After a wonderfully comfortable train ride, Katie and I arrived in Munich. It was freezing cold but we walked to our hostel and thawed out so that we could start fresh the next day. On Christmas Eve we grabbed the metro to Marienplatz in the center of town to check out the Christmas Market there. The entire main square was filled with tiny stands with ornaments and pretzels dangling from the ceiling. Some stands had bratwursts and mulled wine in cute little mugs with snowflakes on them. Katie and I had the breakfast of champions (pretzels) and then headed over to meet up with our guide for a Third Reich tour.
The Third Reich tour was fascinating! I learned so much about Germany and the events that led up to the reign of Hitler. There is far too much information to put in this blog post but I will relate a few of my favorite stories.
Hitler attempted to lead a revolution and seize power over Munich in an event now called the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler and all of his followers marched up the street until they met a police blockade. Shots were fired and 4 policemen and 16 Nazis died. Hitler fell and dislocated his shoulder and his bodyguard took several bullets yet still survived. Hitler ended up jumping into a passing cab and hiding out for a few days until he was finally found and arrested (while wearing striped pajamas). Being the king of propaganda, after his rise to power Hitler claimed that the reason he ran was he had spotted a little girl and scooped her up to get her out of harm's way. He also claimed that the 4 policemen were actually loyal to the Nazis and had died trying to join the rebellion and fight their fellow policemen. Hitler put a plaque to honor the "martyrs" of the Beer Hall Putsch on the wall of the building just past where the police blockade was. Two guards stood watch over it to make sure that any person who passed would give it the Hitler salute. Those who did not like the Nazis and their propaganda rebelled by walking towards the monument and then turning down a side street just before reaching it so that they would not have to salute it. Eventually the Nazis caught on and had another guard take down the names of those who avoided the plaque. If you were caught taking that street often then you were sent off to a work or concentration camp. There is now a monument in the form of a path of bronze stones to commemorate those who rebelled. Our tour guide told us that while giving a tour one day and discussing this monument, a man approached her and told her that he had a relative who would wait until a large group of friends had gathered and then they would all run down the street at once so that the guard could not catch them and take down their name.
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| White Rose Society Monument |
We also learned about the White Rose Society. There were a few medical students who treated soldiers as part of their education. They heard the soldiers brag about torturing and killing Jews and they were horrified. When they returned, these students were joined by a few others and a professor and they called themselves the White Rose Society. Together they printed up leaflets exposing the Nazi's real agenda then they would mail them to random addresses or leave them outside of classrooms. The students were caught spreading leaflets by the janitor of the university and they were imprisoned or executed. Their last leaflet was smuggled out of the country and eventually made it's way to Great Britain. Millions of copies were made and dropped by airplanes over Germany. Some of the copies were even dropped down into the prison yard of one of the members.
As part of his propaganda, Hitler had a museum with all the "right" kind of artwork (I imagine they were paintings of blue eyed, blond haired, obedient citizens etc.) Just down the street Hitler displayed the "wrong" kind of artwork in an exhibition called Degenerate Art. The purpose was to contrast the two types of art and make people feel disgusted by the the works of artists like van Gogh and Picasso. Instead, people lined up to see this "wrong" artwork. They loved the modern art, so Hitler's plan completely backfired.
I really appreciated hearing these stories of rebellion. I thought the tour guides did a good job of showing both sides of Munich during WWII. They also pointed out that Germans are very good at facing their mistakes in history. Munich in particular has countless monuments to victims of the Nazis and those that rebelled against them. They also fight against Neo-Nazis. It's illegal to give the Hitler salute even as a joke. You will be fined, jailed, and put on Interpol's list of Neo-Nazis.
On a more light-hearted note, at one point in our tour our guide pointed out the statue of Orlande de Lassus. After Michael Jackson died, his biggest fans in Munich took over the statue and covered it with photos of him and held candle lit vigils at two in the morning while singing his songs. The fans chose this particular statue because of its location in front of Bayerischer Hof, Michael’s favorite hotel in Munich. What the fans didn’t realize was that de Lassus was a child prodigy who was so famous that different royal families would kidnap him to perform in his courts. So the Michael Jackson fans hijacked a child prodigy’s statue haha!
For Germans, Christmas Eve is more special than Christmas day, so all the grocery stores and most of the restaurants were closed. Lucky for Katie and I, the Hofbräuhaus was still open, so we headed there for dinner. The Hofbräuhaus is famous because the upstairs beer hall was where Hitler gave a speech and created the National Socialist Party. It’s also famous for its large mugs of beer. Since Dad always calls me his Beaner schnitzel I had to try some wiener schnitzel. It was delicious!
After dinner we headed back to the hostel to take a nap before going to midnight mass at St. Peter's Church The church was beautiful and listening to mass in German was rather interesting. I especially enjoyed hearing traditional songs like "Silent Night" sung in German. The choir was truly spectacular! Some of the members sounded like they could be opera singers! The church itself was interesting because when the clock tower was rebuilt they put on extra clock faces from other destroyed buildings so that in the end the tower had eight clocks in total. There is also a cannonball in one of the walls from a war. Whenever it falls out, some passerby will see it and return it so that they can cement it back into place.
Katie and I slept in a bit on Christmas but then we headed back to
the main square to go on a walking tour of Munich. Once again, we learned too much retell in this post, but I'll mention a few things. Our tour started outside the New Town Hall which is home to the Rathaus-Glockenspiel. We also saw the Frauenkirche (Cathedral of Our Dear Lady) which has the "Devil's footstep" on the floor in the back of it. According to legend the Devil agreed to fund the building of the church if the architect would put in no windows. The architect agreed but ultimately tricked the Devil into by strategically placing columns along the sides so that the Devil could not see the windows from where he stood. The Devil was so angry to find out that he was tricked that he stamped his foot and made a print in the floor of the church. Many of the churches in Munich have old headstones attached to the bottom of the walls. This is because many of the cemeteries next to churches were destroyed by war and bombings and the surviving headstones were put on the outside of church walls. The cemeteries were paved over or built over, but the headstones serve as a reminder for what was once there.
We had three roommates from Texas who were traveling around Europe during their Christmas Break and we went out to eat with them. It was a lot less crazy than eating Hofbräuhaus which was kind of nice. I ordered an apricot strudel that came out piping hot on a plate with ice cream. It was a perfectly scrumptious end to our Christmas travels. Katie and I flew back to Ireland the next day where we collapsed into our beds from exhaustion.
Early Monday morning Claire and I hopped on a train to Seville. As we traveled we got to watch the sun rise over the Spanish countryside. There were the most interesting trees spread across the grassy plateaus. When we finally arrived in Seville we picked up a map at the train station and made our way to the hostel. It was a bit confusing finding it amid the tangle of streets but we succeeded! The hostel is run by a woman named Silvia who was incredibly welcoming and friendly. She gave us a tour of the hostel and kept calling it our home. Our "home" was about 500 years old and was a beautiful four floor building with three rooftop patios. Claire
Our guide also took us through the Jewish Quarter. We learned that the streets weren't just made narrow and twisting to keep the sun out, but also to make it difficult for authorities to capture the Jews during times of persecution. They would get lost in the maze of streets or they would be unable to turn around on their horses. There is a street called Calle de Muerte or Street of Death because it was the site of a large number of executions. In fact, a young Jewish girl named Susana who was in love with a Spanish soldier lived on this street. She overheard her father and other men planning their revenge against the Catholics and she ran to warn her boyfriend. He used the information to kill all her family and friends, so she hung herself. I know it's a depressing story but the interesting part is that she requested that her skull be placed in the wall beneath the window as a warning to other girls who chose their lovers over their families. Creepy!
