Wedding Anniversary - Date with History

Before we moved away from Texas I had very little interest in history. I had friends that would take family trips to Civil War battle sites and I would make fun of them. After seeing some of the things in Europe my interests have changed. Cindy and I are watching History channel documentaries and everything. We have found that tours with knowledgeable guides makes the scenery much more interesting and more memorable. This new found thirst for knowledge has manifested into planning our anniversary date as a bike tour learning about the Nazi party in Munich. Last Saturday we had no baseball since the local schools are on a break. We hired a sitter to watch the kids and headed to Munich on the train that morning. The meeting place for the Third Reich Tour was in the middle of Munich at Mariernplatz. By now we have been there several times, but it remains a cool site to see each time.

Above and below is the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall) building that dominated the square. This is where you can see the Glockenspiel show in the tower, with the bells ringing. Calling this the New Town Hall is confusing for most people because it is built in the old Gothic style and looks much older than the "Old Town Hall pictured below. It is not that old compared to other buildings in Europe as it was only completed initially in 1908. It was almost completely destroyed by the end of WWII. We had an early lunch in a restaurant underneath this building.

Above is the Old Town Hall, the meeting place for our tour. The New Town Hall is on the left side out of frame. 

We took a quick peek into St. Peter's Church just across the way from our meeting point.

Bronze statue of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet given to Munich by the city of Verona who also has one. The tradition is to touch her breast or put flowers in her hand to achieve undying love.

So the tour was all about Hitler and the early days of the Nazi party in Munich. As usual I am going to give snippets of historical information as to not bore you with history details. Our first stop was the building that Hitler first attended his first meeting with the DAP German Workers Party and gave a 90 minute speech that got his quickly recognized and asked to be a leader for the party. We all know how Cindy feels about Apple, well at this first stop she noted that this building, famous as the birthplace of the Nazi party, now has a big "Apple Authorized Reseller" sign on the bottom floor. Interesting too that Google Maps has blurred out this building, type in "Tal 38, Munich, Germany" and go to street view.

Above is an upper floor of the Hofbrauhaus famous biergarten. In this room Hitler gave his first official speech to gather support for the party.

From what we have experienced about most Germans these days is they don't openly talk about the Nazi party. We have asked and get different opinions, but it is never a fully open discussion. Some people are ashamed of the history, others are just beaten down by having to hear about it all of the time. It has to be tough for them, Germans are very proud people but it seems they have to temper that pride because of their history. After getting the bikes and riding a few blocks we made it to Odeonplatz (anything with platz means a big open square area of the city). Above and below are related areas I found interesting. In the above picture there used to be a memorial for the first 16 Nazi members killed when Hitler first tried to overthrow the government. There were SS guards posted there and anyone walking past had to give the salute and say the words. If you did not you were taken to a prison camp to die. You can still see the holes in the facade from where the Nazi plaques and eagle statues hung. The people that did not want to give the salute tried to bypass this main walkway by using the side street below. When the Nazi's caught on to this they started arresting anyone going down this side street. Today the bronze stones on this street are a tribute to those people that were put to death for avoiding the Nazi monument. The bronze came from the old Nazi memorial after it was torn down.

Below is a memorial to the White Rose resistance group. Inside the University there is another memorial to this. I was not familiar with this story before this tour, but it was another fascinating story about some of the many people that tried to stand up against the Nazi party. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose

Did I mention that our tour guide has a degree with a specialization in the Hitler era. He was a great guide and presented the information very well. Below was a good example. This building was old but not really much to look at. He explained that over 80% of Munich was destroyed by Allied bombings. It was really awesome to hear that the Allied leadership was so well organized that they intentionally spared this building because they knew it had important records related to the Nazi party. After the war they recovered detailed records about every person associated with the Nazi's from this building and used that information to punish those people. 

 This is Königsplatz. It was a large open gathering space for Hitler's army. Again our guide did a great job explaining why Hitler did certain things and the psychology behind it. This large square of all concrete at the time was to make an individual feel meaningless and take away any desire to stand up with their own voice.

So this eternal flame was only completed recently. It is one of the only monuments in Munich dedicated to the survivors and victims of the Hitler era. Pretty lame right? Our guide was very vocal about the way Munich has handled it's history. I would have never known about the bronze stones in the street earlier if not for this tour. There was no plaque or monument explaining what it was for or why it was there. Here again is just a flame with no real attention brought to it.

 Above was another building occupied by Nazi forces. You can again see the holes in the building where the symbols used to be. The greenish building below was said to be one of Hitler's favorite places to eat. It is still owned by the same family today.

Below is a monument Georg Elser. Another incredible story that turned out to be the closest anyone ever got to assassinating Hitler. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Georg_Elser

For lunch the group rode in to the English Garden, a very very large green area in Munich. Here is the famous Chinese Tower and associated biergarten. 

When it was time for our tour to start it was only Cindy and I plus one older guy from Cincinnati. Eventually we were joined by a group of 8 more guys from Ireland and Scotland. They turned out to be a interesting group. We got to chat with them over our break at the biergarten.

The park was packed with people. 

Riding out of the park we came across the Eisbach Wave. This was an intentional design that resulted in a wave that people surf on in the summer. 

Above is the last stop of the tour. It is the Jewish Museum in Munich. Again, with a lack of any significant memorial in Munich this was a stop our guide choose to close the tour and offer a moment of silence. His fascination with Hitler is partly just his curiosity on how one human can be so hateful. He reminded us all to be kind to one another. Good message I think, and a very good tour. 

Cindy and I were just getting started. After the tour we had dinner plans and a movie. We walked to the Lowenbrau Keller biergarten and had a yummy dinner. I had the pork hock and Cindy went with the Schnitzel.  

After dinner and a couple of beers we made the short walk to the theater that shows movies in original English. It is a single screen theater so not many choices. We ended up seeing the new take on Sleeping Beauty movie called Maleficent. It was okay but no need to rush out and see it.

There is still some construction going on for the public transit system. Our train ride home had a slight detour, but we made it back. It was a great day.

Just a couple of random pics from our backyard garden.  

Just wanting to document the various baseball fields that we have seen. This is the field in Allerhausen, Germany where my Isotopes softball team dominated.

Off to Berlin next weekend.