Day 8 - Munich, Germany
For our last full day in Munich we went to talk to someone from a city council (at least I think that's where she was from) about the new Documentation Center for the History of Nazi Socialism that will be opening on April 30, 2015. (Picked because that is the day that the U.S. army came to Munich in 1945 to liberate Munich from the Nazis) The new center is being built on the former site of the Brown House, which was the administration center of the Nazi party and Hitler's headquarters. I wish that it opened while we were in Munich because the center looks very interesting. It will have a lot of windows looking out over the city and as people look at displays of events, they will be able to look out the window and see the sights today. There won't be any original artifacts because the site is connected with the perpetrators, not the victims, and it doesn't seem right to display objects connected with the perpetrators.
Afterwards, we each had to pick a topic of something that interested up from the places we had been in Munich and give a presentation on it. I talked about the Hitler Diaries, which actually turned out to be forgeries. I found it fascinating how easily the forger managed to pass off the forged diaries; historians were so caught up in the exciting find that they didn't notice all the inconsistencies at first (for instance, the diaries suggested that Hitler was not a part of the Nazi riots of 1938, that he had no idea what was going on at the concentration camps, and that he in fact did not want to execute the Jewish population, but deport them.) It was quite interesting.
Of course, the last part of the day was the Germany world cup game. We tried to go watch it at a restaurant or biergarten, but because it was raining, the entire city had the same idea and all the places were full 4 hours before the game even started. So we ended up watching in the hotel lobby with a bunch of other guests. No one even bothered watching the second half when Germany was up 5-0 after the first half. We'll be in Berlin for the finals - and Berlin will definitely be full of excitement.
Day 9 - Erlangen, Germany
Back to today. We got to Erlangen early in the afternoon. After settling in at the hotel (which is really nice) we went on a guided walking tour of the city. Erlangen is mostly a college town and it is full of little shops and narrow streets. It kind of feels like taking a step back in time. Our tour guide was this really cute elderly lady who quite obviously had a fondness for the history of the town. We learned a lot about all the old breweries (17!) that used to be in Erlangen. She brought us through this really pretty square where there used to be a brewery. Then she brought us into this old underground cellar from medieval times which someone had converted into a function hall area. Afterwards we walked up to the top of a hill where she showed us where they have a festival every year for 10 days starting on Pentecost. Their festival is actually 45 years older than Munich's Oktoberfest. We then walked through one of the tunnels where they used to store the beer to keep it cool during the summer (allowing them to sell the more popular winter brew all year long). There are 21 km of these tunnels within the hill. We then all went out to this really good Italian restaurant. Annoyingly, those of us who got water had to pay almost a full euro more than the people who got beer.
Erlangen
Downtown Erlangen.
Climbing down into the cellar.
Medieval cellar.
Entrance to the beer tunnel we used.
Inside the tunnels where they used to store beer.
These plates are outside of buildings across Germany and the rest of Europe. They memorialize the people who once lived in the buildings before being taken from their homes and sent to concentration camps, ghettos, etc.
Hauptstrasse (Center Street)
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