Munich

It is hard not to sound repetitive. Every place (okay, maybe not Ayia Napa, Cyprus) has us saying, this feels better than home.  Pretty much everywhere has felt safer, more livable than the US (gun control, please, please, please). The challenge of each place while  unique,  is usually the history, and unfortunately even that sounds repetitive.  Over and over the past is inequality, capriciousness and persistent cruelty of governments tempered by people's perseverance in seeking self-determination and maintaining culture. 

Germany though has had the highest highs and the lowest lows. We have loved Germany. It is stupendously beautiful; countryside and cities. Forest, hills, valleys dotted with Fantasyland villages.

Cities are clean, services plentiful, people are courteous, public transportation good.  There are walking trails and pedestrian areas everywhere, forests at the edge (or even center) of almost every city. recycle spots every few blocks.  Food is fresh and reasonably priced.  Nick would move to Freiburg im Breisgau, yesterday. 
https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2019/07/black-forest.html
The country generally is progressive, environmentally conscientious and makes serious attempts at reconciliation with their history. 

Munich was extremely nice, seemed very livable but also underscored the frightening world we currently live in as we examined it's not too distant past. 
Like most German cities, there was significant destruction from WWII bombing (Munich was hit particularly hard) so building styles were very inconsistent; old, new and reconstructed. 

Alte Pinoktech Museum, you can see the repaired brick

Like most European cities, Munich had a town square that was anchored by the city hall, the Rathaus, but Munich's  had an animated clock performing, three times a day,  that attracted a large crowd. 

The inside was as beautiful as the outside, 

Inside were also tons of tributes, kind of a city time-line + yearbook going back hundreds of years. 

 

and of course, a cafe in the courtyard. 

Around the Rathaus were fountains and statues in the main square (Marienplatz)

and on the streets radiating from the square, beautiful churches with a few different twists (best door knobs ever seen).

Munich had murals and palaces; 

and a popular, huge park (English Garden) with a river (Eisbach, side-arm of Isar) where you can surf (with people waiting very patiently for their turn- no supervision, no  cost).  https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3d9way/welcome-to-munich-the-mecca-of-river-surfing

Rainbow and brown trout

Museums were amazing and varied.   We saw many favorite German artists and were introduced to some new (to us) artists

Georg Baselitz, new favorite

Yes, he painted upside down, well his paintings not him

Design exhibit 

At the museum, the historical shadows started creeping in. It was hard to just appreciate the art, in light of the history of Nazis looting art (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_plunder), we began to feel how that period of time permeates and still resonates.

(https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/nazi-looted-art-how-many-more-masterpieces-are-out-there-8922977.html)

Seen in a Munich park

With the current world situation with so many populist leaders, it was difficult revisiting the origins of the Nazi party at the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, opened in 2017 on the footprint of the former Nazi headquarters 
(https://www.ns-dokuzentrum-muenchen.de/en/documentation-center/historical-site/ )  The exhibit charted the beginnings of Nazism onwards through today in modern Germany and Europe.  Early Nazi propaganda and practices unfortunately mirrored our current news- it was so disheartening watching history repeat itself countless times as we wandered through Munich's monuments and museums. The similarities were so frightening.

Our discomfort wasn't really with Munich but  as it was the epicenter of Nazism in Germany (as well as the anti-fascist resistance), there were frequent reminders of people's cruelty  and how it feels like we've learned nothing.

It was encouraging  to see kids  accessing historic sites;  young kids on field trips in the old city center, numerous groups of teenagers in serious sit down talks with teachers around exhibits at the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, and at Dachau, and most poignant- a group of physically handicapped young adults, who would not have existed under Hitler,  at the University's memorial to the student run White Rose anti-facist movement ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose).

In front of the White Rose Museum, flyers embedded in the ground placement as they were when the University students and siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl threw them as they were arrested and then executed in 1943

Dachau was vast. It was unimaginable to think how many lives it once contained, controlled and eliminated. They said the biggest problem was overcrowding yet the space was massive and to realize it wasn't big enough for the volume of lives that were abused and lost, devastating.

Unfathomable just considering the uncertainty experienced by the prisoners, especially with death everywhere. The barracks, the claustrophobic cells, the horrifying crematories but nothing more frightening than the open space, imagined crammed with people awaiting the worst. 

  

Described by a survivor, the 2 mile walk  from the Dachau train station to the camp, was punctuated by the incongruity; through picturesque forest and natural beauty to the ghastly and dehumanizing destination. Although we all are familiar with the horrors of the concentration camps, being there just emphasized that, from our frame of reference, we can never really be familiar, never can completely comprehend the experience and inhumanity.  

Stopelsteine in Dachau, the city, about  a mile from the camp

Path of Remembrance from the train station

Dachau, about 10 miles north of Munich, was the first concentration camp.  It opened in 1933, and was actually used initially for political prisoners (anti-fascists, communists, partisans from invaded countries), which ultimately was anyone opposed to the new Nazi government including clergy, as well as "undesirables" such as Sinta/Roma ("gypsies"), homosexuals, Jews, mentally and physically handicapped.  Initially, the camp also supplied needed labor for the country.  Jewish prisoners weren't really the majority until the late 30's.

Both Dachau and the Documentation Center admirably emphasized the absolute lack of individual accountability for the majority of Germans- soldiers, politicians, civilians.  And that was the challenge of Munich, it was where the Nazis got their start and power but how does a city acknowledge and repent?   Part of the problem is many of the buildings used by the Nazis were destroyed in the war and identifying those sites or existing buildings for educational purposes has been controversial.   Munich is stuck between pointing out Nazi sites while preventing Neo-Nazis from congregating and revering them.

the 1844 memorial to fallen German soldiers became a Nazi icon since it was  the site of the Beer hall Putsch, when Hitler tried to take power in 1923.  Munich has had to balance preserving this monument and preventing Neo-nazis from celebrating it. This building has a history of controversy. During the Third Reich, anti-fascist Germans used to walk behind it so they would not have to to salute it as required by law (the alley behind it is called Shirkers Alley)

In front of a store, not on the street

Munich continues to struggle with competing groups; those wanting to diminish or or rewrite history,  those wanting to just move on and those wanting more public accountability. This is exemplified by Munich's  lack of  Stolpersteine. https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2019/01/they-do-make-you-stumble.html The city banned them, only allowing them on private property. Munich's Jewish community president was not supportive of them although the German Council of Jews and many other local Jews and  Germans were.  Munich's alternative, started in 2015, were 5x5 plaques (not much different then an address nameplate) somewhere on or near the house but when we went to find some, it was difficult and we couldn't. About 50 exist, and as with the Stolpersteine, memorializing not just Jews but all victims- people with mental illness, physically disabled, Sinti/Roma, gay, Jehovah's Witness and the resistance.  In contrast to the Munich ones, the Stolpersteine seem to more accurately reflect the proportionality of the groups victimized. 
(https://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/Stadtverwaltung/Direktorium/Stadtarchiv/Erinnerungszeichen/Biografien.html. 

Each day after being  overwhelmed by the contradictions of history and present day, we returned to be rejuvenated by our hotel in the very ethnically diverse upbeat Little Istanbul area of Munich, very much appreciating our Turkish/German hybrid Hotel Goethe and the surrounding neighborhood. 

 

So, Munich kind of encapsulates our (thus far) European experience; contemplating it's  tragic and violent history against the backdrop of wondrous natural beauty, inspiring art and and persistent resistance, unfortunately often futile.   
We'll continue to try to ride the wave of optimism.