WEST GERMANY: Not Fit for Horses

Invariably the silence of the early spring morning is broken by the clonking and clanking of horses' hooves on the granite pavement, interspersed with the tinkling of metal and the thumping of wood: the fancy beer wagons on their daily route. This is a sound which Müncheners have been accustomed to for as long as they can remember. To them it represents an indigenous symbol of permanence.

So wrote Novelist Thomas Mann in a letter to his brother nearly 60 years ago. Now that symbol of permanence is gone. For 300 years, Munich's...