Munich - the Third Reich walking tour

The skies were overcast but managed not to rain as we took a walking tour of places Hitler and his gang of thieves got their start in creating the Third Reich.  It was a 3 hour tour involving a walk of 4  miles, standing time while we got history lessons and NO sitting time.

Yesterday's excursion was almost 5 miles and when I woke up this morning I felt like someone had beat me with a stick!  The last thing I wanted to do was a walking tour, but it was prepaid and non-refundable.  We were to meet at Marienplatz a 3:00.  We went early so we could see a few more places around it.

We stopped in briefly at the Munich Cathedral, called Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady).  I have seen many magnificent Cathedrals in Europe, but this was not one.  I thought it rather plain.
Afterwards we went into St. Peter's Church, the oldest church in Munich, and it was more impressive.  One € 4.20 cup of cappuccino and we were off to meet our guide.

Frauenkirche (the Munich Dom)

First was the building in Marienplatz where, on Nov 8, 1938, the Nazis planned Krystallnaacht.

The building with the spire is the scene of the crime.

The Torbrau Hotel, the oldest in Munich, gave birth to the SS.  .

Hotel Torbrau

We were taken to Briemerstrasse, a main drag in Munich, where the Nazis marched in what was called the Beer Hall Putsch.  The police got wind of it and waited in the large square for the Nazis to emerge from the narrow street they were on.  It was a pitched gun battle, with 16 Nazis killed and 4 cops. The amazing thing was that Hitler and Goering and some others were in the front line, walking arm in arm.  A shot felled the man right next to Hitler and as he hit the ground he drug Hitler down with him.  Hitler dislocated his shoulder but  had no other injuries.

Hitler led charmed life.  There were so may times he could have died, from his sickly childhood, his time as a message runner in WWI (one of the most dangerous jobs.  He had to run in from trench to trench   Generally no one survived, but Hitler did.  He survived several assassination attempts including one in particular that made Hitler look like he had a guardian angel.  A fallen angel, to be sure, but he was protected by something.  A communist named Elsa planned to blow Hitler up as he was giving a speech.  This guy crept into the building night after night a meticulously planted a bomb inside the podium, and covered it with stucco, blending it in so it looked normal.  He set the clock on the bomb three days before Hitler's speech, to explode near the end of his speech.  However, his guardian angel intervened and brought such heavy, dense fog to Berlin that Hitler's flight back from Munich was cancelled.  It was decided that Hitler would have to take a train to Berlin, and to catch the train he had to leave 13 minutes earlier.  He was well out of the building when the bomb went off.

Hitler was a charismatic political genius who knew what buttons to push to appeal to the people. Blaming the Jews for the German loss of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles, the resulting collapse of he German economy and rampant inflation.  He was elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and promptly kicked the President to the curb and took over.  Opposition was handled by the SA (the brownshirts) who would crash opponents events and disrupt them with shouts and jeers, and frequently violence.  This is what every dictator in history has done.  They can tolerate nothing that doesn't conform to their ideology or further their agenda.  The opposition must be silenced.  The Press was his next victim, as only Nazi propaganda was allowed to be published.

Germany today is a very different place.  Holocaust denial is a crime.  So is displaying the Nazi flag or giving the Nazi salute.  Schoolchildren have been hammered with guilt for what happened long before they were born.  The sins of the father visited upon the children.

Our guide told us the story of a tourist (probably American) who thought it would be funny to stand on the spot where the battle of the beer hall putsch and give the Nazi salute.  A German woman saw it and informed on him to the police (which is in itself very Nazi-like).  The man was arrested and spent the night in jail!

Our tour guide, Alun, was a Welshman married to a German, so his English was perfect.  That is not always the case, even when a tour is marketed as English-speaking.  Some guides have such thick accents that make it difficult to understand what they are saying.

It was a very interesting tour and if every muscle in my back, legs and feet had not been screaming at me, I would have enjoyed it more.  That's one reason I do videos.  As I edit  our pictures from the comfort of my home,  I am not suffering from the excessive walking, or the rain, wind or cold.  I can appreciate things more.  Malta, for instance, was absolutely gorgeous.  But it was really windy and very cold, so I didn't enjoy the actual experience.  Yet my Malta videos are of beautiful places, and the wind isn't blowing.  I loved Malta once I got home, especially Gozo island.  This was the scene of the Dothraki wedding on Game of Thrones and I recognized it immediately!  But while I was there I was just cold.