Platz der Opfer des Nationalsozialismus: Facing the Gestapo
Why is it significant?
In this small square on Brienner Straße, walk up to the dark stone column with a barred opening. Behind the bars a flame is burning, and it does not go out. This is the Square of the Victims of National Socialism.
Key Facts
| Place | Platz der Opfer des Nationalsozialismus: Facing the Gestapo |
|---|---|
| Address | Brienner Straße, 80333 München, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.14260, 11.57370 |
| Part of Walk | Munich 1918-1945: The Nazi Era, Its Victims and the White Rose |
| Generated | Generated |
In this small square on Brienner Straße, walk up to the dark stone column with a barred opening. Behind the bars a flame is burning, and it does not go out. This is the Square of the Victims of National Socialism.
The memorial with the eternal flame was set up in 1985, and the square was redesigned in 2014. It is dedicated to everyone persecuted and murdered by the regime: Jews, Sinti and Roma, political opponents, gay men, people with disabilities, forced labourers, and all those who were simply in the way. Now turn around and look across the street at the large modern bank building. That is where the reason for this square's location stood.
On that site stood the Wittelsbacher Palais, a romantic red-brick palace built in the 1840s for the Bavarian crown prince, where King Ludwig the First lived after he gave up the throne. From 1933 it became the headquarters of the Bavarian political police, which turned into the Gestapo. Its cellars were turned into cells, and people were interrogated, beaten and sent on from here to the camps.
In February 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl of the White Rose were brought here after their arrest at the university. Sophie was questioned for many hours by the Gestapo officer Robert Mohr. He later said that at first he had almost believed her innocence... until the evidence left no doubt. Neither of them betrayed their friends.
One of the regime's first concentration camps, Dachau, opened in March 1933, less than twenty kilometres from here. It was announced openly in the newspapers by Heinrich Himmler, then the acting police president of Munich. Nobody could say they had not been told. The palace was badly damaged in the war and its ruins later demolished. Now walk on east, then turn into Theatinerstraße and look for a narrow lane on your left leading through to Residenzstraße.