Deutschland Uber Alles

In my travels, I had never been to Germany, though I've passed through it in on some occasions. It's right there in the middle of the continent so it's hard to avoid. Appropriately enough, I suppose, my first trip through the Fatherland was in 1992 when I traveled by train from Western Europe to the Polish town of Oswiciem, known in German as Auschwitz. On that quiet, peaceful summer day in the Polish countryside 16 years ago, what I was confronted with - as are all visitors to Auschwitz - was horrific beyond description. As such, I won't try.

Over the course of time, a handful of train rides and quick connections in local airports took me through Germany, but it wasn't until last week that at my ripe old age that it (Munich specifically) was my actual destination. And hardly a ripple on the water at that - I went there for a brief client presentation and was in the country for all of 22 hours. A walkabout, this was not.

Waiting for a delayed flight at Heathrow has a whole host of discomforts associated with it, but the unease I felt while waiting to board the plane was something different altogether. My thoughts were a jumble, to be honest. There was the straight-at-you feeling that my destination that day was the perpetrator of unspeakable crimes, against my heritage in particular, and it wasn't as if a splinter faction of kooks were solely responsible. I did not have any relatives die in the Holocaust, but I certainly know those who have. Regardless, it's a terrible and defining moment for Judaism, and one could argue for humanity. Within a generation there will be no living survivors so I passionately believe it's the responsibility of me and those like me to keep that memory alive. The phrase "Never Again" is simple and profound, but those who think that it holds true today have not been paying attention or even reading the newspaper.

At the same time, I thought I was being a bit melodramatic. I mean, leaving aside an innocuous, brief business trip, what was the big deal, really. What was on my mind occurred 65 years ago, it's not like a lot of apologies and restitution haven't taken place since then, and most importantly the place has largely evolved into a diverse, modern, and even progressive society. Time heals all wounds, no?

And such was the back and forth in my noggin as I made my way from London to Munich. I barely saw Munich itself, as just a fraction of the scant hours I spent there were in daylight. What little I did see (of course, partly on my ride from the airport, where all faithful Adventure readers know I do my best thinking) struck me as quite nice, and even there I felt a pang of guilt thinking I'd like to have more time to poke around. The contrast between the classic and the modern - the heavy stone facades of Bavarian architecture mixed with the lightness and air of new structures - certainly held the potential to tell a story of a society that has moved forward from its past; one could even suggest more allegorically, from darkness to light. What else would I learn from a day of strolling through town and meeting some locals? And what would my biases prevent me from understanding?

There is no great revelation to be communicated here, I regret to say. This was the most inconsequential of cultural encounters, barely a nick and scrape in a larger demolition derby. And whatever facile observations I might put forth here, the one thing I can't shake when traveling these parts is the inescapable weight of history. For reasons I could visit on another occasion, it feels more present, more immediate here in Europe than it does back home in America.