Sin­ce 1997, the district of Fürs­ten­feld­bruck has orga­ni­zed memo­ri­al ser­vices at the gates of the air base. Clo­sing the air base by 2019, howe­ver, offers the chan­ce to erect a memo­ri­al at the very loca­ti­on of the tra­ge­dy. What it could look like was the topic of the mee­ting held on 25^th Sep­tem­ber. Tho­mas Kar­ma­sin, head of district, brought to mind the cen­tral memo­ri­al ser­vice to com­me­mo­ra­te the 40^th anni­ver­s­a­ry of the mas­sa­c­re when rela­ti­ves from Isra­el visi­ted the ori­gi­nal site of the tra­ge­dy for the first time. At that time, Minister-President, Horst See­hofer, assu­red that the Free Sta­te of Bava­ria would sup­port the estab­lish­ment of a worthy place of remembrance.

Char­lot­te Knob­loch, Pre­si­dent of the Jewish Com­mu­ni­ty of Munich and Upper Bava­ria, empha­si­zed that the more time that pas­sed, the more important it beca­me to remem­ber. She sta­ted how it was a cen­tral task to exp­lain to young peop­le that the­re was a con­nec­tion bet­ween their lives and the past and that young peop­le should be invol­ved as ear­ly as in the plan­ning sta­ge. “They are the future.” In addi­ti­on, it was vital for her to put the events into a con­text. Dan Shaham, Con­su­la­te Gene­ral of the Sta­te of Isra­el in Sou­thern Ger­ma­ny, expres­sed his desi­re for a place of mee­ting and reflec­tion pro­mo­ting tole­ran­ce and co-existence, a place for lear­ning and teaching.

Bava­ri­an Minis­ter of Sci­ence Lud­wig Spa­en­le, poin­ted out that at a memo­ri­al ser­vice in Tel Aviv he felt the deep scars the dread­ful event has left and that he was to make an effort to get that pro­ject off the ground. His­to­ri­an Ange­li­ka Schuster-Fox, who is super­vi­sing the pro­ject on the site, empha­si­zed that the district was in no posi­ti­on to bear the enor­mous cos­ts invol­ved in the estab­lish­ment of such a site. In addi­ti­on, she said that the Bun­des­wehr (Ger­man Armed For­ces) would also clo­se the Old Tower and the run­way as ear­ly as by the end of the year making plan­ning an incre­a­singly urgent matter.

Fer­di­nand Kra­mer of the Insti­tu­te for Bava­ri­an Histo­ry of the Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich brought up the sub­ject of pos­si­ble exhi­bi­ti­on con­tents. He sug­gested pre­sen­ting topics such as key figu­res and vic­tims, sports in tran­si­ti­on, the inter­na­tio­nal posi­ti­on of the Federal Repu­blic of Ger­ma­ny or the Midd­le East con­flict. He is of the opi­ni­on that it should also be dis­cus­sed how to deal with the per­pe­tra­tors. Based on a num­ber of examp­les, Sonja-Maria Herzl-Förster and Marie-Luise Krei­lin­ger of Doku­men­ta­ti­on Ober­salz­berg (Docu­men­ta­ti­on Ober­salz­berg) pre­sen­ted the museum’s edu­ca­tio­nal work and edu­ca­tio­nal pro­gram. Accord­ing to them, that was the only way to appeal to a broad audi­ence while kee­ping ali­ve such a memo­ri­al site.

Bir­git­ta Kle­menz, his­to­ri­an and cul­tu­ral advi­ser of Fürs­ten­feld­bruck, sup­por­ted a clear sepa­ra­ti­on of the docu­men­ta­ti­on cen­ter and the memo­ri­al site. She sug­gested the­re could be a pre­sen­ta­ti­on of the events in the Old Tower, whe­re­as the run­way should beco­me a place to com­me­mo­ra­te the vic­tims with dignity.

Mar­tin Kornacher, head of the muni­ci­pal plan­ning and buil­ding con­trol office, poin­ted out urban deve­lo­p­ment and monu­ment con­ser­va­ti­on aspects from a Fürs­ten­feld­bruck town admi­nis­tra­ti­on point of view. He exp­lai­ned that a new part of town was going to be crea­ted at the air base site after the com­ple­te with­dra­wal of the Bun­des­wehr and that the Tower and the run­way were going to be loca­ted wit­hin a resi­den­ti­al and busi­ness area. Accord­ing to Mr. Kornacher, the memo­ri­al site should be inte­gra­ted without being per­cei­ved as an obst­ruc­tion. For him it is important that an area of about 20,000 squa­re meters around the Old Tower should be kept unde­ve­lo­ped for estab­li­shing the memo­ri­al site. Accord­ing to the expert, this is the lar­gest con­nec­ted open space in the district. It is vital to link the area to the road net­work. In order to avoid the area being used pri­va­te­ly, the muni­ci­pa­li­ty could ima­gi­ne desi­gna­ting it as a “spe­cial memo­ri­al site area”. He sug­gested that initia­ting a com­pe­ti­ti­on which was also open to sub­mis­si­on from Israe­li repre­sen­ta­ti­ves could pro­vi­de strong archi­tec­tu­ral concepts.

Archi­tect Fer­di­nand Kriss­mayr pre­pa­red an expert opi­ni­on for the Old Tower which had been built from 1936 onwards. Accord­ing to it, the buil­ding has under­go­ne fun­da­men­tal chan­ges sin­ce 1972. It exp­lains that the flight con­trol cen­ter con­struc­tion was dis­sem­bled, the win­dows rene­wed and the let­te­ring “Fürs­ten­feld­bruck” remo­ved. What remains is an average func­tio­n­al buil­ding. “Its sta­te as of 1972 would be of cen­tral impor­t­ance for the memo­ri­al site” Kriss­mayr empha­si­zed. He does, howe­ver, think that rea­li­zing a memo­ri­al site the­re would be possible.

Jörg Skrie­be­leit, direc­tor of Flos­sen­bürg con­cen­tra­ti­on camp memo­ri­al site, refer­red to it as a crime site empha­si­zing the impor­t­ance of the Old Tower’s exte­rior. He exp­lai­ned how it was the­se very images that have stuck in the memo­ries of many peop­le. Howe­ver, he advi­sed against recon­struc­tion. With a view to docu­men­ta­ti­on, he sug­gested to focus on the essen­ti­als. Cura­tor Pirit­ta Klei­ner pre­sen­ted the exhi­bi­ti­on con­tents for the new memo­ri­al site to be estab­lis­hed in Munich. It beca­me clear that many pos­si­ble topics are alrea­dy cove­r­ed there.