Munich: The Third Reich and Dachau

Originally, I was going to only write one post about our 2.5 days in Munich, but since yesterday’s was 100% about booze, I decided I would separate the drunk part of our trip from the sober part because Munich does have a lot to offer besides beer.

Though, the first thing you should do is go to the Hofbrauhaus when you get to Munich.

The SECOND thing you should do is go see the city.

I’m a big fan of walking tours – especially cheap/free ones.  Today we had planned to go on two.  The first of which was a Third Reich Tour around downtown Munich and the other was a tour to Dachau which is a town about 30 minutes outside of Munich and is home to the first Nazi Concentration Camp.

The Third Reich Tour was amazing. We met up with our guide who was from the states and who walked us all around Munich telling us the story of Hilter’s rise to power starting at the beginning. We learned all about the Nazi Party, Hitler’s first political speech at the Hofbrauhaus, the Nazi headquarters building, the struggle between the Nazi’s and the Communists for power in Germany and the similarities between the rise of the Nazi party and current events.

Turns out, when Hitler declared “war” against the communists, he did so by blaming a terrorist attack on them and getting the people to believe that communists were all terrorists. In doing this, he instated a law that any person could be arrested if they were believed to be a potential terrorist and for no other reason.  These terrorist prisoners were all sent to Dachau, which was setup as a holding ground for political terrorists, but turned into the first concentration camp.  Some of this just sounds way to similar to some things going on in the world right now.

In addition to all the history, we learned about how the Nazi party and it’s reputation has impacted present day Germany.  It is still illegal to do the “Hail Hitler” salute and if you are caught doing it (for any reason, no matter who you are and how much you’ve had to drink) you will go to jail, and your fine is 1 month’s salary of whatever you make. Cuh-razy!

Dachau was amazing as well.  There’s not really a lot I can say about concentration camps other than, you need to go to one. Walking around this place, the bunkers, the maintenance halls, the torture rooms, gas chambers and extensive open yard space really made you feel a bit eerie. Each room brought more stories of prisoners being forced to stand for hours in one spot, being tortured and beaten by guards and living on the smallest of small rations.  And the most shocking part of the whole thing for me, was that Dachau was actually used as a “model” concentration camp and was the one that was always filmed and photographed to send propaganda that the camps were really not that bad.  We saw radiators in each torture chamber and when journalists came to see the camp, these were always turned on and happy plump looking prisoners put into the cells they contained.  And although I had heard stories of gas chambers and mass executions hundreds of times in school, seeing them for my own eyes was just.  Unbelievable.

It was absolutely incredible.

Comments

[Vincent]

you: "Turns out, when Hitler declared “war” against the communists, he did so by blaming a terrorist attack on them and getting the people to believe that communists were all terrorists. In doing this, he instated a law that any person could be arrested if they were believed to be a potential terrorist and for no other reason. These terrorist prisoners were all sent to Dachau, which was setup as a holding ground for political terrorists, but turned into the first concentration camp. Some of this just sounds way to similar to some things going on in the world right now."

me: So are you saying Bush blew up the Twin Towers to declare war on the Middle East? Surely you are a better American patriot than this and don't REALLY think that! Please clarify!

[Abbey Hesser]

@Vincent - wow. Well. I see where you could have drawn some conclusions from what you read, but here's my rebuttal. First off, making the leap to "I thought that Bush blew up the Twin Towers" is a big one to make. I would understand if you inferred that I thought the declaration of war on terrorism was linked to the Nazis or that I oppose the law calling for immediate detainment of suspected terrorists irregardless of just speculation. But to jump to I thought Bush blew up the WTC? C'mon. I'm actually surprised an intelligent person like you jumped to such rash conclusions.

I do not believe 9/11 was a conspiracy. I don't believe Bush blew up the WTC. Bush also didn't declare war on the middle east, he declared war on terrorism. Entirely different. I also, am not implying that any decision Bush, or any other politician made are directly correlated to decisions Hitler made. All I am trying to say, is that there are similarities to events and decisions politicians made in the past, and events that happen today. It's easy to think that a tragedy like the Holocaust is a mistake history could never repeat, yet, there are places all over the world right now where races are being exterminated and there are prejudices, even in the US, which could result in genocide.

The statements I made had nothing to do with Bush. Nothing to do with 9/11. If anything, it had to do with the detainment process for racially profiled potential terrorists. But I'm not even bold enough to say that I know enough about what is going on with terrorist detainment (or that anyone is, for that matter) or any of this mess about water-boarding or any other tactic.

All I'm saying is that we should keep our eyes open. And to not be so naive to think that even recent horrific history, can't repeat itself.

Hopefully that clears everything up.