Memorial, Oberschleissheim Redesign of the memorial for flight and expulsion of the East and West Prussian Foundation Oberschleissheim

The beginnings of the memorial of the East and West Prussia Foundation date back to 1984, when the memorial was inaugurated by Franz-Josef Strauß under the name "Klein-Tannenberg". Since then, various elements have been added to the memorial and it has been redesigned several times. A response to the contemporary design of a memorial has also been sought time and again.



A central point of the memorial is the positioning of the expellees' home earths. In the 1984 octahedron, these were integrated into the walls. In the 1990s, the octahedron was dismantled and a new place was sought for the home earths. The original idea of embedding them at ground level in clods could not withstand the weather, and the large gravel areas were difficult to walk on and maintain.



As a result, the district of Munich and the foundation looked for a new design concept and a dignified place for the displaced persons' home soil left over from the post-war period.



The redesign was intended to give the memorial a calm, dignified and uniform overall appearance and blend in harmoniously with the natural surroundings. The maintenance effort should also be feasible within a constructive framework. The removal of the existing subdivision of the square was one of the first steps. In order to better integrate the landing craft and the bell tower into the square, the trees were thinned out so that a coherent spatial effect could be achieved.



A water-permeable granite paving with a broken surface forms the new platform of the memorial. As the irregular shape of the square requires a non-directional joint pattern, an elaborate passé bond was chosen. In order to ensure barrier-free access to the memorial, parts of the granite paving were installed with a sawn surface. These meander across the square like a path, but blend seamlessly into the joint pattern, maintaining the calm overall appearance. The paving is edged with large granite slabs. These interlock loosely with the adjacent planted areas.



The main central element next to the landing craft is the new planting bed in the middle of the square, in which an oak tree was planted at an earlier stage. As a symbol of the reunification of the formerly lost home areas with the new home found here in Bavaria, the home soil was scattered and placed in the planting area by members of the foundation as part of a small ceremony.



The area is framed by a steel band made of Corten in which a total of 77 names of the places from the former East and West Prussia from which the soil samples were taken were milled. In the center of the home soil field stands the English oak, which is underplanted with star moss (Sagina subulata) and Andean cushion (Azorella trifurcata). The choice of plants is deliberately limited to low species, thus ensuring that the cut-outs do not become overgrown from the inside and always remain clearly legible. In its entirety, the new interpretation of the "native soil" element has an extremely strong symbolic character.



The redesign has turned the memorial to flight and expulsion back into a worthy place of remembrance. At the same time, it is a place of urgent reminder for universal peace and international understanding, especially in the context of current events.