No, Messerschmittstrasse in Moosach is not very long or particularly prominent. It is a parallel street to Hanauer Straße and measures a little more than 200 meters. If only it weren’t for the name: The street is named after Willy Messerschmitt, who on the one hand is considered a pioneer of aviation, but on the other hand demanded the use of slave labor under National Socialism and welcomed the fact that concentration camp prisoners had to work on the aircraft; many died in the process. Is it still right to honor someone like Messerschmitt with a street name? Or should the name be erased from the honorable memory of the city?
The Munich city archive sees at least “increased need for discussion”: Messerschmittstrasse is on a “shortlist” that the archive announced on Monday. The city archives have been doing an inventory since 2016, so to speak: so that individual street names do not have to be discussed again and again, historians on behalf of the city council check all streets to see whether they could be named after a problematic person. According to Sigrid Koneberg from the municipal department, there are currently almost 6300 streets. And the current status is: In 372 of these, the scientists see at least “possibly” a need for action.
It is not always a question of renaming. In most cases, it is said that one could think of putting up an explanatory board. In contrast, with 45 streets, including Messerschmittstrasse, the need for action is acute. These are named after people who suspect that their actions “could be in blatant contradiction to fundamental and timeless humanitarian and democratic values,” says the city archive. The city archives do not comment on individual street names. Among other things, it is about alleged racists and anti-Semites, colonial criminals, militarists, National Socialists or even those who played down the Holocaust.
The alphabetical “shortlist” contains some names that are already being discussed in the city, such as Alois-Wunder-Straße in Pasing or Kißkaltplatz in Schwabing, named after a local mayor and an insurance manager with a Nazi past. According to the list, Bogenhausen will be facing a particularly large number of discussions: In this district there are ten streets with presumably problematic names, starting with Agnes-Miegel-Strasse, which is reminiscent of a local poet who was entangled in the Nazi empire, to Wißmannstrasse, which is dedicated to a cruel colonial commander.
It is one of the most prominent entries on the city archive’s “shortlist”: Richard-Strauss-Strasse in Bogenhausen (and the Richard-Strauss tunnel below it) is a section of the Middle Ring. It was named in sections in 1915 and 1958 after the late romantic Munich composer Richard Strauss; not least the Arabellastraße and the Arabellapark are named after one of his works. But Strauss was President of the Reichsmusikkammer from 1933 to 1935 – that is, an official representative of the National Socialist state.
Image: imago images
This street name is already moving people: Ludwig Thoma is one of the most famous Bavarian writers. In Munich in particular, he has earned lasting fame with the story of Alois Hingerl, the grumpy “Munich man in heaven”. But the same man wrote anti-Semitic inflammatory articles for the Miesbacher Anzeiger towards the end of his life. The mostly anonymously published texts prominently placed on the first page were often directed against the Reich government and the SPD. A street nearly 130 meters long has been named after Thoma in Pasing since 1947, as well as a municipal secondary school.
Image: dpa
This almost 140-meter-long path in Obermenzing was named not long ago: It was first named in 1994. Elly Ney was an internationally recognized pianist and Beethoven interpreter, but also a staunch National Socialist who was willing to be instrumentalized by the regime and by this benefited. She died in Tutzing in 1968. How could it be that a street was named after her in 1994? The city has candidates for street names checked in advance by experts. But one has only been looking intensively since the 1990s, says Manfred Heimers from the city archive. Previously, the question “was handled a little more loosely in a way that we couldn’t understand”.
Image: Schafgans photo studio in Bonn
Gustav Nachtigal was a star of his time: the Africa explorer’s travels from 1869 on, including to Lake Chad and through Sudan, caused a sensation in Germany. Nachtigal himself distinguished himself as a passionate critic of slavery. But in 1884 Bismarck sent the scientist to West Africa as Reich Commissioner. Nachtigal then created the protected areas of Togo, Cameroon and South West Africa, now Namibia. Last but not least, his name stands for the actual beginning of German colonial rule. In Munich, a street in Neuhausen has been named after Gustav Nachtigal since 1925.
Image: imago images
The extent to which his philosophical thoughts and his political convictions are to be separated from one another has been part of scientific debates for years. But it is undisputed: Martin Heidegger was not only one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, but also an early follower of Adolf Hitler and an enthusiastic National Socialist. From 1933 to 1945 he was a member of the NSDAP. In recent years, more of his writings have been published that are full of anti-Semitic stereotypes. In Munich, a street near the Langwied S-Bahn station has been named after Heidegger since 1983.
Image: imago stock & people
Today the name stands for science and the fight against the corona pandemic like no other: Robert Koch. Today’s Robert Koch Institute in Berlin has been named after the co-founder of microbiology since 1912. And a street in Lehel has also had his name since 1931. But the 1905 Nobel Prize for Medicine has a downside: In 1906 in the German and British colonial empires in Africa, he carried out experiments on people to research sleeping sickness – experiments that he could only have done on animals in Germany. He accepted the death of the Africans.
Image: Carl Günther, Berlin, source: RKI
Hella-von-Westarp-Strasse in Riem is not alone: Teuchertstrasse and Deikestrasse, two parallel streets, are also on the city archive’s “shortlist” of “street names with increased need for discussion”. All three lead to Linnenbrüggerstraße, which is also part of the list. And they all remind them of members of the ethnic, anti-Semitic Thule Society, which is considered the forerunner of the Nazis. Westarp and the others were shot by soldiers from the Munich Soviet Republic in 1919; the Nazis later turned them into martyrs and honored them with street names. Many Nazi honors were canceled after 1945. Not this one.
from Texts: Jakob Wetzel
Image: OH
What happens to these streets is open – the lists are only a basis for discussion, emphasizes the acting head of the city archives, Manfred Heimers. And the names are about more than just orientation aids in the city, says Andreas Heusler from the city archives. People identify with the names of their streets, so renaming them are fundamentally difficult. And the names are also a mirror of the city’s history. Better than simply erasing these traces, be it to keep the debates alive. They are working on finding appropriate formats.
Experts from municipal institutes and city councilors are to discuss the names on the “shortlist” over the next few months; then, probably from the end of 2022, it would be the turn of the remaining 327 names on the “longlist”, says Heusler. Munich should also discuss in several rounds. The first on this Thursday evening in the New Town Hall is already fully booked, it can only be followed online. At the end of the day, the city council decides whether a street is renamed.