Day 1 -Arrival in Munich: Reading the City

Welcome to Munich, where layers of history sit just beneath the surface of everyday life. After settling in, we begin on the streets. Our orientation walk introduces a core principle of this seminar: authoritarian regimes leave architectural fingerprints. As we move through Königsplatz and surrounding government buildings, we’ll examine how Nazi planners used scale, symmetry, and monumental design to project permanence and control.

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The walk concludes near Park Café Munich, where we’ll gather for our first shared meal. Just steps away stands a large government building that still bears the Nazi eagle, a quiet but powerful reminder that history is not erased so easily. Over dinner and Bavarian beer, we begin our conversation about how civic spaces—beer halls included—have served both as platforms for radicalization and as sites of open dialogue in modern democratic Germany.

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Primary Activities:

• Arrival and hotel check-in

• Guided “Reading the City” architecture orientation walk (Königsplatz & surrounding district)

• Opening dinner at Park Café Munich

• Informal discussion: Beer halls, architecture, and the staging of power

Day 2 - Institutional-izing Terror: Policing, Dachau, and the Public Square

Today we turn to the machinery of control. Our morning seminar traces the consolidation of police authority under Nazi rule: how law, surveillance, and emergency powers were weaponized to suppress dissent and reshape daily life. With that framework in place, we travel to Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp and a model for the system that followed.

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Dachau is a sobering visit. Moving through the memorial and museum, we consider how repression became bureaucratized and normalized; how terror moved from rhetoric to policy; from intimidation to infrastructure. The scale and orderliness of the site remind us that authoritarian systems depend not only on ideology, but on administrative precision.

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After returning to Munich, we allow time for quiet reflection before gathering for dinner at the Hofbräuhaus. Once a venue where political movements and radical ideas took root, today it is a lively civic space filled with conversation, music, and international visitors. Sharing a meal here invites a deeper question: how do public spaces once entangled in authoritarian politics become places of open exchange again? Over dinner, our conversation turns toward memory, responsibility, and the complicated work of reclaiming the public square.

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For those participating in Operation Vigil, tonight’s prompt invites reflection on how ordinary citizens navigated knowledge, rumor, and fear as the machinery of repression expanded.

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Primary Activities:

• Morning seminar: The rise of the Nazi police state

• Visit to Dachau Memorial and Museum

• Structured decompression period upon return

• Group dinner at Hofbräuhaus.

Day 3 - Resistance, Memory, and Civic Courage

Visit to LMU and White Rose memorial

Guided discussion: Moral courage and student resistance

Lunch and independent exploration in Schwabing

Seminar: German memory culture and democratic reconstruction

Optional informal beer garden gathering

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Primary Activities:

• Visit to LMU and White Rose memorial

• Guided discussion: Moral courage and student resistance

• Lunch and independent exploration in Schwabing

• Seminar: German memory culture and democratic reconstruction

• Optional informal beer garden gathering

Day 4 - Arrival in Nuremberg: Architecture and Mass Mobilization

This morning we travel by ICE train to Nuremberg, a city whose medieval charm stands in sharp contrast to the monumental ambitions of the Third Reich. After checking into our hotel in the Old Town, we take time to settle before heading to the vast Nazi Party Rally Grounds.

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Here, architecture was not merely decorative, it was theatrical. The Zeppelin Field, the Congress Hall, and the grand avenues were designed to choreograph obedience, amplify spectacle, and fuse individual identity into mass ideology. As we walk the grounds, we consider how space itself can become an instrument of control.

We return to the Old Town in the early evening, where timbered buildings and cobbled streets offer a striking reminder that cities endure even as regimes fall. Enjoy dinner and evening wandering on your own.

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​Operation Vigil participants receive a brief reflection on mass mobilization: What draws people toward spectacle? When does belonging become surrender?

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Primary Activities

• Morning ICE train from Munich to Nuremberg

• Hotel check-in near Old Town

• Visit to Nazi Party Rally Grounds (Zeppelin Field, Documentation Center exterior & grounds)

• Guided discussion: Spectacle, mass mobilization, and architectural control

• Evening dinner and wandering Old Town Nuremberg on your own

Day 5 -The Nuremberg Trials: Law After Atrocity

Today we turn from spectacle to accountability. At the Palace of Justice, we visit historic Courtroom 600, where the Nuremberg Trials established new precedents in international law. Here, the world confronted the architects of tyranny not through vengeance, but through legal process.

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Inside the courtroom and museum, we examine how law—once manipulated to enable repression—was reasserted as a mechanism of justice. For participants engaging in Operation Vigil, today’s reflection asks: What does responsibility look like in the aftermath of regime collapse? Who speaks? Who testifies? Who remains silent?

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In the late afternoon we depart for Prague by private coach, arriving in time to settle in and ease into Czech life.

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​For Operation Vigil participants, today’s prompt considers accountability: If a regime collapses, what responsibility rests with professionals, civil servants, and bystanders?

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Primary Activities:

• Visit to Courtroom 600 and Nuremberg Trials Museum

• Guided discussion: International justice and postwar reckoning

• Lunch and independent exploration in Old Town

• Late afternoon transfer by private coach to Prague

• Evening arrival and hotel check-in in Prague

Day 6 -
Nuremberg Trials and Transfer to  Prague

We begin with a visit to the historic Courtroom 600, where the Nuremberg Trials gave birth to the concept of international justice. For participants engaged in Operation Vigil, today’s prompt invites reflection on how legal professionals, civil servants, or ordinary citizens may have reckoned with complicity—or chosen silence—in the wake of Nazi defeat. After lunch, we travel by private coach to Prague, winding through the Bohemian countryside. That evening, we ease into the rhythm of Czech life with a traditional dinner and local Pilsner in a classic Prague pub—an introduction not only to the city’s culinary pride but also to its rich, beer-loving culture that now thrives in the very spaces once marked by silence and fear.

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Primary Activities:

• Visit Courtroom 600 – Site of Nuremberg Trials

• Transfer to Prague

• Evening exploration and Czech pub dinner

Day 7 -Prague: Occupation and the Spark of Resistance

We wake in Prague, once the capital of the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Today is about orientation: understanding how occupation reshaped civic life in a city whose medieval streets long predated the Third Reich.

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In the morning, we travel by taxi to the quiet intersection in Libeň where Reinhard Heydrich’s car was attacked in May 1942. The modest memorial that stands there marks the beginning of one of the most daring acts of resistance in occupied Europe. 

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Returning to the city center, our walking seminar traces how Nazi administration operated within Prague’s existing institutions, appropriating offices, public squares, and civic infrastructure rather than building monumental rally grounds. We explore Old Town and the Jewish Quarter, asking how occupation governs differently when it must embed itself within an already historic urban fabric.

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The afternoon is intentionally open. Wander across Charles Bridge. Visit a museum. Sit beside the Vltava with a notebook. This is a day for acclimating—geographically and emotionally—before we explore the full story of Operation Anthropoid tomorrow.

In the evening, we invite you to get dinner on your own (Anne-Marie and Rob have lots of great restaurant recommendations!). 

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​Operation Vigil participants reflect on risk and retaliation: When is resistance justified? Who bears the cost?

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Primary Activities:

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• Taxi transfer to Heydrich assassination site (Libeň memorial)

• Guided discussion: The logic and risk of targeted resistance

• Walking orientation seminar in Old Town and Jewish Quarter

• Lunch on your own

• Free afternoon for exploration or rest

• Evening dinner and wandering Old Town on your own

Day 8 -
Lidice and Collective Punishment

Today we travel to Lidice and Lety, villages forever marked by the Nazi policy of collective punishment. Through guided interpretation and quiet reflection, we examine how policing power expanded beyond surveillance and arrest to annihilation of entire communities. Lidice becomes our emotional and moral focal point in the Czech lands—a stark reminder of how authoritarian regimes enforce obedience through terror.

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We return to Prague in the late afternoon. The evening is intentionally flexible: join us for a quiet group reflection, or explore Prague’s winding streets, riverside cafés, and public squares at your own pace.

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​For those engaged in Operation Vigil, today’s reflection asks how communities absorb collective punishment—and what survival looks like after devastation.

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Primary Activities:

• Day trip to Lidice and Lety

• Guided discussion on collective punishment and retaliatory policing

• Evening free time in Prague (optional informal gathering)

Day 9 -From Nazi to Soviet Control

Our day begins with a focused seminar examining the transition from Nazi rule to Soviet-led control in Czechoslovakia. How did policing systems change? What persisted? How did citizens navigate one authoritarian structure giving way to another? This session ties together themes of surveillance, memory, justice, and civic fortitude.

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From lunchtime onward, the afternoon is yours. Revisit a site that moved you. Explore Prague Castle. Walk along the Vltava. Visit a gallery, bookstore, or café. This space is intentional—time to process, wander, and absorb.

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In the evening, we reconvene for a celebratory farewell dinner, raising a final glass to resistance, remembrance, and the freedom to gather openly.

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Operation Vigil participants are invited to consider how their assigned identity might have adapted, or not, to a second authoritarian order.

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Primary Activities:

• Morning Seminar: From Nazi to Soviet Control

• Lunch and Afternoon on Your Own

• Farewell Dinner in Prague (included in program fee)

Day 10 -Museums and Memory

Our final day together begins with a visit to the Museum of Communism, offering context on how the post-Nazi state shaped its own brand of control and propaganda. A guest lecture at Charles University helps us frame the historical arc of this region through the lens of justice, memory, and democratic rebirth. Before departures begin, you’ll have time for a final stroll through Prague’s cobbled lanes—or perhaps one last toast at a riverside café, savoring the present in a city once overshadowed by repression.

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Primary Activities:

• Visit Museum of Communism

• Guest lecture at Charles University: Nazi policing & Anthropoid legacy

• Departures and airport transfers

Day 10 or 11 -Optional Extension: Terezin Memorial Experience

For participants who wish to explore Holocaust history in greater depth, we offer an optional guided excursion to Terezin (Theresienstadt), the former ghetto and transit camp used by the Nazi regime for deportations and propaganda.

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Led by a trusted local historian with deep expertise in the site, this extension includes transportation, guided interpretation of the Small Fortress and Ghetto Museum, lunch in a traditional Czech restaurant, and structured time for reflection.

This add-on experience is available as:

• A full-day extension on Day 10 (with evening return), or

• An additional Day 11 program for those extending their stay.

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Please note: Separate fee applies. Advance registration required.