It has been a strange week in Munich; a week of deceptively cool mornings, afternoons hot enough to fry eggs and thunderstorms at twilight that have turned streets into streams. A week of reflection, too, capped last Sunday by a service of remembrance in the cathedral, attended by Chancellor Merkel, to honour the nine young lives taken in the shooting at the shopping centre which sent a tremor through Freistaat Bayern, and through the nation.
One more tremor. It has been the summer of terror in Bavaria. Würzburg, Ansbach, Munich. But the Münchners have taken it well, in as much as one ever takes these things well. Along Maximilianstrasse, where the rich play; by the banks of the River Isar; in the lush acres of the Englischer Garten, life has gone on. A front-page headline saluted the city: ‘Head high, Munich.’
The mood has occasionally been uneasy. How could it not be? They threw a police cordon around the cathedral for the service of commemoration, and closed streets for the duration.
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