What happend to the Königsplatz München Granite?

[Maurice Laarman]

What happend to the Königsplatz München Granite?

Off course the readers know this place, the location in the city where the Braunes Haus and the temples were, and several buildings still exist.

In the 3.Reich period this square was covered with granite tiles from several locations in Gemany and used as a paradeground, for ralles. ect. I visited the location last weekend, but noticed the granite has been replaced.

Does anyboy know if the tiles have found new use?


Kind regards,

Maurice

[Br. James]

The granite slabs which covered the ground of the Königsplatz during the Third Reich era were removed decades ago. When I visited in 1997 the paving stones were already gone and, as now, the plaza was covered with grass. This is also what happened to the Luitpoldhain at the Nuremberg Party Rally Grounds -- this area was originally a wide lawn of grass, but during the TR time it was paved over with stone, which has been removed post-war. There must be places in those two cities where that amount of stone has been put to public use...?

Br. James

[Geoff Walden]

I found several references that said the granite paving stones on the Königsplatz were removed in 1987-88, but I could find no reference to what was done with them after removal.

Don't know about the pavers on the Luitpoldhain in Nürnberg either, but some (all?) of the paving stones that were removed from the Große Straße in Nürnberg - the end closest to the Kongreßhalle (where the Volksfestplatz is today) - are stored along the side in the open center of the Kongreßhalle. They can be seen by any visitor - you can look right down on them while standing at the viewing platform that juts out from the museum over the open central area.

Here is a view down onto that area from the roof of the Kongreßhalle.

[nammie44]

Why were the paving stones removed in the first place and not used elsewhere? Also, what happened to Albert Speer's lamp posts on the square. King Ludwig wanted Munich to look like Athens and that's why the buildings look the way they do.

[Br. James]

"Why were the paving stones removed in the first place and not used elsewhere?"

I would imagine that the local government wherever these areas were located -- Munich, Nuremberg or elsewhere -- was trying to remove "the stench of the Nazi past" from these areas, similar to the attempt to change the look of the Berghof and it's surroundings on the Obersalzberg by planting trees where Hitler's rolling lawns once were. As I understand it, the Königsplatz in Munich originally resembled the way it looks today, with lawns stretching across the open space between the museums, but the Nazis transformed that space into a paved plaza suitable for massed and marching soldiers. So too for the Luitpoldhain, which was originally open grassy fields outside of metropolitan Nuremberg where people could stroll on summer days, which the Nazis converted into a vast paved plaza in front of the massive tribune and the twin Höheitsadlers, with the War Memorial at the opposite side. These were created by the Nazis as theatrical event sets, where the power and the grandeur of the NSDAP could be displayed, and eradicating the memory of those times in those places was paramount in the minds of those who took charge of those cities and areas in post-war times.

Br. James