Actually a nice idea: long hair and a long beard, a flowing cloak and a tassel hat on his head. And if Dieter Reiter got up at the end of each session and clapped his hands, if green and red flags appeared out of nowhere and the tables bent under the weight of fried chicken thighs, pies, ice cream and cakes – magical. Of course, the mayor would deduct a few house points from the blacks, yellows and blues. But later, after the big feast, everyone would get on their brooms and fly home. Or look for platform 9 ¾ at Marienplatz.
The first Harry Potter film was released 20 years ago, and for just as long have Munich City Hall been compared to Hogwarts, the school that teaches potions and metamorphosis, and the defense against the black arts. The stone stairwell, the small conference room or the legal library are usually used as parallels. Harry Potter and the Hauberrisser? Who knows what magical skills the town hall architect had.
It is perhaps no coincidence that a copper lindworm climbs up the facade on the Weinstrasse. Any reference to the Chamber of Secrets? Is the entrance under the fountain in the Rathausgalerie? Is there a room of wishes and does someone know where they have just hidden again? Is it true that the Whomping Willow on the Marienhof was felled because of the work on the second trunk line?
The magical mirror Nerhegeb should at least be safe, it shows the viewer his deepest and most desperate longing. Tapping in one fell swoop? The absolute majority in the next election? Dieter Reiter wouldn’t be the first to look at it at least once a day. The mayor had the portraits of his predecessors safely hung in an adjoining room; Most of the time the characters are asleep, but you can’t be sure.
Allegedly, the Ude painting sometimes just greets the “dear people of Munich”, even when nobody is around, or the picture of Red Schorsch begins to rant about skyscrapers without warning. All that’s missing is Quidditch training in the State Court? Well, a witch riding a broom can actually be found there. A simple Muggle will probably never find out which spell petrified them high up in the air.