Marienplatz
Munich's central square and civic heart, watched over by the golden Madonna of the Mariensäule. Beneath its festive surface lies a darker memory, for these same stones once carried Nazi banners, marching columns, and the propaganda of a regime that called this city its capital.
About this place
Marienplatz has been the focal point of Munich since 1158, a market square turned ceremonial centre framed by the towering neo-Gothic New Town Hall and the older Old Town Hall. At its middle rises the Mariensäule, a marble column crowned by a gilded Madonna, raised in 1638 by Elector Maximilian I in thanks that the city had been spared destruction in the Thirty Years' War. During the National Socialist period this most public of Munich stages was drawn into the machinery of the regime that named the city the Capital of the Movement. Party processions filed across the square, flags and banners draped the town halls, and on the ninth of March 1933 a swastika was hoisted from the New Town Hall as the Nazi seizure of power was proclaimed to the crowds below. A few steps away, inside the Old Town Hall, Joseph Goebbels gave the speech on the ninth of November 1938 that ignited the Kristallnacht pogrom. Yet Marienplatz also belongs to those who refused. Munich was home to the White Rose, the student resistance circle around Hans and Sophie Scholl, and on the thirtieth of April 1945 American troops reached this square and the dictatorship was over. Today the Madonna still looks out over a place of festivals, markets, and remembrance.
Key facts
- 1638 year — The Mariensäule was raised by Elector Maximilian I in thanks that Munich survived the Thirty Years' War
- 1933 year — A swastika was hoisted from the New Town Hall on 9 March, proclaiming the Nazi seizure of power
- 1945 year — American troops reached the square on 30 April, ending Nazi rule over Munich
📍 Marienplatz 8, 80331, München