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Ehrentempel | |
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General information | |
Architectural style | Nazi architecture |
Town or city | Munich |
Country | Germany |
Completed | 1935 |
Demolished | 1947 |
Client | Adolf Hitler |
The Honor Temples (German : Ehrentempel) were two structures in Munich, erected by the Nazis in 1935, housing the sarcophagi of the sixteen members of the Party who had been killed in the failed Beer Hall Putsch (the Blutzeugen, "blood witnesses"). On 9 January 1947 the main architectural features of the temples were destroyed by the U.S. Army as part of denazification.
On 8 November 1933 Hitler addressed the party’s old guard at the Bürgerbräukeller (where the putsch had begun) and the next day unveiled a small memorial with a plaque underneath at the east side of the Feldherrnhalle. Two policemen or the SS stood guard on either side of the memorial’s base and passers-by were required to give the Hitler salute.
The memorial could be circumvented, and the salute avoided, by choosing a small nearby side street, which came to be known as Drückebergergasse ("Shirker's Alley"). [1]
In 1934 no commemorative march was made on the anniversary because of Hitler’s purge of the SA’s ranks in the Night of the Long Knives. The next year on 8 November the putschists were exhumed from their graves and taken to the Feldherrnhalle, where they were placed beneath sixteen large pylons bearing their names. The next day, after Hitler had solemnly walked past from one to the next, they were taken down the monument’s steps and taken on carts, draped in flags to Paul Ludwig Troost’s new Ehrentempel monuments at the Königsplatz, through streets lined with spectators bustling between 400 columns with eternal flames atop. Flags were lowered as veterans slowly placed the heavy sarcophagi into place. In each of the structures eight of the martyrs were interred in a sarcophagus bearing their name.
The martyrs of the movement were in heavy black sarcophagi in such a way as to be exposed to rain and sun from the open roof. When Gauleiter Adolf Wagner died from a stroke in 1944 he was interred metres away from the north temple in the adjacent grass mound in between the two temples.
At the temples visitors were required to be silent, not wear hats and keep children from running over the centre of the temples. The Ehrentempel was made of limestone except for its roof which was made of steel and concrete with etched glass mosaics. The pedestals of the temples, which are the only parts remaining, are 70 feet (21 m). The columns of the structures each extended 23 feet (7.0 m). The combined weight of the sarcophagi was over 2,900 pounds (1,300 kg).
On 5 July 1945 the American occupying army removed the bodies from the Ehrentempel and contacted their families. They were given the option of having their loved ones buried in Munich cemeteries in unmarked graves, their family plots or having them cremated, common practice in Germany for unclaimed bodies. The columns of the structures were recycled into brake shoes for municipal buses and new material for art galleries damaged in the war. The sarcophagi were melted down and given to the Munich tram service who used it for soldering material to repair rail and electrical lines damaged by the war.
On 9 January 1947 the upper parts of the structures were blown up. The centre portion was subsequently partially filled in but often filled with rain water which created a natural memorial. When Germany was reunited there were plans made for a biergarten, restaurant or café on the site of the Ehrentempel but these were derailed by the growth of rare biotope vegetation on the site. As a result of this, the temples were spared complete destruction and the foundation bases of the monuments remain, intersecting on the corner of Briennerstrasse and Arcisstrasse. In the intermittent period of the 1947 destruction and 1990 handover, basements (hitherto unknown to the Americans) were uncovered beneath the structures. A small plaque added in 2007 explains their function.
The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch, was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff and other Kampfbund leaders in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 1923, during the Weimar Republic. Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 15 Nazis, four police officers, and one bystander.
Winifred Marjorie Wagner was the English-born wife of Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richard Wagner, and ran the Bayreuth Festival after her husband's death in 1930 until the end of World War II in 1945. She was a friend and supporter of Adolf Hitler, himself a Wagner enthusiast, and she and Hitler maintained a regular correspondence.
The Feldherrnhalle is a monumental loggia on the Odeonsplatz in Munich, Germany. Modelled after the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, it was commissioned in 1841 by King Ludwig I of Bavaria to honour the tradition of the Bavarian Army.
The Blutfahne, or Blood Flag, is or was a Nazi Party swastika flag that was carried during the attempted coup d'état Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Germany on 9 November 1923, during which it became soaked in the blood of one of the SA men who died. It subsequently became one of the most revered objects of the Nazi Party. It was used in ceremonies in which new flags for party organisations were consecrated by the Blood Flag when touched by it.
The Blood Order, officially known as the Decoration in Memory of 9 November 1923, was one of the most prestigious decorations in the Nazi Party (NSDAP). During March 1934, Hitler authorized the Blood Order to commemorate the 9 November 1923 coup attempt of the Nazi Party. The medal is silver, with the obverse bearing a depiction of an eagle grasping an oak leaf wreath. Inside the wreath is the date 9.Nov. and to the right is the inscription München 1923–1933. The reverse shows the entrance of the Feldherrnhalle in relief, and directly above is the angled swastika with sun rays in the background. Along the top edge is the inscription: UND IHR HABT DOCH GESIEGT.
Adolf Wagner was a Nazi Party official and politician who served as the Party's Gauleiter in Munich and as the powerful Interior Minister of Bavaria throughout most of the Third Reich.
The Bürgerbräukeller was a large beer hall in Munich, Germany. Opened in 1885, it was one of the largest beer halls of the Bürgerliches Brauhaus. Bürgerliches merged with Löwenbräu, which thereby became the hall's owner.
Paul Schmitthenner was a German architect, city planner and Professor at the University of Stuttgart.
Ludwig Maximilian Erwin von Scheubner-Richter was a Baltic German political activist and an influential early member of the Nazi Party.
Königsplatz is a square in Munich, Germany. Built in the style of European Neoclassicism in the 19th century, it displays the Propyläen Gate and, facing each other, the Glyptothek and the Staatliche Antikensammlungen. The area around Königsplatz is home to the Kunstareal, Munich's gallery and museum quarter.
Heinz Pernet was a German military officer and Erich Ludendorff's stepson. He was a top figure in the Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923. He was among the nine men tried and convicted along with Adolf Hitler and Erich Ludendorff in 1924. He later became an SA-Brigadeführer.
The Brown House was the name given to the Munich mansion located between the Karolinenplatz and Königsplatz, known before as the Palais Barlow, which was purchased in 1930 for the Nazis. They converted the structure into the headquarters of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Its name comes from early Nazi Party uniforms, which were brown. Many leading Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, maintained offices there throughout the party's existence. It was destroyed by Allied bombing raids during World War II.
The Palais Preysing is a Rococo style building at Residenzstraße 27, opposite the Residenz in Munich, Southern Germany, which served as residence for the Counts of Preysing. To distinguish it from the nearby Palais Neuhaus-Preysing, it is also called the Elder Palais Preysing.
Stadelheim Prison, in Munich's Giesing district, is one of the largest prisons in Germany.
The Odeonsplatz is a large square in central Munich which was developed in the early 19th century by Leo von Klenze and is at the southern end of the Ludwigstraße, developed at the same time. The square is named for the former concert hall, the Odeon, on its northwestern side. The name Odeonsplatz has come to be extended to the parvis (forecourt) of the Residenz, in front of the Theatine Church and terminated by the Feldherrnhalle, which lies to the south of it. The square was the scene of a fatal gun battle which ended the march on the Feldherrnhalle during the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.
Ruins of the Reich is a documentary series that traces the rise and fall of the Third Reich through its architecture. Written and directed by film maker R. J. Adams, the film's "then and now" format focuses on the primary sites that played key roles from Hitler's rise to his final days in his Berlin bunker.
The Führerbau is a historically significant building at Arcisstrasse 12 in Maxvorstadt, Munich. It was built during the Nazi period, between 1933 and 1937, and used extensively by Adolf Hitler. Unlike many other buildings associated with the Nazis, the building still stands today. It currently houses the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich.
Gerhardine "Gerdy" Troost, was a German architect, interior designer, interior decorator, and the wife of Paul Ludwig Troost.
Blutzeuge was a term used in Nazi Germany during the early 20th century for members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and associated organizations considered to be martyrs. Blutzeuge was used in Nazi propaganda in the 1930s and 1940s to depict a hero cult of "fallen" Nazis who had been murdered by opponents in the political violence in Germany during the Weimar Republic and after the Nazi seizure of control in January 1933. Adolf Hitler dedicated his book Mein Kampf to the sixteen NSDAP members killed in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.
Drückebergergasse is the popular name for Viscardigasse, a narrow, curbless pedestrian street, just over fifty metres long and paved with cobblestones throughout, in Munich, Germany. The street is officially named after the Swiss Baroque architect Giovanni Antonio Viscardi, but took its nickname from the 1930s, when locals could circumvent the nearby Nazi memorial to the martyrs of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, thus avoiding the requirement to render a Hitler salute to the guarded structure.