Swastika Flying High in Cardiff

Cardiff, UK.

I've never seen this picture before and came across it completely by accident after a documentary wrongly used it to portray occupied France. I immediately recognised it as the City Hall in Cardiff, the city where I live.

1938.

Sudetenland, the German speaking/populated portions of Czechoslovakia started to demand a union with Hitler's Germany. The Czech's refused due to the tactical importance of the land and Hitler threatened war. In 1938 and without consulting Czechoslovakia, Britain and France agreed to hand it over to Germany. This was looked at as an act of peace and Chamberlain (British Prime Minister) waved around a piece of paper which Hitler had written a promise not to go to war. This was the Munich Agreement. At that time, Britain was not ready for war or able to help out Czechoslovakia if Germany attacked, so giving in to Hitler seemed to be the most sensible option.

Sudetenland was handed over.

TIME Magazine declared Hitler as 'Man of the Year in 1938'. Many people admired him for turning around Germany in a time where the depression was still affecting the country. He was not seen as the evil guy that he is today.

To show his support of the agreement, Lord Mayor Purnell of Cardiff, erected the four flags of the nations involved in the agreement, over City's Hall. This included the Swastika. The flag wasn't largely associated with evil at the time.

Cardiff City Hall today.

Within 24 hours, two men from the labour party took it down but it was soon replaced.

Myself in front of City Hall a few years ago. The only picture I could find with it, which I lifted off  Instagram.

Six months later, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and the Munich Agreement was void. Britain said it would defend Poland if Hitler invaded. The war had begun. 

Munich - Imperial Lichtspiele Cinema - Look What I Bumped Into

Before I go away to mainland Europe and to places that are significant to World War Two, I do my homework. The results of this normally equates to a list of places and my phone, heavy with screenshots of them taken during the war. I show these screenshots to my travel companion (normally my Girlfriend) and tell her to look out for these things and alert me if she does so.

Travelling with me is a nuisance.

As long as I know the general direction and what i'm looking for, then I can't go wrong.

Sometimes when i'm in a city in relaxed mode, not wide eyed and interested like a cat at a fish market, I spot something completely accidentally that I had no intention of looking for at all. This was one of these occasions.

Munich. We arrive there hours before we could check in to the hotel, lugging our cases with us through the streets and over the cobbles which help us to sound like we are using an out of tune Xylophone to alert the Germans of our presence.

I recognised this building mostly because of it's odd shape. Somewhere i'd seen a picture of this with a knocked out Panther tank in front of it.

 When the Americans captured the city in 1945 they didn't encounter as much resistance as they expected. As well the dwindling numbers of German soldiers were the Volksstrum - the last line of defence, made up of young boys or old men. They put up a fight but many surrendered early on.  

The Americans also liberated nearby Dachau concentration camp.

The tank shown outside was sent to the United States for testing and after that lived its life in various museums around the country and is today at Fort Benning, Georgia. The building that used to be a cinema is now a hotel.

Jewish Stumbling Stones - Munich is not a fan

Scattered along the floor of German cities in no real structure, like some elaborate dot-to-dot puzzle, are little brass plaques on the pavements outside the former homes of those murdered or deported by the Nazis. Each one bears the name of a single victim.

These are referred to as 'Stumbling Stones' (Solpersteine) and there are apparently over 50, 000 of these in cities all over Europe claiming to be the largest memorial of any kind in the world.

Munich has a tight ban on these as the elected leader of the cities Jewish community, a Holocaust survivor herself, protests that the victims deserve more than a plaque "in the dust and street dirt". I don't agree with that. There's no disrespect here, just another way to remember those lost.

I think they are great and I cannot go by one without reading it.

Berlin

Cologne

I'd told my brother Andrew to look out for these things as we went along. Here he is  taking a closer look at the first ones we spotted in Cologne.