Munich, Dachau, and then back "home"

Trip Start May 13, 2008
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Trip End Sep 04, 2008


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Flag of Germany  , Bavaria,
Thursday, May 29, 2008

My time in Munich was conflicted.  Somehow, Munich has firmly established itself on the mainstream American-going-to-Europe route.  Instead of sharing a hostel with an eclectic mix of travelers from various parts of the world and with various worldviews, I was basically in a big, transplanted fraternity house.  Munich is the self-proclaimed beer capital of the world.  Though I did drink some beer, I did manage to avoid the Hofbrauhaus, the most (in)famous of all beer halls.  I did, however, take a great free walking tour, and saw such things as where Hitler attempted to seize control of Bavaria (southern province of Germany, the capital of which is Munich) but failed, after which time he went to prison for 11 months, wrote Mein Kampf, and decided that he would work within the system in order to gradually control Germany rather than simply seizing it in a coup d'état.  And also there were a bunch of old churches and stuff.  The Germans graciously share downtown Munich during this high tourism season, it seems, with more tourists than they do other Germans.  It's the classic cycle of a place being found to be great to visit by the masses, visited too much, then considered by the very people visiting it, such as myself, overly visited.  Why this detracts from the experience, I cannot figure out at this time, but it does.

Which brings me to Dachau.  Dachau was one of the first concentration camps, located a half-hour outside of Munich.  What made it unique is that it was the prototype camp on which most other camps were built.  It was also used to train guards, mostly aged 16-18, which went on to man however many other camps, so conditions were among the most brutal.  As if comparing one camp to another has much meaning.  Touring Dachau by far overshadowed the rest of my trip to Frankfurt, Munich, and back.  It's difficult to describe, but just imagine standing next to the actual, original crematoriums where unspeakable things were done, or walking through the actual, original, once-functional and used gas chambers, standing where many once stood for the last time.  At the beginning of the tour, meandering through sterile exhibits, with words and statistics, the concept was still distant, like reading it in a textbook, difficult to grasp.  I don't feel like myself, or very many people alive today, fully grasp the gravity of the situation, but I was not nonetheless, slowly, throughout the course of the afternoon, deeply jarred.
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