When the right-wing terrorist arson attack on the Munich nightclub “Liverpool” marks the 39th anniversary on Saturday, there will still be no memorial plaque for Corinna Tartarotti, who was murdered by neo-Nazis at the time, and the other victims who survived with injuries. A broad left-wing majority in the Munich city council had this sign of remembrance required a year ago. There have been talks behind the scenes ever since. But at the commemoration on Saturday in Schillerstrasse there will only be a temporary video installation.
For the first time, the cultural department, in cooperation with the city’s specialist office for democracy, will support the civil society organizations that have so far, exclusively on their own initiative, commemorated the cloakroom lady Corinna Tartarotti, who was murdered in 1984, and the other at least 14 victims of the right-wing extremist series of murders by the “Ludwig Group”. In the run-up to the event, cultural advisor Anton Biebl thanked the anti-sexist action in Munich (Asam) and the anti-fascist Aida archive for “bringing this largely suppressed right-wing terrorist attack to the awareness of urban society”.
Murdered Corinna Tartarotti: On January 7, 1984, she worked in the cloakroom at the “Liverpool” dance bar.
(Photo: private/private)
Biebl concedes: “Late, but self-critical and open, the city wants to take up its own omissions and support this commitment.” A large-scale facade projection is intended to commemorate the assassination, Corinna Tartarotti and “everyone affected by the murders and arson” of the terrorist group. According to Asam information, however, the projection will not name all of the victims of the murder series.
The attacks by the “Ludwig Group” killed a total of 15 people
The culture department wants to deal more intensively with the attack and continue to research – also in Italy, says Asam spokeswoman Nina Stern. “Basically, of course, we support research into right-wing terror,” she says – and at the same time formulates her impression “that it has become more complicated since the cultural department took over”. One may ask oneself “why it is not possible to hang up a panel within a year”. Nina Stern: “The attack was a right-wing terrorist attack. No additional research is needed on this aspect.”
Between 1977 and 1984, a total of 15 people fell victim to the attacks by the “Ludwig Group” in northern Italy and Munich: gays, sex workers, clergy, drug addicts, almost all people without a lobby on the fringes of society. Two young men were convicted as perpetrators, one of them, Wolfgang A., had lived in Munich. According to media reports, both have been free since 2009. In their letters of confession, the perpetrators described themselves as National Socialists. It is still controversial to this day whether there were accomplices or helpers. There was also talk of a possible third man in Munich.
historians and authors, the Munich specialist journalist Robert Andreasch, who Aida employees rediscovered Corinna Tartarotti’s grave in the Sendlinger Friedhof, and Asam activists, who, since 2019, have been commemorating the arson attack on the anniversary of the attack on Schillerstrasse, have prevented the series of terror comparable to the acts of the NSU from being completely suppressed and forgotten through their extensive research.
Apparently it is actually complicated, many votes are necessary
Official Munich picked up the thread only recently. According to the culture department, a cross-party application was made a year ago to commemorate the Munich attack with a commemorative plaque on Schillerstrasse. According to Moritz Kienast from the culture department, the specialist office for democracy presented a draft text in May, the contents of which were discussed in the city’s advisory committee “AG commemorative plaque”. The culture department is in discussion with the owners, users and residents of the building on Schillerstrasse. “The votes are developing positively,” said Kienast on request. “The intermediate goal of the projection is encouraging for all further considerations and cooperation, which can also result in a permanent memory at the historical site.” That doesn’t sound like a commemorative plaque that could at least commemorate the 40th anniversary of the attack is a foregone conclusion.
It’s obviously complicated. According to Kienast, the “lead management for the development of public formats on city-historical topics” lies in the culture department in the “Public History” department – in coordination with the Department for Democracy. One is in contact with family members of Corinna Tartarotti (relatives of Corinna Tartarotti live in Munich and in northern Germany), the cemetery administration, with residents of Schillerstraße, with the district committee, the contact point for victims of right-wing violence “Before”, with the DGB youth, with international historians and other cities with crime scenes of the “Ludwig group” as well as with the Aida archive and the Asam initiative, Kienast lists. And he promises: “The exchange will continue and should be intensified.”
Mayor Katrin Habenschaden (Greens) said a year ago: “The public commemoration of Corinna Tartarotti and those injured in the arson attack (…) is a further step in naming right-wing terror in the state capital Munich as such and in favor of a diverse and equal to stand up for urban society.”