Where It Happened

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The Fuhrer building in Munich where Britain’s Chamberlain, France’s Daladier and Italy’s Mussolini signed the Munich Agreement in 1938.

The place gives me the creeps. All that pompous architecture. Built in 1933 and opened four years later, it was part of a group of Nazi buildings put up around the area of the Konigsplatz, used by the stormtroopers for their parades.

Hitler had his office next to the Fuhrer balcony on the first floor where he liked to flaunt himself, just below the Nazi eagle. You can see the blank space on the upper floor – between the third and fourth windows – where once it stood.

The building survived the war intact despite all the bombing and is now a music school. The big square also survives, as do many other buildings in the city associated with Hitler, but the Temples of Honour, a tomb to dead Nazis, and the main admin building were destroyed.