Bavaria opens honour walkway with room for 43 figures

Bavaria has opened a new Walk of Fame in Munich, with space to honour 43 people. BR reports that its first two stars commemorate Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch and Franz, Duke of Bavaria, both aged 93.

The five-pointed stars are set into the ground along an arcaded walkway on the edge of Munich’s Hofgarten, beside the building used by Minister-President Markus Söder. The partly covered route is protected from rain. Söder said its capacity had been measured precisely.

The new walkway offers another place to honour notable Bavarians now that the Walhalla memorial near Regensburg is full. Its final two spaces were assigned by the Bavarian cabinet in September 2025 to philosopher and writer Hannah Arendt and former minister-president Franz Josef Strauss.

Bavaria also has a Hall of Fame at Munich’s Theresienwiese, where 98 people are honoured for their contributions to the people and state. The most recent busts were unveiled in April 2009, including those of writer Bertolt Brecht, mathematician Emmy Nöther and physicist Werner Heisenberg.

Unlike the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Munich stars are anthracite-coloured rather than pink. Söder described the walkway as “a visible sign” that was “humble, but also visible”. The tradition of honouring living public figures differs from that of the Walhalla, where people had to be dead for at least 20 years before they could be recognised.

The Walhalla, commissioned by King Ludwig I and opened in 1842, honours influential figures with busts. Writer Heinrich Heine criticised the original selection for omitting reformer Martin Luther, who received a bust there three years later.