If the Germans had won the Second World War, then it’s likely that this building would now be a substantial museum. This was once a beer hall for the Sterneckerbräu Brewery who had been located on this site since perhaps as early as 1557. The brewery name comes from the Sternegger family who lived in this area in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The current building was constructed between 1901 and 1902, designed by architects Heilmann & Littmann, following the purchase of the entire site by the brewer Josef Höcherl in 1894. The large arches on the ground floor were the entrance to the beer house that was once located here.
In September 1919, Adolf Hitler came here to a meeting of the German Workers’ Party. He debated with a speaker, Adalbert Baumann, and it seems that he impressed Anton Drexler, the founder of the German Workers’ Party which was the precursor of the Nazi Party. Baumann, who married a Jew who was killed during the Holocaust, argued that Bavaria should join with Austria, a position that Churchill actually took at the end of the Second World War. Drexler, who have evaded fighting in the First World War and who later died from alcoholism, was never given any influence of note in the Nazi Party.
The Nazis wanted to celebrate Hitler’s achievements here, so in 1933, they opened a small museum above the beer hall with random artefacts from the early days of the Nazi Party, so posters, furniture and any other assorted material that they could find. The building survived the Second World War, but the museum was inevitably closed down immediately.
The building continued as a beer house until 1957 and then it was turned into commercial space downstairs for shops. In early 2025, it became the Haxnbauer, so returning to a traditional Bavarian restaurant. There is no plaque on the building and the restaurant themselves take great care with their language, noting on their website that it’s a:
“Historic building with a long hospitality tradition.”
As I mentioned earlier, if history had gone differently then I’m sure this would now be some sort of tourist site and Nazi museum. Fortunately though, it didn’t.