Up until the 1970s, the term ‘Landeskirchenrat’ (Regional Church Council) was used to refer to the office building of the governing body of the same name and the President (from 1933: Regional Bishop) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. In addition to the Regional Church Council and Church President, the building also housed other church governing bodies, the official residence of the Church President, and also a training center for junior pastors. The building was constructed in 1928/29 in what was then Arcisstraße (today: Katharina-von-Bora-Straße) 13, in the immediate vicinity of Königsplatz. The new building stood as a symbol of the independence the regional church had gained from the state after the end of the First World War.
Located in the heart of Munich’s Nazi Party district and within sight of the ‘Brown House’ during era of the Nazi regime, the Regional Church Council building became the scene of protest meetings of parishioners in the fall of 1934, dealing Hitler his first domestic political defeat. The protests were directed against attempts backed by the Nazi authorities to depose Bishop Hans Meiser. The latter refused to incorporate the regional church into the Reich Church led by the Nazi-compliant ‘German Christians’ (DC), which would have made it a submissive instrument of the Nazi regime.
The first protests took place in September 1934 after the Franconian Nazi Party district leadership staged a smear campaign against the bishop under the slogan “Away with Bishop Meiser”. To the surprise of the Nazi rulers, however, the campaign had the opposite effect: it led to an overwhelming display of solidarity with the bishop on the part of both pastors and parishioners. When Meiser preached in the crowded St. Matthew’s Church in Munich the day after the smear campaign, there were demonstrations in front of the church calling for him to remain in office. A crowd of protesters formed and marched to the Regional Church Council building, where Meiser spoke to the angry crowd from the balcony. The protesters then moved in front of the ‘Brown House’, where the police finally broke up the demonstration.
The protests in Munich and other Bavarian towns and cities expanded in October 1934 into a ‘pious popular uprising’ (Nicolaisen, p. 7). August Jäger – a close legal associate of Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller – had previously forced his way into the Regional Church Council building, suspended the church leadership and deposed Meiser, who was away traveling at the time. When Meiser returned to Munich, a large crowd was waiting for him at St. Matthew’s Church. Numerous members of the congregation also gathered outside the Regional Church Council building and demonstrated in support of Meiser, who had been placed under police guard at his official residence. Further meetings were held in the courtyard of the Regional Church Council building during Meiser’s detention, with members of the Munich congregation and those who had traveled to Munich from elsewhere holding church services, also submitting protests to Reich Representative Franz Ritter von Epp, State Premier Ludwig Siebert, the Ministry of Culture and the ‘Brown House’. They were successful: since this public unrest ran counter to Hitler’s interests and he feared serious foreign policy consequences, Meiser was released from house arrest after two weeks and the church leadership took possession of the Regional Church Council building once again.
Since there were virtually no other protests of a comparable nature during the entire period of Nazi rule, these events give the Regional Church Council building a certain historical significance. The protests overturned Hitler’s initial church policy strategy of bringing the entire Protestant Church into line with the aid of the Nazi-oriented ‘German Christians’ (DC). However, this should not be regarded as political resistance to the Nazi regime or as protest against the crimes it committed such as the elimination of political opponents and in particular the persecution of Jews. Instead the participants explicitly denied that they were against the Nazi regime: in fact they often declared their loyalty to the Nazi state during the protests. The protest was aimed solely at preserving the religious identity, structure and independence of the regional church; it was not an expression of solidarity with victims of the Nazi regime outside the church.
The building was once again targeted by the National Socialists after 1934: having already taken possession of most of the buildings around Königsplatz, the Nazi Party had been pushing for the purchase of the Regional Church Council building since 1937 – a plan that probably only failed due to the start of the war. The Regional Church Council building was badly damaged by bombing in 1943 and the church leadership did not move back in again until 1948. Today, the former Regional Church Council building forms part of an ensemble of several buildings on Katharina-von-Bora-Straße between Karlstraße and Königsplatz that houses numerous offices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria in addition to the church’s governing bodies.
