Geschichte des Wohnheims

Seit sei­ner Eröff­nung 1960 hat das Stu­den­ten­wohn­heim Geschwis­ter Scholl e.V. eine reich­hal­ti­ge Geschich­te hin­ter sich. Nach­fol­gend berich­ten wir über die Bau­pha­sen, der Ver­än­de­run­gen rund um Gebäu­de & Orga­ni­sa­ti­on, die Zusam­men­ar­beit mit dem Mar­chio­ni­ni-Heim sowie die Geschich­te der Heimleitung.

History of our Dorm

Sin­ce its ope­ning in 1960, the stu­dent dor­mi­t­ory Geschwis­ter Scholl e.V. has had a rich histo­ry. Here, we report on the con­s­truc­tion pha­ses, the chan­ges of the buil­dings, the coope­ra­ti­on with the Mar­chio­ni­ni Dor­mi­t­ory, as well as the histo­ry of the dor­mi­t­ory manage­ment and organization.

House 1 construction

Begin­ning direct­ly in the foun­ding year of the asso­cia­ti­on, 1956, dona­ti­on coll­ec­tions in the form of thou­sands of „begging let­ters” were sent to pri­va­te and busi­ness peo­p­le, accom­pa­nied by num­e­rous con­ver­sa­ti­ons at every available oppor­tu­ni­ty. The pro­mi­nent names of the patron and the foun­ders of the asso­cia­ti­on, Bava­ri­an Minis­ter Pre­si­dent Dr. Wil­helm Hoe­g­ner, Uni­ver­si­ty Rec­tor Prof. Dr. Alfred Mar­chio­ni­ni, Minis­ter of Jus­ti­ce Dr. Fritz Koch and Dr. Hans-Jochen Vogel, were hel­pful. After only two years, the neces­sa­ry funds were rai­sed and a plot of land owned by the city of Munich near the Munich uni­ver­si­ties was found. The city sold this land to the asso­cia­ti­on and simul­ta­neous­ly gran­ted the asso­cia­ti­on a sub­s­idy in the amount of the purcha­se pri­ce. Both of the­se were main­ly thanks to Tho­mas Wim­mer (SPD), the mayor of Munich at the time, who was an avid sup­port­er of the dor­mi­t­ory. In addi­ti­on, sub­si­dies from the fede­ral and sta­te govern­ments and a loan from the Stadt­spar­kas­se savings bank hel­ped fund the con­s­truc­tion. A non-can­celable advan­ce rent pay­ment from the Arbeits­ge­mein­schaft Sozi­al­de­mo­kra­ti­scher Aka­de­mi­ker (Working Group of Social Demo­cra­tic Aca­de­mics) also con­tri­bu­ted finan­ci­al­ly to the House 1 con­s­truc­tion. In return, the asso­cia­ti­on agreed to rent the Arbeits­ge­mein­schaft an office on the first flo­or of House 1 of approx. 20m² and to grant it the right to use the com­mon rooms. The rights under this con­tract were trans­fer­red to the Social Demo­cra­tic Aca­de­mic Asso­cia­ti­on, who­se office was housed in House 1 until 1973.

Wer­ner and Gre­te Wir­sing, respec­ted pio­neers of post-war moder­nism, were cho­sen as archi­tects for the con­s­truc­tion. After tho­rough plan­ning was com­ple­ted on Janu­ary 21, 1958 with the fina­li­zed buil­ding plans, con­s­truc­tion could begin and the first stone was laid on March 25, 1959. By the end of the year, House 1 with 144 living spaces—including 64 dou­ble rooms—was com­ple­ted and occu­p­ied. The grand ope­ning took place on Janu­ary 7, 1960. The total cost was 1.2 mil­li­on Deut­sche Mark. Wer­ner Wir­sing remain­ed a mem­ber of the dor­mi­t­ory and its spon­so­ring asso­cia­ti­on until the end of his life.

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Model of House 1 of the Schollheim after Werner and Grete Wirsing (provided by „Architekturmuseum der TUM”).
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oben: Haus 1 kurz nach Fertigstellung 1960. Im Vordergrund ist das Trümmergrundstück zu sehen, auf dem heute Haus 2 steht.

The­re was spe­cial applau­se at the ope­ning of House 1 when the association’s mana­ging direc­tor, Dr. Hans-Jochen Vogel, announ­ced that Arbei­ter­wohl­fahrt had dona­ted a tele­vi­si­on to the home’s resi­dents. In 1960 post-war Ger­ma­ny,  tele­vi­si­on was just seven years old and owning a TV was not some­thing that could be taken for granted.

House 1 shortly after completion in 1960. In the foreground you can see the rubble plot on which House 2 stands today.

Cooperation between dormitory management and the student’s self-administration

Even befo­re the first stu­dents moved into House 1 on Janu­ary 1, 1960, the asso­cia­ti­on had laid the foun­da­ti­ons for exten­si­ve self-admi­nis­tra­ti­on by the dor­mi­t­ory resi­dents through appro­pria­te pro­vi­sio­nal regu­la­ti­ons. Stu­dents were to be invol­ved in the admi­nis­tra­ti­on of the dor­mi­t­ory by the asso­cia­ti­on: by sel­ec­ting inco­ming dor­mi­t­ory resi­dents them­sel­ves, by having a say in decis­i­ons about the bud­get and rent increa­ses, and by being able to shape dor­mi­t­ory life on their own way. In the years that fol­lo­wed, this was intro­du­ced step-by-step. Sin­ce then, the stu­dent residents—who are repre­sen­ted by 3 mem­bers on the association’s 9‑member board of trustees—have fur­ther deve­lo­ped the con­tent and form of their self-admi­nis­tra­ti­on in con­sul­ta­ti­on with the association.

For the asso­cia­ti­on, coope­ra­ti­on with the stu­dent self-admi­nis­tra­ti­on is lar­ge­ly the respon­si­bi­li­ty of the dor­mi­t­ory manage­ment, i.e. the dor­mi­t­ory director.

Heads of the dormitory

The initi­al appoint­ment of the dor­mi­t­ory direc­tor was espe­ci­al­ly important, as the inten­ti­on was to be more than a nor­mal stu­dent dor­mi­t­ory: a place of poli­ti­cal edu­ca­ti­on, edu­ca­ti­on for tole­rance, demo­cra­cy and social com­mit­ment. The foun­ders of the asso­cia­ti­on sent out a clear signal by choo­sing the first fema­le direc­tor of the dor­mi­t­ory: they appoin­ted Dr. Hel­ga Gre­bing (✝ Sep­tem­ber 25, 2017 in Ber­lin), a young his­to­ri­an who was not well known at the time and who wro­te stan­dard works on Natio­nal Socia­lism and the Ger­man labor move­ment in the years that fol­lo­wed. From today’s per­spec­ti­ve, she was one of the most distin­gu­is­hed his­to­ri­ans of the post-war period.

Grebing’s pro­gram for the dor­mi­t­ory was a Stu­di­um Géné­ra­le: stu­dents were to deba­te poli­tics, con­tem­po­ra­ry histo­ry, lite­ra­tu­re and art. This was encou­ra­ged by lec­tures by pro­mi­nent per­so­na­li­ties such as Dr. Wil­helm Hoe­g­ner on „How Ger­ma­ny is gover­ned,” Dr. Alfred Jütt­ner on „The Sovie­tiza­ti­on of East Cen­tral Euro­pe,” or Inge Scholl, the sis­ter of the mur­de­red Sophie and Hans Scholl, on „the ext­ent to which the ideo­lo­gies of her siblings have been rea­li­zed today.” Thus it came about that the Süd­deut­sche Zei­tung published an artic­le about the dor­mi­t­ory on March 28, 1961 under the title „The house residents—a fami­ly of peoples.”

On May 1, 1962, Gre­bing was suc­cee­ded as direc­tor of the home by the mathe­ma­ti­ci­an Josef Maisch, who was the first full-time rec­tor of the then new­ly estab­lished Munich Col­lege. Until his death on Sep­tem­ber 25, 1986, he was meri­to­rious­ly acti­ve as a part-time direc­tor of the home for more than 24 years. This peri­od embo­di­ed an enti­re era of the Scholl­heim, stron­gly influen­ced by the poli­ti­cal and social chan­ges that had grip­ped Ger­ma­ny sin­ce 1968.

Sub­se­quent­ly, the reti­red edu­ca­tor Karl-Heinz Ham­mer­mül­ler took over the manage­ment of the home until he died at the age of 77 on May 4, 2001. A pro­ven sail­or on the high seas, he also stee­red a suc­cessful cour­se for the dor­mi­t­ory with gre­at cir­cum­s­pec­tion, empa­thy and in a coope­ra­ti­ve spirit.

His suc­ces­sor was the archi­tect Til­mann Breit­bach, who­se work for the Bava­ri­an Sta­te Buil­ding Admi­nis­tra­ti­on ended in the spring of 2002 when he left for an ear­ly reti­re­ment. Like his pre­de­ces­sors, he suc­cessful­ly dedi­ca­ted hims­elf to the dor­mi­t­ory. Par­ti­cu­lar­ly note­wor­t­hy was his invol­vement in the con­s­truc­tion of House 3. On behalf of the asso­cia­ti­on, he draf­ted the first plans of the exten­si­on buil­ding, after which he accom­pa­nied and super­vi­sed the con­s­truc­tion acti­vi­ties for the asso­cia­ti­on. Due to his age, he reti­red from the manage­ment of the dor­mi­t­ory in 2019.

Sin­ce 2019, Alex­an­dra Fils­er has been the suc­ces­sor to Til­mann Breit­bach. She per­forms the tasks of admi­nis­tra­ti­on and home manage­ment in uni­on. Befo­re addi­tio­nal­ly taking over the manage­ment of the dor­mi­t­ory in 2018, Fils­er had alre­a­dy been acti­ve in the admi­nis­tra­ti­on of the Scholl­heim sin­ce 2014. She was trai­ned at the com­pa­ny W. Rohrer & Sohn Treu­hand­ge­sell­schaft as a busi­ness­wo­man for pro­per­ty and housing manage­ment and is the­r­e­fo­re very fami­li­ar with ren­tal management.

Head of the dormitory Dr. Helga Grebing
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Head of the dormitory
Head of the dormitory Josef Maisch
head of the dormitory
Head of the dormitory Karl-Heinz Hammermüller
Head of the dormitory Tilmann Breitbach
Head of the dormitory Alexandra Filser

House 2 construction

After the com­ple­ti­on of House 1, fund­rai­sing con­tin­ued in order to build a second house. Again, within two years, fund­rai­sing suc­cee­ded in rai­sing the neces­sa­ry amount to app­ly for fede­ral and sta­te sub­si­dies and a bank loan. Once again, the city of Munich hel­ped by sel­ling the adja­cent pro­per­ty to the asso­cia­ti­on and pro­vi­ding a sub­s­idy in the amount of the purcha­se pri­ce. Wer­ner and Gre­te Wir­sing were able to con­ti­nue their archi­tec­tu­ral work for the dormitory’s second house. By mid-1963, all pre­pa­ra­ti­ons, inclu­ding plan­ning, were com­ple­ted, the buil­ding per­mit was issued, and con­s­truc­tion could begin. Dif­fi­cult buil­ding ground due to deep rui­ned cel­lars, the requi­re­ment to build gara­ges, the neces­sa­ry clo­sed con­nec­ting pas­sa­ge bet­ween the two hou­ses, and gene­ral infla­ti­on led to dif­fi­cult cost increa­ses. In April 1964, House 2 was rea­dy for occu­p­an­cy with 98 sin­gle rooms, a con­nec­ting cor­ri­dor to House 1, and 21 gara­ges. The total cost of con­s­truc­tion was 1.5 mil­li­on DM.

Collaboration with the Alfred and Karl Marchionini Foundation

Sin­ce the fall of 1972, the Geschwis­ter Scholl stu­dent dor­mi­t­ory and the Mar­chio­ni­ni Dor­mi­t­ory have for­med an admi­nis­tra­ti­ve unit. In addi­ti­on to the Scholl­heim, our dormitory’s admi­nis­tra­ti­ve staff and the jani­tor also look after the Mar­chio­ni­ni dor­mi­t­ory at Ler­chen­au­er Stra­ße 41 in Munich.

The basis for this coope­ra­ti­on is the com­mon histo­ry and shared spi­ri­tu­al atti­tu­de of both dor­mi­t­ories and their sponsors.

Establishment of the Alfred and Karl Marchionini Foundation

As the first chair­man of the asso­cia­ti­on, Alfred Mar­chio­ni­ni not only play­ed a major role in the foun­ding of the Geschwis­ter Scholl stu­dent dor­mi­t­ory, but he and his wife Mat­hil­de also dona­ted their enti­re for­tu­ne to the con­s­truc­tion of ano­ther stu­dent dor­mi­t­ory and the sup­port of stu­dents in need. To this end, the child­less Mar­chio­ni­ni cou­ple estab­lished the Alfred and Karl Mar­chio­ni­ni Foun­da­ti­on in their wills. They took care of the con­s­truc­tion of the Mar­chio­ni­ni stu­dent dor­mi­t­ory, which is still in their pos­ses­si­on today.

Short­ly befo­re her death, Dr. Mat­hil­de Mar­chio­ni­ni decreed that her first name be repla­ced in the foundation’s name by the first name of her father-in-law (Karl). In doing so, she wan­ted to honor the man from whom her hus­band deri­ved his ide­als. After the First World War, Karl Mar­chio­ni­ni was an edi­tor at the Leip­zi­ger Volks­zei­tung, an organ of the Inde­pen­dent Social Demo­crats (USPD).

Construction of the Marchionini student dormitory

The plan­ning and con­s­truc­tion of the Mar­chio­ni­ni Stu­dent Resi­dence, as with House 1 and House 2 of the Geschwis­ter Scholl Stu­dent Resi­dence, was essen­ti­al­ly the result of the vol­un­t­a­ry com­mit­ment of Robert Jenisch. He was the mana­ging direc­tor of the Scholl­heim for many years. The archi­tect of the Mar­chio­ni­ni home was also Wer­ner Wirsing.

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Das Gebäude des Marchionini-Studentenwohnheims

The Mar­chio­ni­ni home was com­ple­ted in time for the 1972 Munich Olym­pics and housed refe­rees during the Games. Imme­dia­te­ly after the Games, the stu­dents moved in.

Due to the agreed admi­nis­tra­ti­ve alli­ance, the Mar­chio­ni­ni home was co-mana­ged by the Scholl­heim. The respon­si­bi­li­ties and decis­i­on-making powers of the Board of Direc­tors and the Mana­ging Direc­tor of the Alfred and Karl Mar­chio­ni­ni Foun­da­ti­on remain unaffected.

The Marchionini dormitory building
 

Repairs and Remodels

No house in the world remains as int­act as the day it was com­ple­ted. From the out­side, wind, heat, cold, rain, ice and snow gnaw away at it; from the insi­de, resi­dents and visi­tors con­stant­ly wear it down. That’s why the dor­mi­t­ory has under­go­ne a num­ber of reno­va­tions sin­ce it was built.

House 1 Renovations

The building’s roof was reno­va­ted mul­ti­ple times; the tar­boards had to be rene­wed again and again until they could be repla­ced by dura­ble alu­mi­num sheeting.

Simi­lar­ly, win­dows, faca­des, instal­la­ti­ons and flo­ors had to be repla­ced and the walls of the rooms had to be fresh­ly pain­ted mul­ti­ple times.

In House 1, the­re were major reno­va­tions in the 1980s: the kit­chen and sani­ta­ry are­as were expan­ded into the space pre­vious­ly occu­p­ied by eight sin­gle rooms. Con­se­quent­ly, the home manager’s and tutors’ apart­ment on the first flo­or was con­ver­ted into a new resi­den­ti­al group with eight new sin­gle rooms to com­pen­sa­te for the loss of rooms men­tio­ned above.

Uli Turek and Reinhard Schneider in the big room of the tutors’ apartment
Peter von Rüden and Uli Turek in the kitchen of the tutors’ apartment
Uli Turek cleaning the bathroom in the tutors’ apartment

Roof construction and extension for both houses

Howe­ver, the big­gest buil­ding pro­ject was expe­ri­en­ced (and endu­red) by the home’s resi­dents from June 1998 to July 1999, when the House 1 and House 2 flat roofs were repla­ced by hip­ped roofs and expan­ded into three resi­den­ti­al groups with a total of 22 sin­gle rooms. In turn, the remai­ning 24 dou­ble rooms could final­ly be con­ver­ted into sin­gle rooms. The total num­ber of resi­den­ti­al places thus decreased by only two units to 232 rooms.

All rooms in House 1 and House 2 recei­ved new wash­ba­sins and final­ly also hot water. The elec­tri­cal instal­la­ti­on had to be com­ple­te­ly rene­wed and rein­forced. At the same time, all rooms recei­ved tele­pho­ne lines, TV/audio cable con­nec­tions and con­nec­tions to the new EDP house net­work (Scholl­net). This is con­nec­ted to the Leib­niz Com­pu­ter Cen­ter (LRZ) of the Bava­ri­an Aca­de­my of Sci­en­ces and Huma­ni­ties via a high-per­for­mance dedi­ca­ted line and offers every resi­dent free access to the Internet.

Almost all win­dows of both hou­ses were rene­wed and the faça­de fresh­ly pain­ted. The two out­da­ted cen­tral hea­ting sys­tems were repla­ced by more modern, elec­tro­ni­cal­ly con­trol­led sys­tems and each was sup­ple­men­ted by a solar panel sys­tem with a total panel area of around 100m².

The­se con­s­truc­tion mea­su­res, which cost a total of almost 5 mil­li­on DM, were only pos­si­ble with mas­si­ve sta­te sub­si­dies and gene­rous con­tri­bu­ti­ons from pri­va­te sources. Only a loan of 550,000 DM had to be taken out, resul­ting in only a slight rai­se in rent. 

House 1 in its initial state with a flat roof
House 1 and 2 with roof extensions, before the construction of House 3

House 3 Construction

Sin­ce 2013, plans had been under­way to con­s­truct an addi­tio­nal dor­mi­t­ory house in the imme­dia­te vici­ni­ty of Munich’s uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges. The­se plans can again be tra­ced back to the association’s long-time mana­ging direc­tor Robert Jenisch.

Third phase of construction of the Schollheim

Due to the lack of vacant plots in cen­tral Munich, the con­s­truc­tion of new housing is only pos­si­ble by incre­asing the den­si­ty of exis­ting deve­lo­p­ments. The­r­e­fo­re, it was plan­ned to build a new House 3 with 55 living spaces in the space bet­ween the exis­ting House 1 and House 2, along Stei­ni­cke­weg. While the con­s­truc­tion plans were dis­cus­sed with Wer­ner Wir­sing, and Eber­hard Stei­nert beca­me the exe­cu­ti­ve archi­tect of House 3 in coope­ra­ti­on with Til­mann Breitbach.

Fassade des Schollheims mit Haus 3 vom Steinickeweg aus (Ostseite)

After the com­ple­ti­on of plan­ning and recei­ving the buil­ding per­mit from the City of Munich, the con­s­truc­tion of House 3 could start in July 2017 with the demo­li­ti­on of the old gara­ges in the cour­ty­ard. During the con­s­truc­tion peri­od, some resi­dents had to move out, as some rooms fell vic­tim to the recon­s­truc­tion. About two years later, in Octo­ber 2019, the com­ple­ted, new rooms could be occu­p­ied. With a cere­mo­ni­al speech by Munich’s Lord Mayor Die­ter Rei­ter (SPD), the new House 3 was offi­ci­al­ly inau­gu­ra­ted on Janu­ary 14, 2020.

Facade of the Schollheim’s House 3 from Steinickeweg (east side).
Construction work in House 3

The cost of con­s­truc­tion of House 3, the reno­va­tions to the exis­ting buil­dings, the con­s­truc­tion of the out­door faci­li­ties and the fur­nis­hings amoun­ted to appro­xi­m­ate­ly 6.6 mil­li­on euros. More than half of this was rai­sed by the non-pro­fit asso­cia­ti­on from its own funds and loans. The Free Sta­te of Bava­ria con­tri­bu­ted to the con­s­truc­tion with a sub­s­idy of about 40% of the costs.

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Bauarbeiten im Haus 3 (zu sehen: normales Apartment)
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Innenhof des Schollheims mit Dachterasse, im Hintergrund Westseite Haus 3

What is spe­cial about House 3 is that all the 55 new resi­den­ti­al units, in con­trast to tho­se in House 1 and House 2, are small apart­ments. This means that each room is equip­ped with its own small kit­chenet­te and bath­room. In addi­ti­on, 13 of the 55 apart­ments have been desi­gned as acces­si­ble housing units to make it easier for phy­si­cal­ly-impai­red stu­dents to find afforda­ble housing in Munich. 

Inner courtyard of the Schollheim with roof terrace, in the background west side of house 3.

Renovations During House 3 Construction

The new House 3 is loca­ted bet­ween House 1 and House 2 and is the­r­e­fo­re direct­ly con­nec­ted to both. Over the cour­se of the House 3 con­s­truc­tion, 20 rooms were also reno­va­ted in the Hou­ses 1 and 2. Addi­tio­nal­ly, new sani­ta­ry faci­li­ties and the hea­ting sys­tem was upgraded to the latest sta­te of the art in Hou­ses 1 and 2. In order to increase the safe­ty of the resi­dents, the cur­rent fire pro­tec­tion requi­re­ments were imple­men­ted in all three houses.

The inner cour­ty­ard was plan­ted with gree­n­ery to make the view from the rooms more visual­ly appe­al­ing and to crea­te a com­for­ta­ble out­door space for stu­dent resi­dents. A rai­sed ter­race with trees, shrubs and ben­ches was also added in the cour­ty­ard. This space can now be used can be used in a varie­ty of ways: as a beer gar­den, for par­ties and cele­bra­ti­ons, or as a mee­ting place to pro­mo­te the dorm’s sen­se of community.

Sin­ce bicy­cles are a popu­lar means of trans­por­ta­ti­on among students—they are inex­pen­si­ve, fle­xi­ble and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friendly—bicycle sto­rage rooms for all resi­dents were also added with the con­s­truc­tion of House 3.

Future Renovations

At pre­sent, a num­ber of reno­va­tions are in pro­gress: the fun­da­men­tal repla­ce­ment of distance win­dows, modern ther­mal insu­la­ti­on and mea­su­res to increase fire pro­tec­tion in Hou­ses 1 and 2. The­se and other future reno­va­tions can be finan­ced lar­ge­ly in thanks to pre­vious­ly gene­ra­ted repair reserves.