Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI).
Step into the homes of writers, artists, and thinkers where discussions and debates nested democracy in our cities—and be part of today’s conversations at these historic locations.
In 1905, the German Bielefelds Bookstore and Publishing House printed a Munich city guide listing cultural salons hosted in private homes. These salons were not open to anyone; however, those who managed to gain an invitation could participate in events that facilitated cultural exchange and the sharing of ideas among elites and intellectuals of the time.
One particular salon in the Maria Theresia Strasse 23 stands out. Instead of the usual gatherings focused on “Diners. Diplomacy. Art.” Adolf von Hildebrand’s home welcomed “Diverse intellectual interests.” This sculptor and his wife Irene von Hildebrand ran an open, hospitable house that became an important meeting place in Munich for the cultural scene — writers, artists, diplomats, and more — by the turn of the century. Guests celebrated, dined, engaged in conversations, read aloud, and debated controversial topics in the salon and adjoining dining room.
Unfortunately, tyrants seduced the country, and history turned its back on this house’s social splendor. Yet, it has resurrected as a place of resistance for the cultural scene.
Now known as the Monacensia, this public institution is in the upscale Bogenhausen district. It feels like the needy disruptor of our time, swaying our history back and forth to find missing voices and written words. Once a semi-exclusive place, this house in Munich is open to all who want to dive deep into the city’s literary memory, for writers and all who wish to use the space and want to be in the room for high-spirited conversations and opinion-making, connecting the city’s past with its present and future.
An onion dome tower separating the west and east flanks of the two-story house stands impressively tall on rising ground with a terrace on the top. Today, the scene is almost perfectly preserved as visitors saw it one century ago. An old photograph of Adolf and Irene von Hildebrand on that same terrace evokes the past, making it feel like they might appear and wave at any moment.
In 1898, Adolf von Hildebrand and his family moved from Florence, Italy, to the newly built villa in Munich. The city commissioned him to create the Wittelsbach Fountain at Lenbachplatz, which was inaugurated in 1895 to celebrate the new water pipes supplying clean drinking water to Munich. In their new home, he constructed a grand atelier with vast windows where he could work on his substantial sculptures.
These windows now offer abundant natural light for all those seeking a space to reflect, write, and work. The Monacensia also features a library, exhibition rooms, a café, and a literature archive that houses works and memorabilia from writers based in Munich—such as letters, photographs, biographical documents, manuscripts, sketches, and diaries—from the late nineteenth century to the present. Entry is free and does not require prior registration, even on weekends. The Hildebrand house was designed for an ideal unity of art and life, a principle that continues to thrive today.
Adolf von Hildebrand was reputed for his pluralism. He hosted notable figures who lived or visited Munich at his house, including Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, music directors Wilhelm Furtwängler and Hermann Levi, and female writers such as Annette Kolb. She and writer Franziska zu Reventlow developed personal friendships with Hildebrand.
As the nineteenth century came to a close, young women from around the world began to flock to Munich and ventured into a free life as artists or writers during the Bohemian period (1890–1920). To do so, they accepted high risks and precarious living conditions and were not allowed to attend the art academy until 1920. Her work often went overlooked. Today, the mission of Monacensia is a revolution in the consciousness of its archive, which has predominantly reflected a white male gaze. The institution seeks to understand the structural causes that feed this hypnotic history and is committed to its ingenious pursuit to fill these gaps and ensure they no longer exist.
One of Monacensia’s ongoing collective projects, #FemaleHeritage, focuses on rediscovering the lost memory of stellar female writers in Munich, including the members of the Bohemian circle who once visited the Hildebrand salon but fell into oblivion. But Franziska von Reventlow and Erika Mann’s impulses still provoke our unstable present and invite students and writers to research and learn more.
Among Monacensia’s most significant archives are the written legacies of Erika Mann (1905-1969) and her brother Klaus (1871-1949), as well as the extensive memorabilia of their father, the Nobel Prize-winning author Thomas Mann. Monacensia houses one of the foremost research centers dedicated to the Mann family.
After Adolf von Hildebrand died in 1921, his son Dietrich and daughter Irene inherited the Munich villa in equal shares. They lived in the house with their families. They rented out individual living and studio rooms to finance the maintenance of the house. Hildebrand’s son continued the tradition of the intellectual salon until he was forced to leave Germany with Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 because he was a staunch opponent of National Socialism.
“From the very first moment, I saw through the horrific heresy and the boundless stupidity of the Hitler movement and fought against it with all my energy,” wrote Dietrich von Hildebrand.
He fled to Vienna in 1933, where he fought against National Socialism with articles and essays and founded the weekly magazine Der Christliche Ständestaat (The Christian Corporate State). This advocacy caused him trouble. In a letter to Adolf Hitler, the German ambassador in Vienna, Franz von Papen, referred to Dietrich von Hildebrand as one of the “worst and most dangerous enemies of the Reich in Austria.”
In 1934, Dietrich and Irene von Hildebrand sold the house to Elisabeth Braun, the daughter of a long-established Jewish family in Munich. Limited information is available about Elisabeth Braun’s life, but she is often identified in various letters and official documents as a “writer.” Nevertheless, no evidence of her literary work has been discovered, leaving her writing life almost entirely unknown.
Read: A Museum’s Stance on the Nazi Legacy of Its Grounds
In 1938, Dietrich von Hildebrand fled with this family via Prague and Budapest to Switzerland, France, and finally via Lisbon to New York, where he received a professorship at the private Jesuit college Fordham University. Meanwhile, his sister, Irene, was banned from practicing as a sculptor in 1936. Her husband, Theodor Georgii, had begun teaching at the Vienna School of Applied Arts in 1935. After the “Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich” in March 1938, Georgii was immediately dismissed.
The neighborhood around Hildebrand’s house, Bogenhausen, became a desirable location for high-ranking Nazi officials who occupied many prominent homes in the area. Beginning in 1938, Jewish families faced systematic threats, robbery, and forced expropriations. By the end of 1941, Elisabeth Braun had to leave the house and was ultimately murdered in the Holocaust. The search for clues regarding her work continues at the Monacensia house.
“As the city’s literary memory, we cannot allow the disappearance of a writer’s work ever to happen again,” says Anke Buettner, director of the Monacensia house. This sentiment is especially poignant in Munich, a city where National Socialism caused immense suffering and where many people were murdered or had their existence erased from literary archives and libraries. Monacensia’s initiative to actively monitor the city’s literary scene reflects its commitment to pluralism. The organization regularly hosts events at the house and positions itself as a meeting place for writers in Munich.
“Our goal at the Monacensia house is to connect with Munich writers,” Buettner explains. “However, it is challenging to discover literature and authors who do not write in German as their native language and live here in Munich. Even though these authors may focus less on the city and more on their narratives, often writing for foreign publishers, they are still considered Munich authors to us, and we want their works in our archives.”
But perhaps they would never find them. That is a significant concern for Buettner. “It is crucial to represent the city in all its diversity within our archives: traditional, queer, poor, rich,” she adds. Years from now, when others at this open house look back on the history of Munich’s cultural scene, they will be able to draw accurate contemporary relevance from their research.
After the war, the neighborhood around the Hildebrand House became a refuge area for survivors of the Shoah, and numerous aid organizations for displaced persons established their presence there. Gradually, artists began moving into the Hildebrand house, with sculptor Nida-Rümelin renting the large atelier. The Hildebrand house again transformed into an open center for encounters and intellectual discussions in Munich during the post-war period.
However, the early signs of gentrification emerged in the 1970s. The house’s owner sought to demolish it and construct new apartments, prompting fierce resistance from tenants and the cultural community until the city ultimately purchased the house in 1974. From 2013 to 2016, the Hildebrand house in Munich underwent restoration to its original condition and was reopened as an easily accessible and open space for everyone. In October 1977, former Munich mayor Georg Kronawitter stated, “I believe that only a few buildings from the unfortunately diminished stock of old Munich have been fought over as vigorously and defended as tenaciously as this one.”
