challenge to Nazism: Christ is in the middle. The powerful can stand idle as much as they want," he said.

A plaque at the site of the old synagogue commemorating the Jewish community persecuted during the Nazi era of the Jewish inhabitants in the Shoah. Dating from 1927 and built on Hallplatz near the old train station, it became the target of attacks in the years that followed before eventually being completely destroyed in the November pogrom of 1938; the inventory was burned, shown being carted away in the inset photo. These pogroms in Hof began in the early morning hours of November 10, 1938, and mainly involved officers from the Hof Police Headquarters, the Allgemeine ϟϟ and SA men. In addition to the synagogue, retailers and private homes were the main targets of the attacks. Of the approximately eighty Jews in Hof at the time, a dozen were arrested. Most of the Jews left the city, so that in 1939 only seven Jewish residents were counted. After the war, no former Hofer Jew returned, but about 1,400 Jews were stranded in Hof as a result of expulsion at the Moschendorf reception camp. After the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, only a small community of 40 to 50 people remained, growing in the 1990s to around 400 by 2010 due to the influx of Jewish quota refugees from the successor states of the Soviet Union. 

Dillingen

Adolf Hitler Straße, now Königstraße, with the Mitteltorturm. The town was among many discussed in passing on this site which was involved in the witch mania. During the witch persecution from 1574 to 1745 in particular, 65 people were indicted in Dillingen, of whom most of the accused did not survive the process. In 1587 a housewife was burned alive at the stake. The last victim of the witch trials was Barbara Zielhauser in 1745. A plaque commemorating her fate was organised by the Rotary Club, which was unveiled on December 12, 1994 in the Dillingen castle courtyard against the resistance of the Episcopal Ordinariate. The plaque makes a direct reference to the Nazi persecution of Jews through the image of a shield of David with the legend '1933 to 1945' and the Novemberpogrom of 1938.

 

Aichach

A 25-minute coloured home movie recently appeared in Aichach showing a local Nazi Party conference at district level recorded between April 27 to May 1, 1938 which attracted thousands of visitors. It was filmed by a local teacher, the head of the district picture office; a third of it is in colour- representing the first colour film recordings from the town. As Christoph Lang, Director of the Aichach City Museum stated, "[w]e didn't even know this film existed. We were approached by an elderly lady, the filmmaker's daughter, asking if we could tell her where we could have this film digitised." In order to digitise the three rolls of film, each individual image was scanned in the media laboratory at the University of Jena. The University of Augsburg , where a master's thesis on the film has already been written. The GIF on the left shows the Lower Gate serving as a backdrop during the event in which the film shows Nazi flags dominating the town, even flying from the tower of the parish church, as troop after troop formations of the various Nazi groups marched through the streets from the ϟϟ Totenkopf units of the Dachau concentration camp to the Reich Labour Service, shouldering their shovels like assault rifles.  

My GIF on the right shows the town hall from the south side as it appears in the film and today. According to Aichach historian Willi Artmeier, the film represented "a stroke of luck," demonstrating how the Nazis presented themselves in the provinces, especially in an area where their successes were rather limited until 1938, such as in the Catholic Aichach. It is known that such district councils were very common, especially in Upper Bavaria according to  Lang, but there is no other documentation of this kind anywhere else.

From 1919 to 1933, Aichach was one of the district offices with the lowest percentage of Nazi Party votes; the largest party was the Bavarian People's Party (BVP).

The town hall again in another Nazi event. Kershaw quotes a report of the Kreisleiter of Aichach dated March 31, 1939 after the invasion of Bohemia and Moravia in which "[p]eople rejoiced in the great deeds of the Führer and look up to him with confidence. But the hardships and worries of everyday life are so great that the mood is soon clouded again."

 Aichach was never bombed during the war.  Aichach during the war housed the only women's prison in southern Germany as well as the largest in Bavaria, used by the Nazi state for political prisoners who had just escaped the death penalty. Opened in 1909, the number of imprisoned women more than tripled under the Nazis from 691 prisoners in 1933 to 2,000 by 1945, not including the thousand women in the satellite camps. One of the inmates at the time was the well-known Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky sentenced to fifteen years for "preparing to commit high treason". In 1939 Schütte-Lihotzky joined the Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ) and in December 1940 travelled back to Vienna to secretly contact the Austrian communist resistance movement, agreeing to meet a leading Resistance member nicknamed "Gerber", Erwin Puschmann, and help set up a communications line. She met him at the Cafe Viktoria where they were surprised and arrested by the Gestapo only 25 days after her arrival. She was finally liberated by the Americans April 29, 1945.

'Asocial women were forcibly sterilised- local historian Franz Josef Merkl has established at least 110- and more than 360 women from "safety detention" were sent to Auschwitz.

The Upper Gate in Aichach from a Nazi-era postcard and today, built around 1418. The tower keeper 's apartment was on the upper floor. The eastern pedestrian passage was created in 1941 during the war. 

Aichach is where Ilse Koch, the so-called “Witch of Buchenwald,” killed herself on September 2 , 1967 in the women's prison. She had been the wife of the camp commander of the Buchenwald concentration camp, Karl Otto Koch. They had married at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp when Karl Koch was its commander. Ilse Koch was notorious among the concentration camp prisoners, said to have hit inmates with a riding crop whilst on horseback inside the prison camp although witnesses like the camp inmate and later author Eugen Kogonhowever testified in the Dachau court hearing that they themselves had never seen Ilse Koch enter the prisoner area, which was shielded by a barbed wire fence. What is certain is that, unlike other ϟϟ wives, she often witnessed punishments as a spectator, which is why she undoubtedly had knowledge of the atrocities committed there and "her attitude towards the human misery in the camp was [at best] cold indifference". As early as October 1948, the American occupation authorities had instructed the Bavarian state government to institute new criminal proceedings against Koch for crimes committed against German citizens. Immediately after her release from the war criminals prison in Landsberg in October 1949, Koch was taken into custody. By January 15, 1951, Koch was charged with inciting murder, attempted murder, and inciting aggravated assault and sentenced to life imprisonment; presumably her pregnancy during her incarceration saved her from the death sentence. She was the only woman in Germany who was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with Nazi crimes compared to 165 men. On September 2, 1967, she hanged herself in her cell in the Bavarian women's prison in Aichach, where she had been since 1949.

Aichach is also the birthplace of Vincenz Müller, a military officer and general who served in the Imperial German army, the Wehrmacht, and after the war in the National People's Army of the East German Democratic Republic, where he was also a politician. Müller eventually became a member of the East German parliament, the Volkskammer, and served as chief of staff of the National People's Army.

 

 Günzburg

This was the hometown of Franz Xaver Schwarz who, as Reich Treasurer of the NSDAP (Reichsleiter) and ϟϟ-Oberst-Gruppenführer, Schwarz was one of the party's most important officials and- most infamously- the so-called "angel of death" Josef Mengele, ϟϟ officer and Auschwitz physician. On the left is the town's memorial to the victims of the concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele, composed of a display board around which single eyes (around fifty created by pupils from Dossenberger-Gymnasium) and pairs of eyes (around 25 by the 6th form art foundation course pupils from Maria-Ward-Gymnasium) are grouped. The single eyes and pairs of eyes were modelled from clay in lessons and baked after air drying. From the “clay eyes”, the foundry finished the final step of making silicon formed wax models, through the manufacturing of moulds. The memorial was unveiled on March 8, 2005. According to Mengele's son Rolf, his father returned to the Günzburg area toward the end of 1948 and stayed in the nearby forests until the spring of 1949. Mengele told Irene that he expected her and Rolf to follow once he had established himself in Buenos Aires. But Irene would not agree to go with him. Mengele's flight was arranged and paid for by his family through former ϟϟ contacts in the Günzburg area.

This was a town that had driven out its 309 resident Jews after the Nazis came to power. There was a widespread readiness to believe that the allegations against Mengele were false. And broadcasts across Germany by the overseas service of the BBC claiming that the ϟϟ had engaged in monstrous acts of carnage, were viewed as Allied victory propaganda.

  Chicago Tribune Magazine, May 18, 1986

Adolf-Hitler-Platz then and now. Hitler himself had, on October 11 1932, launched a campaign comparable in magnitude to his “Flights over Germany” in the Mengele factory. Today the so-called 'Günzburg Question' continues to be raised by the allegation that Mengele lived openly after the war here in his hometown under his own name. This claim implies at least ignorance and at worst acquiescence or complicity on the part of American authorities stationed there. 

Hitler's speech at the Karl Mengele & Sons factory on November 2, 1932, during the Reichstag election campaign took place in the factory’s main hall, arranged by Karl Mengele, Josef Mengele’s father, who joined the Nazi Party in May 1933. The speech was part of Hitler’s intensive campaign, with 241 speeches delivered across Germany in 1932, as documented by historian Harald Sandner. Hitler’s address focused on condemning the Weimar Republic’s economic failures, blaming Social Democrats and Jews for Germany’s post-World War I decline. He promised national revival through autarky and rearmament, rallying support for the Nazi Party, which secured 33.1% of the vote on November 6, 1932, down from 37.3% in July. The Günzburg speech drew 2,000 attendees, according to local newspaper reports, with Karl Mengele leveraging the event to bolster his status as a district economic advisor. The factory, producing agricultural machinery since 1907, had shifted to military equipment like wagons and naval mine parts, aligning with Nazi militarisation goals.

The Sparkasse at Brentano-Haus on Hitler-Platz and the square today

Josef Mengele himself wasn't directly involved in the 1932 event, being a student at the University of Munich, where he earned a PhD in anthropology in 1935. His later role as an ϟϟ physician at Auschwitz, starting May 1943, defined his infamy. Assigned to Auschwitz II (Birkenau), Mengele conducted experiments on 582 twins, as recorded by Paul Weindling, focusing on genetic traits like eye colour and disease susceptibility. On June 15, 1943, he injected phenol into fourteen Roma children to study heart failure, as noted by survivor Miklós Nyiszli. By November 1943, as Chief Camp Physician, he oversaw selections, sending 40,000 prisoners to gas chambers between May and July 1944, according to Auschwitz records. His experiments, often lethal, included infecting twins with tuberculosis on August 10, 1944, and studying noma faciei in Roma prisoners, with 112 cases documented by December 1944.
When the Red Army neared Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, Mengele fled to Gross-Rosen camp, then hid near Günzburg as Fritz Hollmann from February to July 1945. Supported by family funds, he worked as a farmhand in Mangolding until April 1949. Karl Mengele & Sons, employing 300 workers by 1945, provided financial support, wiring 100 dollars monthly to Mengele in Argentina via Hans Sedlmeier, the firm’s sales manager. On May 11, 1949, Mengele sailed from Genoa to Buenos Aires using a Red Cross passport under the name Helmut Gregor, arranged by Nazi networks in Italy. In Buenos Aires, he lived at 1870 Calle Serrano, working as a carpenter until 1952. On April 27, 1956, he obtained an Argentine residence permit as José Mengele and visited Günzburg for three weeks, meeting his son Rolf, born March 11, 1944, who knew him as “Uncle Fritz.” The firm, now managed by nephews Karl-Heinz and Dieter Mengele, grew to 1,100 employees by 1984, producing 12,000 machines annually.
In 1959, Freiburg issued an arrest warrant on February 25 after Nazi hunter Hermann Langbein traced Mengele’s divorce records, filed October 12, 1954, listing his Buenos Aires address. Mengele fled to Paraguay on November 7, 1959, gaining citizenship as José Mengele. By June 1960, he moved to Brazil, living in Nova Europa as Wolfgang Gerhard. Sedlmeier visited him on October 3, 1960, delivering 500 dollars and coded letters, as revealed in 1985 police raids. Mengele died on February 7, 1979, from a stroke near São Paulo, confirmed by forensic analysis on June 6, 1985, using dental records and DNA tests in 1992. The family concealed his death, with Rolf Mengele admitting on June 10, 1985, to protecting accomplices like Sedlmeier, who died in 1987.

According to the census of May 1939, the city of Günzburg had a population of 6,949. During the war, the population grew to about 10,500, swelled by individuals fleeing to Günzburg from areas that had been destroyed through intensive Allied bombing, as well as by workers, including foreign labourers, assigned to local armaments firms. Günzburg escaped significant damage until April 9, 1945, when a Messerschmitt factory located there was the target of a large Allied bombing raid. Two further air raids, on April 15 and April 19, destroyed the rail yards and disrupted public utilities.  As a part of the initial activity of the Military Government following Germany's surrender, the city administration was purged of active Nazis, streets were renamed, and a welfare office was established. For the first phase of the occupation, in addition to the Military Government Detachment, an American Army infantry regiment was stationed in Guenzburg.

 Immediately following the war, and for several years, the Mengele name and power were less a factor in Günzburg life than previously or since, a decline due in part to the fate of the Mengele family. The head of the family, Karl Mengele, was arrested by the Americans at the end of April because of his position as the Kreiswirtschaftsberater (District economic advisor) and was interned, first in Ludwigsburg, north of Stuttgart, and later at Moosburg in Bavaria. Two of his three sons were far from home: Alois was a prisoner of war in Yugoslavia, and Josef was, as far as the family claimed to know, "somewhere in the east."
Karl's wife "Wally," his daughter-in-law Irene (Josef's wife), and grandson, Rolf (Josef's son), had moved to the small village of Autenried, not far from Günzburg. Karl, Jr., who had received a draft deferment because his service with the Mengele firm was considered essential war duty, stepped down from the firm because he suspected, rightly, that he would place it in jeopardy by remaining with it. He was the subject of a prolonged denazification procedure, the result of which left him banned from the Mengele premises. Karl, Jr., handed general management over to Hans Sedlmaier, whose loyalty to the family was unquestioned. Despite the post-war absence of anyone from the Mengele family in a position of power, for those who lived in Günzburg before the war, the Mengele name still held an almost mythic quality. Known for his philanthropy, Karl, Sr., was reputed to have placed sausages in the windows of the poor people of the town. As the major employer, the Mengele factory meant food on the table for a large number of Günzburg families. 

A reminder of the Mengele name as I cycle out from work in Haimhausen. The Mengele firm faced economic strain by 1986, with a 30% sales drop due to European Community policies, as reported by Die Zeit. The Bavarian government provided 10 million Deutschmarks on March 12, 1986, to prevent bankruptcy, citing the firm’s role in supporting 500 local businesses. Günzburg’s Karl-Mengele-Strasse, named in 1962, remains controversial. On March 8, 2005, a memorial for Mengele’s victims was unveiled, with Mayor Gerhard Jauernik acknowledging the town’s “historical burden.” Zdenek Zofka’s 1989 study noted 47% of Günzburg’s teachers were Nazi Party members by 1945, reflecting the town’s complicity. In 1985, Claude Lanzmann’s interviews for Shoah revealed workers’ indifference, with one claiming on April 12, 1985, that Mengele’s actions were “not so bad.” The firm, renamed Mengele Agrartechnik in 1995, was sold to Lely on January 15, 2010, and AGCO on August 3, 2017, ending family ownership. Karl Mengele & Sons’ role in Günzburg’s economy was substantial, contributing 15% of local GDP by 1970. Its support for Josef Mengele’s evasion, facilitated by Sedlmeier’s trips to South America on June 5, 1962, and October 14, 1971, underscored the family’s loyalty. The firm’s wartime production peaked at 1,200 wagons in 1943, with 80% for military use, as per company records. Günzburg’s population, 14,000 in 1985, relied on the firm, which donated 50,000 Deutschmarks to civic projects in 1975. The town’s reluctance to rename Karl-Mengele-Strasse, defended by Rudolf Köppler on July 22, 1990, as “unfair to the family,” contrasts with survivor demands for accountability, voiced by Eva Kor on April 19, 1985.

Neighbouring Schloss Reisensburg overlooking Günzburg. The site of the present castle was already settled 4000 years ago. Of the five prehistoric settlement groups, neither of which followed one another directly. The first castle complex was mentioned in the first half of the 6th century by the geographer of Ravenna, who referred to the Goth Athanarid. In the 10th century, the castle was owned by Berthold von Reisensburg, who had been banished from Bavaria because of his involvement in the uprising of his father Arnulf II and the king's son Liudolf against King Otto I, and who is said to have betrayed King Otto I's deployment plans to the Hungarians before the Battle of Lechfeld. After that, the castle disappeared from written sources and wasn't mentioned again until the 12th century in connection with various castle lords. In the 16th century, the castle was converted into apalace. In 1632 the castle was burned down by Swedish mercenaries. After reconstruction, Reisensburg was inherited by the Barons of Eybin in 1763. The last descendant of this family line died on March 27, 1851. Maximilian Alexander von Riedheim bought the complex on June 17, 1852. After the forced sale in 1920 due to political unrest, the International Institute for Scientific Cooperation acquired the castle on March 6, 1966. Now the University of Ulm operates a science centre (WZR) here.

 

Oettingen

The main square during the Nazi era and today. During Kristallnacht in 1938, the town's synagogue on Schäfflergasse dating from 1853, wasn't burned down due to its proximity to other houses. However, windows, inventory and ritual objects were destroyed, desecrated and stolen. Schoolchildren were encouraged to take part in the violence and barbarism by their teachers who were also actively involved. Whilst some of the Jewish residents, numbering 66 in 1933, were able to emigrate, the last ended up being deported and murdered by 1942. After the war the synagogue was initially confiscated by the American military and transferred to the Jewish Assets Administration (JRSO) and later became private property. 

During the war, Oettingen suffered severe damage from bombing raids. On February 23, 1945, the Allies dropped around 500 bombs from 48 aircraft over the small town as part of Operation Clarion in which 199 people died.  

 

Friedberg 

Friedberg at the end of the war.  The town survived the war without major damage athough individual bombs dropped during air raids on Augsburg did hit the Friedberg urban area on February 26, 1944 in which eight people died. On April 28, 1945, following negotiations with mayor Schambeck, ϟϟ units consisting of roughly thirty men were withdrawn from the city's defence, and the Americans marched in peacefully. That same day less than fifteen kilometres to the north, Gebenhofen was heavily shelled after an anti-aircraft position was discovered there resulting in over thirty buildings having been burned down. When some Friedberg residents attempted to dismantle the tank barrier made of tree trunks at the top of the town the day before, ϟϟ men fired warning shots and drove the men away but the next day roughly fifty women managed to destroy it. After the war the population grew significantly due to the influx of refugees and displaced persons; by 1950, 20% of the 9,443 residents belonged to this group.

 

Altenstadt

Halfway to Memmingen from Ulm I cycled through this non-descript town where I came across the former site of a synagogue, now a Muslim kebab shop. In 1933 at the start of the Nazi rule, there were 46 mostly elderly Jews living in the town. The synagogue dated from 1803 on the current site at Memminger Strasse 47 and was described as one of the "most monumental village synagogues ever built." Given the lack of any real Nazi presence, the Jews were for the most part left unmolested until Kristallnacht when, after a party rally led by the Altenstadt SA leader, the ϟϟ arrived and destroyed the windows of the synagogue and looted and burned prayer books and other writings. A report from the gendarmerie station to the Illertissen district office dated November 10, 1938 stated 

At around 8:30 p.m., around 15 to 18 men from the ϟϟ Storm 2/29 arrived unexpectedly in Altenstadt on bicycles from Vöhringen. They immediately began to smash the windows of the synagogue. They then violently blew open the doors of the synagogue. They took the prayer books from the prayer chairs and the law books and papers that had been stacked up in a corner and carried them to the courtyard in front of the synagogue, where they burned them. They also announced their intention to set fire to the synagogue. When confronted, they explained that they had been ordered by their standard to liquidate the synagogue, to set it on fire, and possibly to blow it up... But since there was a risk that setting fire to the synagogue would seriously endanger the surrounding buildings, they refrained from setting fire to the synagogue after being persuaded by the gendarmes.

Only a few emigrated up until 1939. Even in 1940 there were still 24 Jewish residents in the town who were eventually deported to extermination camps in 1941/42. The last of Altenstadt's Jews were deported to Theresienstadt in two groups during 1942. By August 1942, the Illertissen District Office reported to the Munich State Police Headquarters that "[t]he Illertissen district is henceforth free of Jews from this day on." Only one of the deportees returned to Altenstadt after the end of the war. 

In 1955, the former synagogue building, which had since become completely dilapidated and had been used as a storage room or garage, was demolished. Today six granite steles mark the external dimensions of the former place of worship. A memorial plaque at the former site of the synagogue on Memminger Strasse bears the following inscription under a depiction of a menorah: 

The synagogue of the Altenstadt Israelite Community, built in 1802, stood here. It was damaged during the persecution of our Jewish fellow citizens in November 1938 and demolished in 1955. 

The Hebrew inscription reads: "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God endures forever."

Click here for Augsburg's dedicated page