2 Best Sights in Munich, Germany

The site of the infamous camp, now the KZ–Gedenkstätte Dachau, is just outside town. Photographs, contemporary documents, the few cell blocks, and the grim crematorium create a somber and moving picture of the camp, where more than 41,000 of the 200,000-plus prisoners lost their lives. A documentary film in English is shown five times daily. The former camp has become more than just a grisly memorial: it's now a place where people of all nations meet to reflect upon the past and on the present.

Built to bookend the Feldherrnhalle and mark the end of Ludwigstrasse, Siegestor nowadays also marks the beginning of Leopoldstrasse. Unsurprisingly, it has Italian origins and was modeled on the Arch of Constantine in Rome. It was built (1843–52) to honor the achievements of the Bavarian army during the Wars of Liberation (1813–15) against Napoléon. It received heavy bomb damage in 1944, and at the end of the war Munich authorities decided it should be torn down for safety reasons. Major Eugene Keller, the head of the U.S. military government in the postwar city, intervened and saved it. Its postwar inscription on the side facing the inner city is best translated as: "Dedicated to victory, destroyed by war, a monument to peace."