Munich: Nazi past and new Jewish life
September 5, 2024
The Munich neighborhood where shots were fired this Thursday is steeped in memories of a dark chapter in German history: Munich is more closely associated with the rise of National Socialism than any other German city. The first German concentration camp, Dachau, was located just outside the Bavarian state capital.
It was in Munich that Adolf Hitler began his rise with his National Socialist movement, taking power in 1933. But Munich had a special relevance for Hitler's party until the end of Nazi Germany.
The Nazi Documentation Center, located near Thursday's shooting, opened in 2015, on the exact spot where the so-called Brown House once stood. This was the popular name for the palace at Brienner Strasse 34, where Hitler's NSDAP party had its headquarters in Munich from 1930 to 1945.
Brienner Street and the nearby Königsplatz were the city's Nazi rallying points. The dark history of the Bavarian capital can still be seen in the architecture today.
Importance of remembering Munich's history
The Documentation Center near Königsplatz chronicles Munich's special role. In August 1935, Hitler awarded Munich the title "Capital of the Movement," marking it as the site of the founding of the party and the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, a failed coup attempt by Hitler and his followers.
The Documentation Center displays photographs, films, documents and texts, highlighting the history of unspeakable suffering, mass murder and barbarism. At the laying of the foundation stone in 2012 and the opening in 2015, exactly 70 years after the liberation of the city from the Nazis by the US Army, politicians stressed the importance of remembrance to prevent history from repeating itself.
The Documentation Center is housed in a cube, which is completely white and visible from afar. On the top floor, the exhibition begins with World War I and explains the reasons for the emergence and rise of the NSDAP soon after it ended. On the lower floors, there are documents detailing life in National Socialist Munich, crimes committed by Munich residents during World War II, and its consequences. The museum attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
Renaissance of Jewish life in Munich
The area around Brienner Strasse is also characterized by an Israeli presence and, more recently, by a renaissance of Jewish life in Munich. Since 2011, the Consulate General of the State of Israel in Munich has been located just a few steps away.
According to Israel, it's the country's only consulate general in the European Union. This shows the diverse, also economic relations between Bavaria and Israel. The first Israeli diplomatic presence in West Germany was located in Munich from 1948 — shortly after the state of Israel was founded — until 1953. There were no official diplomatic relations at the time. But Israel wanted to have contact with Holocaust survivors who wanted to emigrate to Israel.
The headquarters of the Conference of European Rabbis has also been part of the neighborhood since 2023. The conference was founded in London in 1956 with the aim of rebuilding Jewish life in Europe. The rabbis' decision to relocate to Munich was due to the commitment of the Bavarian state government, Brexit and the strengthening of Jewish life in Germany. And the city has one of the most impressive newly built synagogues in Germany and a vibrant Jewish community in the central downtown area.
"Historically speaking, Munich is quite extreme," Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis, told DW in 2023. "This is where the destruction of Judaism in Europe began. This is where Kristallnacht, [a euphemistic term describing the pogrom against Jews in Germany in November 1938] was planned."
Goldschmidt added that to him it seems history has come full circle. "The Conference of European Rabbis, which has wanted to support the reconstruction of Jewish communities after the Holocaust since 1956, is coming to this country. And in Munich, in Bavaria, in Germany, we see that Jewish communities have been rebuilt and are flourishing," he said.
Security is high around the Israeli Consulate, and the headquarters of the Conference of European Rabbis has various, rather inconspicuous protective measures. And diagonally opposite on the other side of the street is a large police station, ensuring constant protection for the neighborhood.
This article was originally written in German.
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