Munich is associated with the rise of National Socialism like no other city. After the First World War, the National Socialist German Workers´ Party (NSDAP) emerged from anti-Semitic and radical right-wing circles in the Bavarian capital with Adolf Hitler becoming its leading figure. Here he tried to assume power via a putsch in 1923. Here, after the seizure of power, a party district arose in which about 6000 people organised the apparatus of the NSDAP. Moreover, with the opening of the nearby concentration camp in Dachau, the Capital of the Movement took on a pioneering role in the construction of the dictatorship. The Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism occupies the site of the former party headquarters on Königsplatz and illuminates the Nazi history of the city. Its permanent exhibit, with plentiful new material, presents the history of National Socialism in Munich, the special role of the city in the system of terror, and the difficulties in dealing with this past since 1945. This book encompasses the texts and images of the permanent exhibit as well as 23 accompanying essays by renowned historians, making it also an illustrated history of the Third Reich based on the very latest research.

Winfried Nerdinger was Professor for Architectural History and Director of the Architecture Museum of the TU München. Since 2012 he has been Founding Director of the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism.