Posts Tagged ‘Munich’

WW2 Competitions

| 3 May 2012

Hitler’s favourite city

Hitler’s favourite city today

Congratulations to Mr Petrides of Kent who was the first person picked at random from those people who who got the answer right to the question in our spring competition: what was Hitler’s favourite city?

The answer was Munich in Bavaria. This ‘German’ city wrote Hitler in Mein Kampf, that he was ‘more attached to’ than ‘any other spot of earth in this world’.

Hitler, born an Austrian, always considered himself ‘German’ and it was only by finally being able to move to Munich in 1913 at the age of 24 that he achieved his goal of living in a truly ‘German’ city. In part, Hitler loved Munich because it was not Vienna, where he had been lodging for years – a city he considered seedy and impure.

Munich was to become known as the ‘capital’ of the ‘National Socialist Movement’ and in 1923 was the scene of the infamous Beer Hall Putsch – Hitler’s disastrous attempt at armed insurrection.

A signed, first edition of my book of essays, Their Darkest Hour’ will shortly be winging its way to Mr Petrides.

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WW2 Relevance

| 6 May 2011

Bin Laden, Hitler and Munich

The site for the new document centre, next to the building that housed Hitler’s office in Munich.

Hitler and Bin Laden, both mass murderers whilst alive, now have something in common whilst dead – nobody knows precisely where their bodies are. Bin Laden’s remains were chucked by the Americans into the ocean and Hitler’s charred bones were taken from Berlin by the Soviets and have remained hidden from view ever since. His skull was supposed to be in a Moscow secret museum, but even that is in doubt today.

Both the Americans and the Soviets clearly thought it vital to deny each of them a grave. As far as Hitler is concerned, as long as the Nazis ruled Germany, he most certainly wanted his grave to become a sacred place. As I told a BBC journalist this week, whilst Hitler did not believe in an afterlife in the sense of a heaven or hell, he did believe that he would live on here on earth, with pilgrims visiting his sarcophagus. As a result it was claimed by many in Munich after the war that any Hitler memorial – even museum – might become a ‘shrine’ – so none was ever built. As a result no proper place existed in the city for the public to visit in order to understand why and how Hitler and the Nazis came to call Munich home.

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WW2 People

| 5 January 2011

Hitler and Munich

Munich – the ‘capital’ of the Nazi movement.

We’ve just added a long essay on Adolf Hitler to the ‘Key Leaders’ section for subscribers. And writing it reminded me of the long association that Adolf Hitler had with one city – Munich.

For Hitler, Munich was the most wonderful spot on earth. His joy at moving to Munich just before the First World War is plain to see in the pages of Mein Kampf and Munich was to be the birthplace of the Nazi party in the years immediately after the end of WWI.

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