Stadtkeller

 

Down the street from the New Gallery, on the opposite side, is the Stadtkeller Restaurant, located at Brunngartenstrasse 7. The street dead ends near the restaurant which is near the bank of the Amper River. The Mühlbach stream parallels the river and a footpath runs along beside it. The escaped prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp used this path when they fled after the Dachau Uprising failed. From the footpath, a steep stairway climbs up to the Schloss where one can enter the grounds through a gate into the Hofgarten behind the castle. The castle and garden are shown on the next page.

The building shown in the photograph above has been called the Stadtkeller since July 1936 when an SA Stormtrooper named Paul Taut, who was also on the town council of Dachau, leased the building to open a restaurant. Before that, it was a restaurant and movie theater called the Dachau Public Recreation Center; at that time the building was owned by the Dachau Association of Free Trade Unions. This was where the Social Democrats held their party meetings; it was also the center for the trade unions. After the Nazis won a majority in the elections of March 5, 1933, union leaders met here to plan their defense against the SA soldiers because they knew that the Nazis would soon be taking over the government of Bavaria. The SA and SS wisely decided not to storm this building which would have undoubtedly resulted in bloodshed. Hitler was as much against the trade unions as he was against the Communists and Social Democrats. After the Nazis took over, trade unions were banned. Under fascism, both the workers and the capitalists were controlled by the state, and trade unions had no place in this system.

Schloss

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