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Deccan Herald » Sunday Herald » Detailed Story
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Embarking on Hitler’s trail in Munich
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Konigsplatz, in Munich, was Hitler’s favourite
parade ground, a place to mass and strut helmeted troops, military bands and swastika flags. Today, concerts of top artistes like Paul McCartney and Dido have been organised on these very grounds writes Michael Patrao
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Munich is intimately connected with Adolf Hitler’s youth and his life as a Nazi leader. Places in Munich associated with Hitler are quite popular with tourist as we discovered during our short stay in Munich. Visitors are curious to know where he lived, the restaurants he frequented, places where he delivered his fiery speeches, the place where the historic but failed political coup (the Putsch) took place and his Munich headquarters.
Like many other artists, he came to the Schwabing area of Munich to pursue a career in art, having failed to get admission in an art school in Austria.
In his autobiography, Mein Kamph, Hitler writes fondly about Munich: “At last I came to Munich in 1912. The City itself was familiar to me as if I lived for years within its walls. This was because my studies in architecture has been constantly turning my attention to the metropolis of German art. One must know Munich if one would know Germany; and it is impossible to acquire a knowledge of German art without seeing Munich.
“All things considered, this pre-war sojourn was by far the most contended time of my life. My earnings were very slender; but after all I did not live for the sake of painting. I painted in order to get the bare necessities of existence of existence while I continued my studies.
“The reason why my heart’s strings are entwined around this city as around no other spot in the world is probably because Munich is and will remain inseparably connected with the development of my own career.”
The Munich Tourism Department has promoted the concept of Hitler’s Munich with a walking tour called the Third Reich Tour. On this tour you can visit Hitler’s Munich headquarters, the sites of the former Nazi rallies and explore the places and events that lead to the rise of the Nazi movement.
On this walking tour you get to know interesting bits of information you might not have known about the period, like Hitler's career as a post card artist. In 1919, Germany was emerging from World War I as a defeated and humiliated nation with Munich in the grips of hyperinflation and Bavaria dominated by revolution and assasination. Out of this chaos rose the Nazi movement and one of history’s most powerful dictators.
The first mass meeting of the fledgling Nazi party took place on the top floor of Hofbrauhaus, the famous beer hall, in February 1920. It was here that Hitler outlined his plan for a new Germany. Hofbrauhaus was founded in 1589 and continues to be Munich’s most popular beer hall. Today there is a lot of bonhomie and camaraderie in the beer hall, where Hitler once made fiery speeches and galvanised support for his Nazi Party. These meetings at the Hofbrauhaus led to the failed political coup attempt (the Putsch) in November 1923 to seize power at the Feldernhalle. Today, Feldherrnhalle is an upmarket restaurant.
The tour takes us to Konigsplatz (King’s Square), the site of the mass Nazi party rallies. Konigsplatz, is one of Munich’s most attractive 19th century squares. In the first half of the 19th century, Ludwig I had the Square built beyond the confines of the medieval city walls. The Greco-Roman style of the buildings was an expression of the Bavarian King’s aspiration to glory. This was a perfect setting for the grandiose plans of Hitler. As early as the 1920s, the Nazis had chosen this Square as an assembly point for their movement. In 1933 they developed a plan to transform the Square into a “political party forum” and the bordering streets were to be lined with their buildings.
Hitler declared Konigsplatz as the “ceremonial centre of the movement.” This was Hitler’s favourite parade ground, a place to mass and strut helmeted troops, military bands and swastika flags. Each year at the site, memorial tributes were paid to those who fell in the Putsch. Today, concerts of top artistes like Paul McCartney and Dido have been organised on these very grounds.
The Square also has a Glyptothek on one side, a museum which has a small but interesting collection of Greek and Roman sculpture. At a road intersection, are the plinths, now overgrown with grass, on which two Ehrentempel (temples of honour) once stood. In them, 16 of the fallen Putsch participants were watched over by an eternal guard. These structure were bombed by the US Army in 1945.
Just close by there is the Fuhrerbau, Hitler’s Munich headquarters. It now houses the City’s College of Music. A broad staircase leads to the second floor, Hitler's office, the great high-ceiling room with three tall windows and a balcony. It is from this balcony that Hitler used to greet the people below.
On the top of the building, you can still see the two damaged areas where bronze Nazi eagles were torn from the facade. The public display of Nazi symbols is strictly verboten (prohibited) in present day Germany.
A little distance away, at a square called Karolinenplatz, there is a tall Obelisk. This was built by King Ludwig of Bavaria in memory of 30,000 Bavarian troops who died fighting for Napoleon against the Russians and the Austrians. This, of course, has nothing to do with Hitler’s regime. Elsewhere in Germany, there are several places associated with Hitler. But Munich has a special place in the Nazi history. It was the “Hauptstadt der Bewegung” — the Capital of the Movement — the birthplace of the Nazi Party. Throughout the Third Reich period, Munich remained the spiritual capital of the Nazi movement. Today, it is tourist’s curiosity.
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Sunday, March 26, 2006
