Stop Three: Munich

After a few late trains, we finally arrived at Munich Hbf near 7pm. We navigated west to our hotel to drop our bags and then found a train back to Marienplatz for dinner and a walk. Hofbrauhaus is a Bavarian staple, so we found good German food and an oompa band. The city blocks were crowded even on a Sunday evening!

The next morning, we had a scheduled tour to visit Dachau, the prototype for Nazi concentration camps. This one was in operation from *1933 as a place to send political dissenters; what better way to get rid of the opposing voices than to disappear them…. Its capacity of a few thousand became exponential by the time Dachau and its subcamps were liberated in 1945, and the conditions were just as frightening and unbelievable as the pictures show. The German engineering efficiency is easily seen in the design of the extermination facilities: four chambers to defumigate clothing from prisoners for reuse, then the ‘bathhouse,’ then four ovens bracketed by corpse rooms to store the bodies before disposal. It was easy to see the way this camp influenced operations in others like Auschwitz. Our guide Alan was amazing, as were our Finnish, Canadian, and Australian friends.

We had most of an afternoon left to explore Munich and we found many interesting things. Munich’s architecture, for one, spans many centuries and styles, so that was fascinating. We sought out the Sophie Scholl and White Rose memorials, German youth who opposed the Nazis and tried to distribute information to the populous. By chance we also found a statue of King Ludwig that had been overtaken by memorials to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. There was even gelato for lunch; I had chocolate and caramel rosemary while Jason had tiramisu and Parmesan. Yep. Parmesan. At five, we watched the Marienplatz glockenspiel perform to a huge crowd. For dinner we found a good pub and a game designer’s networking session. All in all, Munich was a great place even if it was very crowded!