Munich (dpa/lby) - The weapons and ammunition found during construction work in the state parliament in September date from the time of the First World War, but they were not buried there until 1933. Experts from the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt and the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments have reconstructed this, as the state parliament announced on Friday.
"The history of the building in which the Bavarian State Parliament meets is more eventful than we previously knew," said Ilse Aigner (CSU), President of the State Parliament. "With the discovery of the historical weapons and ammunition, it is now clear that armed groups found shelter in the Maximilianeum up until 1933 - and then destroyed and hid their weapons." This was new knowledge for the state parliament, so not everything was known about the period between the world wars. "Reality is more exciting than some history novels," said Aigner.
During construction work for the new visitor foyer of the state parliament, construction workers came across the spectacular find purely by chance in September - when an excavator broke through a concrete ceiling. According to the state parliament, around 400 kilograms of ammunition, around 40 rifles and carabiners and numerous everyday objects, from candlesticks to bottles and office equipment, were found there.
"The weapons and ammunition are all relics of the First World War," explained the Army Museum's chief curator, Dieter Storz. All of this looks like the legacy of a small military unit that was stationed in the Maximilianeum. "The weapons were systematically disabled," he explained.
Crumpled newspaper pages in a bag enabled archaeologists from the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments to date the hiding place itself to 1933. It was an issue of the "Völkischer Beobachter" of April 5, 1933. A restorer was able to restore the badly damaged paper to such an extent that the date was legible.
As stated in the communication, the "Bayernwacht" was in the Maximilianeum from July 1932 to April 1933, a self-defense organization of the Catholic-conservative Bavarian People's Party. This was then suppressed by the SA. The "Bayernwacht" may have wanted to avoid weapons and ammunition falling into the hands of the SA and therefore buried everything.
