Memorial to the victims of the Nazi tyrann

The monument to the victims of Nazi tyranny stands in Munich’s old town near the junction of Brienner Straße and Maximiliansplatz. Designed by Andreas Sobeck and unveiled in 1985, it replaces an earlier 1962 granite stone by Karl Oppenrieder. The six-metre basalt stele carries a steel cage at its top, inside which a gas-fed flame burns day and night. The city ran a competition in which Sobeck’s entry won first place.

The work remembers those killed or murdered under the Nazi dictatorship. A long bronze plaque, added in 2014, bears the single sentence ‘In memory of the victims of Nazi tyranny.’ The flame’s cage is meant to evoke a prison, while the flame itself symbolises eternal remembrance. The earlier stone now stands on Neuhausener Platz der Freiheit after the square was redesigned in the early 1980s.

Visitors find the monument on a small paved area behind the busy street corner. The basalt column rises from a low plinth, and the bronze tablet stretches along the back wall. The eternal flame glows within its steel lattice, visible from the pavement. The site is quiet despite its central location, inviting passers-by to pause and reflect.