Back in Germany

Our last day touring Europe started early. Very early. We left the Luzern hostel at 6:00 AM, breakfast packets in hand, to make our appointment at Neuschwanstein. All of us (except Rens I hope) seemed to get some more sleep on the drive into Germany. The bus was so silent, Rens said “Craig, the whole family is asleep.” Because the bus is completely full this year, I mostly got to sit in the “jump seat” – the fold down chair that is beside the driver’s seat. I usually have two seats right behind Rens – one for me and one for all my books, binders, maps, documents, etc. But I pared down the amount of stuff that I took this year. Smart travellers always pack less – nobody comes back from a trip saying “next time I’m going to bring more stuff with me.”
Neuschwanstein is the castle of our childhood fairy tales. Ludwig II chose to surround himself with the epic stories of Richard Wagner’s operas – making this castle a tribute to the great German composer and his work. Ludwig only got to live here for a few months in the 1/3 of the castle that was completed at that time – as King of Bavaria he was emptying the state’s coffers with all of his elaborate building projects, and was declared unfit to rule by reason of insanity and taken away from his fairytale castle to a hospital where he and his psychiatrist were both found dead in the lake the next day.
During WW II, the Nazis looted much of the great art of Europe, and a large quantity of it was stored here in the unfinished rooms of the castle. A team of mostly American academics joined forces with the military in a team nicknamed “the Monuments Men”. Their mission was to recover the stolen art treasure of Europe and return them to their rightful owners (whether they be churches, museums, or individuals). There’s a great film about the whole Nazi obsession with stealing art and the post war recovery process – it’s called “The Rape of Europa”. Highly recommended, especially for those who have been on the trip, as it highlights many of the great art pieces that we visit, including the Bruges Madonna, the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, and the David. There’s also a book about it called “Rescuing DaVinci”.
After Neuschwanstein, our tour turned from the Romantic period of German history to the dark period of Nazism. Just outside of Munich is a mostly residential suburb called Dachau. The name of this town will forever be associated with the concentration camp established there in the weeks after Hitler took power in 1933. The camps original purpose was to house political dissidents (basically anyone who had vocally opposed Hitler’s rise to power). Dachau served as the model for the huge network of camps established and operated by the Nazis between 1933 – 1945, and also as the training ground for the violent SS – a place where they could learn cruelty and barbarism and use it to terrorize and murder “undesirable” people throughout the growing German empire. By the end of the war, more than 200 000 people had been imprisoned in Dachau, and ¼ of them perished here – worked to death, starved, or murdered outright. My wife’s uncle was a very young man when he was among the first group of American soldiers to liberate the camp. I’ve seen the grainy black and white pictures the military took – I can’t imagine what it would be like in person, in colour, experiencing this unspeakable devastation with all your senses. The students spent a long time in the museum before we toured through the roll call yard, the reconstructed barracks, the gas chamber and the crematorium. I would say this is not the ideal place to end a grand tour of Europe, but this is where if fit into the schedule. And it is essential that we understand what can happen when the basic values of freedom and tolerance are absent in a society, replaced by blind obedience and extreme nationalism.
Our last meal in Europe was at the Hofbrauhaus, a huge Bavarian beer hall (which caters to non-beer drinkers too with its huge buffet of Bavarian food (all sausages) and its all-star line-up of Bavarian entertainers.) It’s rowdy (in a controlled way) and fun, and a great way to end the last day in Europe – always a big hit with the kids and parents.