Explore both Munich’s rich history and lively present.
By Ella Mercer
“How can one speak of Munich but to say it is a kind of German heaven. Some people sleep and dream they are in Paradise, but all over Germany people sometimes dream that they have gone to Munich.” from Thomas Wolfe’s The Web and the Rock
Munich is a city with international sophistication, “a world metropolis with an earthy, peasant-provincial touch” and a “secret capital” as the third most populous city in Germany (after Berlin and Hamburg). Founded by decree of Frederick Barbarossa in 1158, the city has played an important role in Bavarian and German history. During the Reformation, it remained a Catholic stronghold before becoming the capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria 1806. It was ruled by the House of Wittelsbach—a dynasty that left its mark on creating a stately metropolis through monuments and boulevards, theaters and museums, churches, castles and palaces—until the November Revolution of 1918/19 brought a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. The World Wars generated a rise of political movements, including the Nazi Party, and heavy bombing yet much of that ugliness has been removed with the restoration of Munich’s historic architecture and metropolitan culture.
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