Murnau - Is dealing with the Nazi past a local political task?
Yes, judge the participants in a discussion in the Murnau culture and conference center.
If a municipality is not concerned with its recent history, conflicts break out again and again, says Mayor Rolf Beuting.
Especially when it comes to naming or renaming public buildings and streets.
But, and there is agreement on the podium: the population must be involved in the discussion.
Expert discussion in Murnau
The community hall of Markt Murnau was carefully chosen for such an expert talk moderated by Stephanie Heinzeller (Bayerischer Rundfunk), as the community with 12,000 inhabitants has been dealing with the period between 1919 and 1950 for around ten years. The historian PD Dr . Edith Raim (University of Augsburg) presented a documentation of how National Socialism was able to develop so strongly in local politics, in associations and in social life that Murnau am Staffelsee became a Nazi stronghold in southern Bavaria; Book title: "There are cold times to come."
But that's not all, Mayor Rolf Beuting: “The time is ripe to grapple with the Nazi past of our honorary citizens.
We will uncover the network that suggested incriminated people for the highest honor in our ward in the 1960s and 1970s. ”The ward council has already set up a cross-factional working group to coordinate this investigation.
Rolf Beuting: “Descendants of the people in question are still alive.
I expect painful realizations. "
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The lettering 'Unsern Helden' - like here on the Murnau war memorial - cannot be left standing in isolation, says Rolf Beuting.
The mayor calls for the civilian victims to be the focus of remembrance.
© Günter Bitala
Eliminate people from the Nazi environment as patrons
The trigger for coming to terms with the past was Max Dingler (1883 - 1961). In the 1980s, the zoologist and dialect poet was given the name patronage for the then new middle school, despite his closeness to the National Socialist world of thought. That changed in 2011; Mayor Rolf Beuting: “Max Dingler marched in front of the Munich Feldherrenhalle during the 1923 Hitler coup. He was a leading member of the paramilitary organized vigilante Bund Oberland. A man who did not hesitate to destroy democratic state structures cannot be a role model for our young people. "
The market town took a long time to find a new school patron.
After an intensive, public discussion, teachers, students and parents, as well as the local council, agreed on Christoph Probst.
The member of the resistance group 'The White Rose' was born in Murnau in 1919.
At this point, Dr.
Ulrike Haerendel (historian at the Bundeswehr University in Munich): “Municipal bodies must not shy away from removing people from the Nazi environment as patrons.
There are so many other personalities today who are worth highlighting as role models. ”In Garching, north of Munich - the home community of Dr.
Ulrike Haerendel - Christoph Probst has given the Bundeswehr barracks its name since 2019.
Second example: The Holocaust survivor Max Mannheimer became the patron of the Garching Middle School.
Mayor Rolf Beuting names two names for Murnau: the writer Ödön von Horváth and the Jewish patron James Loeb.
In the discussion, the question emerges as to which criteria a congregation should apply when deleting namesake patrons.
Mayor Rolf Beuting: “You have to be as strict as possible.
Anyone who was involved in Nazi crimes or wanted to destroy democracy has lost any right to an honor anyway. "
Dr. In each individual case, Edith Raim advises a scientifically neutral accompaniment: "The circumstances of the time and the life's work of the person concerned must be taken into account in the decision." The name Ludwig Thoma was mentioned. Dr. Edith Raim: "With Ludwig Thoma you have to consider what weighs heavier - the undoubtedly unspeakable anti-Semitic inflammatory pamphlets in the Miesbacher Anzeiger, or his legacy as a great writer?"
Dr.
Edith Raim and Dr.
Ulrike Haerendel advocate additional explanatory panels.
As Garching did when the Technical University of Munich paid tribute to outstanding scientists and engineers at an S-Bahn stop.
Dr.
Ulrike Haerendel: “Claude Dornier (1884 - 1969) was a brilliant aircraft designer.
Wilhelm Messerschmidt (1898 - 1978) a gifted aviation pioneer.
Both were involved in the exploitation of foreign forced laborers from 1940 onwards.
Additional panels arrange your life historically correctly. "
Setting an example for the civilian victims of the Nazi dictatorship
The culture of remembrance is part of coming to terms with the past; Rolf Beuting: "We have to concentrate our memory more on the forced laborers, the deportees, the people murdered in the concentration camps and hospitals." With this, Beuting takes up a topic that was fiercely contested in Murnau two decades ago. At that time, the Oberammergau sculptor Michael Raab designed a memorial stele that was to be placed on the war memorial at the parish church of St. Nicholas. The project has been canceled; the plaque is now on the cemetery wall in Oberammergau.
Rolf Beuting: “The lettering 'Our Heroes' is no longer up-to-date today.
We are not allowed to change our war memorial, but we can give the civilian victims of the Nazi dictatorship an appropriate framework. "
Ulrike Haerendel: "We have to make the victims visible and audible."
Edith Raim agrees with the mayor in principle, but raises concerns: "If there is to be a memorial plaque with the names of the victims, it is essential to take into account the sensitivities of the relatives, who often do not want their ancestors to be named." Günter Bitala