Just before half term KWS GCSE History students from Year 11 went to Munich in southern Germany. This was a trip to help extend their knowledge of the rise of Nazi Germany in the city where Hitler first came to prominence. The weather was cold for much of the trip but the students were well prepared and made the most of their opportunities to see the beautiful city, faithfully reconstructed after it was bombed during the Second World War.

After an eventful first couple of hours, we went out for a walking tour of the old town, and saw lots of the main sites, and went to where Hitler’s attempted revolution, the Munich Putsch, was stopped in a shootout with the local police in November 1923. The second day we took a coach to the nearby city of Nuremberg and saw the rally grounds where Hitler paraded the strength of his new country after he took power. As if to mirror this, we spent the afternoon at the Nuremberg Trials courtroom, and saw where the evil perpetrators of Nazi Germany faced justice.

The following day started with the most moving part of the trip, to see the Dachau Memorial Site, at the former concentration camp there. This was a fascinating experience, but also a troubling one, and like all concentration camps there is an atmosphere that is difficult to describe, but everyone could feel it. We spent the afternoon back in Munich and gave the students some free time to take in the old town themselves.

On the final day we explored the 1972 Olympic Park and used this to discuss the 1936 Berlin Olympics which Hitler used as a propaganda exercise top show the power of Nazi Germany and the Aryan. We quickly visited the global HQ of BMW before heading into the Old Town again and visiting the centre of the Nazi government in Munich, where Hitler’s assassinations in the Night of the Long Knives was planned and launched. This was also the site of the notorious book burnings by the Nazis to destroy the culture and knowledge of those that did not fit their worldview, like Jewish people and other political ideologies.

From here we went back to the hotel and collected our belongings and made our way to the airport. The staff on the trip, and of KWS in general were very proud of the students and their conduct on a very powerful trip. We hope it will stay in their memories forever. There is nothing better than visiting the sites of great historical events to make them real to the students who may have to write about them in their exams.