Dachau sits 20 minutes outside of central Munich, but is a town in its own right. Bavaria (Bayern to the Germans) was (and remains to this day) a bastion of conservatism in Germany - and during the years prior to and during National Socialism, the Nazi Party enjoyed it's largest and most widespread support in Bavaria. This, combined with Bavaria being one of the largest and most populous states in Germany, meant that a lot of opposition (in terms of sheer numbers) occurred. To the Nazis, this presented a problem, and as such, they set up their second concentration camp (by only a few days) for political prisoners - and it primarily remained as a camp for political prisoners until the end of the war.
Dachau was founded as a "model camp," and was the camp upon which others in Germany were designed from. As with the other camps, the motto "Arbiet Macht Frei" - "Work will set you free."
While it is correct to say that it was not an "extermination camp" - it is not correct to say that prisoners were not murdered at Dachau. Each and every day prisoners were executed for "bad behaviour", from starvation, or suicide by falling onto the electrocuted fences that surrounded the camp. It was a terrible day when we visited - which added to the mood of it all - and our guide carefully informed us that the living conditions here - only just tolerable at first - quickly disintegrated as by 1944 more than 10 numbers the of prisoners that were planned for the camp were crammed into the living areas here.
For me, Dachau was a fascinating experience, and one that has stayed with me still a few days later. The thing I took away from the camp was how de-humanising the experience must have been for those involved. We heard from our guide that of the 112 people who survived at Dachau from 1933 to Liberation Day in 1945 were all forced to either commit acts of violence towards their fellow prisoners, or would work as school teachers for the children of Dachau and propogate the horrible teachings of National Socialism. But the thing that surprised me most was how small the camp was. I had an image in my mind of an enormous area, with buildings everywhere. The area could not have been bigger than 3 rugby fields, into which 30,000 people were crowded. Dachau was the last experience we had in Germany (and our trip in general) with the horrors of World War II. Despite my belief that I was very familiar with the overall history (and I generally was - I don't think it is pretentious of me to say so), it was much better to actually see it for myself, as well as to see the sites themselves made the history so much more real than just a "story" - which it had seemed somewhat.
To see areas that were bombed - and even now hadn't been rejuvenated (they were few and few between) was an experience in itself. But I'll move onto a slightly cheerier topic.
We headed into Munich - and decided to see the site of the 1972 Olympic Games. Unfortunately remembered as the games where Black September (the Palestinian terrorist group) captured 11 Israeli Olympic Team Members and murdered them.
But the site of the Olympics is impressive even today - and we took the lift up the Olympiaturm, for a great view over Munich.
Located next to the site is the BMW Headquarters, Museum and Welt (not totally sure what the last thing was - it wasn't a car dealership, nor a museum - I think it was just their "archive" essentially just a bunch of old BMWs. As none of us really care/are interested in cars - we skipped that - much to what I can imagine is the chagrin of all car lovers out there...
FOr our third site for the day, we visited Schloss Nymphenburg. Unfortunately, the palace closes at 4pm, and we arrived at 3:53, giving us exactly 7 minutes to visit the palace. Hmmmmmm.....
We only managed the gift shop and the walk to the ticket office.
It was but a tad freezing, so we headed back to the car, and to the hotel. Later in the evening we saw J. Edgar after an Italian meal next door. Unfortunately for me, the highlight of the movie was the ads, as that was when I was eating my Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. Honestly - I wouldn't bother with it - but Mum and Annabelle both liked it...
More to come tomorrow!
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