Munich

Munich - darkometer rating : 4 - Capital city of Bavaria, which was once a kingdom of its own and is now the largest of the Federal Republic of Germany 's constituent regions/states (Länder). These days, Munich is more famous for beer festivals with oompah music and lederhosen, but the city also earns its place on the dark tourism map, mostly through having been the "capital of the movement", i.e. that of the Nazis , from the early 1920s through to the end of WWII . > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: Munich was in fact "officially" declared the "capital of the movement" ('Hauptstadt der Bewegung') by Adolf Hitler himself. It was here that his Nazi party ( NSDAP ) was founded in 1920, and it was here that the first attempt at seizing power took place in the "Hitler Putsch" of 1923. It failed and Hitler was "imprisoned" (comfortably) near Munich, nominally for five years, but he only did nine months' time. During that time he wrote, or rather dictated to his secretary Rudolf Hess, his infamous manifesto "Mein Kampf", It is, by the way, an exceptionally shoddy piece of near unreadable writing – not even counting its abominable contents. Later, after Hitler had successfully come to power in 1933, Munich became a kind of headquarters for the Nazis, even though the official government of the country as such took place from Berlin , of course. But the party HQ remained in Munich (see here ), and it was also in Munich that the Nazis had their first "shrines" to their "heroes", i.e. those killed in the failed putsch of 1923. Here they would hold their pompous ceremonies involving torches, guidons, goose-stepping and all … the sort of stuff that was later put to even greater effect in Nuremberg .