Places of remembrance in Mühldorfer Hart Understanding connections - against forgetting

The bunker construction site in the wooded area near the small Upper Bavarian town of Mühldorf was the second largest subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp and claimed more than 5,000 lives towards the end of World War II. Three memorial sites, "Waldlager", "Massengrab" and "Rüstungsbunker" are intended to be representative of a complex system of air and rail transport, production and storage sites, construction barracks, prisoner camps and graves to commemorate the forced labor, survival and death of the prisoners.

Blown up by the Allies and reclaimed by the forest, the remains of this past are incomprehensible without additional information. By overlaying the existing with a new abstract level, the past is remembered and the inexplicable is made comprehensible. The actual understanding takes place through the conscious perception of what is seen, simple spatial interventions and factual information reduced to the essentials. At the same time, the repetition of elements and information highlights the interchangeability of places in relation to their historical context.

Consistently, the new elements are not reconstructions. They are media with the highest standards of expression and material. They deliberately use the characteristic materials of the bunker construction site: concrete and, rather reduced for textual representations, steel. All three memorial sites tell the same story in different ways and are part of an overarching network.

"Memorial stones" with a symbolic representation of the Mühldorfer Hart network stand at historically and spatially relevant locations. The encounter seems coincidental and yet causes an increasing awareness of the sorrowful history of the place and its contexts.
Spatial interventions such as paths and wayside crosses, clearings and aisles help to recognize the former structures and dimensions. Each of the three memorial sites is preceded by the same introverted "information room", which uses images and texts to provide information about the entire Mühldorfer Hart and the site itself. Only after this preparation does the "sluice" consisting of two u-shaped concrete elements release the visitor onto the new level, the actual memorial site.
The built paths are part of the process of understanding. They take into account what is already there, vary in width, adapt, open up scattered relics to enable remembering. They begin, still with a soft surface, at the forest road and, after the "sluice", lead to the memorial site as "Narrative Paths" made of custom-made concrete parts and raised slightly above the forest floor. Steel "memorial ribbons" mounted on the sides recall historically important points and events with quotes from contemporary witnesses.

The "Waldlager VI Memorial Site" stands as an example for several camps in which prisoners had to live under the most inhumane conditions. By removing vegetation, the main axes and borders as well as the earth huts of the winter camp become visible and convey an idea of the large extent of the camp. Memorial stones mark watchtowers and gates. The path begins with the information room at the level of the old camp gate, initially follows the former path axis, then bends to the south to the earth huts with latrine and bends to the north to the former roll call area. White markers on the logs reveal the now overgrown roll call site.

The "Memorial Mass Grave" includes two of the few mass graves still legible. It lies peacefully in the woods today, yet stands for countless dead buried indiscriminately - a dimension that is hard to convey. A clearing of topped trees disenchants the site, confronting the visitor with an unexpectedly shocking image: the 1.70 high tree stumps are representative of the victims and the madness of a criminal system.

The "Gedenkort Rüstungsbunker" has not yet been executed. The seventh bunker arch, which remained standing after the demolition, is the most prominent relic in the Mühldorfer Hart. After completion of this memorial, a steel footbridge built on the remains of the fifth arch will give an overview of the dimensions of the debris field: once the central site of the planned armaments factory and the cause of forced labor and mass death.