Today was a busy travel day. We began the day with a somber trip to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. Dachau was the model for all other concentration camps in Hitler's Third Reich. Opened in March of 1934 (only two months after Hitler was sworn in as Chancelor of Germany), Dachau served as the training camp for SS officers and camp commandants. This is where the Nazis perfected their torture techniques. Soviet prisoners of war were often taken out into a field near the camp and used for target practice. The most chilling aspect of Dachau was the battery of medical experiments carried out upon the camp prisoners by the camp doctors. Experiements in the effects of hypothermia, low pressure environments, and air bubbles in the blood stream were conducted on the camp's prison population. This memorial stands as a reminder that we must never let this happen again.
Our second stop was Schloss Herrenchiemsee, one of the palaces of Ludwig II of Bavaria, the fairytale king. Ludwig dreamed of being an absolute monarch, like his hero Louis XIV of France. Unfortunately, Ludwig had to deal with the realities of Europe in the 19th century which was very different than the Europe of the 17th century. Ludwig was a constitutional monarch, and acted as nothing more than a rubber stamp for the Bavarian parliament. Rather than deal with the government directly, Ludwig chose to build elaborate castles and spend his time in his own fantasy world in the Bavarian Alps. Built upon a private island in the middle of the Chiemsee, Schloss Herrenchiemsee is the last of Ludwig's three palaces. It is based upon the Palace of Versailles, dedicated to Louis XIV and his heirs, and features a Hall of Mirrors that is one meter longer than the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles (Bavarians are quick to point this out).
The evening brought our arrival to the hotel in Salzburg and a trip to the Augustiner Stube, the home of Salzburg's beer-brewing Augustinian monks. After a long day of travel, it is finally time for bed. Tomorrow, we explore Salzburg and take a trip to the Hallein salt mines.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment