page_title: München Hauptbahnhof
section_title: The Reichsbahn and Hitler’s reconstruction plans
hierarchical_section_title: München Hauptbahnhof / History / The Reichsbahn and Hitler’s reconstruction plans
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. München, Schalterhalle des Hauptbahnhofs Scherl: Der Münchener Hauptbahnhof um 1930
context_page_description: München Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station in the city of Munich, Germany. It is one of the three stations with long-distance services in Munich, the others being München Ost and München-Pasing. München Hauptbahnhof sees about 450,000 passengers a day, which puts it on par with other large stations in Germany, such as Hamburg Hauptbahnhof and Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 1 station, one of 21 in Germany and two in Munich, the other being München Ost. The mainline station is a terminal station with 32 platforms. The subterranean S-Bahn with 2 platforms and U-Bahn stations with 6 platforms are through stations.
  The first Munich station was built about 800 metres to the west in 1839. A station at the current site was opened in 1849 and it has been rebuilt numerous times, including to replace the main station building, which was badly damaged during World War II.
context_section_description: Between 1925 and 1927, six of the lines beginning in Munich were electrified so that all parts of the station except the Holzkirchen wing station received overhead lines. This was part of the Deutsche Reichsbahn’s  new restructuring plan. The Reichsbahn  planned to move the station to the west of the Hacker Bridge. A connection to the South Ring (Südring) by a 1,900 metre long tunnel under the Theresienwiese was part of the plan. Local traffic would still terminate at an adjacent terminal station. Laim marshalling yard would have to be demolished under these plans and a new marshalling yard would be built in Milbertshofen instead. As a result of the Great Depression during the following years, none of these plans were realised.
  From 1933, Adolf Hitler directed Hermann Alker to create new plans for rebuilding the station. A new station would be built between Laim and Pasing stations and the old railway tracks would be replaced by a boulevard from Karlsplatz to the new station. In addition, a U-Bahn was planned from the new station to the central city under the boulevard. Alkers presented his plans but his client was not satisfied, as the station building would not look impressive at the end of the 120 metre wide boulevard. In 1938, Hermann Giesler, solved the problem by turning the station to a 45-degree angle to the road. He planned a huge domed building with a height of 136 metres and a diameter of 265 metres. In May 1942, Deutsche Reichsbahn began on Hitler's instruction to develop plans for his Breitspurbahn extreme broad-gauge railway concept, that would connect the whole of Europe. This was planned to have a track gauge of three metres with a structure gauge of eight by eight metres. Munich would be on broad gauge lines between Berlin and Munich and between Paris and Vienna. The ten standard gauge tracks and the four broad gauge tracks would be laid in a tunnel seven metres below the surface. These plans were not realised, however.
  The timetable of the summer 1939 showed the station had a total of 112 arrivals and departures by scheduled long-distance services each day. It was the eleventh busiest node of Deutsche Reichsbahn's long-distance network.
caption: Ticket gate, about 1930
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