Summary
Title: Where Ghosts Walked: Munich's Road to the Third Reich
Author: David Clay Large
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 039303836X
Pro:
• Fascinating description of life in Munich
• Full of interesting stories and people
Con:
• More about Munich and less about Hitler’s biography may have been better
Description:
• Analysis of culture and politics of Munich in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
• Argues that Munich’s culture and politics are important to understanding the Nazis
• Explains how Munich’s culture and politics created fertile ground for fascism
There are books about the rise of Nazism and books about the culture of Germany and Austria during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, but little research into how a bohemian place like Munich, a city which prided itself on its artists and enjoyment of life, could become the headquarters for one of the most vicious and destructive political forces of the 20th century. If this is something which interests you, David Clay Large’s Where Ghosts Walked: Munich's Road to the Third Reich is a great source.
Adolf Hitler saw himself as an artist and considered himself something of a rebel, so it’s not surprising that he was attracted to Munich. This city also managed to preserve more aspects of traditional German culture, making it more attractive to Hitler than other large cities such as Berlin, which had developed a cosmopolitan atmosphere. If Hitler’s interest in Munich seems obvious in retrospect, Munich’s interest in Nazism isn’t immediately obvious.
The answer to this lies in the fact that Munich’s avant garde reputation didn’t extend very far below the surface. By World War I, modernism in Munich was already well on the decline; even before this, however, what passed for “modernism” here had powerful anti-Semitic and proto-fascist elements that helped prepare the ground for the development of Nazi ideology.
Violence, too, was a part of life in Munich — the beer halls which symbolized the city’s Gemütlichkeit were also sites of violent brawls over politics and religion. Quite a lot of the writing and art had an aggressive, even chauvinistic edge to it and all of this translated into violent attacks on political enemies when the conditions were right.
These problems are nicely exemplified in the conflict between Thomas Mann and his brother, Heinrich Mann. Heinrich briefly flirted with conservative nationalism, but quickly changed course and began to endorse liberal democratic ideals that were identified with Germany’s enemies during WWI. Thomas Mann remained under the influence of conservative nationalism much longer, defending German “culture” against Western “civilization” and arguing for military expansion — all of which left his estranged from Heinrich.
Thomas Mann eventually came to his senses, which put him ahead of many of his colleagues, but the consequences of the ideas he once defended led to his exile from Germany and the burning of his many works by the Nazis. As noted, Thomas wasn’t the only artist or intellectual to become enthralled by the chauvinistic ideas which animated Nazism — there were many both in Munich and around Germany who saw the Nazis as the saviors of German culture and identity against a cosmopolitan, democratic world.
Large’s book engages in “narrative history,” which explains history more like a story and eschews dry, academic jargon. Because of this, his book is very engaging and enjoyable to read, especially if you are unfamiliar with the early developments of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The biggest flaw, though, is just how much time is spent discussing the Nazis.
Having recently read Ian Kershaw’s two-volume biography of Hitler, most of this material was familiar and I kept thinking to myself “OK, now what about Munich?” I learned a great deal about the city during this time in its history, which matters to me personally because I lived and studied there, but I wonder if some of the material on the Nazi Party might have been superfluous.
