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Day 6 - Headed home

The hotel in Munich was right next to a train station so it was an easy ride to the airport. After the long flight to SFO, a 4 hour layover and quick hop to San Diego I was finally home. It was an awesome experience, but it's good to be home.

As my upgrade cleared after boarding, immediately before the airplane doors were closed, there was no time for preflight champagne. That's okay, plenty of time to drink on the 12 hour flight to San Francisco.

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Although he wasn't in easy company, my nephew Josh was part of the 101st. Instead of parachuting from planes, he hung out of helicopters on ropes.

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Day 5 - Berchtesgaden

As this trip was all about WWII battle fields, it’s very fitting our last day would be a tour of Kehlsteinhaus (later named Eagle’s Nest by the American Soldiers who “captured” it). We headed southeast out of Munich on the A8. The highway passes the beautiful lake Chiemsee as well as an endless expanse of farm land. We entered and exited Austria near the town of Salzburg before ascending into the mountains of Bavaria.  Our tour guide used the 2 hour ride to give us the history of the region. From spots in Munich like Hitler’s apartment which is now a police station to the list of Nazi higher ups that had properties around Berchtesgaden her vast knowledge was much appreciated. Most interesting was that because Hitler was afraid of heights he visited Kehlsteinhaus around 13 times. After switching buses at the visitor’s center, we headed up the steep hill to Eagle’s Nest. We walked through the tunnel which was filled with wine bottles when Easy company arrived in May of 1945. Then into the large elevator which took us up to the house.  It’s easy to see how intimidating this would have been to visitors. The tunnel is long, dark and the walls were wet with condensation.  The elevator was gold and mirrors, very ornate.  Once at the top, we walked the trail around the top of mountain. The views were amazing.  The house itself is now a restaurant with multiple dining rooms.  Only the fire place and ceiling give a clue to how it used to be.

We spent about 2 hours at the top.  Then back down to a restaurant by the visitors center for a quick lunch.  We stopped in Berchtesgaden for an hour before heading back to Munich.  As today was the Feast of Corpus Christi day none of the shops were open.  We spent the hour break sitting at an outside bar with a few cold beers.

As we all had a long day and early flights in the morning, dinner was at the hotel restaurant. It was nice to relax with a few drinks and reflect on the experiences of the week. We know that there is a lot of Germany that we didn’t get to on this trip. Hopefully there will be opportunities in the future to fill in the gaps.

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After the tour back to the central market place for beer and lunch. Dinner was at a really good Italian restaurant.

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Day 4 - Dachau

Leading up to the trip I thought the tour of Dachau would be the most emotional part of our time in Germany. That was not the case. Like our other days my dad booked a tour through a popular tour company. We met the guide and about 30 other participants at the Munich train station. We all took a local train to the Dachau station, then a short public bus ride to the camp.

From there our guide spent 2.5 hours walking us through the camp. If we had never heard of the Holocaust, maybe it would have been different, but his "script" seemed to me to downplay the atrocities that occurred here. Yes Dachau was a work camp. Yes it housed many different undesirables, Jews being a minority. When he walked us through the gas chamber and crematory he said there is no proof they were ever used. When asked why prisoners didn't try to escape one his reasons was that there was no where to go. The local population wouldn't help them. But later he mentioned how happy the local population was when the Americans liberated the camp.

The reality is that this camp is right in town. Everyone knew what was going on there. The prisoners where working in the factories. They could smell the dead bodies. And they did nothing about it. Instead of the guide, I would have liked to have listened to the audio device available at the visitors center. And toured at my own pace.

Looking back from the assembly yard to the administration building where prisoners were first brought.

Work Sets You Free

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For dinner we ventured out to the Hofbräukeller Biergarten. It truly was a garden. The outdoor setting surrounded by trees was very comfortable. Both the beer and food were great. This Biergarten is more of a locals place. It was nice to get a sense of the local style. Also it's nice that the sun doesn't set until after 9pm.

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After checking into the hotel it was a short walk to Marienplatz for lunch and beer.

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Sign at the train station directing Ukraine refugees. We've seen Ukraine flags and memorials all over Berlin and a bit in Munich.

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Day 3 Berlin to Munich

First thing in the morning we said Auf Wiedersehen to Berlin. From the main train station we caught the ICE service over to Munich. It took about 4 hours with not much other than farm land as scenery. It was good to decompress and try to digest everything we experienced thus far.

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Walk signs in east Berlin are pretty cool. Looks like the guy is wearing a hat.

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Throughout the city are old buildings with bullet holes from the war still visible.

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This tiny window in the middle of Bebelplatz is in commemoration of the book burnings in 1933. It is estimated that 20000 books were burned. Through the plexiglass you could see empty bookshelves that could hold all those burned books.

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This out of the way park and sculptures was probably the most poignant of the day. Hitler wanted Berlin free of Jews and many were carted off to the camps.

The very last to go were veterans of the German army from WWI and those married to high class non-jews. Those remaining men were gathered up and held in a building on this site to await trucks to take them to the train station to eventually end up in Auschwitz.

On the day they were set to be shipped out, there were a few hundred protesters that blocked the trucks from coming down the street to pick up the men. Because of this protest all these men survived.

The blocks in the foreground depict just that. In the background there is a bench with a lone person sitting, not wanting to get involved. We can only imagine how different history would have been if all those people didn't just sit by.

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The famous check point Charlie. Not the original building.

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The Berlin wall. We are on the east side in the first picture. The other side in the second picture you can see remains from a gestapo building and the prison cells in the basement. This seems to be a popular site.

The building in the background was a government office in the DDR days. This is the building where a family zip lined over the wall in 1965.

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On top of Hitler's bunker is now a parking lot. There are no signs and very little tourists. Only way to know for sure is from the name of the food truck.

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The Reichstag and Soviet war memorial.