Odeonsplatz & The Feldherrnhalle: The 1923 Beer Hall Putsch

Why is it significant?

Stand right on the broad flagstones of Odeonsplatz, looking up at the monumental open arches of the Feldherrnhalle, flanked by two majestic stone lions.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand right on the broad flagstones of Odeonsplatz, looking up at the monumental open arches of the Feldherrnhalle, flanked by two majestic stone lions. Commissioned in eighteen forty-one by King Ludwig the First to honor Bavaria's military commanders, this loggia was modeled directly on Florence's Loggia dei Lanzi.

But on the snowy morning of November ninth, nineteen twenty-three, this exact plaza was soaked in blood. Adolf Hitler, World War One general Erich Ludendorff, and two thousand armed Nazi stormtroopers marched from a nearby beer hall attempting to overthrow the Bavarian government in the Beer Hall Putsch. Right in front of this loggia, Bavarian state police barred their way. A shot rang out, and an intense gun battle erupted, leaving four police officers and sixteen putschists dead.

Hitler was arrested, tried for treason, and imprisoned in Landsberg Prison, where he dictated Mein Kampf. When the Nazis seized power a decade later, they turned the Feldherrnhalle into a mandatory shrine where every passing citizen had to give the Nazi salute. Defiant Munich locals deliberately took a detour through the narrow alley behind the loggia, Viscardigasse, which locals still proudly call Drückebergergasse, or Dodger's Alley.

Walk into the adjacent green lawns of the Hofgarten.