Munich’s Third Reich: The City’s Role in Nazi Germany

There are sobering landmarks of Nazi Germany’s rise to power scattered across Munich’s historic center. On this walking tour, you’ll follow Adolf Hitler’s journey from obscure political agitator to a totalitarian dictator who would forever change the course of history.

The tour starts at the Isartor Gate, which has marked Munich’s Eastern boundary since the Middle Ages. Along the way, you’ll visit the humble beerhall where Hitler joined the small workers’ party that would evolve into the Nazi movement, walk through the square where book burnings took place, and see the locations where both resistance fighters and regime supporters shaped Germany’s darkest chapter.

On this tour, I’ll help illuminate how this vibrant Bavarian city became the cradle of National Socialism. While the subject matter is necessarily challenging, this tour approaches historical sites with sensitivity and educational purpose, providing crucial context for understanding how a democratic society can gradually succumb to authoritarianism. Before the tour ends near Karlsplatz, you’ll stop at the Main Synagogue Memorial at the site of one of the first synagogues that Hitler had demolished in June 1938.

Along the way, you’ll have a chance to:

• See the Sterneckerbräu, the unassuming beerhall where Hitler first joined the German Workers’ Party before transforming it into the Nazi movement
• Stand at the site of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch confrontation, Hitler’s failed coup attempt that paradoxically boosted his political career
• Visit Königsplatz, where massive Nazi rallies and notorious book burnings were staged after the grand neoclassical square was transformed into a parade ground
• Learn about brave resisters like Georg Elser, who nearly succeeded in assassinating Hitler with a meticulously planned bomb in 1939
• See the former headquarters of the Gestapo, housed in a palace where opponents of the regime were interrogated and tortured
• Examine the architectural remnants of the Nazi administrative quarter, where buildings were designed to intimidate and impress
• Understand how the post-war German state has handled these difficult historical sites, sometimes preserving them as warnings, sometimes deliberately transforming them

I’m a Munich native and licensed Dachau Memorial guide. This two-hour tour is perfect for history enthusiasts and anyone seeking deeper insights into how extremism can take root in a democratic society.