It’s a very inconspicuous place, right at the beginning of the long Carl-von-Linde-Strasse: on the left is an extensive car dealer’s parking lot, opposite the chic office buildings of Wenglor GmbH, where employees develop smart 2D and 3D sensors. Exactly there, on the corner of Johann-Kotschara-Strasse, a banner has recently been hanging on an old transformer building that looks like a large advertising poster and that, in the urban no-man’s land, points to what is probably the darkest chapter in the city’s history, the one there on the north side of the S-Bahn station Lohhof is remembered.
The Nazi dictators had hundreds of forced laborers exploited there from 1940 to 1945. In the Lohhof flax roasting plant, they processed flax into a preliminary product for the textile industry. The company was considered important to the war effort and was part of the Nazi oppression system.
The large-format poster that has now been installed is the final piece of the puzzle in the memorial concept that has been developed since 2018, makes the crimes visible in the city near the crime scene and calls for people to digitally immerse themselves in history using their smartphones using QR codes on the steles. With an “augmented reality” you can see what the long factory hall looked like back then, in which women in particular worked hard on powerful machines. The flax had to be prepared in a fermentation or putrefaction process, then dried and broken. Above all, Jewish women from Munich who lived in barracks or arrived at the train station every day, prisoners of war from France and women from Belgium and Ukraine worked there. The names of 348 victims are now known.
Unterschleißheim’s mayor Christoph Böck (SPD) said on Friday at an appointment to complete the work on the memorial site that the city was setting “an important accent for a responsible approach to our city’s Nazi past.” It’s about remembering people. In addition, their story of suffering shows, especially today, when anti-Semitic and racist tones are being used again, “what terrible consequences it has if we do not defend our democracy.” The memorial site concept was developed by the historian Maximilian Strnad and the artist Kirsten Zeitz. It consists of three locations, starting with a memorial site directly at the train station, a path of remembrance and the memorial site near the former factory, which is also a digital learning site.
The actual goal was not quite achieved
The actual goal of taking people directly to the historical site of the suffering of forced laborers was not fully achieved. At the train station, those interested in history can find their first orientation on steles and information boards among flax plants that bloom blue in summer. The path of remembrance with blue markings embedded in the ground and steel plates engraved with the names of the known victims leads to the memorial site on Johann-Kotschara-Straße. But it is about 150 meters away from the former factory, of which the tower still stands and which is also reminiscent of the tracks in the street. Access to the private property is denied, which destroyed the original concept for the memorial site – and almost caused the entire project to fail.
No entry allowed: The tower of the former Flahsröste factory is still on private property.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
But it was adapted and expanded digitally. Anyone who notices the poster and spontaneously stops at the street corner can take a deep dive online using the QR code within sight of the historic site. According to Veronika Leikauf, who oversees Nazi memorial work as the head of the city museum, this gives the project a dynamic component. Further development is possible online. With the help of the “Public History” database in the Munich cultural department, an online memorial book will be further completed as soon as more names of victims become known. First, there will be more tours of the memorial site, for example with school classes. Veronika Leikauf has a dedicated employee who will start work in April.