Now I Finally Understand Munich

I would have preferred not to, though.

Courtesy of Munich Travel

So many hours of my life have passed sitting at these sturdy, wooden tables. More often than not, I sat there with other people sipping happily on cold liter mugs of Munich’s Hofbrauhaus beer. Like most present, I waited for the Bavarian band to start playing; and like most, I reveled in the near perfection of one of Munich’s genuine gifts to humankind.

On many other occasions, I sat alone, eating crunchy, crisp, and sometimes spicy radishes. To drink alone, you need to arrive early. More than once, I have been the first patron at the Hofbrau on the Platzl, where it has stood since 1607 (!!). On those mornings, I was either in transit mode to the U.S., having arrived early from Russia and not due to depart until early evening, or I was in what I call my “historical nomad” mode. I often take these journeys through time, albeit a lot less since my son became active and interested in life.

Historical nomadic journeys require a lot of energy, which explains why I do them less frequently. They require me to dig deep into my head, shake my brain up a bit, so the multitude of historical details can break free and float to the top. I liken the process to a snow globe only instead of their being a uniform array of faux snow whirling and twirling about, in my journey the bits and pieces are smells, sounds, moods, songs, tastes, motion, and just an overall ambiance from the year or era to which I have journeyed.

More than once, I took trips to Munich by myself so that I would be in the city on November 8th and 9th. On these dates, the former corporal assigned to spy on revolutionaries in Munich took over the revolutionary movement. Hitler launched his infamous beer hall putsch, which turned out to be as disorganized but historically significant as January 6th, 2021. Hitler failed epically and despite engaging the police and army in gunfire backed up by thousands of supporters, the Austrian from a small town outside of Linz escaped south into the small farm towns of Bavaria within sight of what would shortly become his hidden lair in the mountains, Obersalzburg.

I once printed out some pages from a morning newspaper from November 9th. I found them on a Google archive and read them that morning as I sipped a beer and breakfasted on Munich’s famous white sausages. Historians talk about how life was normal on November 9th despite reports of the coup. As I read about the event of the “night before,” I took a deep breath and filled my nose with the sweet, cozy smell of sauerkraut and grilling sausages. I looked around at the locals, many absorbing newspapers while sipping slowly on frothy wheat beers. Bells pealed somewhere in the distance. I could see Hitler and his future fascist murderers nervously wondering if they had indeed seized power. I was fully immersed in that moment.

As the day wore on and morning beers eventually became a couple of frothy lagers at lunch with grilled duck and red cabbage with hints of apples, I was going deep into my journey. The more buzzed you get, the more active you become as a nomad. I slipped out onto the early evening streets. Crowds of people were giddy about the season’s first snowfall. It was a wet one, but nonetheless, it made everything look magical, and the warmth emanating from the beer hall windows was much more inviting. I decided to go over to the square where Hitler and his people fought the police and where it all ended, the Feldherrnhalle.

As I zipped through the crowd, I was surfacing in and out of the present time. When you know history well enough and have seen many images of how things used to be, you can implant them into the present. Sounds crazy? Try this: Have you ever gone to a childhood house, park, or store, and found yourself shocked at how different it looks? As you stand and stare, you can see in your mind how the tiny sapling that stood in the middle of the yard is now a full-grown pine tree. You see that where the basketball hoop once stood, affixed to the garage, now there are just two metal arms reaching but holding nothing. You stand staring at the brick wall just below the kitchen window, and you can still see — and hear — your mother telling you not to throw the baseball against the wall in that spot. Like I said, if you know history well enough, you can superimpose it upon the present.

And so there I was bobbing and weaving through the past and present. I imagined people were murmuring about the coup underway. As I moved closer to the square waiting to “hear” the gun fire, which missed Hitler by about as much as Trump was missed in July last year in Pennsylvania, I passed the eternal flame that burns in honor of the millions and millions of victims of Nazi Germany’s genocide. I watched some Germans in the present walk past the flame, and no one paid it any heed.

In 1923, this square existed as it does today, but without the hiss of those flames licking the sky. In 1923, as residents of Munich nervously laughed and discussed the potential for having someone like a nationalist take over their government, would any of them have believed me if I pointed to that square with the eternal flame and told them what it represented? Probably not. Actually, definitely not. What transpired between 1933 and 1945 is impossible for a sane person to conceive.

On my journeys, all of the people in the present time represent faces from then, when Germany was transitioning law by law, month by month from a leading, cultured society whose many traditions over the years had so shaped our own country thanks to steady waves of immigrants to a country that would somehow justify turning its fellow citizens into lampshades, soap, and melt down the gold teeth to hoarde stolen wealth. It still seems inconceivable.

There is one tavern in the city center, where Paulaner beer is served, which is popular among octogenarians. Once in 2010, I sat and watched a table of men and women well into their 80s eat lunch and sip beers. They were polite, and it seemed like life had been good. If they were, say, 82 in 2010, that means that during Hitler’s reign, they were older enough to have been educated in the fascist system. They were young enough then not to know any better and regard Hitler as the god he was for many Germans. I watched them closely and tried to imagine how they and their friends, parents, and relatives from then slowly but surely took to fascism.

They became so fanatical that they went on to slaughter the citizens of other countries because “he” told them it was okay. Germany, after all, was supposed to be “above everyone else.” Many in German society, the Jews, communists, and gays, were vermin that needed to be exterminated. And unquestioningly, they did — they fulfilled his commands and seemingly with little regret.

I was in Munich the other day for a day and a night. The desire to journey into the past and try to figure out how the German people allowed themselves to accept the obvious lies and hate of Hitler was gone. Suddenly, I was no longer stumped by the fall of a sane and civilized society that became a nation of serial killers. Trump’s presidency, and the willingness of the MAGA cult to tolerate every injustice and indignity he puts forth, has ended my search for meaning in German society in the 1030s. Our society has become what Germany was in 1933.

The FBI, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, etc., have all been compromised. The foundations for Hitler’s Germany have been laid, and now it’s just a matter of time.

Unless we fight back. As I noted above, if I could go back in time and point to that spot under the two chestnut trees on a side street in the center of Munich where the eternal flame burns, and tell people in 1923, 1933, about how many millions would be murdered by their glorious and sane German society, would they believe it? No, probably.

If I point to a random patch of land near the Mall in Washington and tell people today that one day there will be a monument to the millions killed during Trump’s fascist reign, will anyone believe me? Most will say I am exaggerating.

Let’s hope I am, but let’s prove me wrong. I will happily be wrong.