(Sunday, Sept. 13) Before we left home, we arranged to take a three hour guided walk around Munich with one of Rick Steves’ recommended local tour guides, Georg Reichelmayer. (If you borrow Rick’s most recent DVD on Bavaria from your local library, you’ll see George walking around some of the same parts of Munich with Rick that we saw during our tour).
Georg has a Masters’ Degree in History from Munich University, a task that took him a little less than the eight years or so that most student require to complete the work for such an advanced degree. Like our Prague guide, Katerina, Georg quickly learned that he could have a much more enjoyable life working as a private tour guide than laboring away on some boring academic project in a dusty library, and still be able to earn a decent living.
The first stop on our walking tour was the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), but unlike the rather plain and simple Lutheran church of the same name in Dresden, this one is a Gothic on the outside 13th century Catholic church, with an ornate 19th century interior. The current pope, Benedict XVI, was the archbishop here when he caught the eye of Pope John Paul II and was transferred to the Vatican in Rome. When he succeed the Polish John Paul as pope, Benedict's first trip “aboard” was to Poland, possibly born of a desire to heal any wounds left open from the Nazi’s poor treatment of the Poles during WW II.
At the end of World War I, the Wittlebachs, who had ruled Bavaria for 700 years, lost any claim to power, just as happened with the Hapsburg of the Austrian Empire. But punitive action by the winners against the losers, and poor economic conditions, left Germans pining for the good old days when they had a single, strong leader, and this open a door through which Austrian-born Adolf Hitler gladly walked.
Hitler’s Nazi movement had its start in Munich in 1923 when he attempted a “putsch.” There was a “Shoot Out at the OK Corral” gun battle near the royal palace with casualties on both sides. Hitler’s might have been tried for treason and sentenced to death, but he only got nine months in jail for this failed coup attempt. (Perhaps he was only charged with “Disturbing the Peace”).
However, once Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and moved to Berlin, his popularity far to the south in Bavaria began to wane. And when Munich was being bombed, Hitler ordered that precious art and paintings in its churches and palaces not be removed to places of safety, since to do so would have been a tacit admission that the war was going badly for Germany.
Munich was bombed to pieces, but you wouldn’t know to stroll its streets and boulevards today. When the Allies occupied the city after WW II, they allowed churches and public buildings to be rebuilt, as long as the reconstruction was intended to restore that which culturally and historically important, and not to create a powerbase for yet another strong-man to rule. So while many buildings appear to date from the 15th-19th centuries, most are actually of 20th century vintage.
School students are required not only to learn about the Holocaust, but to visit one of the WWII concentration camps that are now maintained as memorials to those who died at the hands of the Nazis. But Georg, who leads many tours for school-age kids, said that they are so young that they are even more disconnected from WWII than our generation of Baby Boomers, born just before and within a few short years after its end.
Today Greater Munich is hope to 1.6 million residents, with 1.3 million living in the city rather than in American-style suburban develops. It has a first-class public transportation system that whisks people under and above ground with relative ease. It has not only tourism, but bio-tech, insurance, and financial industries, and is the headquarters for BMW.
Thirty percent of Munich’s population is non-German, but unlike other parts of Europe which have large populations of lower-class, and lower-paid, immigrant workers, those who come to Munich to work are likely to be filling managerial and professional jobs.
It is the most expensive place to live in Germany, and one of the most expensive places to stay as a tourist (especially just before and during Oktoberfest). And the restaurants are full most nights of the week. The only thing that Muencheners hold dear that we’ve long since discarded is the Sunday closing of stores. You can play in the park, drink in the biergartens¸ but you can only window-shop until you’re droppin’ on Sunday.
