Third Reich Tour

So on my last day in Munich, I took a walking tour that was about Third Reich architecture and art and history in general. The woman who gave the tour got her masters degree in Art History and is also a museum tour guide. She was a tiny little thing from Bavaria. It was incredibly interesting to learn history about the Hitler era from a German perspective. To be honest, before my holiday, I still thought of Germany as a scary place to be simply because of the Holocaust. Even having German friends didn’t change my skepticism. After all, my grandfather was in the army during World War II.

What was most striking to me about the tour was the emphasis that the tour guide put on Germany’s current struggle for identity. After all, not every white skinned, blonde haired German was a Nazi. Even the ones that were Nazi’s were coerced into being Nazi’s because if they didn’t join, they would have to watch their entire families being killed before them. Many of them in fact, were completely unaware of the existence of the concentration camps and it was hard work by others to make that known.

The identity problem today, as I understand it, is that it is hard for Germans to be proud of their heritage as they feel the burden of having started two world wars in the last century. The tour guide said that she had been in France on vacation as a little girl and someone walked by and said “oh what a cute little [brown-haired] French girl” and she felt so proud that they didn’t think that she was German. I could hardly believe it when I heard it. Germans make it clear that any feelings of superiority in any way is a bad thing… so if a person is boastful about anything, it is very much frowned upon (going back to the shame associated with Hitler’s ethnic cleansing). Munich itself has even more identity problems because it was Hitler’s favorite city and the place where all of the terrible happenings of WWII began.

It is also very rare to see a German flag flying on buildings or anywhere! I took a picture when I saw one because I hadn’t seen many. The German people are counting on the current younger generation to shape what the world image of Germany will be; a generation to hopefully accept the past and move forward with a better and brighter future. Hopefully for Munich this will also mean more sites around the city marking it’s important history.

It was very interesting to hear about this important piece of history from this perspective. The tour was really fantastic despite that being a very cold day!

Here are some pictures, and there is a link on the title above to a site that has some interesting stories that I found out about because a couple of them are engraved on the outside walls of the Jewish Museum Munich that I found after wandering around in an open-air market with some links to stories told by Germans who lived through the second World War and more. Check it out.

Hofbraeuhaus: the largest Biergarten in Munich. Also where Hitler started getting together with his political followers.

The cieling of the modern art museum in Munich. Hitler was a huge fan of art. This building was originally to house traditional German/Roman art that Hitler loved so well. He did not like modern art and because of this artists' style, he never got into art school despite his multiple attempts. He even went through great lengths to convince people that modern art was trash. You can see the swastika's in the design above.

Not a great picture of me, but a good one of the White Rose memorial commemorating some students at a local university who had made every effort to get the word out about the concentration camps. Because the camps were not in Germany, many people were unaware that they existed. Their efforts did a lot of good, but also led to their execution when they were caught for passing out flyers with the information on them.

A golden path made "golden" due to the wear on the cobblestones from people going this route to avoid having to salute one of Hitler's monuments while passing by. If people did not pay the proper respects, they could be killed for disloyalty.