The first Oktoberfest was held in 1810, to celebrate the wedding of the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. Since then, an Oktoberfest has been held almost every year. However, the nature of the celebration has changed fundamentally over time. The exhibition illustrates its transformation from a Bavarian national festival with monarchist overtones to the “world’s biggest beer festival” with a Bavarian image. Festival exhibits include Princess Therese’s wedding dress, prize pennants for horse racing and shooting, beer barrels, beer mugs and tables and the beer mallet used to tap the first barrel at the start of the Oktoberfest. A perfect introduction to your festival visit!

In summer 2009 Munich’s already impressive museum quarter was enriched by yet another atrtraction, the excitingly colourful architecture by Sauerbruch Hutton, a large-scale museum that is home of numerous masterpieces of modern and contemporary fine art. Paintings and installations by Cy Twombley, Sigmar Polke, Bruce Nauman and Andy Warhol make this private collection of modern art one of the best and most highly regarded of its kind. The guided tour will also explain at what special point the history of fine art has arrived today. An ideal addition to a visit of the Pinakothek der Moderne right opposite.

After World War I Munich was the place where Adolf Hitler founded the Nazi Party. Munich became base for his troops’ operations and therefore was named “Capital of the Nazi Movement” by Hitler himself. You will get an insight into the political ambiance in the Munich of the 1920s and 1930s, when crises, frustration and incertitude led to radicalism and allowed for Hitler’s reign of terror to be established. We will follow the route of the main propaganda parades, from the old town hall, where in 1938 the ‘Night of Broken Glass’ started. You will also be given information on the daily living under Hitler’s dictatorship, on resistance activities and on Jewish life in Munich then and today.

On March 20th 1933 Heinrich Himmler announced the opening of the first Concentration Camp at Dachau near Munich. Two days later the first prisoners arrived. The camp where over 30.000 people came to death epitomizes daily terror, torture and barbarity. This tour to Dachau not only leads you to an extraordinary sad place of history but also explains how the Nazi past was treated since the end of WW II. Can Dachau Memorial Site become a place of hope today?