Learn more about the Summer A 2025 CHID/JSIS Munich study abroad program, "Mad Kings and Monuments: Identity, Human Rights, and Reckoning in Germany."

With a focus on Munich, the Bavarian region of Germany, and Berlin, this program offers place-based historical exploration of social, political, racial, religious, and cultural dimensions of German nation-building before and after the Holocaust. Famous for its picturesque mountains and castles, Bavaria has also been a crucible for wrenching social change, and has fostered nationalist domestic policy and world-views ranging from “Mad” King Ludwig to the Third Reich. Students will learn about the philosophy and practice of eugenics within the German historical context, while touring the actual sites where the policies originated and were put into practice. The program will conclude with a week-long tour of Berlin, where local and national identity through memorials will be explored, contextualized, and compared to memorials dedicated to the victims of National Socialism in present-day Munich, Nürnberg, Berchtesgaden, and Dachau.