jleyrer::blog

Day 3 began with a Third Reich tour that kicked off near the Rathaus. It was led by a British guy who had moved to Munich a year earlier and (appropriately) knew a lot about the Third Reich.

The tour’s first stop was next to the former Sterneckerbraukeller where Adolf Hitler was sent by the Army in September of 1919 to spy on the German Workers’ Party (DAP). Here, he ultimately ended up giving his first political speech, in reaction to what one of the DAP members said onstage about the need for Bavaria to secede from Germany and join Austria. This building now hosts a company that sells and repairs Apple products.

Next, we moved on to the private dining hall at the Hofbrauhaus where Hitler delivered many speeches.

According to our guide, the stage and backdrop are the same today as they were during Hitler’s rise to power. As our guide led us downstairs, he stopped us to mention something interesting about the ceiling of the Hofbrauhaus’ main dining room. Hofbrauhaus doesn’t like to advertise this, but at one point in time its ceiling was covered in swastikas that got painted over sometime after the war. Well, the paint they used was cheap and over time has gradually faded so that it is a noticeably different color than the paint surrounding it. The guide told us not to make too big a deal of it since doing so annoys the Hofbrauhaus employees. I was able to take a picture anyway.

Next we headed to the site where Hitler’s infamous Beer Hall Putsch ended, near Odeonsplatz. Odeonsplatz, bordered on the west by the Felderrnhalle, was the site where Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor and was host to many S.S. induction ceremonies and Putsch anniversary celebrations.

From the south side of Felderrnhalle:

After a coffee/restroom break at a coffee shop on the edge of Odeonsplatz, we continued on to the former S.A. headquarters, which is now a bank.

After hearing a bit about the S.A. and how their role in the NSDAP changed over time, we continued on to our final stop of the tour, Königsplatz.

Königsplatz is currently surrounded by Munich’s gallery and museum quarter, but during the Third Reich it served as a site for the Nazi party’s mass rallies. Just to the south of Königsplatz is the Führerbau, which was home to Adolf Hitler’s office and was where the Munich Agreement was signed in 1938. Today, it is the Munich School of Music and Theater.

At the conclusion of the tour, Karol went back to take a shower while Adam and I went back to the Augustiner beer hall for dinner and yes, beer. This time I opted for some “Brewer’s” Goulash, and was I ever happy with that decision. It was a big mess of stewed beef, goulash gravy, and chopped up potatoes and carrots. I didn’t get a picture of this one, likely because I was too busy stuffing my face.

After an hour or so, Karol met up with us and we each put down a few more rounds of beers and soft pretzels.

Later on, we decided to give Schwabinger 7 another try since it seemed like it would be a cool place if we could get there before it hit capacity. So we did, and this time was a lot better. We managed to get seats up at the bar and had a good time chatting with the bartenders. Our battle stations manned, we settled in for a night of cheap drinkin’ (relative to other places we’d been). The verdict afterwards was that Schwabinger 7 was easily the coolest bar we found while in Munich.

After finishing up at Schwabinger 7, we headed back to the hostel for some much needed rest. Well ok, maybe we visited the hostel bar one more time before bed…

Day 2 began with the sounds of construction. Though I admit we slept in later than we probably should have (almost noon), adjusting to a new time zone is even harder when someone is pounding nails right outside your door. By now, most everyone else in our 8-bed room had already gotten up and left, so I figured there was no time like the present.

After getting cleaned up, Karol and I headed out to stroll around town for a while. Adam was nowhere to be seen, so we took off without him. We all had working cell phones so I figured we’d meet up eventually. We stayed mostly south and west of the Hauptbahnhof, which is an area I hadn’t explored the last time I was in Munich. Along the way we passed some pretty cool-looking buildings like this church:

Before long we were thirsty/hungry and happened upon the Hacker-Pschorr Bier Hall. This beer hall is MASSIVE, though it was virtually empty since we were there so early. Karol and I promptly ordered beers (of course!); he had pumpkin soup with pretzels and I had a goulash soup that was truly awesome.

Also, it’s worth noting that Hacker-Pschorr has the largest bathroom I’ve ever seen and probably will ever see in my lifetime. It’s square footage dwarfs the dining rooms of most restaurants in Chicago. No, I don’t have pictures.

From Hacker-Pschorr, we slowly made our way back to the hostel. Unfortunately, it was snowing at the time.

In front of the hostel, we just happened to run into Adam who had woken up only about a half hour earlier. By now it was late afternoon and we headed into the hostel bar, armed with Karol’s computer, in order to look up things to do that night. We found a handful of bars up on Munich’s north side that sounded interesting and after hanging out for a few hours, decided to check them out.

First up was Schwabinger 7. Though the atmosphere in there was cool, it was totally packed and we really couldn’t make it very far into the place. Note to anyone who visits this bar: Watch out for the last step on the way in! I was the first one in the door and got almost up to the bar before stumbling over this hidden step. I recovered though, with minimal laughter from Karol who was right behind me. Adam must not have seen this because he did the same thing, except he went down… hard. I think he face planted into the base of the bar, knocking into a girl sitting unsuspectingly nearby. That was about it for our first Schwabinger experience.

We moved on to bar #2 (I don’t remember its name) hoping it would be a little less crowded. It was. Though the description we found said it was a rock music bar, it had a lounge atmosphere and they were blasting jazz. It wasn’t a bad place, but it wasn’t really what we were looking for at that point. We stayed for a drink, though, and Karol opted for a shot of absinthe complete with melted sugar.

We left in search of bars #3 and #4 which, in hindsight, was a terrible idea. We walked for what seemed like forever in a cold rain/snow mix and could not find either of these damn places. Finally, we called it quits. Since we had fun at the hostel bar the night before, we retreated to there.

Back at the hostel bar, we met three Irish folks (2 girls / 1 guy) and a drunken asshole from Boston, who we just referred to as “Boston”. We didn’t last as long as we did the night before, but put in a good showing nonetheless.