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27-453: Plans for the building were first made in 1931, by architect Paul Ludwig Troost , Hitler's then-favorite architect. It was constructed from 1933 to 1937, part of a major remodeling of the Königsplatz plaza which included two Nazi temples in neo-Classical style that "enshrined" the remains of the 15 Nazis killed in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch . Since Troost died in 1934, Leonhard Gall continued

54-466: A 2005 National Geographic article. The wreck lies on its port side at about 70 metres (230 ft) in depth, and the hull reaches up to 50 metres (160 ft) in depth. The ship was mostly intact when it was found. In July 2021, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the wreck had been plundered and severely damaged in the process. The wreck is an official war grave , and entering it

81-622: A coded message on 23 January 1945 to the Baltic Sea port of Gotenhafen (the Polish city and port of Gdynia under German occupation) to evacuate to the West, under the code name Operation Hannibal . Submariners at that point were schooled and housed in ships floating in the Baltic ports, most of them at Gotenhafen. Among the ships were Deutschland , Hamburg , Hansa , and Wilhelm Gustloff . Notwithstanding

108-442: A style that combined Spartan traditionalism with elements of modernity. He was in charge of design for all of the company's largest ships, such as SS Europa , SS Berlin , SS München , and SS Homeric , until 1929. An extremely tall, spare-looking, reserved Westphalian with a close-shaven head, Troost belonged to a school of architects like Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius who, even before 1914, reacted sharply against

135-569: A university lecturer. In the 1920s, he opened his own architectural office and became a member of the modernist Deutscher Werkbund association. Troost designed several rooms of Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam . After a trip to the United States in 1922, he designed steamship décor for the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping company before World War I , and the fittings for transatlantic liners in

162-414: A voyage from Bremen , Germany, a fire broke out in a paint locker on board and quickly spread to another storage hold. The massive fire and explosion resulted in a five-alarm fire and all of the city's fire equipment was sent to the burning ship. The fire could not be controlled and the ship sank next to the wharf where it had docked. In one of the largest shipping salvage efforts of its time, München

189-516: Is today commemorated by the memorial written in German , Czech and Slovak . Today, the building houses the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. Its congress hall now serves as a concert venue. From 2005 to 2011, an unknown number of Stolpersteine (between 20 and 25) were installed in the building until city officials removed them for reasons of "fire protection". After the German surrender,

216-517: The Wilhelm Gustloff and numerous other vessels, Steuben was part of the largest evacuation by sea in modern times. The Operation Hannibal evacuations surpassed the British evacuation at Dunkirk in both size of the operation and number of people evacuated. By early January 1945, Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz realized that Germany was soon to be defeated. Wishing to save his submariners, he radioed

243-683: The German Navy that was sunk in the Baltic Sea during World War II . She was launched in 1923 as München (after the German city , sometimes spelled Muenchen ), renamed General von Steuben in 1930 (after the famous German officer of the American Revolutionary War ), and renamed Steuben in 1938. During World War II, the ship served as a troop accommodation vessel, and from 1944 as an armed transport. On 10 February 1945, while evacuating German military personnel, wounded soldiers, and civilian refugees during Operation Hannibal ,

270-707: The Reich Chancellery in Berlin . Along with other architects like Ludwig Ruff , Troost planned and built State and municipal edifices throughout the country, including new administrative offices, social buildings for workers and bridges across the main highways. One of the many structures he planned before his death was the Haus der Deutschen Kunst ("House of German Art") in Munich, modeled on Schinkel's Altes Museum in Berlin. The museum

297-510: The Soviet submarine S-13 , commanded by Alexander Marinesko , fired two torpedoes 14 seconds apart at the Steuben ; both hit her starboard bow , just below the bridge , where many of the crew were sleeping. Most were killed by the impact of the torpedoes. According to survivors, the Steuben sank by the bow and listed severely to starboard before taking her final plunge, within about 20 minutes of

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324-586: The Nazi era, the building served as a symbolic building for Adolf Hitler. The building is also notable as the site of the signing of the historic 1938 Munich Agreement , in which Germany received the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia . Hitler himself signed the document in his office in the building. Other signatories included Germany , Italy , France , and the United Kingdom but notably not Czechoslovakia itself. This

351-559: The US occupation forces used the Führerbau and the Nazi administrative building next door as the "Zentrale Sammelstelle" ( Central Collecting Point ), which stored looted art stolen by the Nazis all over Europe. 48°08′46″N 11°34′04″E  /  48.14611°N 11.56778°E  / 48.14611; 11.56778 Paul Ludwig Troost Paul Ludwig Troost (17 August 1878 – 21 January 1934)

378-560: The age of 55. Hitler posthumously awarded him the German National Prize for Art and Science in 1937. He was buried in the Munich Nordfriedhof (Northern Cemetery). The gravestone still survives. SS M%C3%BCnchen (1922) 54°41′N 16°51′E  /  54.683°N 16.850°E  / 54.683; 16.850 SS General von Steuben was a German passenger liner and later an armed transport ship of

405-403: The highly ornamental Jugendstil movement and advocated a restrained, lean architectural approach, almost devoid of ornament. Troost and Hitler first met in 1929, through the Nazi publisher Hugo Bruckmann and his wife Elsa . Although before 1933 he did not belong to the leading group of German architects, Troost became Hitler's foremost architect whose neo-classical style became for a time

432-615: The losses suffered during the operation, over two million people were evacuated ahead of the Red Army 's advance into East Prussia and Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland ). In the winter of 1945, East Prussian refugees headed west, away from the city of Königsberg and ahead of the Soviet advance into the Baltic States and East Prussia. Thousands fled to the Baltic seaport at Pillau (now Baltiysk , Russia), hoping to board ships that would carry them to

459-496: The more elaborate imperial grandeur that he had admired in the 19th century Vienna Ring Road ( Ringstraße ) boulevard of his youth. Troost also redesigned Königsplatz in Munich to include new Nazi Party buildings and a "Temple of Honour". Hitler's relationship to Troost was that of a pupil to an admired teacher. According to Albert Speer , who later became Hitler's favorite architect, the Führer would impatiently greet Troost with

486-622: The official architecture of the Third Reich . His work filled Hitler with enthusiasm, and he planned and built state and municipal edifices throughout Germany. Hitler commissioned Troost to convert the Barlow Palais in Munich into the headquarters of the Nazi Party , the " Brown House ", decorating it in a heavy, anti-modernist style under Hitler's supervision. In the autumn of 1933, he was commissioned to rebuild and refurnish Hitler's dwellings in

513-736: The process. The Führerbau was constructed north of the Brienner Strasse. A nearly identical building south of the Brienner Strasse and opposite the Führerbau was also built. The south building served as the Administrative Building of the NSDAP ( German : Verwaltungsbau der NSDAP ) at No. 10 Katharina-von-Bora-Strasse. Today it houses the Museum für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke (Museum of Casts of Classical Statues) and Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (Central Institute for Art History).. During

540-442: The relative safety of Western Germany. Steuben was part of the fleet sent for the purpose. On 9 February 1945, the 14,660-ton Steuben sailed from Pillau, near Königsberg on the Baltic coast, for Swinemünde (now Świnoujście , Poland). Official reports listed 2,800 wounded German soldiers; 800 civilians; 100 returning soldiers; 270 navy medical personnel (including doctors, nurses and auxiliaries); 12 nurses from Pillau; 64 crew for

567-575: The ship was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine S-13 and sank. An estimated 4,000 people lost their lives in the sinking. In 1923, München became the first German trans-Atlantic passenger liner to be launched, and also the first to enter New York Harbor, since the end of World War I. She arrived in July 1923 on her maiden transatlantic voyage. On 11 February 1930, after München docked in New York City and discharged passengers and most of her crew from

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594-490: The ship's anti-aircraft guns, 61 naval personnel, radio operators, signal men, machine operators and administrators, plus 160 merchant navy crewmen, for a total of 4,267 people on board. Due to the rapid evacuation ahead of the Red Army's advance, many Eastern German and Baltic refugees boarded the Steuben without being registered, increasing the number of those on board to approximately 5,200. Just before midnight on 9 February,

621-603: The torpedo impacts. An estimated 4,500 people died in the sinking. German torpedo boat T-196 hastily pulled up beside Steuben as she sank; its crew pulled about 300 survivors straight from Steuben' s slanting decks and brought them to Kolberg in Pomerania (today Kołobrzeg , Poland). A total of 650 people were rescued from the Steuben . The Steuben wreck was found and identified in May 2004 by Polish Navy hydrographical vessel ORP Arctowski . Pictures and graphics appeared in

648-602: The words: "I can't wait, Herr Professor. Is there anything new? Let's see it!" Troost would then lay out his latest plans and sketches. Hitler frequently declared, according to Speer, that "he first learned what architecture was from Troost"'. The architect's death on 21 January 1934, after a severe illness, was a painful blow, but Hitler remained close to his widow Gerdy Troost , whose architectural taste frequently coincided with his own, which made her (in Speer's words) "a kind of arbiter of art in Munich". Troost died on 21 January 1934 at

675-816: Was a German architect . A favourite master builder of Adolf Hitler from 1930, his Neoclassical designs for the Führerbau , the Verwaltungsbau der NSDAP and the Haus der Kunst in Munich influenced the style of Nazi architecture . Born in Elberfeld in the Rhineland , Troost attended the Technical College of Darmstadt and, upon finishing his course, worked with Martin Dülfer in Munich beginning in 1920. He then qualified as

702-484: Was constructed from 1933 to 1937 following Troost's plans, and was Nazi Germany 's first monumental structure of Nazi architecture . Hitler intended it to be a great temple for a "true, eternal art of the German people". It was a good example of the imitation of classical forms in monumental public buildings during the Third Reich, though subsequently Hitler moved away from the more restrained style of Troost, reverting to

729-408: Was raised, towed to a dry dock , repaired, and returned to service. Shortly afterwards, the ship's owner renamed her General von Steuben. The ship, now called Steuben , was commissioned in 1939 as a Kriegsmarine accommodation ship. In 1944, she was pressed into service as an armed transport ship, taking German troops to eastern Baltic ports and returning wounded troops to Kiel . Along with

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