No. 12 Arcisstraße

“I would never have believed that I’d ever address another letter to No. 12 Arcisstraße. For some 50 years it was my grandparents’ address.”
Golo Mann writing to the President of the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, in 1984

Golo Mann’s Pringsheim grandparents resided in a neo-renaissance mansion near the Königsplatz, then No. 12 Arcisstraße. The National Socialists saw in the square’s classical setting an appropriate stage for their self-promotions and, in 1937, built two Central Party buildings on the corner of Arcis- and Brienner Straße, the southern one for administration and the northern to serve as the “Führerbau” for Hitler and his staff – the present No. 12 Arcisstraße. After 1945, the former Führerbau firstly housed the “Amerika Haus” Cultural Centre and, from 1957, became the main building of the present-day Munich University of Music and Theatre. In this richly illustrated book Alexander Krause researches the varied history of No. 12 Arcisstraße, which not only forms part of Munich’s cultural and intellectual history, but also of a sad chapter of world history.

edition monacensia publishes works by Munich writers of the 19th and 20th centuries whose literary works are preserved in the Monacensia Literaturarchiv und Bibliothek.
Alongside reprints, it also publishes first editions with introductions by specialist editors. This series includes biographies, exhibition catalogues, and books on Munich and Bavaria.

Translated by Christina Noel Malcolm