A Shop of your Own

In the constant design and redesign of the Munich Altstadt, you will find a maze of twisted roads wrapped around the main shopping streets of Neuhauser and Theatinerstrasse. As the center was rebuilt after World War II, I am told that it was painstakingly reconstructed with every detail to the original. If you have travelled around Germany, you will note that many other cities did not follow this same principal. One of the things that Munich had going in its favor was how well it was documented. Supposedly, when the German army realized that it was going to be bombarded by allied forces, it sent Nazi soldiers around the city making use of color photography (not widely available at this time) to document and record nearly every street of central Munich. One of the interesting results is an attempt to re-capture some of the many arcades that existed in the Altstadt. Today they are lined with quite exclusive shops as only those “in the know” would ever be able to find them again amongst the maze.