Exhibition Reviews

Exhibition Reviews

Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, Munich, Germany Reviewed by Peter Gengler

On May 1, 2015, the NS-Dokumentationszentrum (National Socialist Documentation Center) opened its doors to the public in Munich, Germany. Situated on the grounds of the former “Brown House,” the Nazi party headquarters since 1931, the museum chronicles the history of the National Socialist movement in Munich between 1918 and 1945. Te building is located in the heart of the party’s various administrative buildings and a stone’s throw away from the still standing Führerbau (Führer’s Building), site of the infamous 1938 Munich Agreement that sparked Germany’s aggressive territorial expansion. Immediately outside of the documentation center sit the ruins of the two Ehrentempel, the “temples of honor” and resting place of the 16 “blood witnesses” who died during Hitler’s failed 1923 putsch and who constituted a central component of Nazi commemorative celebrations and public rallies. Tis was the sacred home of National Socialism within Munich, the “capital of the movement.” Given the immense gravity of the location, it is ftting that the Munich city council chose this setting to document Germany’s darkest chapter and to provide younger generations a place to engage with their disquieting history. On the fourth foor, visitors begin their chronological journey through the exhibit in the immediate revolutionary tumult that erupted in Munich in the wake of WWI and the collapse of the German Empire. Failed attempts at establishing a Soviet Republic in Munich and bloody street battles between lefist revolutionaries and government and paramilitary Freikorps troops radicalized Munich politics and provided the crucial context for Hitler’s slow climb to power. Especially fascinating is the focus on the political infuences and prominent supporters that shaped Hitler’s thinking. Tis section of the 217 Traces | The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

The exhibit's open floor plan and large displays mark a successful design that combines sleek architecture with engaging pedagogy. Visitors move through each floor chronologically while maintaining a view of the grounds outside, which were the epicenter of the Nazi movement. (Photo courtesy of the Munich Documentation Centre.)

center outlines the ideological foundations of National Socialism as well as the party’s evolution and rise, from its early gatherings in musty beer halls to the pinnacle of political power. Te third foor focuses on the party’s consolidation of power afer 1933 and details aspects of daily life in Nazi Munich. At the heart of this exposition is the issue of complicity and resistance, as opponents and victims of the regime are contrasted with radical supporters. Te greatest challenge is explaining to visitors far removed temporally from the events how “normal” Bavarians could buy into a brutal and repressive dictatorship. Evidence demonstrating how Germans profted from genocide by acquiring goods from their deported Jewish neighbors through public auctions is especially thought-provoking. By providing snippets of everyday life in the “People’s Community” and documenting the incentives and implicit and explicit threats to locals, the center confronts visitors with a level of nuance that goes beyond notions of “good” and “evil” so ofen invoked in discussions of Nazism. Te second foor covers the war years and Nazi persecution of its enemies. Te exhibit is particularly strong at showing how the Second World War and the Holocaust afected the city and its residents. Te fate

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A 1936 Nazi rally on the Königsplatz. In the background are the two "Ehrentempel," resting place of the 1923 putsch "martyrs," of which only foundations remain today. The documentation center stands on the grounds of party's headquarters, the "Brown House," which can be seen behind the temple on the left. (Photo courtesy of the Munich Documentation Centre.) of Munich’s Jews, mentally and physically disabled, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, and religious and political opponents are movingly depicted and well documented. Te portions focusing on Munich’s police and military units and their complicity in war crimes are especially revealing, as are depictions of local slave labor and “death marches” in the fnal days of the war. Te fates of the regime’s victims are contrasted with the lives of Munich residents between 1939 and 1945, as air raids and the consequences of total war spelled out the miserable reality of a “Tousand Year Reich.” Tankfully, the exhibit avoids narratives of German victimhood and successfully captures the radicalization of the regime in the fnal phases of its existence and the draconian and ofen deadly punishments that were meted out to Bavarians who wavered in their commitment to the “fnal victory.” Tis section ends with American occupation, denazifcation, the prosecution of criminals, and coming to terms with the dictatorial past, though the center reminds visitors that silence and inaction were the norm in the postwar years. Te last segment of the exhibition consists of a powerful examination of neo-Nazism and the specter of fascism that continues to haunt Germany and the contested public remembrance of the Tird Reich’s crimes. Te

219 Traces | The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Standing at the epicenter of the Nazi movement, the documentation center is a long overdue addition to the Munich landscape. Though periodic proposals since 1945 sought to mark the ground's significance, it has taken seven decades for the city to erect a reminder of Munich’s central role in Hitler’s rise to power. (Photo courtesy of the Munich Documentation Centre.)

museum also allocates space for travelling exhibits, currently featuring art with the Holocaust and Nazi dictatorship as its thematic focal point. Te center is blunt about continued ambivalences within Germany regarding its treatment of the past and contemporary issues involving rightwing radicalism. Tematically unifying the ignoble past and current challenges to democracy provides a poignant reminder of the need for continued vigilance, especially given the rising hostility toward refugees and asylum seekers and Euroscepticism. Te Dokumentationszentrum is a long overdue addition to Munich’s museum landscape. While cities such as Berlin feature a plethora of high- profle memorials and sites of commemoration, Munich continues to struggle with its history. Tough the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial draws many visitors, it is located on the outskirts of the city and is therefore “out of sight, out of mind” for Bavarians resistant to reminders of Munich’s status as “capital of the movement.” Te Stolpersteine or “stumbling block” memorial stones—bronze cobblestones bearing the names and fates of victims which are embedded in the sidewalk in front of the victims’ former residences— dot the European landscape elsewhere. But last summer the Munich city council once again upheld an ordinance banning Stolperteine from private

220 Exhibition Reviews property, ostensibly to address the concerns of members of the Jewish community who feel that these memorial plaques could be soiled due to their placement on the ground and are therefore disrespectful to the victims. Not coincidentally, a number of “concerned citizens” who felt that the plaques might afect the neighborhood’s ambience and property values were also pleased by the decision. Even in cases where there is no special pleading to leave the past behind, such as with the ongoing debate over whether Mein Kampf, whose copyright is held by the state of Bavaria, should be published with careful annotations and comments by historians, confronting the past is more fraught in conservative Bavaria. Unsurprisingly, the idea for a memorial on the site of the party’s headquarters, which emerged almost immediately afer 1945, also went nowhere and was raised and dropped repeatedly until fnally, in 2001, the Dokumentationszentrum was approved by the cultural subcommittee of the city council. Afer nearly 15 years of careful planning, Munich was prepared to shed light on its darkest chapters. Despite legitimate criticisms about Bavaria’s tortured memory-political landscape, the Dokumentationszentrum represents an earnest and successful combination of history and pedagogy. Te museum succeeds in coherently transmitting sophisticated scholarship and explaining the wider historical context in a language that is accessible for specialists and lay audiences alike. Particularly impressive is the center’s serious attempt to broach the city’s belatedness and indeed at times unwillingness to acknowledge the broad popular support that made Munich the ideological hothouse in which National Socialism thrived. Furthermore, the center’s focus on neo-Nazism and the scourge of rightwing radicalism are powerful reminders of the continuing duty of Germany to confront the past. Given the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe, the anti-immigrant PEGIDA movement, and the popularity of the “Alternative for Germany” party, the museum makes a vital contribution to public education. A visit to the Dokumentationszentrum is a sobering reminder that Nazism was no aberration or fuke, and that ideologies founded on hatred remain a problem for democracies, requiring an engaged citizenry willing to face these challenges.

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