Munich and National Socialism

How did Adolf Hitler, the leader of an antidemocratic and racist party, come to power? Why did democracy fail? What led to racial and social exclusion, war, and mass murder? Can we learn from the catastrophe of National Socialism? These are questions that historians have been considering for decades, and they remain just as relevant and just as important today. They are questions that concern all of us.

To find answers, Munich is a good place to start—after all, this is the city where National Socialism originated. Located on a historic site, the Munich Documentation Center addresses the city’s past and seeks to explain the phenomenon of National Socialism.

Why Munich?
In a space occupying around 1000 square meters the exhibition Munich and National Socialism elucidates the established historical facts about the founding and the rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) in Munich. It explains the special role the city played in the Nazi dictatorship’s reign of terror and the difficulty the city has had in dealing with this history since 1945. It also raises the question: “What does this have to do with me?”