Fascinating Facts About Munich

I've been living in Munich nearly four months, and it seems high time to share some (possibly) well-known and lesser-known tidbits about this city:

Arts & Sciences

• Art Nouveau lovers rejoice! Munich is swimming in opportunities to see architecture and exhibitions, and the German term for the movement, Jugendstil, was taken from the Munich magazine that popularized it.

An example of Jugendstil architecture

• Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory was filmed in Munich.

• Although he was born in nearby Ulm, physicist Albert Einstein grew up in Munich.

• The Deutsches Museum in Munich is Germany's most visited museum. Dedicated to science and technology, the museum is located on an island in the Isar River.

• Donna Summer, American entertainer, performed in the Munich production of Hair in 1967. Her signature disco sound came about through early collaboration with German artists.

Nazi History

The Munich coat of arms during Nazi rule.

• Eva Braun, model and photographer, was born and raised in Munich, where she met Hitler and become his companion.

• There is a “Hitler’s Munich” tour, which points out numerous areas of historical significance to the Nazi Party, which was founded here.

• Hitler’s failed coup attempt (Beer Hall Putsch / Munich Putsch / Hitlerputsch) took place in Munich, leading to his arrest and imprisonment for treason.

• A 2012 raid on a Munich man’s home uncovered a billion-dollar stash of artwork that had previously been seized by the Nazis, including works by Matisse, Renoir, Delacroix, Ernst Kirchner, Albrecht Dürer, Chagall, Max Liebermann, and Picasso.

Sports

• Munich hosted the infamous 1972 Summer Olympic Games, where 11 Israeli hostages, a police officer, and 5 of the Palestinian kidnappers were killed. (More on this event in an upcoming blog post.)

• Munich is home to FC Bayern, the 7th-ranked soccer team in the world, with 11 international titles and 56 national titles.

• I shared pictures of surfing in the English garden in a previous post. But for the past six years, the Surf & Style European Championship has been held at the Munich airport!

 Society & Economics

• In addition to a surfing competition, Munich’s five-star airport offers its own brewery, a visitors’ park with a playground and mini-golf, and historic aircraft to explore. 

• With 8,000 seats, Munich’s Königlicher Hirschgarten is the world’s largest beer garden.

Visiting BMW World
in April with a friend.
The HQ building towers
in the background.

• The BMW complex, which includes the corporate headquarters, BMW Museum, BMW World, and BMW auto assembly plant, has its own zip code. Fitting, since the company is Munich’s largest employer.

• Doc Martens were designed by German doctor Klaus Märtens and were manufactured in Munich before Märtens and his business partner sold the patent rights to a UK company.

• Munich has the lowest unemployment rate (approximately 3.0%) of any German city with more than a million people.

• Munich has one of Germany’s highest percentage of foreign nationals (27.6%), with folks coming from 180 nations.

• Munich has its own version of a Hatfield-McCoy feud. For more than 14 years the Kern and Bensch families have been warring from opposite sides of a 12-foot wall, barbed wire, and security cameras. The real kicker? They live in a duplex!

• Munich is home to the original shop of Dallmayr, the largest delicatessen enterprise in Europe. The company has been in business more than 300 years!