Munich, Germany (
web site for English speaking ex-pats in Munich) is 89 miles southeast of
Nordlingen and 102
miles north of the Alpine city of Innsbruck, Austria, where we intended to stop after our visit to Munich before driving the
Brenner Pass into Italy. Munich is the capitol of Bavaria, and with over one million population, the third largest city in Germany.
In
its more recent history Munich has swung abruptly between at least two different sets of competing ideologies. During the 16th
and 17th centuries, when most of Germany was Protestant fought Counter-Reformation, restoring Catholicism. And In the 1920's
and 30's it swung from being the Bavarian Soviet Republic to right wing politics nurturing the rise to power of the Nazi
Party under Hitler. In 1923, Hitler staged the infamous
Beer Hall Putsch launching him and the Nazi movement into national prominence
which led eventually to the overthrow of the
Weimar Republic. During WW II it remained a Nazi stronghold and was heavily
bombed. The
Dachau concentration camp was north of the City.
The city was rebuilt after the war to the point that it was
able to host the Summer Olympics in 1972. It was in that Olympics that the Palestinian
Black September group caused the
Munich Massacre in which eleven Israeli athletes were murdered.
It is difficult to see any connection between
this violent history and the Munich that exists today. The smiling, talkative and relaxed people we saw on the street
and in outdoor beer gardens seemed very different to us from the cold, unsmiling Germans we met in Berlin. The city itself is
pretty and spotless. And the population as a whole is far from the
Aryan ideal associated with the Nazi regime. About
300,000 of the city's million plus population are not German citizens but foreign nationals, mainly from Turkey, but also from other
European states. Outlanders are certainly welcome here, and made to feel that way.
This is quite evident in the
Marienplatz, a huge square in front of the equally huge new city hall. That building contains a Glockenspiel clock that puts on a
display of moving mechanical knights jousting every hour. The displays attract large crowds of tourists who pack the square to
enjoy them throughout the day.
There are several great museums in Munich described in the Wikipedia link above. We went
to three museums that we recommend to you very highly. These are the
Alte Pinakothek , housing pre-19th century art, the
Neue
Pinakothek with art from the 18th and 19th centuries, and the
Bavarian National Museum containing European art and folklore of
historical importance from antiquity to recent times.
