Führerbau
On the rubble of the Palais Pringsheim, Paul Ludwig Troost builds Hitler’s Munich seat in 1933–1937. The Munich Agreement is signed here in 1938, looted art is stored here from 1939 on, the US Army sets up the central restitution office here in 1945. Today the University of Music and Performing Arts.
What stood here before
In 1889/90 Alfred and Hedwig Pringsheim moved into the Neo-Renaissance palais at Arcisstraße 12 — a bourgeois-Jewish salon of Wilhelmine Munich. Alfred Pringsheim was a mathematician at LMU, a Wagner confidant and a major collector of Italian maiolica; Hedwig, née Dohm, daughter of the women’s rights campaigner Hedwig Dohm and a salonnière in her own right, is best known today as a diarist. It was here that Thomas Mann met their daughter Katia, whom he married on 11 February 1905.
After 1933 the NSDAP pressures the 83-year-old Pringsheim. The palais is sold far below value; the Pringsheims move to rented rooms on Maximiliansplatz 12. In November 1933 the Palais Pringsheim is demolished. In 1939, in old age, both emigrate to Switzerland — Alfred dies in Zurich in 1941, Hedwig in 1942. More on the family on the Jewish Maxvorstadt page.
Paul Ludwig Troost
1878–1934. Hitler’s first architect before Speer. Designs the Führerbau in 1933, dies on 21 January 1934. Studio Troost — Gerdy Troost and Leonhard Gall — carries it out. Construction 1933–1937. Shell-limestone façade, strict classicism, pier portico, three main storeys plus mansard.
Interior by Gerdy Troost
Gerdy Troost (1904–2003), trained interior designer, gives the rooms a strict classicist-cum-Art-Déco look: precious woods, marble in the entrance hall and main staircase, heavy curtains, furniture from Studio Troost. On the first upper floor, Hitler’s study and the large conference hall.
Mussolini inauguration and Munich Agreement
The ceremonial inauguration of the Führerbau takes place on 25 September 1937, on the occasion of Mussolini’s state visit to Munich — together with the Administrative Building opposite. The building serves purely representative and political purposes; the actual party administration sits in the architecturally identical Administrative Building.
A year later, in the night of 29 to 30 September 1938, around 1.30 a.m., the heads of government of the four great powers sign the Munich Agreement in the large conference hall: Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, Benito Mussolini. Czechoslovakia — absent — is forced to cede the largely German-speaking Sudeten territories to the German Reich immediately. The agreement is regarded as the high point of British-French appeasement. The SS stands as guard of honour outside the Führerbau.
Looted-art depot 1939–1945
From as early as 1939 — and more intensively from 1942 — the Führerbau serves as central depot for the Sonderauftrag Linz, the planned Führermuseum collection. In the cellars several thousand artworks are stored, taken from looted Jewish private collections across Europe, from occupied countries and from “aryanised” German collections. By April 1945, around 1,600 paintings are evacuated to Altaussee; the last transport, with 137 works, leaves Munich on 13 April 1945. In the night of 29 to 30 April 1945 — immediately before US forces arrive — the cellar is looted by the population; some 600 paintings disappear, many from the Dutch Golden Age. A considerable share has never resurfaced.
Munich Central Collecting Point
In June 1945 the US military government takes over the Führerbau and — together with the Administrative Building opposite — sets up the Munich Central Collecting Point (CCP): the central collection, identification and restitution office for Nazi-looted art from the three western zones. The Führerbau becomes Gallery II, the Administrative Building Gallery I. From around 600 recovery depots, artworks are registered, photographed, provenance-researched and returned to states and individuals.
By May 1951, around 250,000 artworks are restituted — about 90 to 95 percent of the recorded looted art. In 1949 the CCP is handed over to German authorities; under new management it continues until 1962. The work done here is still regarded as a model of international restitution practice.
Amerika Haus and university of music
From 1948 to 1957 the former Führerbau houses the Amerika Haus München with a library and cultural programme. In 1957 the Munich University of Music moves in, today the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts (HMTM) with around 1,300 students. It remains the principal user.
Reckoning today
Since the 2000s, HMTM has actively engaged with the history of its building. In 2008 it staged the exhibition “Unheard Music” on 104 musicians persecuted by the Nazis. In the courtyard an information panel explains the building’s history. Former president Bernd Redmann once described working in the Führerbau as a daily exorcism — a formula that captures the doubled experience of everyday life and remembrance on site.
Words.
“From 1937 the Führerbau served as Hitler’s representative Munich seat; it was here that the Munich Agreement was signed on 30 September 1938.”— NS-Dokumentationszentrum · encyclopaedia entry
“Working in the Führerbau is a daily exorcism.”— Bernd Redmann · former president, Munich University of Music and Performing Arts
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Königsplatz, Honour Temples, Führerbau, Administrative Building, NS-Doku, Schelling-Salon, Osteria, Prinz-Carl-Palais, Consulate General.