Dachau PDF

Once the seat of counts, then a mediaeval market town, summer residence of the Wittelsbach dynasty and since 1973 main municipality of the district – the town of Dachau can look back on a twelve-hundred year history. Dachau Palace with its Renaissance hall looks over the town from on high and to this day provides a splendid ambience for concerts and exhibitions attracting audiences from far and wide. In the first half of the 19th century landscape artists discovered the nearby moors as a subject for their paintings; their numbers increased and multiplied until Dachau became an artists’ colony. Far from the Bavarian capital Munich and its academy, they appreciated the unspoiled rural surroundings and many opened private schools of painting. A small group of artists – Adolf Hölzel, Ludwig Dill and Arthur Langhammer – became known nationwide as “New Dachauers” after their exhibition in Berlin of 1898. Their artistic ideas and theories led to the abstract painting of the 20th century. The first world war put an abrupt end to this development.

The darkest chapter of Dachau’s history began with the opening of Bavaria’s first concentration camp when the name of the town become the epitome of the atrocities of National Socialism. Today it is the prime commitment of the town to preserve the memory of what happened in the camp. The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site provides the main centre for study and commemoration. The town on the river Amper cherishes its artistic and cultural heritage. The museums in the old town – the District Museum [Bezirksmuseum] and the Painting Gallery [Gemäldegalerie] foster the artistic tradition, while contemporary art finds its home in the New Gallery [Neue Galerie]. Dachau’s Music Summer, the Dachau Palace Concerts, the activities of Jazz Ltd., the Museum Association and the Dachau Artists’ Union demonstrate the liveliness and variety of the cultural life of the town.

Artists of the Artists' Colony