On Monday, 29. June 2020, became the small exhibition in the Bavarian Main State Archive “The most burning of all social questions” Local housing policy between 1918 and 1954 in Munich, Nuremberg, Erlangen open. The exhibition was opened in the course of training in the preparatory service 2018/2020 for the entry into the 4th Qualification level of the field of education and science, specialist focus on archives, at the Bavarian Archive School. Dr. Thomas Gilgert, Johannes Hasselbeck and Andreas Schenker are the editors of the exhibition.
Lack of housing and rising rents in many cities lead to the housing issue of many today as a new social issue or even as the social issue of the 21st. It is seen in the century. Concentrated housing also promotes the spread of diseases, as the Covid-19-Pandemie is currently devastating. These phenomena are not new. Already in the pre-modern era, not all people had a roof over their heads. At the latest since the explosion in the urban centers, which begins with industrialization and continues to take place today, supply and demand are mostly disparate.
The small exhibition looks back at the local housing policy in three crucial political phases in Bavaria: the Weimar Republic, the National Socialism and the early post-war period. For each of these periods, a city which was of particular importance for Bavaria at the time as it was today and whose housing policy was thus also exemplary for others is taken out. The exhibition begins with Munich as the most populous place and Bavarian capital for the period of the Weimar Republic. It follows Nuremberg, the old industrial heart of Bavaria and special show stage of Nazi propaganda (cf. also Exponat 2.2 in the online finder MF 22: "Representation of state forest grounds for the establishment of a working settlement on the outskirts of Nuremberg"). In the post-war period, the exhibition focuses on Franconian achievements, until then a middle city with a Protestant-small-bourgeois character, which developed into an educational, industrial and prosperity centre after 1945.
On the basis of these examples, two democracies and a totalitarian dictatorship, the structural features of which are also found in local housing policy, are dealt with consecutive but conceivable different temporal contexts: In the Munich of the Weimar Republic, the increased importance of public service provision becomes clear, the völkian blood and soil ideology of the NS regime manifests itself in its Nuremberg home and small settlements, and an essential factor of the earned lack of housing in the post-war period were the many refugees and displaced persons arriving there.
On the other hand, there are specific local peculiarities of the three places: The conservative expression of Munich's urban policy is more traditional. The self-conception of Nuremberg as a “city of the Reichsparteitage” is reflected in the offensive appearance of Mayor Liebels. Erlangen’s urban structure, which remained largely undisturbed in the war, resulted in an unusually strong settlement of various groups, which now needed a new home. With this concept, the exhibition wants to sharpen the view of the questions of the present by illustrating different reactions that the phenomenon of housing shortages had in three different contexts.
- The small exhibition combines about 40 exhibits, mainly from the municipal archives Nuremberg, Munich, Erlangen and the Bavarian Main State Archive. It is from 29 June 2020 to 30 June 2020 October 2020 (extended) in the main building of the Bavarian Main State Archive (Treppenhaus, 1st OG), Schönfeldstraße 5, 80539 Munich.
- Opening hours: Monday to Thursday 8.30–16.00 hrs., Friday 8.30–13.00 hrs. (Sa, So and on holidays closed)
- Free admission. Please note the applicable hygiene rules in the building of the Bavarian Main State Archive (including the duty to carry mouth-nut protection). Guided tours cannot be offered.
- Further information at www.gda.bayern.de (press images in higher resolution can be requested).
- The exhibition is a small Exhibition catalogue (ISBN 978-3-938831-95-3, protection fee 3.00 Euro).
Submitted on: 07.07.2020
