Munich
- Click here for the Munich pact of 1938.
Munich (German: München) is Germany's third largest city and the capital of the federal state of Bavaria. Munich is assumed to have been settled since the 8th century, but it was mentioned for the first time in official documents in 1156 as a settlement of Benedictine monks. The name Munich, or München in German, is said to refer to those monks. In Italian, Munich is known as Monaco di Baviera to differentiate it from Monaco.
In 1919, following Germany's defeat in the First World War, the city was briefly a Communist utopia. In 1923, it was the scene of the beer hall Putsch that failed to bring Adolf Hitler's NSDAP to power, and was called the "Capital of the Movement" during the Third Reich, i.e. the Hitler movement.
In post-war Germany Munich became a center for high-tech industry. It is also a center of brewing, with the Löwenbräu, Spaten, and HB brands being particularly notable. Munich is best known as the home of F.C. Bayern München, Germany's most sucessful football club, and TSV 1860 München, a smaller and less successful club that is more popular in Munich.
In 1972, Munich was host to the summer Olympics and the terrorist attacks known as the Munich massacre, which resulted in the Israeli response Operation Wrath of God.
Munich is ruled by center-left SPD and its mayor is Christian Ude.[1]
