Herrsching am Ammersee
Herrsching
am Ammersee on the east shore of the Ammersee southwest of Munich is
usually the starting point of trips to Andechs Abbey. This, one of the
most impressive Nazi eagles remaining in Germany, is found on the façade
of the former Reichsfinanzschule (finance school).
Built in 1938, the whole site on Rauscher Strasse is a protected
monument. The Feierhalle in the south of the complex continues to be
graced by the largest remaining Nazi eagle. The congress hall, which
could hold around a thousand people, is fronted by a fifteen step flight
of stairs above which the Nazi eagle, which originally had a swastika
in its claws, continues to be attached. The approximately ten metre high
hall ends with a self-supporting beam ceiling; its supporting
crossbeams with a length of 23 metres were carved in one piece from
spruce from Bayerisch Eisenstein. The congress hall, as it was later
called, also had a stage and a vestibule. To the south it was given a
15-step flight of stairs, above which an eagle was attached, with a
swastika in its claws. The hall, located in the main axis of the former
Reich Finance School, was changed in the 1950s to meet the needs of the
University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration and Justice in
Bavaria and renovated in the 1970s. After considerable moisture damage
in the roof area, the roof construction was renovated with over 23
metres of spanning solid wood trusses and the hall was redesigned into a
modern multi-purpose hall.
The history of the site begins in 1928 when the then State Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Fritz Reinhardt, founded a Nazi speaking school in Herrsching. In 1935 he announced the plans for the establishment of a Reich Tax School in Herrsching. On July 29, 1935, the Reich Ministry of Finance decreed that from August 1, 1935, the Reich Tax School in Herrsching would start its work as an independent department and be subordinate to the Munich State Tax Office. The school was opened on August 1, 1935 in the renovated hall of the “Andechser Hof” inn in the presence of numerous guests of honour. State Secretary Reinhardt gave the opening speech and introduced the headmaster Dr. Bussigl, its initial three teachers and the administrative manager.
Built in 1938, the whole site on Rauscher Strasse is a protected
monument. The Feierhalle in the south of the complex continues to be
graced by the largest remaining Nazi eagle. The congress hall, which
could hold around a thousand people, is fronted by a fifteen step flight
of stairs above which the Nazi eagle, which originally had a swastika
in its claws, continues to be attached. The approximately ten metre high
hall ends with a self-supporting beam ceiling; its supporting
crossbeams with a length of 23 metres were carved in one piece from
spruce from Bayerisch Eisenstein. The congress hall, as it was later
called, also had a stage and a vestibule. To the south it was given a
15-step flight of stairs, above which an eagle was attached, with a
swastika in its claws. The hall, located in the main axis of the former
Reich Finance School, was changed in the 1950s to meet the needs of the
University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration and Justice in
Bavaria and renovated in the 1970s. After considerable moisture damage
in the roof area, the roof construction was renovated with over 23
metres of spanning solid wood trusses and the hall was redesigned into a
modern multi-purpose hall.The history of the site begins in 1928 when the then State Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Fritz Reinhardt, founded a Nazi speaking school in Herrsching. In 1935 he announced the plans for the establishment of a Reich Tax School in Herrsching. On July 29, 1935, the Reich Ministry of Finance decreed that from August 1, 1935, the Reich Tax School in Herrsching would start its work as an independent department and be subordinate to the Munich State Tax Office. The school was opened on August 1, 1935 in the renovated hall of the “Andechser Hof” inn in the presence of numerous guests of honour. State Secretary Reinhardt gave the opening speech and introduced the headmaster Dr. Bussigl, its initial three teachers and the administrative manager.
The choice for the complex fell on a plot of land located within the hamlet of Rausch whilst the municipality of Herrsching had to bear the cost of the land acquisition which cost 25,000 Reichsmarks. The groundbreaking ceremony was carried out by the-then Reich Finance Minister, Count Schwerin von Krosigk. The plans of the complex came under the direction of Ministerialrat Dr.-Ing. Fiddlers although the original concept would change over several times. However, the basic concept of a three-wing complex with a south-facing, three-storey central building was always retained. The school and teaching capacity were planned for an accommodation capacity of 400 men. Part of the planning was the construction of a large gym which, along with the rest of the complex, was part of the 1933 job creation program through which up to three hundred workers were employed, which allowed the shell to be completed within a year. The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on October 17, 1936. On September 15, 1937, the building was formally opened. The complex was laid out like a barracks inside and out with space for sporting activities as well as for off-road exercises and drills. The classrooms held between 100 and 150 students who had to sit in a row on wooden benches. The equipment of the accommodations was simple and functional.The strictly regulated everyday school life was shaped by the zeitgeist of the time- all teachers and students belonged to the newly founded "SA-Sturm RFS". The training was interspersed with teaching content about the Nazi ideology; in the evening there were social events as well as camaraderie evenings with lectures on National Socialism.
As soon as the school was finished, plans were already being made to expand it for two reasons. On the one hand, as a result of the favorable economic and tax development, more and better-trained junior officials were needed in the tax offices. On the other hand, it was important to improve the school's water supply, which was inadequate from the start. Therefore, a thirty metre-high residential tower made of quarry stone masonry was built on the east wing of the complex, which contained a large water tank on its upper floors giving the school its monumentality, which was visible from afar as seen in my GIF above. Eventually however the bell tower of the central building was sacrificed to the changed overall impression and demolished.
The total cost of setting up the Reich Finance School was 6.6 million Reichsmarks.
During the war, the training of tax officials suffered from staff shortages. By mid-1940, fourteen teachers and five administrators had been drafted and therefore the duration of the training was shortened. The school regulations were adapted to those of an officers' school and thus the training was even more militarised until training ended on July 7, 1943 when the school became an hospital and later a lung sanatorium. At the end of 1943, the Herrsching reserve hospital was housed in the Reich Finance School. Operating rooms and hospital rooms were created from the classrooms and accommodations. The occupancy rate was very high, which is why the hospital employees had to live outside the site.
After the war the school was converted into a PoW hospital and rehab facility for soldiers who had lost limbs. In 1947 the Bavarian State Chancellery decided to make the site available as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. As a result of the decline in illnesses, as well as because capacities had become free in the nearby Gauting Lung Sanatorium, a return to its former use led it to be handed over to the Federal Tax Administration on March 31, 1955.
Mühldorf
 |
| The High Street on June 14, 1939 |
Himmler recorded in his diary entry of July 28, 1915 his family's arrival at the station here in Mühldorf, a year into the Great War. Although the jubilant patriotism had by now dissipated, he couldn't help having vivid recollections of the previous summer, "when we stood at about the same time on the platform, doing army drill. It was 6 August when we came back from Tittmoning. A few days later they went off cheerfully to war. How many of them are alive today?"
In
the course of the so-called 1918 November Revolution, a workers 'and
soldiers' council was formed in Mühldorf. On the evening of April 25
1919 Mühldorf was also occupied by a group of Spartakists; five days
later the insurgents were brutally disarmed and arrested by government
troops. Hitler gave a speech to 5,000 here at the Mühldorfer Rennbahn in
June 1931. His followers, including Ernst Rohm, were all dressed in
white shirts as a march in the Braun shirt had been banned in the
run-up. In 1933, the Mühldorf town council made Hitler an honorary
citizen. As in the rest of the country, under the Nazis anti-Semitic
measures began in Mühldorf although there were only two Jewish families
in the city- the Michaelis family and the Hellmann family. Fritz
Michaelis, a bearer of the Iron Cross as well as the wounded badge, had
to close his business in April 1937. Horse merchant Hellmann was able to
pursue his business until 1938, but finally had to close after being
attacked in the pages of Der Sturmer. Nevertheless the city
remained spared from the November pogroms in 1938.
 |
| Adolf-Hitler-Platz and today |
The
Nazis tried to fight unemployment in Mühldorf through various
infrastructure projects and job creation measures and so, as seen in the
changes shown in the GIFs, throughout the 1930s numerous buildings were
built. Through the German Labour Front's subsidiary organisation “Kraft
durch Freude” (KdF), in July 1939 two hundred citizens of the districts
of Mühldorf and Altötting were chosen to take part on a cruise to
Norway. The tour group also included district leader Fritz Schwaegerl
and Mühldorf's mayor Hans Gollwitzer. One participant was later quoted in the local paper the Mühldorfer Zeitung on July 7, 1939 that "[t]he
people on the bank waved to us, we waved back and thanked the guide who
had made the trip possible for us, with a 'Sieg Heil'." Born in Erding,
Gollwitzer would serve as mayor throughout the Nazi era from 1937 to
1945 and again after the war from 1952 to 1966. During the war he served
as a major and battalion commander in Russia and France until 1943. In
1945 he had the city surrender to the Americans and was removed from his
position as mayor on May 2, 1945. Because of his work as a Nazi
functionary, he was interned for a period of three years in Moosburg and had his honorary citizenship from Mühldorf- which he had received on October 13, 1934-
withdrawn in 1946. After his internment in the Moosburg camp, he first
lived in Egglkofen. In 1971 he was made an honorary citizen of Mühldorf
again. Today a street in Mühldorf is named after him, which is not
without controversy due to his past as a staunch Nazi.
The town hall during the Nazi era and today, the figure on the fountain sporting an anti-Wuhan 'flu mask
The Münchener tor showing its redevelopment
The war came
to Mühldorf for the first time on March 19, 1945 when seven hundred American planes,
including 250 B-24 bombers, dropped 6,000 bombs over the city, mainly
above the railway station, one of the largest transhipment stations in
Bavaria, killing 129 people, including numerous children. A month later,
on April 20, bombs were dropped again over the city and killed fifteen
citizens. The two attacks destroyed about 40% of the entire residential
area, numerous commercial and industrial plants as well as 330,000 m² of
track systems, the real target of the attacks.
In
1944, the
construction of a huge secret bunker complex for the production of the
Messerschmitt Me 262 began after Hitler's orders of April 21 gave
official approval for the commencement of work on the structure. Four days later the forest camp was cleared and the prisoners removed. Around 44 American air personnel are thought to have perished during the
return flight following one of these raids. Civilian casualties are
believed to be much higher due to many aircraft crews being unable to
identify their primary objectives.
On May 2, American troops from the 47th Panzer Battalion of the 14th
Division finally reached the city from the west. Mayor Gollwitzer was
able to convince the Mühldorfer combat commander to refrain from
defending the city, surrendering the city to the American battalion
commander without any struggle. However, withdrawing German troops still
blew up the bridge. After the war, 480 prisoners from a mass grave of
the forest camp were buried at the concentration camp concentration camp
in Mühldorf. On the day of the service, on June 2, 1945, a large part
of the population, in response to
the American military administration ordering the
inhabitants to attend whilst surrounded by tanks, were witness to the disinterment of
hundreds of corpses whose coffins had been opened for inspection. The memorial stone on Ahamerstraße speaks only
generally of victims and does not mention that they were murdered
concentration camp prisoners. Due to increased activity of British and
American bombing, Germany was forced to concentrate on fighter aircraft
and the regime ordered all factories still producing bombers to
immediately begin production of defensive fighter aircraft through what
was known as known as the Jaegerprogramm. Under this plan, it was
envisioned that the bunker in Mühldorf, once completed, would produce
over nine hundred of the new Messerschmitt Me-262 jetfighters per month. 
To
ensure this figure, the production of various Me-262 parts were to be
divided amongst local workshops within the region. For example, the
bunker here in Mettenheim was tasked with producing the engines and
airframes while the final production and assembly would take place in
the Landsberg bunker. From there, the aircraft could use the makeshift
runway to take off and fly to their destination. Germany’s civil and
military engineering group, the Organisation Todt, planned and organised
the secret project which was called "Weingut I". A project of this
scale required a large workforce. At the beginning of 1942, the Germans
had forcefully recruited millions of people from occupied territories to
work as labourers in the German armament industry. The man in charge of
this was Fritz Sauckel, Generalbevollmaechtigten für den
Arbeitseinsatz. Alone the bunker in the Mettenheim would require at
least eight thousand workers. The Organisation Todt supplied the engineers,
management and master chiefs whilst the majority of the ten thousand labourers
were composed of prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates from
Dachau. Concentration camp inmates were classified as Hilfsarbeiter and
"paid" sixty Pfennigs an hour at the end of each month; in fact, the
inmates never saw the money. 
The site today has been described by Geoffrey R. Walden as "one of the most impressive Third Reich ruins sites I have visited." Despite
the massive visible damage on the only surviving arch (twelve were
originally planned), the structure permits some insight into the
construction techniques used to build it. The original plans called for
the bunker to be four hundred metres in length from east to west. A single semi
circular roof arch was to measure 33 metres in width and was separated
from the next arch by a thirty centimetre gap, which was to be covered as
soon as the bunker was completed. The entire width of the bunker arch
was 85 metres. The thickness of the roof was precisely three metres to which
another two metres of concrete were to be added upon completion for a
total thickness of five metres. The top layer of the roof was to be
covered with earth to promote tree and plant growth which would serve as
natural camouflage against enemy aerial reconnaissance. A five metre thick
wall was planned to cover both entrances which would add safety in case
of air attacks and ground fire. 
Once the concrete foundations were
planted, gravel and earth were shovelled over the closed Entnahmetunnel
and foundations to help in the shaping of the arches. As soon as this
was completed, the semicircular mound was smoothed and flattened and
then covered with a ten centimetre-thick layer of concrete. Long
metal rods were then inserted into the think concrete layer to act as
the starting point for the three metre thick bunker roof. Most of the
cement was created at the nearby cement mixing sites. Pumps pumping
liquid cement were also employed in the building process. It was
originally planned that the bunker would have eight internal levels.
Plans were also drawn up to add stairs, elevators and more pillars for
added structural support although such plans were never realised given
the war situation. By the end of April 1945, only seven arches had been
completed due to disruptions in the supply of materials, air raids and
lack of skilled workers.
Once the concrete foundations were
planted, gravel and earth were shovelled over the closed Entnahmetunnel
and foundations to help in the shaping of the arches. As soon as this
was completed, the semicircular mound was smoothed and flattened and
then covered with a ten centimetre-thick layer of concrete. Long
metal rods were then inserted into the think concrete layer to act as
the starting point for the three metre thick bunker roof. Most of the
cement was created at the nearby cement mixing sites. Pumps pumping
liquid cement were also employed in the building process. It was
originally planned that the bunker would have eight internal levels.
Plans were also drawn up to add stairs, elevators and more pillars for
added structural support although such plans were never realised given
the war situation. By the end of April 1945, only seven arches had been
completed due to disruptions in the supply of materials, air raids and
lack of skilled workers. 
The
bunker itself was never bombed by the Allies. American troops from the 47th tank battalion of the 14th Armoured Division reached
the Inn River on May 2, 1945 and occupied the bunker and appropriate
construction sites. Interestingly enough, the Americans allowed the
involved firms to reclaim their equipment – possibly as means of
reparations. The company was allowed to dismantle and remove its
construction equipment, and the Reichsbahn took up the tracks that led
to the complex whilst the Americans decided to use the grounds as a bomb
test site in order to determine the effectiveness of the bunker.
In the summer of 1947, the Americans began placing explosives inside the bunker and parts of the nearby air raid shelter for demolishing purposes. After numerous tries, the Americans finally succeeded using 125 tonnes of dynamite which destroyed six of the seven completed arches and damaged the seventh.
After
the war the American military's Dachau Military Tribunal prosecuted
perpetrators of war crimes in connection with the Weingut I project and
the associated concentration and labour camps in the Mühldorf Trial.
Amongst the accused were members of Polensky & Zöllner's
administration, including Karl Bachmann, Director of the Munich branch
of P & Z, Karl Gickeleiter, who oversaw construction at the main
site, and Otto Sperling, construction foreman, all sentenced May 13,
1947. Eventually the charges against Bachmann were dropped, as his
involvement in the maltreatment of the prisoners could not be proven.
Gickeleiter was sentenced to a twenty year prison term, which would be
reduced by half in 1951 before being released even earlier in mid 1952.
The death sentence against Sperling was shortly thereafter shortened to
life imprisonment and later reduced even further before he was finally
released in July 1957
In the summer of 1947, the Americans began placing explosives inside the bunker and parts of the nearby air raid shelter for demolishing purposes. After numerous tries, the Americans finally succeeded using 125 tonnes of dynamite which destroyed six of the seven completed arches and damaged the seventh.
After
the war the American military's Dachau Military Tribunal prosecuted
perpetrators of war crimes in connection with the Weingut I project and
the associated concentration and labour camps in the Mühldorf Trial.
Amongst the accused were members of Polensky & Zöllner's
administration, including Karl Bachmann, Director of the Munich branch
of P & Z, Karl Gickeleiter, who oversaw construction at the main
site, and Otto Sperling, construction foreman, all sentenced May 13,
1947. Eventually the charges against Bachmann were dropped, as his
involvement in the maltreatment of the prisoners could not be proven.
Gickeleiter was sentenced to a twenty year prison term, which would be
reduced by half in 1951 before being released even earlier in mid 1952.
The death sentence against Sperling was shortly thereafter shortened to
life imprisonment and later reduced even further before he was finally
released in July 1957 
From
1982 to 1983, a rumour began to circulate that there were still
Wehrmacht supplies of a chemical nature being stored in the bunker. Only
after an extensive cover-up did the government finally, in 1987, remove
these chemicals, including CLARK 2. Under pressure from various groups,
including the communities of Mettenheim and Ampfing, the bunker was
eventually added to a Bavarian list of historic memorials which did not
stop the Bundesfinanzministerium in 1991 from proposing to destroy the
bunker site. Despite massive protests, demolition work took place in
1995-1996 with the tearing down of the nearby air raid shelter ruins.
Due to this incident, the future existence of this historical site is
questionable.
Markt Schwaben
Nazi-era postcard of the town. When American troops advanced towards Markt Schwaben at the end of April 1945, the Wehrmacht and ϟϟ had already left. The Nazis' local group leader had also fled. So the goods in the depots did not fall into the hands of the Americans, the mayor had the warehouses opened to the population. The residents of Markt Schwaben then used it to collect fabric, boots, leather and litres of schnapps. On the morning of May 1, American troops occupied the site without incident. One citizen of the town, Lorenz Ostermayr, who had once lived in New York, ran towards the enemy with a white flag and three prisoners of war and informed the Americans that there were no more German troops in Markt Schwaben. Amazingly, the American tank commander came from the same street in New York where Ostermayr had lived. About fifty former Jewish concentration camp prisoners gathered in the market square on the same day. On April 25, they escaped from a train in Poing that was supposed to bring them from the Mühldorf satellite camp in the direction of Tyrol. In the last days of the war, the Schwaben doctor Fritz Lichtenegger had set up an auxiliary hospital in Unterbräu, to which the emaciated refugees were brought. Some of them still died in the weeks that followed. The American soldiers searched the place house by house. In barracks, which were originally intended to house French prisoners of war, the Americans found the personnel records of the engineers who were involved in the development of the V2. An ϟϟ uniform was discovered at the doctor's house, Lichtenegger, whereupon after a short trial, he was executed by the Americans. After the war, many expellees from the former German eastern regions settled in Markt Schwaben. Street names such as Königsberger, Neusatzer or Ödenburger Straße in the southwest of Markt Schwaben are reminders of this. During this time, the population consisted mainly of typically down-to-earth traders who supplied the market and the surrounding villages with products. Many streets were named in memory of them when the town was given street names in the early 1960s such as Weißgerberweg, Kupferschmiedberg, Nagelschmiedgasse.
A couple of scenes from The Great Escape were shot here. Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe (Donald Pleasence) and Flight Lieutenant Robert Hendley (James Garner) hiding from the Germans during the Great Escape; the clock tower of the parish church St. Margaret in Markt Schwaben serving as a reference point. Pleasence had actually been an RAF pilot who had been shot down, held prisoner and tortured by the Germans during the war. After offering advice to the film's director John Sturges, he was politely told to mind his own business. Later, when another star informed Sturges that Pleasence had actually been a RAF Officer in a Stalag camp, Sturges requested his technical advice and input on historical accuracy from that point forward. A number of individual incidents shown in the film were mostly based on fact, but rearranged both chronologically and regarding the people involved as noted at the start of the film. In reality, of the 76 who escaped, three had managed to succeed whilst fifty were murdered in reprisal, but in small groups and not all at once.
Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick (James Coburn) stealing a bike on Ebersberger Straße in Markt Schwaben, named Neustadt in the film. The successful escape of Coburn's Australian character, Sedgwick, via Spain was based on Dutchman Bram van der Stok. Coburn, an American, was cast in the role of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick who was an amalgamation of Flight Lieutenant Albert Hake, an Australian serving in the RAF, the camp's compass maker, and Johnny Travis, the real manufacturer.
Based loosely on a true story based on Paul Brickhill's 1950 book about the real-life mass escape by British Commonwealth PoWs from Stalag Luft III in Sagan (now Żagań, Poland), the first part of the film focuses on the escape efforts within the camp and the process of secretly digging an escape tunnel. The second half of the film deals with the massive effort by the German Gestapo to track down the over seventy escaped prisoners individually attempting to make their way to England.
As one sadly expects from American films, the nationality of most of the prisoners were changed to emphasise the role of Americans at the expense of British Imperial heroes.
Indeed, the real escape was by British and other allied personnel, none by Americans. Coburn actually plays an Australian. Whilst Americans in the PoW camp did initially help to build the tunnels and work on the early escape plans, they were moved to their own compound seven months before the tunnels were completed. A large part had been played by Canadians, especially in the construction of the tunnels and in the escape itself. Of the 1,800 or so PoWs in the compound of whom six hundred were involved in preparations for the escape, 150 of these were from the Dominion of Canada; Wally Floody, an RCAF pilot and mining engineer who was the real-life “tunnel king”, was engaged as a technical advisor for the film. Fourteen Germans were executed after the war for their roles, which ended up being among the charges at the Nuremberg War Crimes trial.
After being contacted by Don J Whistance whose site thegreatescapelocations.com provides "inexhaustible" detailed knowledge of the making of the film, I was able to visit the location used in the opening of the film (although this is not the Dening north of Munich). Here a convoy of Germans are heading towards the town of Deinig with the Alps behind which, along with the town church, some buildings and topography provide continuity with today. I can't however share Mr. Whistance's enthusiasm for Steve McQueen who was put up in a chalet in Deining, and whose incessant selfish behaviour and self-absorbed petulance sums up his personality for me, as related later by his former wife Neile McQueen Toffel in her book My Husband, My Friend: A Memoir (99-100):
Markt Schwaben
Nazi-era postcard of the town. When American troops advanced towards Markt Schwaben at the end of April 1945, the Wehrmacht and ϟϟ had already left. The Nazis' local group leader had also fled. So the goods in the depots did not fall into the hands of the Americans, the mayor had the warehouses opened to the population. The residents of Markt Schwaben then used it to collect fabric, boots, leather and litres of schnapps. On the morning of May 1, American troops occupied the site without incident. One citizen of the town, Lorenz Ostermayr, who had once lived in New York, ran towards the enemy with a white flag and three prisoners of war and informed the Americans that there were no more German troops in Markt Schwaben. Amazingly, the American tank commander came from the same street in New York where Ostermayr had lived. About fifty former Jewish concentration camp prisoners gathered in the market square on the same day. On April 25, they escaped from a train in Poing that was supposed to bring them from the Mühldorf satellite camp in the direction of Tyrol. In the last days of the war, the Schwaben doctor Fritz Lichtenegger had set up an auxiliary hospital in Unterbräu, to which the emaciated refugees were brought. Some of them still died in the weeks that followed. The American soldiers searched the place house by house. In barracks, which were originally intended to house French prisoners of war, the Americans found the personnel records of the engineers who were involved in the development of the V2. An ϟϟ uniform was discovered at the doctor's house, Lichtenegger, whereupon after a short trial, he was executed by the Americans. After the war, many expellees from the former German eastern regions settled in Markt Schwaben. Street names such as Königsberger, Neusatzer or Ödenburger Straße in the southwest of Markt Schwaben are reminders of this. During this time, the population consisted mainly of typically down-to-earth traders who supplied the market and the surrounding villages with products. Many streets were named in memory of them when the town was given street names in the early 1960s such as Weißgerberweg, Kupferschmiedberg, Nagelschmiedgasse. 
A couple of scenes from The Great Escape were shot here. Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe (Donald Pleasence) and Flight Lieutenant Robert Hendley (James Garner) hiding from the Germans during the Great Escape; the clock tower of the parish church St. Margaret in Markt Schwaben serving as a reference point. Pleasence had actually been an RAF pilot who had been shot down, held prisoner and tortured by the Germans during the war. After offering advice to the film's director John Sturges, he was politely told to mind his own business. Later, when another star informed Sturges that Pleasence had actually been a RAF Officer in a Stalag camp, Sturges requested his technical advice and input on historical accuracy from that point forward. A number of individual incidents shown in the film were mostly based on fact, but rearranged both chronologically and regarding the people involved as noted at the start of the film. In reality, of the 76 who escaped, three had managed to succeed whilst fifty were murdered in reprisal, but in small groups and not all at once.
Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick (James Coburn) stealing a bike on Ebersberger Straße in Markt Schwaben, named Neustadt in the film. The successful escape of Coburn's Australian character, Sedgwick, via Spain was based on Dutchman Bram van der Stok. Coburn, an American, was cast in the role of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick who was an amalgamation of Flight Lieutenant Albert Hake, an Australian serving in the RAF, the camp's compass maker, and Johnny Travis, the real manufacturer.Based loosely on a true story based on Paul Brickhill's 1950 book about the real-life mass escape by British Commonwealth PoWs from Stalag Luft III in Sagan (now Żagań, Poland), the first part of the film focuses on the escape efforts within the camp and the process of secretly digging an escape tunnel. The second half of the film deals with the massive effort by the German Gestapo to track down the over seventy escaped prisoners individually attempting to make their way to England.
As one sadly expects from American films, the nationality of most of the prisoners were changed to emphasise the role of Americans at the expense of British Imperial heroes.
Indeed, the real escape was by British and other allied personnel, none by Americans. Coburn actually plays an Australian. Whilst Americans in the PoW camp did initially help to build the tunnels and work on the early escape plans, they were moved to their own compound seven months before the tunnels were completed. A large part had been played by Canadians, especially in the construction of the tunnels and in the escape itself. Of the 1,800 or so PoWs in the compound of whom six hundred were involved in preparations for the escape, 150 of these were from the Dominion of Canada; Wally Floody, an RCAF pilot and mining engineer who was the real-life “tunnel king”, was engaged as a technical advisor for the film. Fourteen Germans were executed after the war for their roles, which ended up being among the charges at the Nuremberg War Crimes trial.
Coburn making his way down the other way, showing how much has changed since the film was shot.
Deining
To house Steve, me, and our children, the company had found us a beautiful chalet in Deining, Bavaria. The forty-minute drive to the Geiselgasteig Studios was good for Steve, for it provided him his "creative thinking time, but not so good for the farmers who used the narrow roads: Steve made up his own rules as it suited him. John Sturges and company spent half their time keeping him out of jail. Every time Steve came on the set the German police would be right behind him. John would quickly reprimand him with, “You cannot drive through a flock of chickens and you cannot drive into the woods and then come back onto the road to pass somebody. You cannot drive faster than makes sense or you will hurt yourself.” But when Steve was troubled, driving around was the answer. It helped to calm him.And troubled he was during the first three weeks of the picture....
As costar James Garner would relate, he and Steve Coburn would have
to beg McQueen to cooperate after refusing to work until his part was
rewritten, asking "What's your problem, Steve?" Apparently "after a few
hours of tlakng, Steve wanted to be the hero but didn't want to do
anything heroic."
The convoy later continues just outside the next town,
Egling, along a road that no longer exists. Whistance provides a 1954 map
showing the original layout with its location today. Marc Eliot's biography
references Deining, as well as relating the need for the studio to pay for a
minder to try to stop him from driving over the (already liberal) speed limit
around the area: 
When Steve was told about the locale change, he was both excited—he had, since his merchant marine days, always loved to travel to new countries—and concerned. He enjoyed being overseas, but it meant he would be away from Hollywood for a solid year, except for the few weeks following the completion of The War Lover. He didn't want to become one of those American actors who only worked abroad. Sturges calmed his fears by reminding him he had top billing for the first time in his career and assuring him that he and the family would be put up in a beautiful chalet in Deining, Bavaria. Plus, Sturges pointed out, there were no speed limits in Germany. Technically that wasn't true-only the autobahn had no speed limit; limits on local roads were strictly enforced—but it was enough to get Steve to consent to the German shoot. To prevent Steve from speeding anywhere besides the autobahn, and potentially being arrested and delaying the production, Sturges hired a private escort to make sure he stayed within the legal limit when he drove.
Weilheim
Adolf-Hitler-Platz then and visiting today, now renamed Marienplatz. Weilheim
played a role after the failed Beer Hall coup of November 9, 1923 when
Hitler fled to Uffing am Staffelsee to hide under the protection of
Helene Hanfstaengl, whose husband Ernst Hanfstaengl was also involved in
the coup. Two days later on Sunday, November 11 Lieutenant Rudolf
Belleville, the Commander in Chief of Landeswehr Weilheim, received the
order to arrest Hitler at Villa Hanfstaengl at 16.20. In Uffing at the
villa of Hanfstaengl's mother Katharina he searched with ten state
police officers and a gendarme for an hour and a half. Only after a
direct telephone conversation with Helene Hanfstaengl did he go to their
villa. Shortly before their arrival Hitler dictated his political
will. According to Hanfstaengl's at times self-serving memoirs, Helene
eluded Hitler's pistol. Hitler was finally arrested without resistance
by Belleville, whom he had personally known. The group then drove back
here to Weilheim where Hitler spent the night and at 10.45 the next day
Hitler was taken by 39 guards to the fortress prison in
Landsberg-am-Lech.
As Eric Sangar relates in Alltag und Stimmung in Weilheim während des Nationalsozialismus, in the elections in March 1933, the Nazi vote in Weilheim was 45%, slightly above the average result in Germany. Despite such consistent support, the mood in Weilheim deviated very much from that in the rest of Germany in regards to the murderous events of the Night of the Long Knives, with the Protestant pastor of Weilheim, Gustav Steger, remarking how many people must have perceived the mendacity of the Nazi propaganda due to the fact that prominent representatives from the town's conservative and Catholic milieu were among the victims of the "purge", including them Dr. Wilhelm Schmid, who had already been detained in the Dachau concentration camp. Two years later as Germany hosted the Olympic Games, the recognition that the regime received from abroad on account of the Olympic Games seemed to refute scepticism, and the mood in Weilheim was also positive, especially given that the town benefited directly from the construction of the“ Olympic Road ” to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, today's B2.
Another two years later on the occasion of the anschluß with Austria, support grew even more because it was much easier now to go to Austria for a mountain hike, as an example, since the previous border crossing fee of 500 RM was no longer applicable.
Otto Hoffmeister Haus on the left, used as a youth hostel during the Third Reich.Weilheim saw the end of the war with the occupation of the city by American troops on April 29, 1945. On April 30, 1945, the last Nazi mayor, who had been in office since 1944, and with him the city councillors still in office, were deposed, the police were disarmed and later dissolved, and the American military government assumed all powers from then on. The military government also ordered the transportation of liberated prisoners from concentration and labour camps to Weilheim and ensured their accommodation there. By May there saw an additional four thousand people in the town, all of whose accommodation and supplies had to be ensured by Weilheim.
Rottenbuch
Uffing
Hitler had always displayed a fascination with Putzi’s attractive wife, Helene. Bizarrely, Hitler often gave her flowers and hand kisses, once even dropping to his knees to profess his love for her. When the frightened Hitler burst in that night, Helene hid him in the attic. In the morning when she rushed upstairs to tell Hitler the police had come to arrest him, she found him “in a state of frenzy.” He pulled out a revolver. “This is the end,” he declared. “I will never let these swine take me. I will shoot myself first.” In Putzi’s account, Helene grabbed the gun and jerked it out of the startled leader’s hand before he had a chance to pull the trigger. If that happened—and there are no other accounts to corroborate it—it was one of the most fateful single acts in modern history. Moments later, the police hauled Hitler away to prison.
Hitler with soldiers in Traunstein, January 1919. When Hitler returned to Munich after the end of the Great War, he was reunited his closest front-line comrade to have survived the war, Ernst Schmidt.
In truth, only by joining a Freikorps or by agreeing to be demobilised could Hitler have avoided serving Eisner's regime. Contrary to the claim by Nazi propaganda that Hitler's task was to police the comings and goings at the gate to the camp, meant to support the story of him as an upright, counterrevolutionary future Nazi who had escaped the madness of Munich to uphold order, he seems to have worked in the clothing distribution centre of the camp, carrying out tasks similar to those assigned to him in Munich. In other words, Hitler served the revolutionary regime in Traunstein in a position at the very bottom of the camp's pecking order. On his arrival in Traunstein, the camp was well below full capacity. Only sixty-five French P0Ws and approximately six hundred Russian PoWs were left. This was almost certainly the first time in his life that Hitler encountered a large number of Russians at close quarters. He also was exposed to a group of Jews who were housed together as belonging to one ethnicity, as camp authorities expected that Russian PoWs would be repatriated by ethnicity due to the breakup of the tsarist empire. Frustratingly, it remains unclear what the impact was of Hitler's encounter with the captives from the country that ultimately would become so central to his ideology as well as with the religious community with which he soon would become so obsessed. He arrived in the camp at a time of few remaining tensions between the Russian POWs and their captors. The minimally supervised prisoners felt politically close to Bavaria's leader Kurt Eisner.
Thomas Weber, Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi
With
Drake Winston at schloß Kaltenberg for the annual Kaltenberger
Ritterturnier, possibly the greatest medæival tournament in the world.
Located in the village of the same name in the municipality of
Geltendorf near Lake Ammer in the district of Landsberg am Lech,
the schloß was built in 1292 and is now owned by Luitpold Prince of
Bavaria, the great-grandson of the last Bavarian King Ludwig III. From
1916 to 1939 it was owned by the Schülein family. Joseph Schülein and
his son Fritz ran the castle's brewery and estate with great success,
which also involved peat cutting and sheep farming in the Emminger Moos.
In February 1939, Fritz Schülein's properties were expropriated as part
of the Aryanisation campaign against Jews and he was interned in Dachau
on November 10, 1938. Gut Kaltenberg was subordinated to the government
of Upper Bavaria. In 1948, Fritz Schülein was restituted after lengthy
negotiations with the compensation authority. In 1954, Schloss
Kaltenberg was sold to the Wittelsbach house. The castle is now the
residence of Luitpold Prince of Bavaria and his family. The Kaltenberger
Ritterturnier, launched by Luitpold Prince of Bavaria in 1980, is a
historicising mediæval knight stunt show on the grounds of Kaltenberg
Castle involving the knight's tournament, a supporting programme with
musicians, dancers, jugglers, storytellers, "witches", court jesters, et
cet. which takes place in the arena and on open-air stages around the
castle.
Oberaudorf
The burgtor
then and now. The town was affected in the last days of the war by air raids as its defences posed the last real German
strength faced by the Americans. Within Rosenheim kreis
is the the birthplace of Pope Benedict XVI's mother, German politician
Edmund Stoiber and footballer Bastian Schweinsteiger of Bayern Munich. It was also the home of Willy Sachs, industrialist, ϟϟ-Obersturmbannführer and military economic leader during the war.
Sachs had been a holder of the Federal Cross of Merit and was an
honorary citizen of Oberaudorf. In 1933 he became a member of the ϟϟ (membership number 87,064) and the Nazi Party (membership number
2,547,272). As the head of an armaments company, he was a military
economist. Himmler awarded him medals and honorary titles, including ϟϟ-Obersturmbannführer in 1943. Göring was a guest at one of his
organised hunts in Mainberg and on the Rechenau; Reinhard Heydrich
received a loan from Sachs. Willy Sachs Stadium, at that time one of the most modern and spacious facilities in southern Germany,
was named after him in 1936. The campaign to rename the stadium because
of his Nazi involvement, met with little approval from the general
public. In May 1945, Sachs was arrested by the Americans in Oberaudorf
and interned until February 1947. His denazification labelled him a
"fellow traveller" (Category IV) which author Wilfried Rott describes as a
“white washing,” writing how “[t]o instrumentalise Jewish acquaintances
for yourself afterwards and simply to ignore the cold Aryanisation of
business partner Max Goldschmidt is one of the darkest moments of this
denazification, which was otherwise as euphemistic and belittling as
that of most comparable cases.” Sachs killed himself in the town on November 19, 1958 after shooting himself at the age of 62 following depression and the fear of blackmail. 20,000 people attended his funeral.
Wasserburg
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1st caller: Against class struggle and materialism, for national community and an idealistic way of life! I hand over to the flame the writings of Marx and Kautsky.
2nd caller: Against decadence and moral decay! For discipline and morality in family and state! I hand over to the flame the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Glaeser and Erich Kästner.
3rd caller: Against ideological scoundrelship and political betrayal, for devotion to the people and state! I hand over to the flame the writings of Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster.
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5th Caller: Against falsification of our history and denigration of its great figures, for reverence for our past! I give the flame the writings of Emil Ludwig and Werner Hegemann.
6th Caller: Against journalism alien to the people of democratic-Jewish character, for responsible cooperation in the work of national construction! I give the flame the writings of Theodor Wolff and Georg Bernhard.
7th Caller: Against literary betrayal of the soldiers of the World War, for educating the people in the spirit of defence! I give the flame the writings of Erich Maria Remarque.
8th Caller: Against conceited bastardisation of the German language, for the care of our people's most precious asset! I give the flame the writings of Alfred Kerr.
9. Caller: Against impudence and arrogance, for respect and reverence for the immortal God.
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Herrenstrasse before the war and today. Infamously 742 patients of the town's Gabersee and Attl medical
and nursing homes became victims of Nazi "euthanasia", representing a significant loss of life for a town of Wasserburg's size. Their murders
were concealed; their names today commemorated on a Wasserburg memorial. The fact that these two local medical facilities were directly involved in carrying out the regime's genocidal policies demonstrates how deeply Nazi ideology penetrated into Wasserburg's institutions. After the war, these events were largely kept secret and shamefully silenced for a long time. In recent years, Wasserburg has made efforts to commemorate these victims. The town has created a memorial that lists the names of the victims, aiming to bring them back into family and collective memory which represents a shift in how the town engages with its Nazi-era past as the events have become a subject of local historical research. For instance, in 1994, the 'Stiftung Attl' published a brochure that was the first local examination of the Nazi euthanasia victims and the T4 murders. The Bezirk Oberbayern/Bezirksarchiv now holds patient files that allow for biographical research into the victims, creating a resource for families and researchers to learn more about individual victims. The problem is that research into this topic is difficult. District archivist Nikolaus Braun has carried out years of extensive research into the relocated former Gabersee patients for the project of naming the victims at the Wasserburg memorial. .gif)
Cycling into the town over the river Inn. From 1922 to 1941, Dr. Friedrich Utz headed the Gabersee sanitorium. The sanatorium and nursing home was subject to serious upheavals during the Nazi era in which economic austerity, the institution's eugenic orientation, and the deportation and murder of patients shaped its history between 1933 and its closure in 1941. From June 1940, selections were carried out in Gabersee to prepare for the murder of the sick. From November 1940, 542 patients from Gabersee were deported to the Hartheim killing centre and murdered there. Among them were 45 people from the Ecksberg institution who had been transferred to Gabersee in September 1940. In four transports in November 1940 and on January 17, 1941, 472 patients from the Gabersee institution were taken to a “Reich institution” – the Hartheim killing centre – and murdered there. Another transport took place from Gabersee on January 15, 1941 via Eglfing-Haar to Hartheim. .gif)
Later transports from Eglfing-Haar also included patients from the former Gabersee institution, so that a total of 497 victims from Gabersee were to be mourned. In addition, there were 45 patients from the dissolved Ecksberg institution, who had only been transferred to Gabersee in September 1940 and who also became victims of “Operation T4”. At the beginning of 1941, Gabersee was closed and the remaining patients were transferred to the Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home. Many died as a result of systematically inadequate care and support or overdoses of medication in Eglfing-Haar and Kaufbeuren. In a June 20, 1941 diary entry Utz wrote how[w]hilst up until the outbreak of war in 1914 the authorities were literally competing with each other in caring for the mentally ill, after the war they were seen as a burden and efforts were made to reduce costs for them. When National Socialism came to power in 1933 and applied its principle of state benefit to the mentally ill, it was all over. The Reich Institution was only the last resort.
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On January 1, 1934, the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring” came into force, legalising the forced sterilisation of people deemed to have a hereditary disease and yet even before the law came into force, in November 1933 the Wasserburg local welfare association submitted applications for the sterilisation of six citizens living in Wasserburg "due to mental inferiority". Between 1934 and 1939, the procedure was applied for for 689 patients from Gabersee and sterilisations were carried out in 571 cases. The operations were carried out in Eglfing-Haar and in the municipal hospital in Wasserburg. As Utz would write, the transfer of patients to be sterilised to Eglfing-Haar "made them completely agitated" and "caused difficulties during the procedure." Operations on institutional patients were carried out exclusively in what was then the municipal hospital in Wasserburg from 1936 onwards. A Gabersee hospital doctor and a department nurse assisted in these operations. When in July 1934 one doctor, Dr. Lionel Müller, refused to continue performing "sterilisation operations" because the Sisters of Mercy employed there were "not allowed to assist" with these operations, Mayor Alfons Winter quickly arranged for a sister from Gabersee to be made available as an assistant, whereupon Müller continued the operations. In July 1936, he reported to the city council that "around 250 sterilisations were carried out here," with only a few "sick people" "coming from outside, rather than from the sanatorium, to have the operations performed." .gif)
Patients were eventually relocated to one of the "hunger houses" set up in early 1943, where
they received only reduced food. Due to the weakened physical condition
caused by this malnutrition, the patients became more susceptible to
infectious diseases including tuberculosis and pneumonia from which they
ultimately died. Meanwhile the Attl nursing home provided a home for men in need of care or who were disabled for many years. Run by the Brothers of Mercy, under the Nazis the former Benedictine monastery too would see the mass sterilisation of mentally ill and mentally disabled people which would culminate in the systematic killing of patients. From 1937 brothers of the order were interrogated, harassed and even imprisoned by the Gestapo. .gif)
At the end of September 1940, the institution was closed by order of the Ministry of the Interior during which time it held 230 patients. What happened to them is not fully known. 126 were initially transferred to the Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home from which 83 men were selected in October 1940 to be deported to the Hartheim killing centre and killed. One patient became a victim of the “Jewish collective transport” on September 20, 1940. Another seven people died in Eglfing-Haar, victims of so-called 'decentralised euthanasia' which consisted of simple starvation and neglect. The names of 105 such euthanasia victims from Attl victims are mentioned on the Wasserburg memorial. In January 1942, Attl was converted into a reserve hospital by the Wehrmacht and by the end of the war, around 200 wounded were housed here.
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At the end of September 1940, the institution was closed by order of the Ministry of the Interior during which time it held 230 patients. What happened to them is not fully known. 126 were initially transferred to the Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home from which 83 men were selected in October 1940 to be deported to the Hartheim killing centre and killed. One patient became a victim of the “Jewish collective transport” on September 20, 1940. Another seven people died in Eglfing-Haar, victims of so-called 'decentralised euthanasia' which consisted of simple starvation and neglect. The names of 105 such euthanasia victims from Attl victims are mentioned on the Wasserburg memorial. In January 1942, Attl was converted into a reserve hospital by the Wehrmacht and by the end of the war, around 200 wounded were housed here. 
In front of the central memorial for the victims of the Nazis here at Heisererplatz in front of the war memorial. It was inaugurated on January, 27, 2020 which is supposed to be a day commemorating the victims of National Socialism. It consists of 62 steles of different heights loosely arranged around an oval space. The majority of the inner-facing steles of this memorial bear the names of the euthanasia victims, indicating the central place this tragedy now occupies in the town's commemoration efforts. Ongoing process of confronting the past: The town's efforts to research, commemorate, and publicly acknowledge these events indicate an ongoing process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) that continues to shape Wasserburg's culture and identity.
French PoWs clearing snow under guard and the site today. Between
1939 and 1945, around 6,000 to 9,000 people were forced to work in the district of Wasserburg am Inn.
With a total population of just under 40,000 in the district in 1939,
which probably fell to just over 31,000 during the course of the war due
to conscription into the Wehrmacht, it can be stated that around every fifth to sixth person living in the district of Wasserburg during the war wasn't a local, but a worker recruited or abducted
from abroad, or a prisoner of war. The proportion of forced labourers among all
workers was much higher; in some companies it could be over 40%,
and in some cases over 50 percent. The public sector also used forced labour as for
the building the swimming pool, during municipal maintenance or during
flood cleaning work. Overall, their living and working conditions were
generally harsh- publicly stigmatised by humiliating badges, socially
excluded, restricted in their freedom of movement, subject to an overall
dense security network, often housed in primitive camps, they were
often not even provided according to the already poor dietary
guidelines, so that hunger became the norm for many. .gif)
Forced labourers were employed in all
sectors of the economy. From the Meggle industrial dairy near
Wasserburg, the textile factory Knagge and Peitz in town,
to medium-sized construction companies or craft businesses in the city
or in village centres, to the smallest farms. The public sector also
required the labour of those forced to work, for example in the
construction of the swimming pool, in municipal road maintenance or in
flood clean-up work in the city of Wasserburg. In each of the 62
municipalities in the old district there were significant numbers of
forced labourers during the war. Of the forced labourers in Wasserburg, just over 36 percent were female. Whilst the proportion of women in the French group, which consisted mainly of male prisoners of war, was very low, women even made up a slight majority of the Soviet Eastern workers , at over 54 percent. The age structure of the forced labourers in Wasserburg is also shocking: over 8 percent were born after 1927 and were therefore between 11 and 17 years old during the war. Here, too, considerable national differences are noticeable, because whilst over 7 % of the Eastern workers and even 10.8% of the Poles were children and adolescents, this was only true for just over 2% of the French.
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Forced labourers were employed in all
sectors of the economy. From the Meggle industrial dairy near
Wasserburg, the textile factory Knagge and Peitz in town,
to medium-sized construction companies or craft businesses in the city
or in village centres, to the smallest farms. The public sector also
required the labour of those forced to work, for example in the
construction of the swimming pool, in municipal road maintenance or in
flood clean-up work in the city of Wasserburg. In each of the 62
municipalities in the old district there were significant numbers of
forced labourers during the war. Of the forced labourers in Wasserburg, just over 36 percent were female. Whilst the proportion of women in the French group, which consisted mainly of male prisoners of war, was very low, women even made up a slight majority of the Soviet Eastern workers , at over 54 percent. The age structure of the forced labourers in Wasserburg is also shocking: over 8 percent were born after 1927 and were therefore between 11 and 17 years old during the war. Here, too, considerable national differences are noticeable, because whilst over 7 % of the Eastern workers and even 10.8% of the Poles were children and adolescents, this was only true for just over 2% of the French.
Siegsdorf
The
Gasthof Alte Post in 1936 with swastika-bedecked maypole. Siegsdorf
had been the home of Ernst von Salomon, a member of the Organisation
Consul who had
received a five year prison sentence in 1922 for his part in the
assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau – he provided a car
for the assassins. In 1927, he received another prison sentence for an
attempted Feme murder (paramilitary "self-justice"), and was pardoned by
Reich President Paul von Hindenburg after a few months – he had not
killed the severely wounded victim, Wagner, when he pleaded for his
life, which was noted by the court. He was later interrogated after the
war by the Americans.
The Americans believed they had a case against the writer Ernst von Salomon, and he tells us what it was like to be at the receiving end. They came for him at 6.00 a.m. at his home in Siegsdorf near Salzburg where he lived with his mistress, Ille Gotthelft. Two men called Murphy and Sullivan told him that he was to be interrogated across the border in Kitzbühel. They told Salomon it was because he was ‘a big Nazi’. When Ille protested that she was Jewish, they took her as well. Even if the two men had no knowledge of who Salomon was on their arrival, they could have gleaned it as they went through the books in his workroom. It was clear that they assumed that only a Nazi would have been involved in the killing of the Jewish foreign minister Walther Rathenau in 1922. His mistress’s protests must have been seen as at best irrelevant, at worst a lie. She suffered for her temerity, and was only released when she came close to death though sickness. ... He was questioned by a German-speaker who revealed that his parents were artists in Dresden, and Party members. He did not want to believe that Salomon had not been a member. He knew all about the Rathenau murder: ‘lucky for you you did not try to conceal it!’ ‘My dear sir, I’ve written books about it this thick.’
MacDonogh (400) After the Reich
Niedernfels
Oberammergau
An
attempt to rewrite the Passion Play script to bring it into line with
Nazi ideology was rejected, however, by the more conservative
element. In 1942 Hitler would go so far as to claim that the play showed Pilate
as a man of “superior race” while the Sanhedrin’s call for crucifixion
revealed the whole “muck and mire of Jewry.” In his Table Talk Hitler declared that
The theatre as it appeared in 1934 and today. Given such history, the play itself has been forced to adapt to the times, starting right after the war when it was condemned as anti-Semitic by several intellectuals such as Arthur Miller, Leonard Bernstein and Lionel Trilling in a petition because of the stereotypical and negative portrayal of Jews (sparking outrage amongst German writers such as Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll). In the late 1960s the Catholic Church requested the Passion Play reflect the Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council which stated that the Jews were not responsible for the death of Jesus. However, when the Passion Play was not adapted in 1970, the Vatican withdrew its approval through , the so-called Missio canonica, leading to Oberammergau inviting Jewish organisations to participate in discussions about changes to the script. This would culminate in 1977 with violent disputes in the municipality of Oberammergau before the 38th staging of the play in 1980 over which text to follow- that of Rosner or that of Weis/Daisenberger. The latter was criticised as anti-Semitic by such groups as B'nai B'rith because of the depiction of Judas but, after a referendum was held, this was the script chosen.
One of our most important tasks will be to save future generations from a similar political fate and to maintain for ever watchful in them a knowledge of the menace of Jewry. For this reason alone it is vital that the Passion Play be continued at Oberammergau; for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the times of the Romans. There one sees in Pontius Pilate a Roman racially and intellectually so superior, that he stands out like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry.However, forced to choose between guns and God, Hitler closed the play in 1940 to build a munitions factory nearby, referred to below.
Today however, the staging is such that Jesus's Jewish identity is constantly emphasised- he is addressed as Rabbi Yeshua, speaks fragments of Hebrew as in the Last Supper where he recites the blessing over the wine in Hebrew and declares "Shema Israel!" Meanwhile the role of the moneylenders has been reduced, the Rabbi character completely eliminated and his lines given to another character, Jewish priests no longer wear horn-shaped hats and they are depicted as disputing about theological aspects of Judaism amongst themselves and not solely about Jesus. Peter,
when questioned by Nathaniel regarding abandoning Judaism replies, "No!
We don't want that! Far be it from us to abandon Moses and his law!" Particular emphasis is placed Judas as a tragedy leading to his desperate suicide; he's portrayed as being duped into betraying Jesus and the line "His
blood is upon us and also upon our children's children" from Matthew xxvii.25 has been completely censored. In addition, the responsibility of Pilate is highlighted to make him appear brutal and tyrannical, threatening the Jewish high priest Caiaphas, making it clear that Caiaphas does not speak for all the Jews. Romans now stand guard at the gates when Jesus makes his entrance to Jerusalem as Jesus's own supporters have been added to the screaming crowd outside Pilate's palace. All of which strikes me as infinitely more historically accurate if calling into question the whole nature of the actual theology during the current era of Woke- is the protagonist Jesus Christ or Rabbi Yeshua?
The Hotel Wittelsbach then and now, shown sporting swastikas. In 1932 the future Bavarian Prime Minister Max Streibl was born here on January 6, 1932 as his parents owned a hotel business. Prime Minister Ramsey Macdonald stayed here in 1930, as did Harold Lloyd and the Canadian Olympic team of 1932.Germania International sold the actual hotel guestbook created for the August 13, 1934 occasion of the Hitler's stay whilst attending the 300th anniversary of the "Passion Play of Oberammergau," describing it as "possibly the most important item we have ever offered" and offering a plethora of information and images on its page.
Hitler arriving in front of the hotel on the left and addressing a large
crowd from the hotel’s balcony below; the hotel facade having changed somewhat since. This would be the hotel of choice for top Nazis during the March 14-17, 1935 Führer Appell that had been held in the town. Of the over fifty signatures of high-ranking SA
and ϟϟ officers who signed the hotel guest book were Victor Lutze, head of the SA after the Night of the Long Knives, Franz Ritter von Epp, Herbert Fust, SA Obergruppenführer Hans Ludin, Dietrich Von Jagow, Walter Dohle, SA Obergruppenführer Siegfried Kashe, SA Obergruppenführer Adolf Kob, Kurt Lasch, SA Gruppenführer Otto Schramme, Adolf Beckerle, SA Obergruppenführer (General) Otto Herzog, SA Obergruppenführer Heinrich Bennecke (Blood Order recipient and official historian of the Nazi Party) Heinz-Guenther Von Obernitz, SA Obergruppenführer Max Juettner, Wilhelm Helfer, Arthur Rakobrandt, Heinrich Boemker, among the many other notable names. Julius Streicher scribbled two typical anti-Semitic screeds on separate visits, writing in the guestbook on June 7 1933: “Without a solution to the Jewish question, there can be no salvation for the German People!” and in another visit on January 20, 1935: “Whoever knows the Jew knows the Devil." Among other top names of the Third Reich who stayed here include Martin Bormann and Fritz Todt, who had stayed together in 1935; Robert Ley, who signed the guestbook on September 13, 1934; Leni Riefenstahl in 1935; Reichsfrauenführerin Gertrud Scholtze-Klink, who visited February 24, 1940; Heinrich Hoffmann; Julius Schaub; Emil Maurice; Dr. Karl Brandt; Adolf Wagner; et al..
and ϟϟ officers who signed the hotel guest book were Victor Lutze, head of the SA after the Night of the Long Knives, Franz Ritter von Epp, Herbert Fust, SA Obergruppenführer Hans Ludin, Dietrich Von Jagow, Walter Dohle, SA Obergruppenführer Siegfried Kashe, SA Obergruppenführer Adolf Kob, Kurt Lasch, SA Gruppenführer Otto Schramme, Adolf Beckerle, SA Obergruppenführer (General) Otto Herzog, SA Obergruppenführer Heinrich Bennecke (Blood Order recipient and official historian of the Nazi Party) Heinz-Guenther Von Obernitz, SA Obergruppenführer Max Juettner, Wilhelm Helfer, Arthur Rakobrandt, Heinrich Boemker, among the many other notable names. Julius Streicher scribbled two typical anti-Semitic screeds on separate visits, writing in the guestbook on June 7 1933: “Without a solution to the Jewish question, there can be no salvation for the German People!” and in another visit on January 20, 1935: “Whoever knows the Jew knows the Devil." Among other top names of the Third Reich who stayed here include Martin Bormann and Fritz Todt, who had stayed together in 1935; Robert Ley, who signed the guestbook on September 13, 1934; Leni Riefenstahl in 1935; Reichsfrauenführerin Gertrud Scholtze-Klink, who visited February 24, 1940; Heinrich Hoffmann; Julius Schaub; Emil Maurice; Dr. Karl Brandt; Adolf Wagner; et al..
On September 15, 1937 the mayor of Oberammergau wrote in regards to actions taken against Jewish visitors to the town that:
1. Boards with the inscription "Jews are not wanted here" or that show a similar note are not set up in the village, however, in the course of the summer at the entrance of the Alpenbad in the ticket office, the sentence is affixed with a 12 cm high writing: " Jews are not allowed in! "There are no privately owned facilities or houses, with the exception of the Osterbichl Kurhaus, which have a reference to the non-admission of Jews. At the entrance of the Kurhaus Osterbichl it says: "Jew-free house". The label has been in place since 1935.2. It was found that the number of Jews visiting our place was not greater than in the previous year. The survey, which was carried out at the request of the district management of all hotel and guest house owners, showed that no house is willing to accept Jews. However, it has been found that private landlords accommodate Jewish guests. According to an estimate, 20-30 Jews were likely to have stayed here. The above-mentioned inscription in the Alpenbad could not be avoided. Although the bathing regulations prohibit Jews from entering the bathing facilities, it happened that Jews were noticed several times in an unpleasant manner and had to be expelled from the site either by guests or by the lifeguard. I have the impression that this is the only way to keep the place reasonably free of Jews.3. Institutions without any references are likely to attract more Jews to the place itself very soon. Before embarrassing clashes between Aryan guests and Jews occur in public family baths, the strict ban on entry is still the best way out.
The flags have changed in front of the Forstamt with the war memorial gone. Early in the war when Britain alone was giving it back to the Germans in bombing raids, Munich, was hit in 1940 for the first time. Most of the industrial companies that were important for the war were located in the metropolitan area and were one of the preferred targets of the Royal Air Force. The Reich government therefore drew up plans at an early stage to relocate the war-important operations to safe areas if necessary and the area of the municipality of Oberammergau was considered ideal for this for several reasons. Due to its geographical location in the Bavarian Alps, it was far from the big cities and difficult to reach for the opposing air force. On the other hand, tourism provided a large number of accommodations,which were necessary for the workers in the armaments factories. In addition, there was a large, recently built area in the Ammertal with the Wehrmacht barracks, which seemed suitable for relocating companies to Oberammergau. Already in the spring of 1942, seventy workers from the Viennese armaments industry were housed in Oberammergau for the first time. On Hitler's orders, at the end of September 1943, the long-prepared relocation of Messerschmidt AG and the evacuation of the accommodations in the village began. Because of the air raids on the plants near Regensburg, Augsburg and in Wiener Neustadt, the relocation had become inevitable. And
so from October 1943, a large testing and production facility for
fighter aircraft from Messerschmitt AG, the Upper Bavarian Research
Institute, operated in the former Hötzendorf- Gebirgsjäger barracks.
Forced labourers had to work under the supervision of the ϟϟ units of
Hans Kammler, who was also the "Special Representative of the
Reichsführer ϟϟ for the A4 programme", for the underground relocation of
the German armaments industry and, as part of the Alpine fortress, an
underground factory in the mountain under the cover name "Cerusit." The engineers worked on models for jet planes and rockets which, as hoped-for "miracle weapons", were to force a turning point in the war.
For this purpose, tunnels and caverns were carved out of the rock which can be seen in Geoff Walden's Third Reich in Ruins.
The consequences for the locals differed as many citizens living in Oberammergau obtained employment whilst on the other hand, the management of the armaments factory largely determined economic and political events in the area. The community primarily had to support the work of the armaments factories; as early as August 1942, the district administrator pointed out to the mayor of Oberammergau that the armaments factories had to have priority in supplying them. In the course of 1944 the Messerschmitt company had received permission from the Nazi district leader to confiscate living space without authorisation, and in July that year the Messerschmitt company confiscated Grund in Oberammergau for the construction of another barrack camp for Eastern European foreign workers and constructed the necessary buildings. The situation was similar with the necessary reason for a landing site in the Ammertal, which was to be set up in June 1944. The operation of the Upper Bavarian Research Institute was gradually expanded in 1944. Since tunnels were also driven into the Schaffelberg not far from the barracks for the production facilities, a large number of additional workers were required. At the beginning of 1944, around 300 Eastern workers and 200 other foreigners were deployed there, who were housed in the barracks camp built especially for them on Rainenbichl, east of Oberammergau. Such foreign labourers represented a problem for the Nazi district leadership; in a letter from the Nazi district leadership to Messerschmitt-Werke dated February 2, 1944,
On the basis of messages that I have received, I would like to inform you that accommodating foreign workers - especially Russians - in private quarters is of course out of the question suggest that you try to find this barrack.A manhunt is currently being carried out: the town and country guards deployed in the course of this operation, who also keep watch at the entrances to Oberammergau, have found that a lot of Russians were hanging around the streets between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. I will order the district commissioner for the deployment of foreign workers to discuss ways and means with you to end this nonsense of wandering around by Russian workers by night and fog.
At this point in time, there was no danger to the population although the local gendarmerie was strengthened and units of the Wehrmacht in Oberammergau were charged with the task of securing the population. The residents of Oberammergau were als Garmisch. During the war, the two road tunnels of "Olympiastraße" (today's Bundesstraße 2) southwest of the village were walled-up to become bombproof at the ends as part of the U-Verlagerung (underground relocation), part of a large number of o largely sealed off from foreign workers. The closer the end of the war approached, the more difficult the supply situation for the Messerschmitt branch also became. From March 1945 it was no longer possible to speak of regular production and in the last months of the war, the management of the Upper Bavarian Research Institute changed, which was now taken over by the ϟϟ itself. ϟϟ-Obergruppenführer Kammler was given the management of the plant in Oberammergau where he quartered himself whilst his staff was transferred to Tyrol shortly before the American invasion.In mid-April 1945 the ϟϟ evacuated around 450 employees of the A4 program of the Peenemünde Army Research Centre from Bad Sachsa and placed them under strict guard in Oberammergau, including Walter Dornberger and Wernher von Braun.
On the morning of April 29, 1945, Oberammergau was occupied by the Americans after a brief period of fierce resistance from the mountain troops.
Tegernsee
with Rottach in the background. Tegernsee is where Hitler would often
retreat, and it was not until April 2016 that the town of Tegernsee
stripped Hitler of honorary citizenship after 83 years. Hitler’s
honour was revoked by Conservative mayor Johannes Hagn and the sixteen
town councillors after the former stated that "[i]t took so long
because we didn’t actually know if he was still on the books as an
honorary citizen and it turned out he was... We thought the honour had
died off with him but that turned out not to be the case so we had to
officially expunge him from the books." During the war the stretch of
water became known as ‘Bonzo See’ – Lake Big Shot – because of the
number of Nazi chiefs who bought holiday homes there.
One such person was Heinrich Himmler- his home in Gmund am Tegernsee from 1934-1945- "Lindenfycht". At the end of the war the hotels in Tegernsee were used as auxiliary hospitals. Around 12,000 wounded and civilian war refugees were accommodated in Tegernsee alone. During their retreat, troops of the 17th ϟϟ Panzergrenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen" were persuaded by the convalescent Major Hannibal von Lüttichau not to settle in the place, but to take off via Kreuth in the direction of Austria. He then went with a white flag to the approaching artillerymen of the American Army and could convince them of the withdrawal of the Waffen-ϟϟ, so that the place and the inhabitants and refugees were not shot at.
At the memorial service, the Gmund pastors of both denominations blessed the graves, followed by a reading and the diplomats laying wreaths. The memorial service was held in German and English. Also taking part are the mountain rifle companies from Gmund and Tegernsee with marching bands and saluting processions as well as military delegations from the Bundeswehr and other armed forces. We then walked the three miles to the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at
Durnbach where the British Consulate held another memorial event in the Dürnbach military cemetery with the two minutes' silence at 11.00.
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Im standing on the right in
front of the graves of RAF and RCAF airmen Brown, Carter, Dalton,
Schulman, Sutherland and Trimby during the 2023 Remembrance Day ceremony
and their memorial in April, 1947. The cemetery commands a beautiful view across Tegernesse to snow-capped mountains, the Wallberg and the Kampen in the foreground and the loftier heights of the Tyrol beyond. This lovely site was chosen, shortly after hostilities had ceased, by officers of the British Army and Royal Air Force, in conjunction with officers of the American Occupation Forces in whose zone Diirnbach lay. The great majority of those buried here are airmen shot down over southern Germany (Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Hessen and Thuringia) and Austria. They were brought from their scattered graves by the Army Graves Services and re-buried at Diirnbach. The remainder are of men who were killed whilst escaping from prisoner of war camps in the same areas, or who died towards the end of the war on forced marches from the camps to other areas within Germany. Diernbach War Cemetery contains 2,934 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 93 are unidentified. One grave holds the ashes of an unknown number of unidentified war casualties (including Special Operations Executive Agents) recovered from Flossenbiirg Concentration Camp. In addition, special memorials commemorate four soldiers of the Army of the United Kingdom, and one who belonged to South African Forces, who were buried at Regensburg Upper Roman Catholic Cemetery but whose graves are now lost. The memorials are inscribed to this effect, and bear the quotation Their Glory shall not be blotted out. 
.gif)
Im standing on the right in
front of the graves of RAF and RCAF airmen Brown, Carter, Dalton,
Schulman, Sutherland and Trimby during the 2023 Remembrance Day ceremony
and their memorial in April, 1947. The cemetery commands a beautiful view across Tegernesse to snow-capped mountains, the Wallberg and the Kampen in the foreground and the loftier heights of the Tyrol beyond. This lovely site was chosen, shortly after hostilities had ceased, by officers of the British Army and Royal Air Force, in conjunction with officers of the American Occupation Forces in whose zone Diirnbach lay. The great majority of those buried here are airmen shot down over southern Germany (Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Hessen and Thuringia) and Austria. They were brought from their scattered graves by the Army Graves Services and re-buried at Diirnbach. The remainder are of men who were killed whilst escaping from prisoner of war camps in the same areas, or who died towards the end of the war on forced marches from the camps to other areas within Germany. Diernbach War Cemetery contains 2,934 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 93 are unidentified. One grave holds the ashes of an unknown number of unidentified war casualties (including Special Operations Executive Agents) recovered from Flossenbiirg Concentration Camp. In addition, special memorials commemorate four soldiers of the Army of the United Kingdom, and one who belonged to South African Forces, who were buried at Regensburg Upper Roman Catholic Cemetery but whose graves are now lost. The memorials are inscribed to this effect, and bear the quotation Their Glory shall not be blotted out. 
More recently, on the 14th May 2003 the funeral of Wing Commander Warburton, a photo reconnaissance pilot, took place at Diirnbach. He was buried with full military honors 59 years after his death in 1944. The last funerals to take place in the cemetery were on 21 October 2015 for two Lancaster crews ~ JB221 and ED427. The crew of JB221 were from 97 Sqn, RAF Bourne, and on a bombing mission over Frankfurt. Only three of the crew were found at the time and laid to rest at Diirnbach, with Flight Engineer Pilot Officer George Smith as the fourth, on the above date, ED427, of 47 Sqn from RAF Fiskerton, was excavated in September 2012. south west of Frankfurt, and the crew of seven remains were buried at Durnbach.
My website Echoes of War is devoted to such cemeteries and sites around Ypres and the Somme.
Bad Wiessee.gif)
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The
Naturfreundehaus when it hosted troops of Hitlerjugend and Feldsee then
and now. These Naturfreunde centres played a multifaceted role in Nazi
Germany, used as tools of the Nazi regime, manipulated to propagate its
ideology and mould public opinion. Steven B. Bowman argues that such
transformations of the original role of these centres were primarily
driven by the regime's intentions to manipulate public opinion and
control societal institutions. Naturfreunde centres, which had
traditionally been known for their politically left-leaning views and
commitment to social and environmental justice, were targeted for
'cleansing'. According to Bowman, this was part of the wider Nazi policy
of Gleichschaltung or 'coordination', which aimed at bringing all
aspects of German life under the control of the Nazi Party. Marcus Funck
in his book Naturfreunde in the Nazi Era posits that the Naturfreunde
centres, due to their historical commitment to social and political
reform, harboured dissenters and acted as discreet nodes of the
resistance movement. %20(1).gif)
Due
to their historically egalitarian and left-leaning ethos, there were
likely to be fertile ground for the resistance movement. Regardless of
the levels of resistance, the Nazi regime's suppression of the
Naturfreunde centres was ultimately successful. According to Bowman, the
regime's strategy of suppression was two-pronged: infiltration and
violent repression. Agents from the Gestapo infiltrated the centres,
reporting any signs of resistance, while overt signs of dissent were
brutally crushed. Many Naturfreunde members were arrested, and the
centres were either repurposed or closed.At the same time, they also
served as discreet hubs of resistance against the regime. Ultimately,
however, these centres were not immune to the regime's oppressive reach
and were largely suppressed. The intertwined roles of these centres as
both tools and victims of the Nazi regime shed light on the complex
relationship between societal institutions and totalitarian regimes.
The Eisenbahnbrücke Prien-Aschau under construction in 1939 and today.
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It was on Tegernsee here where the Hotel Hanselbauer, shown here as the Hotel Lederer am See when it was being demolished at the end of 2018, saw
Hitler personally arrest the leader of the SA, Ernst Roehm. From Alan
Bullock's Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (303):
In the early morning of the 30th a fast-moving column of cars tore down the road from Munich to Wiessee where Rohm and Heines were still asleep in their beds at the Hanselbauer Hotel. The accounts of what happened at Wiessee are contradictory. Heines, the S.A. Obergrappenfuhrer for Silesia, a convicted murderer who was found sleeping with one of Rohm's young men, is said to have been dragged out and shot on the road. Other accounts say he was taken to Munich with Rohm and shot there.
Schliersee
Eva Braun exercising at Schliersee with Saint Sixtus Church in the background. This shot comes from reel 1 of the private motion pictures of Eva Braun which were assembled into eight reels by the American Army from the original 28 camera rolls, and has the hand-written title "Wir baden in Schliersee." The reel also includes other locations such as Am Chiemsee, Wolfgangsee, Aschauer Weiher, Wörthsee and Punktchen am Berg. Hans Frank, the notorious “Butcher of Poland" later executed after the war for war crimes, owned the Schoberhof on Lake Schliersee. Scandalously, in 1959 Fritz Rüth, the president of the Munich regional tax office, spent a mere 7,000 deutschmarks acquiring the entire property. Such corruption was standard practice after the war, despite the fact that under the 1948 Bavarian law governing confiscation of property, the
proceeds from such sales were to be paid to the Foundation for the
Redress of Nazi Injustices and, following its dissolution, to the State
Office of Restitution. Nevertheless, the Audit Court didn't submit its critical and classified report until 1971, only for a note to be placed into the Finance Ministry files stating that the public prosecutor’s office was terminating its investigations because the statute of limitations had passed.
Feldberg
Outside of one of the buildings near the Feldberg Ski Resort the Nazi eagle remains, as does the Bismarckdenkmal nearby. Baranowski's seminal research on Nazi leisure activities presents skiing as an integral part of the 'Strength Through Joy' programme. He argued that this sport was not merely a form of recreation but a tool for embodying and disseminating core principles of Nazi ideology. Baranowski points to how the Nazis emphasised the sport's virility and endurance aspects, traits they associated with the Aryan ideal. Skiing, a physically demanding activity set in Germany's rugged winter landscapes, was seen as a perfect setting for displaying these traits. Moreover, the competitive nature of the sport was conducive to promoting racial superiority, a cornerstone of Nazi philosophy. However, it must be noted that Baranowski's focus on the ideological aspect of skiing might have led him to overemphasise its importance within the larger Nazi scheme of things. %20(1).gif)
Contrary to Baranowski's ideologically laden perspective, Large offers a more pragmatic analysis. He posits that the importance of skiing to the Nazi regime lay in its potential for mass mobilisation and social integration. Large's research illustrates how skiing was popularised under the banner of the 'Strength Through Joy' programme. This initiative was essentially an exercise in mass mobilisation, an attempt to create a united 'Volksgemeinschaft' or people's community. By organising mass ski trips and competitions, the Nazis could integrate various social classes and foster a sense of collective identity. Large also notes that the affordability of these ski excursions allowed working-class Germans access to a traditionally upper-class pastime. This social levelling not only bolstered the Nazis' populist appeal but also smoothed over class tensions, contributing to the regime's stability. Yet, Large's emphasis on the mass mobilisation facet might undervalue the ideological implications of skiing that Baranowski emphasised.
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.gif)
%20(1).gif)
Due
to their historically egalitarian and left-leaning ethos, there were
likely to be fertile ground for the resistance movement. Regardless of
the levels of resistance, the Nazi regime's suppression of the
Naturfreunde centres was ultimately successful. According to Bowman, the
regime's strategy of suppression was two-pronged: infiltration and
violent repression. Agents from the Gestapo infiltrated the centres,
reporting any signs of resistance, while overt signs of dissent were
brutally crushed. Many Naturfreunde members were arrested, and the
centres were either repurposed or closed.At the same time, they also
served as discreet hubs of resistance against the regime. Ultimately,
however, these centres were not immune to the regime's oppressive reach
and were largely suppressed. The intertwined roles of these centres as
both tools and victims of the Nazi regime shed light on the complex
relationship between societal institutions and totalitarian regimes.
Aufkirchen
Raising the May Pole then and now on the corner of Kirchstraße and Zugspitzstraße in this district of Berg
The Eisenbahnbrücke Prien-Aschau under construction in 1939 and today.
Just south of Munich is this memorial to the assassination of German physicist and research manager Karl Heinz Beckurts who, along with his driver Eckhard Groppler, was murdered by a roadside bomb here at 7.32 on July 9, 1986 in the village of Straßlach. The bomb used an electronic triggering device. The Red Army Faction claimed responsibility under the name "Kommando Mara Cagol" but the identity of the perpetrators is still unknown. The Bundeskriminalamt named Horst Ludwig Meyer as the only suspect for the bombing; Meyer was fatally shot in 1999 by the police in Vienna. It's unclear why he was targeted; in April that year the Chernobyl disaster occurred, the worst to date and most consequential accident in the history of nuclear power. Since it also occurred in the middle of a heated political debate over nuclear power in West Germany, it has been speculated that the RAF wanted to win sympathy from the West German anti-nuclear movement against nuclear use.
