Family Visit To Munich, Day Four

We woke up the next morning, our final day in Munich, and decided to head to the Dachau concentration camp. We hopped on the U-Bahn, and then took a bus the rest of the way to the camp. As one would imagine, the atmosphere was much different than that at the castles a couple of days earlier. Though the atmosphere was pretty gloomy, it was a neat trip, and we learned a lot about the history of the area. We were able to walk through many of the building that the Third Reich used as a concentration camp from 1933-1945, during which time over 32,000 of the captives died. First, we walked through the barbed wire gateway, to the first building that had been full of cells. The building was left as it had been found, and we were able to see the horrible state in which the prisoners were forced to live. They even had smaller, solitary confinement cells, where one could not even have room to sit down. In addition, this first building contained the cell of Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the officer who unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1944. The second building we went in showed the normal housing in the camp. Each prisoner had a tiny bed, and they were packed in shoulder to shoulder in bunk-beds stacked three high. Hundreds and hundreds also shared one public bathroom at a time, and they also had a small locker, which if had so much as a fingerprint on it, they would be sent to solitary confinement or punished even worse. Many of the remaining buildings had been turned into a museum, dedicated to the horrible events that took place in Dachau. The museum even showed numerous scientific tests that were performed on prisoners in the camp, including hypothermia tests, low pressure experiments, infecting prisoners with malaria by strapping a cage of mosquitoes to their limbs, and even hitting prisoners with hammers to see how their bodies reacted. A lot of the exhibits at the museum were pretty gruesome just to look at. From there, we went to one of the final buildings, the gas chamber, and then to the mass gravesite behind it. The weirdest part was that right next to the gated camp and barbed-wire watchtowers were three separate churches. It’s strange to try to figure out how they thought the two different aspects were somehow connected. We headed out from Dachau and back into central Munich, and I think were all glad to out of there.

On the way home, we heard about a hunting and fishing museum near the Marienplatz, and asked the concierge at the hotel more about it once we got back. He thought we were talking about the Deutsches Museum, and sent us in that direction. The museum sounded really neat, and is surprisingly Germany’s most visited attraction. One of the largest technology museums in the world, it even houses entire submarines and ships. Unfortunately, when we got there, the museum had already closed. Come to find out, the hunting and fishing museum is completely separate, so it will give me something to see when I get back down to Munich. Since the museum was closed, we headed off to look for something for dinner. We wanted to try the Chinese Bier Garten at the Chinese Turm in the Englisher Garten, and started walking in that direction. We found the Englisher Garten, and asked for directions from there, knowing we were within one block. However, the Turm was in the center of the park, which was not lit at night, so we doubted we could ever find our way. Instead, we went to a small grill near the Marienplatz for schnitzel cordon bleu, and it turned out o be great. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel, and packed up our things for the next morning’s trip to Hannover.