Back to the last couple days of the trip:
Sunday, August 25
Brother and I went to the Stadtmuseum, the City Museum of Munich. In the ticket lobby is a model of modern downtown Munich. This bit shows the Our Lady Church, the City Hall, and the ruler’s Residence.
Their biggest exhibit in the museum is Typically Munich, a look at life was like in Munich through the ages. The exhibit was created in 2008 to mark the 850th anniversary of the founding of the city in 1158. It begins with another model of the city, this one showing the city in the 1500s. This photo shows the Our Lady Church and St. Peter’s Church looking from the north.
Also in the mid millennial display is series of Morris dancers. Here’s one of them.
There is also a set of combative cherubs. They were taken from a fountain in front of the City Hall (copies are there now) and represent battling the four evils of the Medieval Age: war, hunger, disease, and … heresy. This one is battling a dragon, but I don’t know what that represents.
The other floors of the exhibit show things from the 1800s, 1900s, and into this century. I didn’t take any more pictures.
Lunch was a bit of an adventure because so many places were closed on Sunday. One place open was the outdoor cafeteria in the nearby VictulienMarkt. I got a sausage and a kraut salad (not sauerkraut, just cabbage). Brother got goulash, which looked pretty good and made me wish I had gotten that. I wonder why the maker of the condiment packets thought it was appropriate to put the mustard in a red package.
Back to the museum, this time to an exhibit of the Nazi party. This is important to have here because the party began in Munich and considered the city to be its home, even after it moved to the seat of power in Berlin. The displays show the start of the party, then its effect in Munich. That included the creation of the nearby Dachau concentration camp, which trained leaders of other camps, including how to efficiently murder. The rise of the party is quite interesting because of its parallels in today’s America. However, when the exhibits started talking about the brutality of the regime once in power I stopped playing the English narration.
The Nazis got its start because Germany had been badly defeated in WWI and had a hard time rebuilding because of excessive reparations paid to other countries for causing the war. The previous system of government, the Kaiser and local Kings and Dukes, had collapsed. Just before the war ended there was a big demonstration in Munich declaring the start of a Bavarian Republic. King Ludwig III decided it was prudent for him to get out of town that night. So there was no central government and no tradition of democracy or parliamentary rule to manage the country.
The Weimar Republic tried, but that government is best known for extremely high levels of inflation.
And here comes a guy with someone to blame it all on. The crowds loved that idea and the conviction and charisma of the guy espousing it.
So what’s America’s excuse? We have a strong economy and a functioning government.
When Hitler was given the role of Chancellor in 1933 the heads of other parties thought they could control him. But Hitler moved quickly to consolidate power. He installed loyalists in key government positions and began outlawing other parties. In just a few months he had control and began persecuting political opponents. And Jews.
Shortly after Dachau was created there was a document about it. All propaganda. Short version: Dachau is a really pleasant place which is much too good for the monsters who are imprisoned there. Yeah, inmates were described in the most vile way possible (the same way the American nasty guy describes Muslims and Mexicans) but not to worry the camp leadership will make sure they never get out.
I went on to another display in the museum, one all about puppets and marionettes. Well into the 20th century various marionette theaters produced shows across Germany. Some of them were traveling troupes. Some of these troupes, sometimes decades after they stopped working, gave their materials to the Stadtmuseum. The property of one traveling troupe had perhaps 20 marionette bodies, a few dozen different heads, and a broad inventory of costumes. They could tell a broad repertoire of stories.
Here’s some of the characters from a more modern troupe made out of the German equivalent of the mid century Erector Set.
After we left the museum Brother and I had some ice cream, then walked around downtown for a while. We had about three hours before our evening event. At about 6:30 I decided what I really wanted for supper was the goulash Brother had for lunch. So we went back to the cafeteria in the VictulienMarkt. Alas, they were at the end of their day and out of goulash. So I had the Leberkäse which, in spite of its name, is neither liver nor cheese. It is a loaf of meat with the consistency of American hot dogs. Servers slice off a chunk and slip it between halves of a roll.
After supper we attended a concert in they nearby Holy Ghost Church (see earlier posts for photos). This concert was two trumpets and organ. It was very nice, though only one piece was written after 1800, so by my tastes it was rather tame.
The concert was an hour. After that we walked back to the apartment and I was soon in bed.
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