Our first full day in Munich was Sunday. We were excited to go to church and see our missionary friends, the Tews, whom we had met in the hotel restaurant the week before in Vienna. It was a wonderful meeting and, to me, very tender (I'll explain why in just a minute).
After the service, the Tew's took us to their apartment near the church and fed us the most delicious home-cooked meal. It felt like heaven being in their spirit-filled home with beautiful flowers, yummy smells coming from the kitchen, and uplifting music playing in the background.
Our dessert: rhubarb custard with cream. YUM!
Afterward, Elder Tew introduced their special guest book. We each took turns being blindfolded and drawing a pig! It was hilariously entertaining for all of us. Elder Tew was so encouraging, telling each one of us, "That's the best pig I've ever seen!" and "Wow! You're really good at this!" I'll spare you the pictures of our pigs but do have them on my phone if you are ever in need a of laugh.
Sister Tew is a talented artist and quilter, and she was kind enough to show us some of her work. She is also a master at creating a welcoming, beautiful atmosphere. We just felt so loved and cared for. We will always remember the Tews from Midway, Utah!
When it was time to return to our hotel, Elder Tew walked us to the train stop but first stopped by the mission office. It was so fun to meet some of the Elders serving in Munich from all over the world. Meeting the members in each country has been so fun, and the missionaries have been so great especially with our kids. I'm just so thankful to be part of such an incredible church!
We loved walking through the neighborhood with Elder Tew. This is his second mission to Germany, his first being in his twenties. He is so thankful for the chance to serve here again. We loved watching him interact in such a kind and encouraging way with the people of Munich. He always brought a smile to everyone's face. We were inspired by Elder Tew!
I mentioned that church was extra tender for me, and now I'll tell you why. This is my friend Jennifer (used to be Briethop). Our friendship goes back to my University Ward days in Reno. She served as my secretary when she was a brand new college freshman, and I was a 26-year-old Relief Society President. Anyway, when we were seated in our pew at church, a cute little family came in a bit late and sat a few rows ahead of us. After we had the sacrament, the mother of this little family was asked to come to the pulpit to share a message she had prepared. She walked up and faced the congregation, and I almost gasped. I whispered to Jeff, "That's my friend from Reno, Jen Briethop!" soon, our eyes met, and she stopped her message mid-sentence and said from the pulpit, "Wait, is that you, Hannah?!" I whispered and excited, "YES!" We had a wonderful reunion after the meeting in the mother's lounge as she nursed her new baby. Her husband accepted a research job at the University in Munich, and they had just moved there less than a month before. She told me that she was feeling alone and forgotten as they had had a lot of hard complications with moving with their three small children. But she said that seeing me was a reminder that God saw her and knew her. I felt the same. Just a little wink from our loving Father for both of us.
Norah really wanted to go to the Munich Zoo, so we celebrated her birthday and met up with Jennifer and her cute kids the next day. The zoo is always better with kids; we all enjoyed watching their cute reactions to the animals.
The Munich Zoo was fabulous! Lots of animals we had never seen and displayed in such a fun way with lots of nature to enjoy too.
Laurel was in heaven with this little cherub!
After our day together, we walked Jen and her kids to their train stop. It was hard to leave her in that busy, foreign city alone to navigate busses and trains with three young kids. She is so courageous and so strong! I told her I needed to take a picture of her at that very moment because someday she would look back and wonder how in the world she ever did this!
Our new 15-year-old Norah loved the chocolate treat Jen gave her, and she got another "cat" to add to her collection - a tiger. She now has three stuffed animals to carry around on this trip. According to her, it is well worth the hassle!
Our last day in Munich was spent in the city's main square. So many beautiful buildings and so much history! We took a walking tour and learned a little about the history of the Nazi Movement in Munich.
Here's our guide. She's pointing to an inscription that says, "To the members of the U.S. forces who liberated Munich from National Socialist tyranny on April 30, 1945." Our guide pointed out that this wasn't done until 1992 (almost 50 years later) and submitted that the Munich people created this and a few other memorials long after the war, finally coming to terms with what happened there. "Munich's shame" is a term that refers to the city's association with Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Next, we walked to the beer house, Hofbräuhaus, which was an important gathering place for the early Nazi Party members. Here, Adolf Hitler delivered numerous speeches, and the infamous Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 was launched from this location.
The Feldherrnhalle was the scene of a confrontation on Friday morning, 9 November 1923, between the Bavarian State Police and the followers of Adolf Hitler in which the Nazi Party attempted to storm the Bavarian Defense Ministry. This was the culmination of the Nazis' failed coup attempt to take over the Bavarian State, commonly referred to as the Beer Hall Putsch. In the ensuing gun battle, four policemen and 15 putschists were killed. Many more were wounded. As a result, Hitler was arrested and sentenced to a prison term.
After the Nazis took power in 1933, Hitler turned the Feldherrnhalle into a memorial to the Nazis killed during the failed putsch. A memorial to the fallen SA men was put up on its east side, opposite the location of the shootings, and this monument called the Mahnmal der Bewegung, was created. It was a rectangular structure listing the names of the "martyrs."This was under perpetual ceremonial guard by the SS. The square in front of the Feldherrnhalle (the Odeonsplatz) was used for SS parades and commemorative rallies. During some of these events, the sixteen dead were each commemorated by a temporary pillar placed in the Feldherrnhalle topped by a flame. New SS recruits took their oath of loyalty to Hitler in front of the memorial, and passers-by were expected to hail the site with the Nazi salute. There were guards stationed there at all times, ensuring Munich residents obediently saluted.
But some Munich residents were smarter. They used the small alley behind the Feldherrnhalle as a detour to get to where they needed to without giving the Hitler salute. This earned the little passage the name "Drückebergergasserl" (shirkers' alley). Today, golden paving stones commemorate this silent protest.
It was sobering to see photos of the places we were standing and imagine what happened under our feet. Here's an example:
We ended our tour at the Führerbau, "the Führer's building." It was built between 1933 and 1937 and used extensively by Hitler. Unlike many other buildings associated with the Nazis, the building still stands today. During the Nazi era, the building served as a symbolic building for Adolf Hitler. The building is also notable as the site of the signing of the historic 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Germany received the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Hitler himself signed the document in his office in the building.
After the German surrender, the US occupation forces used the Führerbau and the Nazi administrative building next door as the "Zentrale Sammelstelle" (Central Collecting Point), which stored looted art stolen by the Nazis all over Europe.
Today, the building houses the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. Its congress hall now serves as a concert venue. We were not allowed inside unless we had a student I.D., but they did let us have a peek at the atrium. We learned a bit about Nazi architecture which was fascinating to me. You can start a deep dive here if you're interested.
I found this image online of the room where Hitler signed the Munich Agreement. The fireplace and chandelier are unchanged.
After the tour, we made our way back to Marienplatz. For some reason, our phones weren't helping us navigate. But Jeff was sure he knew which way to go, and I was sure he was wrong, so just for fun, we split up (Norah with him, the other three with me) to see who would get there sooner. He was right, and we got lost for quite a while.
But it was a really scenic route with fresh roses, so it was fine! 😆 We figured out our phones right after that, thankfully.
The Rathaus-Glockenspiel is a large mechanical clock located in Marienplatz Square. It's famous for its life-size characters. Twice daily, the clock re-enacts scenes from Munich's history. First is the story of Duke Wilhelm V's marriage to Renata of Lorraine in 1568, followed by the story of the Schäfflerstanz, also known as the coopers' dance. We weren't lucky enough to see it move, but it was incredible! I found a video of it in action here (skip to about 1:15).
Jeff met a great guy from Chicago at church who recommended this restaurant just under the clock, so we went and tried some delicious traditional Bavarian food.
And it was delicious!
A heavy but great day in Munich.
The next morning, we woke up early and headed to the train station to go to Berlin. Another huge city! We arrived in the evening and wondered why our hotel was so busy and full of teenage kids. They were everywhere!
The next morning, as we ate breakfast, we realized I had booked a hotel right next to the East Berlin Wall Gallery—one of just a few fragments left of the Berlin Wall! This is the view from our Hotel. All those teens I mentioned before were students there to see it. What a stroke of luck!
We did a combo tour that day to learn about World War II and Cold War history. This time, we had an exceptional tour guide who was a master at helping us think and feel. I appreciated how he explained things to us but also gave us time to have our own discoveries and ah-ha moments. Here he is, standing in front of Brandenburg Gate, which became a very important symbol when Berlin was divided. With the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, the monument was in a restricted area and could be visited neither by East Berliners nor by people from the West. With the fall of the Wall in 1989, the Brandenburg Gate became a symbol of reunification. On December 22, 1989, the gate was opened to the cheers of more than 100,000 people. It also has a lot of history before this (Napoleon used the Brandenburg Gate for a triumphal procession before carrying the Gate's bronze quadriga statue back to Paris as spoils of war).
Throughout Berlin, you will see two little lines of bricks that show where the wall used to be. It was crazy to imagine that one day, the citizens had access to schools, shopping, family, etc., and then the next, they did not. I had no idea it was done so quickly—literally overnight in many parts of Berlin. If you need a refresher, I found a great short video that gives a great explanation of the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall here.
Back to World War II history, we headed to the heart of Berlin to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It spans almost 5 acres and is among the most impactful memorials I have ever experienced. Our guide gave us a quick explanation and time to walk around and experience it. He asked us to meet back at a specific spot after the time was up.
We started out together, but soon, we began going in different directions, thinking we'd circle back to everyone at the meeting place. The big concrete blocks started getting taller, and the ground sloped down. The blocks were so tall it was hard to even see the sky. I'd see snippets of people, but they would quickly disappear into the tall walls. I could imagine so many parallels to what I knew of the concentration camps and ghettos during World War II. Soon, I wanted to see what Jeff and the kids were experiencing so I started to look for them. I searched and searched, knowing they couldn't be too far away, but finding them seemed impossible. I felt a desperate feeling of wanting to find my family and thought of all of the mothers who had lost their husbands and children in the Holocaust and how desperate they must have felt. Finally, I walked out of the mass of cement blocks to our meeting place, but no one was there. I looked all over, and no group! No Jeff and kids! Had I taken so long that they moved on without me? Did they leave me?!
I started to feel frantic. I called Jeff, and there was no answer. I began crying. I think from both the experience of the memorial - feeling just a taste of what those mothers must have felt - and feeling like I might have been left behind and missed the other parts of the tour. Just then, I saw a group way at the other side of the memorial (remember, it's a big area). I noticed someone waving to me. I ran over and soon recognized it was Jeff and the kids with the rest of the group. Our tour guide moved the meeting place (I found out later that he did this intentionally). I was late, but not too late, and I was so happy to be with my family again that I had to try and control my tears as we walked to our next stop.
Our next stop was an apartment parking lot, or so we thought. This is actually where Hitler's bunker, "Führerbunker," was located. Here, he orchestrated the downfall of the capital of the Third Reich, married his mistress – Eva Braun – on April 29th, 1945, and one day later, committed suicide. The remains of the Führerbunker were flooded and eventually destroyed by the Soviet and East German authorities between 1945 and 1949. All that remains at this site today is a sign, added in 2006, outlining the dimensions of the bunkers and a timeline of events. You can read more here if you are interested.
Unlike the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe situated nearby, the German government takes care that while remembering the victims of National Socialism, it does nothing to celebrate the perpetrators – or chief perpetrator, Adolf Hitler, and his legacy.
Next, we went to the part of the city that still shows the wall as it was and turned the corner to see Checkpoint Charlie, an open-air museum dedicated to the best-known border crossing between East and West Berlin during the Cold War.
At the height of the Berlin Crisis in 1961, American and Soviet tanks faced each other here.
The spot on Friedrichstraße that now attracts huge crowds of tourists from Germany and abroad used to be a military checkpoint during the German division. You can learn more about it here.
Across from the Checkpoint, there was a temporary museum by a Berlin artist who grew up right next to the wall on the west side. He did an amazing job showing what it looked like from his side. There were also movies, audio, and photos that helped us get a feel for what it must have been like in West Berlin in the 1960s—80s.
After the museum, we walked to our last stop of the day. I quickly snapped a photo of these pink pipes we saw throughout the city. I looked it up, and basically, they channel groundwater from construction sites into the Spree River. Since there are always construction sites somewhere in Berlin, the pink (and sometimes blue) pipes are very present in the cityscape.
Our last stop was the Book Burning Memorial at Bebelplatz (we're smiling because we are so thankful for our incredible freedoms!). In the middle of the square on 10 May 1933, Nazi students burnt the works of hundreds of independent authors, journalists, philosophers and academics.
This reads in English:
"That was but a prelude;
where they burn books,
they will ultimately burn people as well."
Heinrich Heine 1820
It was beginning to rain, so it is not the best picture, but this was the Sunken Library Memorial. It shows what is missing. Underground, almost out of sight, no books, empty white shelves, directly under the Bebelplatz. "What was lost and burnt were the books by those who the Nazis ostracised and persecuted, who had to leave the country, and whose stories were no longer allowed to be told. Symbolically, the underground bookshelves have space for around 20,000 books, as a reminder of the 20,000 books that went up in flames here on 10 May 1933 at the behest of the Nazis." The Israeli artist Micha Ullman designed the library memorial, which was unveiled on 20 March 1995.
On our first day in Berlin, we took a river tour and learned about the historic Reichstag building, home of the German Parliament. The Reichstag dome is a powerful architectural symbol for the German people (and the rest of us). I love what Rick Steve's said about it. "German citizens climb its long spiral ramp around the mirrored cone and look down, literally over the shoulders of their legislators, to see what's on their desks. Jerked around too much by their politicians in the past century, Germans are determined to keep a closer eye on them from now on. This dome is designed to let them do exactly that. When the Reichstag first reopened, I climbed to the top of the dome and found myself surrounded by teary-eyed Germans. Anytime you're surrounded by teary-eyed Germans, something exceptional is going on. I noticed that most of those people were old enough to remember the difficult times after World War II, when their city lay in rubble. What an exciting moment for them: The opening of this grand building was the symbolic closing of a difficult chapter in the history of a great nation. No more division. No more communism. No more fascism. They had a united government entering a new century with a new capitol building, looking into a promising future."
The next day, it was time to pack up and get to the airport. We had about an hour and a half to walk down the East Berlin Wall Gallery by our hotel before he headed out. We enjoyed the meaningful and funky art by artists worldwide and felt gratitude for our freedoms like never before.
On our way to Krakow, Poland! Germany wasn't long enough, but we will never forget the lessons we learned there.
Until next time!
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