NS Documentation Center (Munich)

The NS Documentation Center seen from Munich's Königsplatz, photo September 2015 (west side)

Director Mirjam Zadoff, 2019

The NS Documentation Center Munich - place of learning and remembrance on the history of National Socialism is an institution of the state capital Munich together with the Free State of Bavaria and the Federal Republic of Germany .

The NS Documentation Center serves to deal with the history and the consequences of the NS regime and the future- oriented , historical-political educational work at the historically-authentic location of the former Brown House , the NSDAP party headquarters. An important part of the activity is the role of Munich as the “ capital of the movement ” in the rise of the NSDAP and the implementation of National Socialism . Its educational program is heavily geared towards school classes of all ages.

The center on Brienner Strasse in the Munich art area was opened on the 70th anniversary of Munich's liberation on April 30, 2015. On February 6, 2018, the previously unnamed square in front of the center was named after the Holocaust survivor Max Mannheimer , who, as one of the most famous contemporary witnesses in Germany, had campaigned heavily for the construction of the NS Documentation Center in Munich. The new address of the center is Max-Mannheimer-Platz 1.

history

The city of Munich is an important place in the history of National Socialism in Germany. This is where the party was founded, with the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch it first tried to come to power in 1923, and the city was the seat of the party leadership and its administration until the end of the World War and thus the NSDAP.

First considerations after 1945

Hitler at the inauguration of the "Brown House" (1930)

" Brown House " (1935)

NS Documentation Center, construction site in December 2012

After the Second World War , “German monuments and museums of a military and National Socialist character” had to be removed due to the Control Council Directive No. 30 . The American military government had all National Socialist symbols such as imperial eagles and swastikas removed. Nazi buildings such as the Führerbau , which had not been destroyed, were converted, and the two temples of honor as locations for Nazi celebrations on Königsplatz were blown up in 1947.

With the denazification and re- education in the American occupation zone, consideration was given to whether an educational institution should not be set up in Munich for a differentiated discussion of National Socialism. However, with the changed interests in the Cold War , US cultural policy moved from confronting the population with the Nazi crimes to an active alliance policy. The America House was opened in Munich in 1948 .

New attempt in 1989

Since 1988 an initiative group of active citizens has been committed to the establishment of a place for critical handling of Nazi history in Munich, the later founding director Winfried Nerdinger was significantly involved. In 1989 the Munich city council suggested building a “House of Contemporary History”. The location was already the property of the " Brown House " in Brienner Strasse , where the Reich leadership of the NSDAP had its headquarters during the time of National Socialism - right next to Königsplatz in the center of the city. However, the project was initially not implemented.

New paths in the 1990s

A short time later, at the beginning of the nineties, the state capital of Munich set about remembering the time of National Socialism more strongly than before with exhibitions and events. To this end, it primarily promoted civic initiatives and remembrance work on site.

The decision of principle 2001

In 2001, the state capital of Munich made a decision in principle to set up a Nazi documentation center. Six months later, the Free State of Bavaria followed suit. Four symposia followed with public participation .

In 2003 the city council decided to fund the project. However, in the context of efforts to set up a Nazi documentation center, important accents were set for the future and the integration of this nationwide significant project into Munich's city history: Also in 2003, a separate department for aspects of city history was set up in the Munich City Museum - not as competition or Alternative to the NS Documentation Center, but as a complementary part of a more extensive memory landscape. In June 2008 the permanent exhibition “National Socialism in Munich - Chiffren der Reminder” on the rise and reign of National Socialism was opened in the Munich City Museum.

In 2005, a scientific team from the cultural department of the City of Munich with three specialist committees (political and scientific advisory board, board of trustees) began to prepare intensively for the establishment and establishment of the Nazi documentation center. At the end of the same year, the location issue was resolved when the Free State of Bavaria made the property of the “Brown House” available free of charge. In April 2008 the architecture competition for the NS Documentation Center was announced by the city council.

In June 2009, the already agreed cooperation for the construction of the documentation center between the federal government, the Free State of Bavaria and the state capital Munich was finally sealed in a festive act by a contract. The three contractual partners undertook to bear the construction costs of 28.2 million euros in equal parts. Should additional costs arise, these would have to be borne by the city. The city will then pay for the maintenance and operation of the documentation center.

Construction work on the National Socialist Documentation Center began in 2011, and the foundation stone was laid on March 9, 2012.

The NS Documentation Center under construction, April 2013

Difficult finding a name

The question of what the final name of the new documentation center should be was controversial. The various bodies and parties disagreed on this:

In the decisive city council meeting in March 2011, the city's cultural department and the SPD criticized the abbreviation “ NS ” because it stood for “National Socialist” and was therefore a term used by the Nazis in the “language of the perpetrators” . In addition, “NS” would not be understandable or common abroad. Last but not least, cultural advisor Hans-Georg-Küppers (SPD) did not want the documentation center to be misunderstood as a “National Socialist center” abroad.

The then founding director of the Documentation Center, Irmtrud Wojak , and her scientific team showed a similar attitude in advance . Lord Mayor Christian Ude shared this assessment and underlined the vote of the Board of Trustees of the Documentation Center, which favored a name with only one vote that would have done without the addition of "NS". The President of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG), Charlotte Knobloch , considered the term “NS” to be “absolutely unsuitable” in this context, as it came from the language of the perpetrators.

All other parties in the city council contradicted this position. The Greens argued that the abbreviation “NS” had long been established in everyday language and that the responsible department of the cultural department was even called the “NS Documentation Center”. In addition, the political advisory board and the initiative group voted unanimously for the name "NS Documentation Center" and the scientific advisory board, at least by a majority, would have decided in favor of this variant. On top of that, he couldn't imagine anyone abroad assuming that Munich would use this to build a center to glorify the Nazi era: “Even the stupidest neo-Nazi understands that this is about the analysis of terror,” said Siegfried Benker of the Greens.

Marian Offman, one of the two vice presidents of the IKG and member of the CSU city council, emphasized that there are also different views on this within the religious community. For him it is crucial that the short title makes it clear what it is all about: "Nor should the impression be created that we are shamefully withholding something."

In the subsequent decision, the CSU, the Greens, the FDP, the Left and the Bavarian Party finally outvoted the SPD and Christian Ude. Since then, the center has been called: "NS Documentation Center Munich - Learning and Remembrance Center for the History of National Socialism".

A public statement by Irmtrud Wojak, in which, hours later, she criticized the city council's decision with unusual fierce criticism, led to considerable resentment: the team's arguments had not been heard and the city council discussion was a prime example of “that the word of contemporary witnesses is no longer heard when party political considerations are involved ”. There was "something deeply shameful about" playing out the contemporary witnesses "and made" fear the worst for the future confrontation with National Socialism ".

Conception and pedagogy

The Nazi Documentation Center next to the base of the northern so-called "Ehrentempels" and the former " Führerbau " - today the Munich University of Music and Theater

The NS Documentation Center is to become a central place of remembrance and learning, in whose concept and work the topography around Königsplatz - the former NSDAP party quarter with the Brown House, Führerbau and honorary temples in Munich - plays an important role. At the same time, it is to become part of a nationwide network that, on the one hand, deals with the history and consequences of the Nazi regime and, on the other hand, realizes future-oriented, historical-political educational work in a historically authentic location.

Another important aspect is Munich's role as the “ capital of the movement ” in the rise of the NSDAP and the implementation of the Nazi regime. The focus here is on remembrance work in the form of open debates and critical examination of the history of National Socialism - with the aim of promoting a contemporary and future-oriented civil society that strives for human rights .

This place of learning is intended to convey to future generations that tolerance and democracy have to be safeguarded again and again, that they have to be shaped and filled with life in order to be able to survive in the future.

Debate about the concept

The dispute over the exact concept of the NS Documentation Center led to the fact that at the end of October 2011 the Munich cultural advisor Hans-Georg Küppers (SPD) relieved the previous founding director Irmtrud Wojak of her duties. This step had previously been discussed with the Scientific Advisory Board of the Nazi Documentation Center, which unanimously supported this after Wojak's rough concept for the Documentation Center was consistently rejected in its committees.

Küppers then formed a four-person committee of historians from members of the scientific advisory board, which drafted a new concept by the beginning of 2012, which was unanimously welcomed and supported by all committees and the Munich city council. The committee included: Hans Günter Hockerts , who held the chair for contemporary history at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich until 2009 , Marita Krauss , professor for Bavarian and Swabian regional history at the University of Augsburg , Peter Longerich , professor at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College of the University of London , where he is director of the Research Center for the Holocaust and Twentieth-Century History , as well as the director of the Architekturmuseum der Technische Universität München , architectural historian and long-time president of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts Winfried Nerdinger .

The interim personnel solution for the management of the Nazi Documentation Center was the department head in the cultural department, Angelika Baumann. Although she did not assume a representative function, she acted as a contact person for the team of the NS Documentation Center and became the link between the historians' committee and the other employees of the cultural department until the concept for the documentation center was in place at the beginning of 2012. The press office of the cultural department handled all public inquiries about the Nazi documentation center.

New concept and new founding director

Winfried Nerdinger, 2017

The concept of the four professors commissioned by the cultural department was unanimously approved by the culture committee of the Munich city council in 2012 and is publicly accessible. In March 2012, cultural advisor Hans-Georg Küppers informed the culture committee of the city of Munich that he would like to propose Winfried Nerdinger to the city council as founding director for the NS Documentation Center in Munich. The city council's approval decision was made in July 2012. Until his retirement at the end of September 2012, Nerdinger was still active as “primus inter pares” in the scientific team of four that had jointly developed the agreed concept. From October 2012 he headed the NS Documentation Center as founding director.

In spring 2013, Nerdinger surprisingly released the design office from the contract for exhibition development. Therefore, the opening date had to be postponed from November 2014 to spring 2015. The concept was finally developed by Kochbüro from Nuremberg.

The documentation center was opened on April 30, 2015. From May 1, 2015 to the end of July, visitors could visit it with free admission.

On May 2, 2018, the historian Mirjam Zadoff took over the management of the Documentation Center. Winfried Nerdinger went into retirement.

concept

The documentation center is aimed at the entire Munich population from school age, visitors from the region as well as national and international visitors. The building and exhibition are designed for 250,000 to 300,000 visitors a year, of which school classes will have a large proportion.

A special relationship is established between the location of the museum at the site of the former party headquarters and the surroundings of the preserved and destroyed representative and functional buildings of the Nazi dictatorship. The exhibition is shaped by the two central questions “Why Munich?” And “What does that have to do with me today?”.

The permanent exhibition is divided into 34 main points and is designed for a visit time of around 90 minutes for first-time visitors. Several specialization options are offered for each aspect presented in large format. The topics range from historical events to the emergence of the culture of remembrance in the post-war period to the continuity of racist and other elements of the National Socialist reign of terror into the present day. The focus is on local and biographical references to the visitors.

The learning forum is located in the first basement. There, visitors can deepen the exhibition independently. A reference library with almost 3000 books, four media tables and 24 research stations are available for this purpose. A wide variety of topics can be dealt with at the research stations: from exploring Munich's urban space, in which the places of residence of over 15,000 victims and persecuted people are registered, to a complex lexicon with over 1,000 articles, to abstract topics such as Hitler's rise in the network of NSDAP. The interactive exhibits of the learning forum were developed in a research project with the Technical University of Munich .

The exhibition has been supplemented by an event and educational program in cooperation with the Munich Adult Education Center since 2011 . The Documentation Center has placed particular emphasis on the participation of young people in another series of events since 2012.

Exhibition gallery

Showrooms
Showrooms
Showrooms
Showrooms

Building

In 2009, 48 entries to be considered in the architecture competition resulted in a 1st prize, two further prizes, two further acquisitions and a design that received a special prize. The winning design comes from the Berlin architects Georg Scheel Wetzel ; it was slightly revised after the competition according to the jury's specifications.

The building consists of an above-ground cube with an edge length of 22.5 m with six floors and two basement floors twice as large. Outside and inside, the building is characterized by a special white exposed concrete . The facades are structured by fields of lamellar slots that usually extend over two floors, creating visual connections between the building and its historical surroundings. Ceilings, floors and, if available, wall cladding were adapted to the white exposed concrete.

The ground floor is used as a foyer, the exhibition is housed on four upper floors. Above that, offices and conference rooms occupy the top floor. The generally accessible exhibition begins on the 4th floor, which is reached from the foyer by an elevator. From there, visitors walk down stairs along the exhibition. There is room for temporary exhibitions on the first floor . Ceiling cutouts are arranged behind the two-storey lamellar incisions in the facade. They create air spaces that connect the floors and create a spacious impression despite the relatively low ceiling height of 3.50 m. Elevators, the wide staircase for visitors, the second staircase for employees and emergencies, as well as small functional rooms are combined in one core. That is why the exhibition areas are located.

The two basement floors have twice the area of the cube and extend under the square forecourt. The event hall with space for 200 visitors extends over the full height of the basement. It is equipped with a stage and event technology and can also be used independently of the exhibition rooms. In the first basement there are event rooms, specialization rooms with computer-aided communication of further information and a reference library. Functional rooms such as storage, workshops and building services are also located in the basement.

Art competition

Central video wall of the Kunst-am-Bau factory at the NS Documentation Center in Munich

Monitors on the house wall facing Briennerstrasse at the NS Documentation Center in Munich

Monitors in the forecourt of the NS Documentation Center Munich

Monitor on the base of the memorial at the NS Documentation Center in Munich

In 2012, ten entries to be considered in the competition on art in architecture were awarded a first prize and an honorable mention. The winning design comes from the brothers Benjamin Heisenberg and Emanuel Heisenberg , as well as from Elisophie Eulenburg , it was slightly revised after the competition and completed in April 2015. Peter Götz and Elisabeth Lukas-Götz received an honorable mention for their competition entry.

The focus of the work is on filmic text-image collages on key documents from the Nazi era. The films are shown on an installation of monitors in the outside area around the Nazi Documentation Center. The text passages are original documents by perpetrators and victims. They reflect the perspectives of known and unknown actors of the Nazi era and are partly related to the exhibition location, the former " Brown House " in Munich, to whose address the name of the exhibition " Brienner 45 " refers.

The short films of the work of art are based on texts such as the hunter's report or the farewell letter from the 14-year-old boy Chaijm, who was found in the fence of a concentration camp. They draw possible outlines of the civilization catastrophe of the Third Reich. The documents have been processed into films 3–6 minutes in length. Each word has been assigned a picture that illustrates the meaning of the word. On average, the word-image pairs were lined up in the rhythm of slowly spoken language so that the text can be read and the images perceived in parallel. The monitors on which the short films can be seen are grouped individually and in groups around the Nazi Documentation Center.

The culture committee of the Munich city council followed the recommendation and unanimously decided on December 13, 2012 to realize the media installation of the Heisenberg brothers within the scope of the NS Documentation Center in Munich.

Branch office Neuaubing

In November 2011 it was decided to assign the former forced labor camp Neuaubing to the NS Documentation Center as a branch. The exhibition concept was determined in early 2014. According to this, the area is to be prepared as a green classroom especially for school classes and mainly tell the story of the forced laborers from the Ukraine who had to work for the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the Munich-Neuaubing repair shop between 1943 and April 1945 . With original documents and seven information stations in the outdoor area as well as a preserved barrack, various aspects of the story are presented.

literature

City of Munich: New NS Documentation Center in Munich. From the implementation competition to the laying of the foundation stone. Munich 2012 ( PDF at ns-dokuzentrum-muenchen.de).