Alabama Depot
The Alabama Depot was a military camp in the Am Hart district of Munich from 1917 to 1974 . In the 1980s it became known throughout Germany as a cultural venue under the name Alabama Hall . Most of the former warehouse has been part of the BMW site since 1990 .
location
The Alabama depot was located between today's streets Schleißheimer Strasse in the west and Knorrstrasse in the east and the northern railroad ring in the south and Rathenaustrasse in the north. When it was founded, it belonged to the Milbertshofen district, which was incorporated shortly before Munich .
prehistory
On June 3, 1906, a bicycle and motorcycle stadium with adjacent sports fields was opened on the northern outskirts of Munich. 38,000 spectators could be found in the stadium; It was one of the largest cycling stadiums of its time worldwide. The plant was built with the support of the Milbertshofen industrialist Ludwig Petuel jun. He also wanted to advertise his bicycle factory selfishly. The then extremely popular Munich cyclist Thaddäus Robl experienced his last successes here. However, after the racecourse could no longer be financed, it was closed again in 1914.
Military use
The area belonged to the city of Milbertshofen until it was incorporated in 1913 and in 1917 it became the property of the city of Munich, which left it to the Bavarian army . The Army Equipment Office was built there, the main hall of which had three aisles. The central nave had a characteristic A-shaped gable. To the west of it there had been an ammunition depot, the so-called powder tower, since 1838. The proximity of the military railway, today's Nordring, was advantageous for the operation of the logistic facilities; so both facilities received extensive rail connections. During the Second World War , the Army Supply Office was housed in the north of the site.
After the war, took the US Army , the military facilities in Munich and renamed it in part by US states . The Alabama Storage Area (Alabama depot), which was subordinate to the Munich Quartermaster Depot (supply warehouse Munich), became the Heereszeugamt. The Bundeswehr received the northern part of the site as early as 1963 . The Kronprinz-Rupprecht-Kaserne , where the Panzergrenadier Battalion 223 was most recently stationed, existed there until 1992 .
Subsequent civil use as an Alabama hall
In 1974 the US Army also left the rest of the site. The halls there then served as storage and sales areas for small businesses of all kinds, as music studios, cabaret theaters and ateliers. In 1978, BMW acquired an option to purchase the site in order to build its research and innovation center (FIZ) there in the medium term. This set in motion an interim use that lasted until 1988 and incorporated BMW into the cultural funding.
Since 1979 the Festival of the Free Theater (today: Theater Festival Spielart) took place in Milbertshofen. The sponsor was the Spielmotor München eV association, jointly responsible for the cultural department of the city of Munich and BMW. The first few years the festival took place in tents, with weather-dependent failures leading to deficits.
The demolition of several halls on the Alabama site in 1981 was used by the city of Munich for a large-scale disaster control exercise: under the scenario of a plane crash, several halls were set on fire on November 14, 1981 in order to practice rescue and extinguishing operations under realistic conditions .
In 1981 the Alabama Hall opened as a concert and theater hall under the direction of the Spielmotor association. The conversion of an industrial hall without extensive renovations as a venue for youth culture and the independent cultural scene was new throughout Germany and laid the foundation for the hall culture of the 1980s and 1990s. First a stage and lighting were installed, shortly afterwards practice rooms for bands were added. The two bookers Winfried Albrecht and Cornelia Waiblen started with music, but soon brought experimental dance and independent theater groups into the hall. In the middle of the decade the hall was used for around 300 days a year. All acts were alternative or innovative; if a style became popular, it was dropped from the program.
After Bavarian television had already broadcast some concerts by well-known German and international pop and rock musicians from the Alabama Hall under the name Rock from the Alabama and Munich Rock Days , it produced the weekly youth program Live from the here from January 2, 1984 Alabama , which became known throughout Germany. After the talk show, the BR broadcast the beginning of the subsequent concert.
BMW and other users
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In mid-1986 BMW announced that it wanted to build on the site and announced the closure of the hall. The concerts ended at the end of 1987, and in April 1988 the last event took place in the Alabama Hall. In the following years most parts of the building were demolished and the rest fell into disrepair. BMW began erecting buildings for its development department in the south of the site.
The former Alabama site is now almost entirely used by BMW. The BMW Group Research and Innovation Center is located in several large buildings in the core of the area . The grounds of the Kronprinz-Rupprecht barracks, which were closed in 1992, are also to be built on by BMW (under the name: “FIZ Future”) in the next few years; In 2016, the Munich-North high school was opened there. In the southeast of the area is the seat of the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and other authorities of the Free State.
See also
literature
- Beate Freytag, Alexander Franc Storz: Milbertshofen - The history of the district from the Schwaige to the suburb of Munich . Buchendorfer Verlag Munich, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-934036-80-5 .
Web links
- Former US Army facilities in Munich
- www.muenchen.de Department for Urban Planning and Building Regulations> Projects> Kronprinz-Rupprecht-Kaserne (including history and maps)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Spielart - Das Theaterfestival: Organizer
- ↑ Full exercise "Alabama 81" in Munich: The leadership model on the "test bench". In: Federal Association for Self-Protection, Civil Protection Magazine 7–8 / 82, pp. 16–22, ISSN 0173-7872 .
- ↑ The bumblebee is buzzing . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1988, pp. 262-263 (on- line ).
- ^ Gernot Brauer, Dirk Reinartz: Milbertshofen . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag 1991, ISBN 3-88034-539-2 , pp. 298-309
Coordinates: 48 ° 11 ′ 42 ″ N , 11 ° 34 ′ 5 ″ E