Arguably the greatest influence on George's development as a poet was his first visit to Paris (June–August 1889), where he met the French symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé. Arguably the greatest influence on George as a person, however, and on how he presented himself, were the months he spent in Munich, which he first visited in February 1891 and repeatedly thereafter. One aspect of fin-de-siècle Munich has been captured in the famous words of Thomas Mann in his 1902 short story “Gladius Dei”: “München leuchtete [Munich gleamed]” (215). The fact that turn-of-the-century Munich its darker side as well did not escape Thomas Mann either, and would, in turn, be discovered by George. His four-line poem on the city, in the “Tafeln” section of Der siebente Ring (1907), is largely, but not entirely, positive in its evocation of “München”:

The “spirits” inhabiting the city are perhaps those cosmopolitan intellectuals George met in Munich, and whose relations with George are the subject of this essay; but there is also a hint of something “ghostly” in these lines. The “ground” has not been poisoned — not yet — by the unspecified “two-fold poison” (for Ernst Morwitz, these two “poisons” are zerstreuung, “entertainment,” and the seductive sound of music [dort in häusern / Bunte klänge laden schmeichelnd / Saugen süss die seele]). What is more, the final image of this brief poem looks up at the copper, oniondomed towers of the Frauenkirche, the imposing Late Gothic cathedral, dominating the Munich skyline as one of the city's greatest symbols.Other poems, however, allude more precisely to George's experiences and acquaintances in Munich, particularly three figures — Ludwig Klages (1872–1956), Alfred Schuler (1865–1923), and Ludwig Derleth (1870–1948) — who were members of the so-called “Cosmic Circle” (Kosmiker-Kreis, Kosmische Runde) in Munich at the turn of the century.