GERMANY: HITLER'S MUNICH

 May 25, 2025

Our very last joint activity on our family trip to Germany was a guided tour of Hitler's Munich. But before I get to that, I just have to throw in this photo of a silver lion that we passed in the Old Town square. Munich has several statues of lions, once a symbol of Bavarian strength. Besides the Old Town Square, they can be found flanking the entrance to the Munich Palace, on the top of the triumphal arch, and at the Lowenbrau Brewery. My high school mascot was a lion, and I'm a big fan of the books The Wizard of Oz and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, both of which prominently feature a lion, so I am always drawn to statues of lions. This one looks powerful. I like it!

Munich is considered the birthplace of the Nazi Party (aka National Socialism or NSDAP), and a visit to Munich is not complete without seeing a few of the sites involved with the Nazi Party, especially in the 1920s and 1930s.

Our first stop on the tour was the Hofbrauhaus, a historic beer hall that started as a supplier for the Bavarian court. 

Our guide took us up a long stairway . . .

. . . to this dining hall. It was here in February 1920 (so early!) that 30-year-old Hitler, the propaganda chief of the National Socialist Party, announced the party's official program to a gathering of about 2,000 people. Seventeen months later, on July 29, 1921, he was elected to be the head of the Nazi Party here.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: THE PETERSON HOUSE, FORD THEATRE, AND RAGTIME

Like many Americans, I am fascinated by Abraham Lincoln. Lanky, sometimes awkward, often unkempt, uneducated in the traditional sense, he appeals to the Everyman in all of us. I am drawn to artistic portrayals of him, books about him, museums featuring him, and places where he lived or visited.

Therefore, of course, I was excited to visit Ford's Theater, the place where Lincoln was assassinated and which I hadn't seen since I was a kid and could hardly remember. But first, we had to go to the Peterson House across the street from the theater, which is where Lincoln "breathed his last" (as one of the helpful signs inside told us).

I'm not sure how Lincoln would have felt about the kitschy shop next door. I think he would have been embarrassed by both the shop's contents and the the misuse of the apostrophe in "souvenir's":

I'm also not sure Lincoln would have approved of the spectacle that "The House Where Lincoln Died" has become:

The National Park Service has carefully recreated the way the rooms of what was a boarding house would have looked on the night Lincoln was brought here after having been shot at close range in the head while watching a play across the street.  Most of the original furnishings, including the bed where Lincoln lay, were purchased by a Chicago collector and are now on display in the Chicago History Museum. Still, they've tried to be attentive to detail, and I'm sure they've done a good job reproducing what was once here.

AFRICA: MAASAI MARA LIONS (KENYA)

This post is about lions. Lots of lions. It's another one of those posts that needs some musical accompaniment. The obvious choice is "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," recorded by The Tokens in 1961 and re-recorded in the mid-90s for the Disney movie The Lion King. I have one question: Why do the lyrics say, "In the JUNGLE, the mighty JUNGLE, the lion sleeps tonight?"  Maybe because "savannah" has too many syllables and "veld" doesn't have enough? Anyway, betcha didn't know that this song was originally recorded by a South African Zulu singer/composer named Solomon Linda. (If you are interested in the original version, a recording can be found here.) I did not make the video below and I don't think all the pictures in it are of Africa, but it's still fun to watch.

And one more thing. Guess what the Swahili word for "lion" is. Simba!

All ready?  Okay. Here we go.

In addition to the wildebeest migration that occurs annually, the Maasai Mara is known for its large cat population--lions, cheetahs, and leopards. We were fortunate to see quite a few lions. The first eleven pictures are from our first day in the Mara.

The shiny, tawny coats of the lioness and her cubs are perfect camouflage when they are playing in the tall, amber-colored grass: