These German Bowling Alleys Deserve a Cameo in a Wes Anderson Movie

I never really thought to look into the history of bowling, but whaddaya know? The game didn’t actually originate in 1950s American suburbia. In fact, the earliest known forms of bowling date back to ancient Egypt where scenes depicting the sport were found engraved on the walls of burial tombs. They’ve been playing since the Middle Ages…

What History Didn’t Tell Us about the Nazi “Super Baby” Breeding Program

If there was one subject that could ever truly capture my attention at school, it was the monster story that was Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. I’ve admittedly always been a ‘bad reader’, but outside of class I devoured books on the war as a teenager and still to this day, there seems to be no end to its disturbing secrets…

Just a Quick Pilgrimage to the Church of Doom

I came across this photograph and assumed it must be a film set from a 1960s sci-fi flick. Surely those nuns haven’t just come from a prayer session inside that monstrous building? As it turns out, this picture of architectural doom is indeed of a real Catholic church, located in a small medieval hamlet close to Dusseldorf, Germany.…

The Anti-Nazi Teen Gang that Beat Up Hitler Youth and Danced to Jazz

A band of adolescent music-lovers, swing dancers and snappy dressers– not exactly the type you’d expect to take on the Nazi Hitler Youth. But in pre-WWII Germany, the Nazi regimentation of society inadvertantly gave rise to massive teenage street gangs who beat up the Hitler Youth, tagged anti-Nazi graffiti at train stations– and listened to…

Where the Statues of Paris were sent to Die

The stony gaze of the statue upon his executor says it all. Most of the bronze “men” that once watched over Parisian streets and public squares of the French Third Republic met a most undignified end many years ago, snatched from their pedestals and erased from the history books. During the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, the…

Surfing in a Concrete Jungle: Munich’s Gnarly Subculture

Since the late 1960s, surfers have been gathering by the shallow banks of a small and cold river that flows through a local park in downtown Munich. A city better known for its beer drinking and pretzels has become the unlikely home of a surfing mecca for urban individualists riding a river wave far from the ocean……

The Ghost Army of WWII that Duped Hitler

This is not a photograph of a strong man contest. That tank weighs about as much as an inflatable dingy. But what were World War II U.S soldiers doing clowning around with a blow-up tank? Actually, there was nothing funny about it; these were the brave men of a unique secret mission to intimidate and deceive…

My Bohemian Berlin Brasserie

The owner of Katz Orange (orange cat in German), was inspired by a trip he took to Peru where he met a spiritual priest who owned an orange cat. Upon entering the beautiful brasserie, you can imagine him sitting in this shaman’s mountain hut with an orange cat, surrounded by indigenous artifacts and kilim tapestries passed down from…