Munich in 36 hours

Some might consider seeing a 1.3 million person city in 36 hours slightly tricky. However, this was Germany and the trains ran on time, which greatly facilitated matters! I managed to cram a Saturday afternoon hockey game in Budapest, a heckuva lot of German sightseeing and a Sunday night business school interview in Munich, and work in Budapest on Monday morning all in, which was hectic but great.

Anecdote #1 (in increasing order of seriousness): Every town in Bavaria has a 100+ foot tall May pole. Towns pride themselves on having the longest, straightest pole. If you steal another town's pole, the victimized town has to throw your village a party. This is an AWESOME tradition - can you imagine something like this happening in a college prank war? (Shepard Hall: "Hey Willard, you may have prank called our entire dorm at 5am, but we were greatly impressed by your efforts and want to throw you a floor party.") A few years ago, the Munich airport's May pole went missing. In the post-9/11 climate, this greatly alarmed the airport staff and so they frantically called the airport police to report the disappearance. It turns out that the airport police had stolen the airport's May pole... and so the airport threw the police a party.

Remark #2: After having visited two Munich beer halls, including the Lowenbrau beer hall, and greatly enjoying the wares, I have decided that I need to return for Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest was originally intended as a wedding gift for King Ludwig I's wife; it began as a wine festival with horse racing and an agricultural fair. The year after the wedding, the townspeople got to thinking that it was an awesome party and that they should throw it again. A few years later, these same people got to thinking that wine and horses are really expensive and that the agricultural part should only happen every couple years. And so, Oktoberfest gradually morphed into today's festival, where 1/3 of Bavaria's annual beer production is consumed in two weeks. I already have one friend's firm commitment to attend the Fest in the next few years - who's coming with us? (This is ridiculous, but possibly should be noted and avoided- Munich's most famous beer hall, the Hofbrauhaus, has something termed "a vomitorium" in the men's restroom.)

Failed legislation #3: In the 1840's, King Ludwig II of Bavaria (son of Oktoberfest king) decided that he wanted to eclipse his father's "Renaissance man" status and build an amazing opera house. (completed, at right with statue of Ludwig II). He raised taxes on beer once. The people complied. Then the building project went over budget, and Ludwig raised taxes on beer a second time. This prompted the "beer hall riots," where Bavarians ran through the streets, beat up police and destroyed the beer halls. King Ludwig only took control of the situation by lowering beer prices 10%. Apparently, Chicago had a similar episode.

A note on 100-year-old animatronics #4: I have now seen the Glockenspiel, and it is somewhat ridiculous. Built with the Munich town hall in 1908, the Glockenspiel consists of ~30 life-size figurines reenacting 16th century stories in a 12-minute spectacle. As one example, one story consists of barrel makers dancing in the street to indicate that the plague had left and it was safe for the townspeople to come out.

What to do if you are with a 10-year-old boy in Munich #5: Take the boy to the Deutches Museum. It has 55 departments with full-scale representations of every scientific and technical mechanism every constructed by man. For instance, one room has five working water wheels of different types and a full-scale windmill. I got to see 20 different types of code machines, old-school clocks, planes, cow milking gadgets, etc. etc. Unbelievable.

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Beer Hall Putsch and Monument #6: In 1923, Hitler and his supporters attempted to overtake Munich and use it as a base from which to march on Berlin. Hitler began at a beer hall by firing a gun into the air, standing on a chair and giving a speech demanding that the German people stand together and form a nationalist government. In a backroom, three civic leaders were convinced at gunpoint to go along with Hitler's plan. With things in control, Hitler left his second-in-command in charge and went to check on the 2000 men he had waiting in the main square, by the Glockenspiel. Then matters started to go wrong: the three civic leaders convinced Hitler's second-in-command that they should be allowed to leave to change into their WWI uniforms, which would be more fitting for the occasion. As a result, by the time Hitler returned to the hall, the town was on high alert. Taking the city would be impossible, but Hitler resolved to march on the town's army supply store to attempt to pick up supplies to use for the march to Berlin. Hitler and his men made it to the edge of the square when they were ambushed. Fifteen Nazis, four policemen and one innocent outdoor cafe waiter died in the firefight.

When the Nazis came to power, they erected a monument to commemorate the deaths of these 20 individuals in the name of socialism. [At the corner at the most right in the photo.] Munichers were required to give the Nazi salute as they walked by the statue. As a form of passive protest, townspeople would avoid walking past the monument by ducking into a street that became known as "Dodger's Alley." [Alley on the left in the photo, with gold bricks inserted to commemorate the dodger's route.] Eventually, the Nazis caught on to what was happening - guards were posted in Dodger's Alley to record who came through, thus turning a passive form of protest into a very active one. Individuals who went through the alley too many times were deported to Dachau.

Kristallnacht/Reichspogromnacht #7: In 1938, Hitler had been looking for an excuse to push forward full measures against the Jews. In November of that year, a Jewish teenager shot and killed a German diplomat in Paris. Days later, the Nazis conducted a coordinated raid on Jewish businesses throughout Germany and deported ~30,000 Jews to concentration camps. The Nazis referred to the event as "Crystal Night" for the beauty of the smashed windows on the ground. Years later, this event is instead termed "Reichspogromnacht" to remove the positive connotation that the Nazis had inserted. (I hadn't learned about the second name in school.)

Throughout Munich, there were placards to note the locations of Jewish businesses which were destroyed on that night. Townspeople are educated from an early age about what happened on that night, and children are fully aware of the meaning of the signs. I found this impressive - governments don't always fully discuss the horrors in which they have been complicit, and don't necessarily integrate it into education so that children understand it too. (As an example, think about how much you learned about the Native Americans in school.)

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So, Munich was a great place to visit - it was somewhat jam-packed, but I saw a lot, learned a lot and had my business school interview. Mission complete--