Murnau am Staffelsee

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Murnau in 1900

Murnau am Staffelsee is a market town (with a population of 12,390 as of 2002) in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Oberbayern region of Bavaria, Germany. It is located at 47°41′N, 11°12′E, about 70 km south of Munich, and on the edge of the Bavarian alps. Directly to its west is the Staffelsee lake. Murnau is a minor train hub, since it is the place where the Munich-Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Oberammergau train lines intersect. The first electrical signal box of the Deutsche Bundesbahn was installed here. Also, the A95 motorway and the B2 Bundesstrasse run through or near Murnau. Another major feature is the Berufsgenossenschaftliche Unfallklinik, a hospital specializing in trauma surgery. During World War II a Nazi POW camp for Polish officers was located there.

For such a small town, Murnau has attracted quite a few noteworthy citizens over the years. Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky of the Blauer Reiter artistic collective lived there for several years. Ödön von Horvath spent a large part of his youth and young adulthood there and based some of his most well-known works (e.g. Jugend ohne Gott, Italienische Nacht) on happenings during the Third Reich in Murnau. Lastly, filmmaker F.W. Murnau probably took his assumed name from the town, though there is no real factual evidence for this.