THE WRONG MUNICH?

ABBC report about Munich’s new Jewish Museum started a train of thought. Maybe it’s time to visit the city where it all started. Where Hitler settled as an unknown, where Nazism was born and grew, where the Putsch was attempted, where the SA was formed, where Germans voted for the Party in greater numbers than elsewhere, where the main synagogue was destroyed months even before Kristallnacht, and where the Nazis’ first camp was opened … where my father was imprisoned. After all, Berlin seems to give the impression of acknowledging its past: the vast memorial to Europe’s murdered Jews, the impressive Jewish Museum with its moving Holocaust annex, the carefully reconstructed Or anienburge r s t r a s s e Synagogue, the Topography of Terror, the Stolpersteine. I go online. But the official tourist website is puzzling and troubling. I can see no references to the city’s Nazi past. Or to Hitler. Or the Holocaust. The Jewish Museum is not among the pictured museums – I cannot locate it anywhere on the website. Have I missed something? But I’ve found a reference to the memorial to Sophie Scholl. She was the student, who, together with her brother Hans and some friends, printed leaflets urging Germans to rise up against the Nazi regime. They secretly distributed the leaflets at Munich University. But the caretaker saw them. They were arrested, tortured and guillotined. They deserve their memorial. But there do not appear to be many other memorials relating to that time. In Munich, I visit the tourist office. I buy a map and transport guide. There are 25 tourist sites listed – but nothing I wish to see. And no Jewish Museum? Is this the right Munich? Are there two Munichs in Germany? Have I come to the wrong one? I ask if there are any Stolpersteine, but am politely informed that the city does not permit these. I join a guided walking tour. We are led to the Michael Jackson shrine outside the hotel where he once stayed.Next, the model of Munich’s centre, created so that the visually impaired can physically feel the city with their hands – Germany always did respect its disabled. Next, the imposing Frauenkirche. But we are told nothing of its history and architecture – just in and out. I lose the will, apologise and leave. It must be the wrong Munich. But no – look at the map! There’s the Jewish Museum – not far away, down a side street. In Berlin, the Jewish Museum was signposted everywhere. Here, it’s secret, tucked away. It’s a strange square building. Windows only downstairs. Lots of brickwork and no windows for the floors above. I feel uncomfortable. I go upstairs to see the exhibits. There’s the usual collection of objects relating to Jewish ritual and customs. And a long timeline, but just with single sentences to cover the events. I hear taped voices of elderly Munich residents coming out of the wall. Is that all? Hundreds of years of Jewish life represented by just this? Maybe the second floor is better. But I find only a temporary exhibition of – well, I don’t know – it’s all very trendy and modern, but what does it all mean? There is hardly anyone else in the whole museum – not surprising really. Maybe those visitors walked in by mistake. Or it was too cold outside. The lady in the café is delighted to have a customer at last. Near the exit there is a bookshop – and it’s excellent. I must remember to recommend at least the bookshop. The Museum should just be this bookshop. Look, a historical guidebook detailing 52 places in Munich with Nazi connections. It’s surely a banned publication. I look around – luckily no one has seen me. I buy it and am grateful the assistant has furtively handed it over. But there’s a man coming towards me. I avert my eyes – phew, he’s walked by. The square outside is empty. I take out my guidebook. The new building opposite is a synagogue. The facades seem modelled on the Western Wall – with no windows. And there is a new Jewish community centre – with restaurant, crèche, meeting rooms, and armed guard. Are the three buildings a new ghetto? (‘You Jews go there, while we live here. What do you mean that’s not right? Our city has paid for it, so stop complaining!’) Secret book in hand, I return to the city centre and see it anew. Here is the site of the destroyed main synagogue, there is the road where the Nazi salute had to be given. Hitler lived in this house, Eva Braun lived in that one. Here is the Hofbräuhaus, where Hitler first stood up to proclaim his beliefs. And there was the gallery of the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition. Here the Luftwaffe had its headquarters. Hitler frequented the Café Heck there, and this is the Torbräu Hotel, where 22 men swore allegiance to Hitler, marking the birth of the SA. Shall I inform the hotel’s guests? Here was the shop where Hitler first met Eva Braun, and that was the Osteria, Hitler’s favourite restaurant. I locate the Palace of Justice where Sophie Scholl and her brother were taken and executed. I read that the main station had been due for reconstruction as the vast terminus for new superfast trains to take travellers across the ‘Greater Germanic Reich’. Here is the central police station, formerly home to interrogated and tortured prisoners before they were sent to camps. I learn that the mayor had been driven out of the New Town Hall in the Marienplatzfor refusing to hoist the swastika. Yes, it’s the right Munich. And the book also indicates Dachau. On the Munich transport map, Dachau is a suburban town, not a camp. Why didn’t they ever want to rename the town? People are clearly prepared to live in Dachau. The book states that the camp was established just two months after the Nazis won power – they certainly wasted no time. At Dachau Station, I notice a leaflet inviting me to stay at the ‘Youth Guesthouse Dachau’. It apparently has 4-bed and 2-bed rooms, each with shower/toilet, and there is TV, table tennis and billiards. Where I’m heading had different facilities. A bus stop is signposted ‘KZDenkmal’. So convenient – the actual words ‘concentration’ and ‘camp’ don’t appear. Of course, it’s not actually a camp – it’s a ‘Denkmal’ – a memorial – like a plaque or statue. (‘It’s a camp, stupid! Just say it, it won’t hurt!’) Coachloads of tourists and schoolchildren. I see Germany’s first-ever ‘Arbeit macht frei’ sign. An enormous site with vast, open spaces. Empty barracks and prisons. Dachau had its own gas chamber and crematorium, but they’re tiny compared with those at Auschwitz. An execution site in a corner. The area for the ashes. A museum with detailed displays and information – lots of numbers and dates and lists and photos and testimonies, which would take hours. A Carmelite convent, a Jewish memorial, a Catholic sanctuary and a Protestant chapel. Groups of visitors being shown around. Individuals listening on audio-guides. I visit the archives office. I give the official my father’s details, and he informs me: my father had arrived from Flossenbürg and was liberated on 29 April. I had never known these details, as my father had kept silent. Had he arrived on a death march? The official will research this and let me know. I leave my details, look around and leave. Can he be normal to work here every day, and then go home to his family? But they always said that about the SS. My head is full. So I take the train to the Olympic site. The Games were held here in 1972 (really so soon after the war?) and World Cup finals twice subsequently. The hills were rubble from the war. I see the spider’s web design that is such a feature. A very successful Games, I recall – except for just one thing. Here is the memorial to the 11 Israeli athletes and the one German police officer who died in 1972 when the terrorists struck and the Games were halted. The mention of the one German police officer seems odd in context – but his death must be acknowledged too. A German dying in his effort to save Jews, after all. Like Sophie Scholl. Looks good for the city. I return to the shops and the bustle. The most affluent part of Germany. Wonderful cakes and coffee. Expensive jewellery shops. Department stores heaving. My secret book is hidden. I got away with it. I am now a normal tourist. No one here knows why I have come. I am safe. On the flight back I wonder why, when so many cities’ airports have named their airports after their famous sons – John Lennon, George Best, JFK, Charles de Gaulle – Munich has not named its airport after its own Sophie Scholl. But then people will ask about her and discover what was happening then. Clearly Munich cannot erect the equivalent of blue plaques onto its buildings of Nazi and Holocaust interest. But it could acknowledge its past role a little bit more. Maybe like Berlin. Permit Stolpersteine. And add other sites onto its tourist website and into its guide books. Just to reassure tourists like me that they’re in the right city. David Wirth