Getting around Ulm

Ulm's back streets.

When reading historical narratives that involve Ulm, Germany--especially White Rose histories--it can be difficult to imagine where all these places are in relation to one another. Langestrasse, Olgastrasse, Münsterplatz, wha-at? Are these places fifty miles apart or two blocks?

The maps below will hopefully help you visualize this and subsequent Ulm-related posts. Our travel guides include more detailed step-by-step analysis. This is Ulm 101 only!

I am making this public and pinning it to the top, so you can easily reference it. You will need it! — All maps are subject to Google Maps T&C, that is, all right to use as long as I don’t sell them!

This first map gives you an idea of the location of significant elements of Part II, as related to the Münster. Everything in Ulm and Neu-Ulm revolves around the Münster. The Danube River is at the bottom of the map. Ulm is where the Danube becomes navigable.

That dotted line shows you what’s Bavaria and what’s Württemberg. Above the dotted line is Lutheran Württemberg. Catholic Bavaria is below it.

The Münster is the big imposing structure, middle top. For future reference, the round white building is the tourist center. The rectangular building to the right of the round white building (and next to the Münster) is Münsterplatz 33, where the Scholl family moved in May 1939.

Ulm Gestapo HQ is the oddly shaped enclosed set of buildings directly behind the round white building. (In the photo, “under” it.)

After the war, Ulm used the utter destruction of much of the city to re-think streets, especially in this area. Münsterplatz used to have traffic. Now it’s a pedestrian zone. Neue Strasse used to be Lange Strasse, but it was reconfigured. As in, completely. However, you can see Kunsthalle Weishaupt on Neue Strasse. That is the location of the “Wohlwerk” department store that was vandalized and boycotted in April 1933.

To the left of Kunsthalle Weishaupt, you’ll see Ulmer Rathaus, or the city hall. Rathaus Drogerie, the Jewish-owned drugstore that was forcibly Aryanized in 1936, was on what is now Neue Strasse, directly “above” city hall.

To the “left” of city hall, there’s the Weinhof. And yes, wine was bought and sold there. Not any longer, more’s the pity. There will be more about the Weinhof with the third map. It’s almost as important to Ulm as Münster. Perhaps philosophically and politically and morally, more so.

It was fun for me to look at this map. My mom and I walked every square inch of this first map for a little over three months. What memories!

The second map gives you additional perspective. To understand distances involved, from Olgastr. 139 (modern-day address for what was then Olga Str. 81) at the very top, center, to Kunsthalle Weishaupt, or the Jewish store that was vandalized in April 1933, is 850 m, or 0.5 miles. It would take a young person maybe eight or ten minutes to walk. Even I could make it in fifteen minutes or less.

In an irony I am not especially fond of, Kunsthalle Weishaupt is at the intersection of Neue Strasse and Hans- und Sophie-Scholl-Platz. Until Scholl Archives are open and we know about their actual relationships to Jewish neighbors, that’s a little… I better stop while I’m ahead.

Now for the third map, zooming in closer.

Neue Strasse (Lange Strasse) was the site of so many Jewish businesses because of the location of the synagogue. See the little Star of David at the top of the Weinhof complex? That is (and was) the location of the synagogue. Since most Ulmer Jews were observant — at least the ones who attended synagogue regularly — they needed to live within walking distance of the shul. Hence, shops with homes upstairs were built in that vicinity.

The more assimilated Jewish families lived in the upscale neighborhoods such as Michelsberg. They could walk to shul on Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur.

The final — and for Ulmers, most important — building in the Weinhof complex: The Schwörhaus, shown here as Verschwörhaus. I have no clue why Google Maps identified it as such. Never heard it called that. If you Google it, search for Schwörhaus. It was important for White Rose research, because it houses Ulm’s Stadtarchiv, or city archives.

The Schwörhaus and the Münster have one common element: The desire of Ulm’s 14th century city fathers to be a place for all people (well, all men) to have equal status in the eyes of the law. As the runup to the Spanish Inquisition began, what was then Catholic Ulm rejected all that the Catholic Church represented.

This unwillingness to accept the status quo, this curiosity about how to do the impossible, can be linked to another aspect of the Münster: It was only the second example of a “hall” church built in Germany, and certainly the first of any size.

In that tumultuous 14th century, most cathedrals and their smaller counterparts reflected the inflexible hierarchies of the Roman Catholic church. Clergy and important people were elevated, as if it were necessary to make them physically higher so commoners would recognize their superiority. The architectural aspects of church buildings represented the boundaries of a rigid class system. Clergy and nobility were allowed to read and own things. Commoners were not.

The people of Ulm somehow grasped that this was not right. This fabulous Münster is all one level. Only the pulpit is raised, and it was used solely for delivery of the sermon. The (Catholic) priest was expected to stand on the same ground as his parishioners.

Little is known about who made the decision to design the Münster as a hall church. We do know that at the end of the 14th century, Ulm saw bloody conflicts between the upper echelons of municipal power and the guilds. In 1397, the warring factions made peace and agreed to a new city constitution.

From 1397 on, the mayor of Ulm was required to renew his oath to uphold the words of that constitution. He would stand on the balcony of the Schwörhaus (House of the Oath) and pledge that:

Rich and poor, we are all commoners, in the same, common, and honest matters, unconditionally.

And damn, did they ever take that seriously!

Under this constitution, all men could vote, read, and hold property, regardless of economic status. In 1397, Ulmers had reached the same political conclusions that American revolutionaries espoused 350 years later. Women were still disenfranchised, but at least the Ulmers were providing a basis for a real democracy. Significantly, the Jewish community was welcome in Ulm since the late 14th century. Jewish families often had deeper roots in Ulm than otherwise-German citizens.

Two centuries later as Lutheranism spread throughout the Germanic kingdoms, Ulm allied with the protesters and converted its cathedral and allegiance to the new Protestant religion. They removed icons and statues of Mary, rendering an already stark cathedral even plainer.

By the end of the 16th century, the protesters – those now acceptable Lutherans – themselves became the persecutors. Religious tolerance was not a concept that floated trippingly off anyone’s tongue. Just as the Catholic Church had tried to purge heretics during the Inquisition, burning Jan Huss and others at the stake, killing off Jews, demanding absolute loyalty to the Pope and to the Roman Catholic faith, so Lutherans began to turn on those they deemed unacceptable.

Ulm became refuge and home to these religious dissidents. Anabaptists, Huguenots, and their myriad cousins found safe haven in this city. Of course, some of the most striking hate literature in religious circles was written by the dissidents about one another. All of it dutifully published in Ulm.

By the beginning of the 20th century, when most German cities were squarely Catholic or Lutheran, with maybe one or two other Christian denominations struggling to survive, Ulm hosted a good dozen or so, all with long histories and healthy memberships. We are all commoners excluded no one.

Only Nazism interrupted the centuries-long tradition of reading the city constitution aloud, reaffirming its principles year after year. Only Nazism refused to recognize all men as equals.

Seventh Day Adventists, “Confessing” Lutherans, Methodists (independent), Apostolic, New Apostolic, Salvation Army, Old Pietists, Christian Fellowship, Christian Scientists, Evangelical Community (independent), and of course, Jews, were no longer deemed “equal” under Nazism.

Equality was reserved for aligned Catholics, aligned Lutherans, and aligned Methodists. And did they ever enjoy their newfound power!

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