Brienner Straße

Origin of the name

The street has borne its name since 2 March 1826 by order of King Ludwig I: it recalls Brienne-le-Château in Champagne, where on 29 January 1814, during the winter campaign of the Wars of Liberation, Russian and Prussian troops under Field Marshal Blücher fought Napoleon. Whether Bavarians took part is still unclear in the sources: Munich's 1880 address book dates the battle to 1 February 1814 and has the Bavarians "under Field Marshal Wrede" "covering themselves in glory" – evidently meaning the battle of La Rothière a few kilometres away, which older literature merged with Brienne. Arz, too, speaks of Blücher's troops, "including Bavarian units" (Arz 2018, pp. 143–144), and Köpf stresses that Ludwig's younger brother Prince Carl had "distinguished himself militarily with the Bavarian troops" near Brienne (Köpf 2005, pp. 24–25).

The name was part of a programme: at the same time the cross streets were named after Bar-sur-Aube (27 February 1814) and Arcis-sur-Aube (20/21 March 1814), so that a sequence of French defeats wraps around Karolinenplatz between Odeonsplatz and Königsplatz (Stephan 2013, pp. 49, 64). Köpf reads them as a final "jab at the French" in the service of Ludwig's national view of history (Köpf 2005, p. 25). The ensemble is made paradoxical by the obelisk at its centre, dedicated to the 30,000 Bavarians who died in the 1812 Russian campaign while still fighting on Napoleon's side – and whose inscription claims "that they too" fell for the liberation of the fatherland (Stephan 2013, p. 49).

Before that the road was simply known as the "Fürstenweg" (princes' road). On 21 November 1808 its sections were named "Königstraße" (Ottostraße to Königsplatz, commemorating the royal title gained in 1806) and "Kronprinzenstraße" (Königsplatz to Stiglmaierplatz); from 1 December 1812 the whole route, including the stretch from the Hofgarten to Ottostraße, was called Königstraße. After the Nazi takeover in 1933 the city council resolved to rename Brienner Straße between Odeonsplatz and Königsplatz "Adolf-Hitler-Straße"; Hitler declined (Arz 2018, p. 144; Köpf 2005, p. 85). Equally fruitless was a motion in 1946 by the support office for victims of political persecution to name Königsplatz and Brienner Straße after the "victims of fascism" (Köpf 2005, pp. 134 f.).

History

Long before the Maxvorstadt existed, a carriage road linked the Residenz with the summer palace of Nymphenburg. It was laid out around the city rampart in the first half of the 18th century, lined with an avenue of trees from 1738, and ran "in curves", as Nagler wrote in 1863. An engraving by Friedrich Weber of around 1800 shows the "highway planted with shady trees" running across the meadows outside the Schwabing Gate (Stephan 2013, p. 27); to the north stood only the isolated Huter-Schwaige dairy, popularly called the "Milchgarten" (Stephan 2013, p. 120). The tax cadastre plan of 1809 already shows the land south of the "not yet regulated Fürstenweg" overlaid with a square grid, while to the north the old field boundaries still applied (Stephan 2013, p. 24). The competition of 1808 aimed to turn the Fürstenweg into "a regulated, representative street" and to link it via Max-Joseph-Straße to the Max Gate (Stephan 2013, p. 34).

The master plan, approved in 1812 and hailed as the "birth of the Maxvorstadt", was drawn up by Karl von Fischer and the court gardener Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell: its central axis was to be the upgraded Fürstenweg, which, "interrupted by the representative Karolinenplatz and Königsplatz, ran as a direct line from the Residenz to Nymphenburg Palace"; villas with large gardens were to line it (Arz 2018, p. 8). Already the city plan of 1812 widens the axis with two circular squares (Karolinenplatz and Stiglmaierplatz) and a square one (Königsplatz) (Stephan 2013, p. 35). Building began in 1809 on Karolinenplatz and Brienner Straße (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, p. 8): Fischer built the Palais Asbeck, later Lotzbeck, and in 1810 the Palais Degenfeld and his own house on the corner of Arcisstraße (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, p. 15), and in 1812 the Crown Prince's Palace, where Ludwig lived until his accession (Stephan 2013, p. 118). Karolinenplatz and parts of the street still convey an impression of this loose villa development set in generous greenery (Freitag 2013, p. 32).

With the appointment of Leo von Klenze in 1816 the concept changed: the pavilion system open to gardens gave way to closed, continuous frontages "which turned the suburb into a de facto new town" (Stephan 2013, p. 35). Klenze's master plan for the area outside the Schwabing Gate, approved in July 1817, dropped the blocks planned at the start of the street and put Wittelsbacherplatz in their place; the Schwabing Gate was demolished that same year (Freitag 2013, p. 34). The Hofgarten gate was built as the street's starting point (Arz 2018, p. 9). Crown Prince Ludwig would even have liked to see the Pinakothek on Brienner Straße (Freitag 2013, p. 66); the plot of the later Palais Almeida was under discussion until Ludwig's brother Carl acquired it in 1823 (Arz 2018, p. 52). Instead Klenze and his associate Jean Baptiste Métivier built the Palais Arco-Zinneberg, Eichthal and Almeida, often as speculative ventures for private builders (Arz 2018, p. 52). At the same time Klenze shifted the emphasis: the main axis was no longer to be the road to the "gradually less important secondary residence of Nymphenburg" but Ludwigstraße (Arz 2018, p. 9). Together the two streets were to shift the centre of gravity from the burghers' town to the monarch's residential city (Bäumler/Fromm 2017, p. 40).

Under Ludwig I the street received its name in 1826, and its monuments. The Glyptothek on Königsplatz was completed in 1830 (Köpf 2005, p. 36), and in 1833 the 29-metre obelisk, which Ludwig had originally wanted in the middle of Ludwigstraße, was erected on Karolinenplatz (Arz 2018, p. 11; Bäumler/Fromm 2017, p. 40). In 1843–1848 Friedrich von Gärtner built the Gothic Revival Wittelsbacher Palais on the corner of Türkenstraße for Crown Prince Maximilian – "the most odious building I have ever built", as the architect grumbled. After Ludwig's abdication in 1848 father and son swapped residences, and the ex-king railed until the end of his life against the "hideous box" (Arz 2018, p. 54; Stephan 2013, p. 38). His funeral procession in 1868 passed out along Brienner Straße, past the obelisk and through the Propyläen – "as he had wished" (Köpf 2005, p. 45). The Propyläen had been opened in 1862 by the police director with traffic rules for carriages coming "from inner" and "from outer Brienner Straße" (Köpf 2005, p. 43). Heine mocked that for all its splendour Munich was "a village with palaces in it" – probably, Arz suggests, after a stroll along Brienner Straße (Arz 2018, p. 11).

In the second half of the 19th century the street became the address of nobility, diplomacy, art and money. Count Adolf Friedrich von Schack bought property beyond the Propyläen in 1855/56 and had Lorenz Gedon turn his growing "private Pinakothek" into a rambling ensemble that opened in 1874 (Arz 2018, p. 97); next door Richard Wagner lived in 1864/65 in a villa provided by Ludwig II (Arz 2018, p. 12). Opposite the later Brown House the Papal Nunciature resided from 1887 in the Palais Degenfeld, from 1917 under Eugenio Pacelli (Weyerer 1993, p. 143). From 1888 the Café Luitpold on the old-town side, "a palace café of the first rank with a worldwide reputation" (Stephan 2013, p. 83), drew Kandinsky, Klee, George and Wedekind; right next to it Heinrich Jaffe ran a new kind of bookshop without a counter (Bäumler et al. 2015, pp. 57–58). Elsa and Max Bernstein kept a salon at Brienner Straße 8a frequented by Thomas Mann and the Pringsheims (Bäumler et al. 2015, pp. 36, 49); Carry Brachvogel lived at No. 54 until 1894 (Bäumler/Fromm 2017, p. 71), and from 1910 to 1935 Brienner Straße 37 (today No. 40) was the headquarters of the Association for Women's Interests (Bäumler/Fromm 2017, p. 78; Weyerer 1993, pp. 125–126). Art dealers built palaces of their own: Gabriel von Seidl designed the Palais Berchem in 1897/98 and the house of the antiques dealer Julius Böhler in 1904/05, Gustav von Cube the premises of the antiquarian Jacques Rosenthal in 1910/11 (Arz 2018, pp. 55, 67). In 1912 Hans Goltz steered the controversial paintings by Marc and Kandinsky into his bookshop at Brienner Straße 8 – turning the Blue Rider into the talk of the town (Arz 2018, p. 44).

After 1918 the street lost its lustre. In the Wittelsbacher Palais, which Ludwig III had left in 1918, the Soviet Republic was resolved upon in April 1919 (Arz 2018, p. 54). Many owners could no longer afford their palaces; in 1929/30 the senior civil servant Fritz Gablonsky warned that the character of Brienner Straße between Königsplatz and Karolinenplatz could only be preserved if the state bought the properties (Köpf 2005, p. 67; Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, pp. 9–10). Instead, on 26 May 1930, the NSDAP bought the Palais Barlow at Brienner Straße 45 for 805,864 marks – with money from Fritz Thyssen and a levy of two marks per party member (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, pp. 10–11; Arz 2018, pp. 88–89). Paul Ludwig Troost converted it into the "Brown House", which opened in January 1931; the press mocked the "Palace of Megalomania" (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, p. 12). When the police secured the building with machine guns in July 1931, Brienner Straße was closed between Königsplatz and Karolinenplatz (Köpf 2005, pp. 73–74). The neighbours complained of noise and traffic late into the night, the nunciature opposite of abuse shouted at its staff (Köpf 2005, p. 74). Hitler himself preferred to sit in the "elegant Carlton Tea Room on Brienner Straße", where Klaus Mann watched him devour one strawberry tart after another in 1932 (Large 2001, p. 286).

After 1933 the stretch between Karolinenplatz and Königsplatz became the core of the party quarter: more than 50 buildings on Brienner, Arcis-, Gabelsberger-, Barer and Karlstraße passed into NSDAP ownership (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, p. 4). The two Neoclassical corner houses by Fischer and Höchl on Arcisstraße were demolished in 1933 (Stephan 2013, p. 128); in their place the "Temples of Honour" rose on either side of the street, flanked by the Führerbau and the Verwaltungsbau, which were linked by passages beneath Brienner Straße (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, p. 22). On 9 November 1935 the coffins of the sixteen dead putschists were drawn "through Brienner Straße–Karolinenplatz to the Temples of Honour" (Köpf 2005, pp. 103, 106). From then on traffic across Königsplatz was banned – Brienner Straße lost its role as the main road out to the west (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, p. 26). In October 1933 the Bavarian Political Police, later the Gestapo, moved into the Wittelsbacher Palais; in 1934 a prison was built in its park (Bäumler/Fromm 2017, p. 26), where Hans and Sophie Scholl were also held (Arz 2018, p. 54). In 1935/36 Roderich Fick built the "House of German Physicians" on the site of the Palais Poschinger (Stephan 2013, p. 122; Liedtke 2018, pp. 96–97), Jacques Rosenthal was forced to sell his building in 1935 and "Strength through Joy" moved in (Stephan 2013, p. 57; Liedtke 2018, p. 50). Giesler's model even placed a Hitler mausoleum on the site of the Wittelsbacher Palais (Stephan 2013, p. 58).

The air raids destroyed the Brown House, the nunciature, the Wittelsbacher Palais and the Schack gallery; in 1947 the pillars of the Temples of Honour were blown up and the ruin of the Brown House cleared (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, pp. 5, 85; Köpf 2005, p. 136). Lord Mayor Scharnagl fought the idea of a "House of Remembrance" on the site of the Wittelsbacher Palais (Köpf 2005, pp. 134 f.); its remains had disappeared by 1964, and in 1977–1982 the Bayerische Landesbank built its headquarters here (Arz 2018, pp. 53–54). Competitions held in 1947 for gallery buildings on the temple plinths came to nothing; a wooden fence hid the "monuments of shame", and in 1956/57 they were planted over – "grass was allowed to grow over it" (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, pp. 5, 86). West of Königsplatz the scene has since been dominated by functional architecture of the 1950s to 1970s (Arz 2018, p. 12), and the inner ring road cut the street in two. Only in 1999 did the city put up an information panel at the corner of Arcisstraße (Lauterbach/Grammbitter 2009, pp. 88–89); after decades of debate the NS Documentation Centre was inaugurated on the site of the Brown House on 30 April 2015, the 70th anniversary of Munich's liberation (Liedtke 2018, p. 35; Bäumler et al. 2015, p. 25).

Today

Brienner Straße shows its original character best between Odeonsplatz and Karolinenplatz. On the Maxvorstadt (north) side come Wittelsbacherplatz with the Palais Arco-Zinneberg, the Palais Eichthal and the Palais Almeida, home to offices, the Swiss Consulate General and the club "Lucky Who" (Arz 2018, pp. 52, 138), then the sprawling BayernLB complex with Littmann's Disconto building and the memorial plaque to the Wittelsbacher Palais at the corner of Türkenstraße. Beyond the ring road stand the Palais Berchem, Böhler and Rosenthal and the "Upper Austria House", formerly the House of German Physicians (Arz 2018, pp. 55, 67). The art dealers who made the street's reputation have largely gone: Böhler left No. 25 in 2014, Bernheimer and Galerie Wimmer left No. 7 in 2016. Between the ring road and Königsplatz the street is comparatively quiet, with some 12,000 motor vehicles a day; since 2019 the section by Odeonsplatz has been a partial one-way street with cycle lanes.

Karolinenplatz marks the start of the Kunstareal: around the obelisk stand the Amerikahaus, reopened in 2020 after renovation on the site of the Palais Lotzbeck, and the stock exchange in the Villa Hutschenreuther. The white cube of the NS Documentation Centre on Max-Mannheimer-Platz looks out onto the overgrown plinths of the Temples of Honour, onto the Führerbau and Verwaltungsbau and onto Königsplatz, grassed over again since 1988, with the Glyptothek, the Antikensammlungen and the Propyläen; the Lenbachhaus is just around the corner. Beyond the Propyläen the street becomes an everyday thoroughfare with post-war buildings, a vocational school on the site of the old Schack gallery and places to eat such as "Hamburgerei Eins" (No. 49) (Arz 2018, p. 136). The Volkstheater, which had played at No. 50 since 1983, moved to a new building by the old slaughterhouse in 2021; at Stiglmaierplatz the street runs between late Neoclassical rondel buildings into Nymphenburger Straße.