Germany Road Ways Two on the Loose TRAVEL HUMANITIES PHOTOS

Germany Timeline: Nationalism. The German Sense of Self.

2012-01-23T12:20:00.001-05:00

National, Territorial Identity,

How it Develops. Perspectives on Germany.

The First Millennium Sets the Stage, Starts the Lessons.

Romans Fail to Conquer Germanic Tribes. See Teutoburg. Lesson: Distance conquest cannot hold. Rome gives up. Then, 400 years later, local Franks under Charlemagne, and with the church's resources and motivators, does.

Holy Roman Empire forces conversions, with death as the alternative; even that does not last.

Charlemagne at Osnabruck Town Hall, Germany

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How to visit another country and come away with a coherent idea of its history. It often takes a timeline of major invasions, military or religious; with the dominant characters and movements.
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9 CE: Germanic tribes, allied under command of one Arminius, defeat the Roman army, the 17th, 18th and 19th Legions, at Teutoburg Forest, see http://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg01.htm. This place is also known as Varusschlacht, for the Roman General, Publius Quintilius Varus. The name of the forest is Kalkreise; and the word for it, forest, is more properly translated as "narrows" -- the Teutoburg Narrows. The museum exhibits proclaim the fear that the tribes inspired in the Romans, and fed later brutalities of the Holy Roman Empire in moving north yet again; even fear of Germans inspiring the rest of Europe's reluctance to engage Germany in World Wars.
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Test the theory.
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400 CE : Roman Empire never conquers the German tribes. Rome extended to north of the Alps, to Augsburg and the Danube, and north-west only to the Rhone River, including areas of Triere, Worms, Strasburg, see http://0.tqn.com/d/ancienthistory/1/0/c/z/2/westernempire.jpg. That left cultures such as the Alamani, Saxons, Angles, Thuringians, Franks, Burgundians, Lombards, and the Vandals still independent.
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782 CE: Charlemagne, King of the Franks goes on the march to conquer tribes for Christianity, slaughtered 4,000 Saxon prisoners in Northern Germany who would not convert. How much of history is a data-record; and how much laid out to create or make a point. History itself is a grain of salt. Take it that way.
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793 CE: Vikings raid Lindisfarne, Christian Monastery. What did that have to do with the Franks on the march in German lands? For scholars: was the Viking violence against Christians, especially monasteries with their riches, and so suddenly bursting on the scene, related to knowledge of Christian slaughters in Germany, Northern Europe, Saxons and others often trafficking with the Scandinavian tribes, and having migrated already to Britain.
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Read that site carefully, past the predictable outrage against attack, to the "un-Christian" acts that led to it, according to Alcuin, http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/793/. That still leaves unaddressed the "un-Christian" slaughters in compelling conversions, something
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814 CE. Charlemagne was first the King of the Franks, and then the Frankish Emperor (Tribe of the Franks) and later Holy Roman Emperor, and the Holy Roman Empire. By 814 AD or so, they had fought their way north and east. This resulted in substantial geographic area increases for the heirs of the Roman Empire, the one under the guise of "God's Will", the Holy Roman Empire. Empire just the same.
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By 843 CE, however, the Frankish empire shattered, and Germany emerged as a concept on in its own direction, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1053880.stm. They were still, although not dominated by the Franks, part of the Holy Roman Empire, is that so?
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In 845 CE, the area subdivisions showed many tribes, accordingly, most already subdued and allocated by the HRE, see http://www.edmaps.com/empire_charlemagne.jpg.
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962 CE: German King Otto, the new Holy Roman Emperor, gained control of Northern Italy and centered the Empire in Germany, with expansion efforts north into Denmark. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1053880.stm
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By 1000 CE, this "Holy" Roman Empire had spread from the border at roughly Poland to France. http://www.edmaps.com/europe_1000.jpg
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1250 CE- Empire collapses into Princely Territories. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1053880.stm
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By the 14th Century, territories had fractured back. The Empire could not hold. See http://www.edmaps.com/europe_14_century.jpg.
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1517 CE - Martin Luther and the Reformation; further diminution of Roman presencce.
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1618-1648 CE -- Thirty Years' War. Roman presence reasserted. The Habsburgs try to reinstate Roman Catholicism. At Osnabruck, photo at top, Treaty of Westphalia is signed in 1649 and affirms independence of the individual states.
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1806 CE - Napoleon imposes French rule over most of Germany. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1053880.stm. In 1814, Napoleon was defeated, Battle of Leipzig.
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1848-1890 CE- Revolutions, industrialization Bismarck unifies much, Kaiser Wilhelm continues, with colonial expansion and militarism, workers' movements (SDS).

1914-1918 -- WWI; defeat; heavy reparations ordered
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1923 - See site for rise of Hitler, economic collapse, depression, unemployment, and, in 1933, The Third Reich under Hitler as Chancellor. Increase in persecutions of Jews, other minorities. Weimar Republic to a one-party state, and so on into modern history, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1053880.stm

Dresden. Baroque survives firebombs, World War II

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With that framework, all the sites that appear on the way as they happen on a road trip, make sense. Don't try to learn it before you go: when you return, lay out photos and places with the milestones in mind.

Luneburg and German Exceptionalism. Henry the Lion. Mix it up.

2011-03-26T19:05:00.011-04:00

Luneburg Between the Lines.

In the center of Luneburg is a statue of a lion, very modern. Luna or lune means moon in several languages. Lunar for us.

1. History from another angle

History's essence can be recreated in imagined attitude, pending documentation of its actual accuracy, is that so?

Luneburg's Lion Statue is an example.

Wends greet Henry the Lion after their defeat in the Northern Crusades. Never lose your perspective on history. Never.

This shows Henry the Lion, who spearheaded (with Albert the Bear of Brandenburg) the Pope's Crusade against the Wends, a Slavic group that long earlier had migrated to northern and eastern Europe, but who resisted Germanization, and the forced conversions to "Christianity" (when did the Founder say to kill all who disagreed with his sermons and example, one may ask). The Northern Crusades were brutal, and often against fellow Christians who had been converted already, but by Orthodox, not the Pope, after the Great Schism. See Crusades at http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Crusades.aspx.

And see the History of the Wends,one of the targets of the Northern Crusades. They had learned to hold their own in battle, and attack, and even become pirates (thank you, Harald Bluetooth, Dane), as they were beset over time on all sides: http://denmarkroadways.blogspot.com/2011/07/korsor-and-wends-highways-bypass.html

Is this Henry the Lion at the top, Heinrich der Lowe, 1129-1195, Henry of Saxony (Luneberg is in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania) see http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/SaxonyAlBran.html.

After 1142, he was known as Henry III, Duke of Saxony; and after 1156, as Henry XII, Duke of Bavaria. His Duchies remained under his control until 1180. He had a handsome face.

Fair use, Henry the Lion thumbnail, click for Wikimedia

But what happened?

2. Luneburg's subject matter: The Moon.

What happened? Is that Henry the Lion being disrespected? Mooning it is. Moon over Luneburg. History is fun in Luneburg, at least from this persective on history. Pale moon rising. Look closer. Back (pun intended) to the lion! A Fave among royalty. Look at the base. Is this the "lion" prince reviewing his subjects who are mooning him?

Why? What happened? After a great rise in power, he fell -- and his lands taken, see 12th Century warfaring, at this google book, 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica. No respect. Mooning. A new meaning for Lune-burg.

To moon. Verb. See://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=moon; as a prank, see ://www.yourdictionary.com/moon. Slang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooning, English since 1743

Don't forget the horse. Note that the horse's a___ is aimed at us, the viewers. So who is laughing at whom. Technically, this is an anachronism. Mooning is supposed to date from the 14th Century, when Norman soldiers bared backs to Edward III's archers. See, at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-492107/Over-moon-ing-A-brief-history-cheeky-goal-celebration.html

Whole line-up of mooners-Luners. Luneburg. Lune. Luna, Moon. We get it. Germany, pun-exceptional.

Who is that at the top of this side of the base of the Lion statue? War demon?

Luneburg, Henry the Lion, Heinrich der Lowe 1129, statue

The chronology of events in medieval power-plays is complex, but do a search for Henry II and follow him at this timeline site, at http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/1100_-_1199.htm. It does not make really clear why the big moon, but helps with the context in Europe

3. The Thirty Years' War

Spanish Bull - Philip IV

Luneburg featured prominently in the course of the later Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648, see http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0822644.html.

Luneburg DE, Spanish Bull Commemorating 30 Years' War

The Spanish joined the Austrians against the Protestants in the Luneburg-Hanover area, as the roughest of broad brush summaries, see http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0822644.html

Spanish Bull, Philip IV, Luneburg, DE. Held at bay by the rabble?

See Philip at http://www.pipeline.com/~cwa/TYWHome.htm. There was Philip IV known as Philip the Fair, 1268-1314, King of France; he ordered the dismantling of the Knights' Templar, not at issue here as we understand it. Then there was Philip IV of Spain, 1605-1665, era of the Thirty Years' War.

Thirty Years' War: This was a series of declared wars, undeclared wars, religious and secular issues, well-summarized at the Pipeline site. Teams:

House of Austria, comprised of Ferdinands II and II, of the House of Habsburg, Holy Roman Emperors; and Philip IV, who was their Spanish cousin.
Danish, Dutch, French and Swedish

The Thirty Years' War was also a civil war in Germany. Some principalities fought for the Habsburgs, or against them, back and forth. And it was a series of religious wars, Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist identities in issue. The Jesuit Counter-Reformation was supported by Ferdinand II, but Frederick V supported Calvinism.

4. The crooked steeple of Luneburg - look past it to the rebuilding.

Luneburg reconstructed Greek revival architecture in the square. Why choose Greek Doric?

Luneburg has its crooked steeple, but also its own sense of revival. Here off the square, with the Henry the Lion moon statue; and the church visible, see a Greek revival cafe, complete with Doric columns. These are jarring at first, all jammed in. Then think that medieval buildings also were crowded together, at all angles, wherever space was found on the pathways. Form and function, reimagined.

5. Form and Function

The ultimate moon. Even the necessaries in Germany are forward-looking. Beam me up, Scotty.

Luneburg WC. Mechanized exceptionalism.

Back to Germany's exceptionalism.

Where in America will you find a public WC, where you step right up like in Star Trek, put in your coins, and the cylindrical stainless sphere magically slides open, revealing -- yes! An immaculate toilet! Hey! This is fun!

And when you enter and push the close button, it does.

And you do what you do. And when you are finished, you rise (or back up) and adjust, and only then push the Open Sesame Button, and the beam me up Scottie device does indeed open (that's a good thing), and you emerge, to imagined great applause, as at a debut. Is it sanitized while you are out? Sure.

6. Mix it up

Luneburg's old half-timbers highlight the losses of history in the bombing of WWII. The reconstructed areas, where there are no original structures left, become the new norm, where efficiency and cost-watching predominate.

Old half timbers, Luneburg, Germany

In Luneburg, enjoy the decorative, bending demarcations between floors, the the clear weight of the old timbers at higher levels.

Obotrites. Rostock and the Ferries; Historic German Tribes.

2011-03-26T12:14:00.004-04:00

Obotrites and Rostock

1. Tribes - the Obotrites

Obotrites. This group was important in the founding of both the town of Schwerin, and Rostock, to the northwest, where the ferries dock now. See the timeline of the area and events at google book on historic German tribes, history of the Obotrites. Historic German Tribes. Do a search for history of Obotrites in google, and scroll down to the timeline already outlined there. Obotrites also feature in gamesmanship, see lists of characters and armor at http://totalwar.honga.net/unit.php?v=hrr&f=obotrites&d=Obotrite_Axemen. Meet King Mieceslas III of the Obotrites, in the first millenium, at http://www.tng.famille-morin.com/getperson.php?personID=I5957&tree=1: in Mecklenburg, Luneburg and Holstein, Slavs who migrated across the Elbe and once inhabited all over Germany, claims the site; then fell into conflict with other Germanic tribes (and were absorbed?). In Luneburg, the last of the Slavs died in about 1750, so goes the narration.

An old source, that uses f's for s's, goes into more detail, suggesting that the Obotrites were similar to the Vandals, and it mentions a King Witzen (Widukind?), at The Critical Review, Dr. Nugent's History of Vandalia, in a google book at The Monthly Review, Annals of Literature, Vol 21, 1766, by Tobias George Smollett They were more curious than our age. What facts underlie? We just refer.

We forget how mobile rulers, people and armies were in medieval and earlier times. Even Henry the Lion, see Luneberg, carried on campaigns in Italy, and, back in Germany defeated the Obotrites, see Medieval History, Cambridge

There is a long chronology of rulers, progeny, assassinations. Henry the Lion from the 12th Century recurs, find him also at Luneburg, Germany.

The Obotrites appear to be a Slavic group that also included the Wends, and we found Wends after they migrated south to Slovenia, I recall.

Roman Catholicism claims a saint, Berno, a Cistercian Monk, as an Obotrite. Read the history of the conversions of the multi-deists to Christianity, voluntary and not, at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02512b.htm/. Brno is also a city in the Czech Republic, see http://www2.brno.cz/index.php?lan=en/, near Slavkov, the Battle of Austerlitz (Encyclopedia Britannica) with Napoleon and the other two Emperors, from Austria and Russia.

Obotrite tenacity is legendary, along with other Germanic tribes. The ancient Romans stopped short of trying to subdue the Germanic tribes, in these northern areas, and in much of the Central German area we think of today. That is a source of pride to the Germans in those areas. The tribes were ferocious, dedicated to their own way of life, and even the Roman regimentation could not conquer them. There was also the geographic distance separating the Germanic conflicts from Rome, thinning of supply lines. Rome could meet its basic needs for resources by staying further south, but the resistance of the Germanic tribes when attacked was a strong factor.

The Germanic language group is as old as the Latin. All (is this so?) European languages stem from something called "Indo-European" -- and no one is superior to the other except (perhaps) in the view of those who happened to live south. There, the warmer climes enabled people to put energies to matters other than sheer survival: other than famine and cold.

Geography and destiny. In southern areas, there is a year-round ability to make clay tablets and parchment for writing, is that so? Institutions and destiny. If it had not been for the Church in the West, as the controlling institution forcing compliance, would even Latin have survived. Interesting. See the impact of geography and institutions, on history and culture, at essays on language, St. Thomas edu.

Ferries.

1. Ferry from Germany to Sweden. Make reservations in advance, but there are many ferries for easy time changes. Pay in advance, and they will put you where you want to be.

2. Sleeping. A cabin is not much more expense than sleeping in the lounge, and you get a shower and maybe 5 hours of sleep. Food is in huge portions to serve the trucker trade. One plate serves two non-trucker appetites.

3. Getting back to the car. Make a written note or photograph where your car is. Get the level etched in stone. There are designated car levels, say 6 levels on these big ferries, but those limits are not definitive -- if they need your car to balance somewhere else, they will keep waving you up the coiled inclines. If you forget where your car is, you will have to run around and hope you get there before the line behind you is set to go. Your car will probably be walled in among the 19-wheelers, invisible. The off-loading is fast.

THE DOCKS. DOCKS LOCATION.

If you do not find your ferry dock immediately upon arriving at this big port, go to a big hotel and ask directions there. There are different loading docks for different destinations, and they are far apart. A GPS is useless because you may not have the coordinates.

THE CITY

We were restless in Germany at that point -- so many lovely little towns, brick tidy buildings, that we had the urge to move on to Sweden. Rostock has been around for 800 years, but we haven't a clue about it, arriving about 8 at night, for an 11PM --we hoped -- ferry out. It took us over an hour just to get to the correct dock. Here is a long history of it -- medieval beginnings, trade, wars, fires, some parts survived, some did not, see ://www.eurotravelling.net/germany/rostock/rostock_history.htm/

Schwerin and Surnames; Thirty Years' War

2011-03-26T12:05:00.002-04:00

Schwerin

Castle and Lakes

Schweriner See, Lake at Schwerin, Germany

Schwerin is the regional capital of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania -- founded in about 1100 -- and is surrounded by lakes, lakes, lakes. The Thirty-Years' War, 1619-1648 see ://www.pipeline.com/~cwa/TYWHome.htm, devastated it; the Swedes took it over, then came the fire. A rebuilding in the 1700's. There is a massive palace on an island where two great lakes meet, right in town, and Mecklenburg royalty lived there from the 1300's to 1918. This was a trade hub, and Arab writers mention it in writings from the 1100's we understand, see Mecklenburg

The Thirty-Years' War for Germany was not only a series of wars declared and undeclared between the House of Austria, the Habsburgs, Holy Roman Emperors Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III, and a Spanish cousin, Philip IV; against variously Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, and France; and it was a civil war; and a religious war, among Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists. Maximilian I represented the Jesuit Counter-Reformation. War, militance, bloodshed. What was really resolved: only that strong feelings will not die, regardless of the merit of the cause. Once feelings are entrenched, can anyone change because of facts? Wait and see. Uneasy truces worldwide.

The palace itself dates mostly from the mid-1800's, with only a few very old parts. The area was settled in about 1018 by a group of Slavic Obotrites (see where this large tribe's area was in about 900 at ://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/900/entity_1872.html) known as the Zuarin; but by 1160, Duke Henry the Lion (great names) a "Guelph" (of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines later in Italy?? more to look up) had overcome the Zuarin. See ://www.mecklenburg-vorpommern.eu/cms2/Landesportal_prod/Landesportal/content/en/Holidays_and_Recreation/Holiday_ideas/Cities/Schwerin,_state_capital/index.jsp/.

Schwerin, Germany. Castle

Migration and surnames: Some immigrants and others from German towns take the name of the town as their own -- look at the number of German towns that appear as surnames, including Schwerin, where the people claim no known connection to it. This is not so in Sweden, where surnames for centuries derived from the first name of the father; and families emigrating then taking names from places to distinguish themselves. See Sweden Road Ways

Town surnames, other sources, see American Surnames: by Elsdon Cole Smith. See Google book ://books.google.com/books?id=OfHBWBK1wQQC&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=surnames+from+towns+Europe&source=bl&ots=W2RUPWV0Sw&sig=JhaTXlrehzTNS7Ktta_3s6OBDPY&hl=en&ei=6AuOTYncKuG70QGDkoitCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA

Luneberg - When your Steeple is Crooked

2011-02-27T17:36:00.000-05:00

Luneberg. Had been famous for its salt, first mention of that trade in 956 AD - see ://www.niedersachsen-tourism.de/en/regionen-staedte/staedte/lueneburg/index.php/ Twenty-thousand tons a year at its peak (when was that?) and Luneberg supplied half of Europe with its salt, says the Niedersachsen site. Learn Germany by reading. Nieder = lower. Sachsen = Saxony.

Bach was born in 1685, and orphaned in 1694. He moved here in 1700 as a student, was a chorister here, continuing his education, and practising. Himmler killed himself here in 1945, before he could be brought to trial.

This was a quiet, wettish Sunday afternoon, look up the street:

Luneberg DE, the Square

Luneberg, Germany. View of Town Square

Buildings do seem to tilt. This site says there are salt mines beneath, and things settled. See ://www.ledger-dispatch.com/life/lifeview.asp?c=227157

Go into a cafe there, enjoy a bite, go to the Ladies in the unisex door to the separate rooms; and one attendant for both with all doors open. Don't look surprised. Just say hello.

Common sense at the ladies and gents, Luneberg, DE

Luneberg, Am Sande, Square, window patterns, Germany

Stair-step facades.

Then look back down the street, where you came from:

But the steeple is crooked! St. Johannes, Luneberg, Germany

A crooked steeple? Off center! Run back to check: what if heaven is over that way and we are aiming this way.

St. Johannis Church, Luneberg, Germany - steeple angles

Is that maybe two degrees off? We see several spellings - Johannes and Johannis as well as St. Johns.

The lightpole and the building on the other side are where they should be, perspective-wise. But the umbrella looks off.

Or was it crooked also? Use the umbrella as a level - missed it in the first one. The umbrella looks as though I tilted the camera to make the steeple straight, but that made the umbrella crooked. Try again.

Steeple, St. Johannes, Luneberg, Germany

Umbrella level, and the steeple, not the brick part when you see it, but the top tiled pointy part (witches' hats) is definitely off. The Ledger site that we found after we got back says that the steeple builder got so despondent that the steeple is crooked, that he flung himself off it in a suicide attempt. But he landed in a hay wagon, unharmed. So he headed to a pub, got himself well tanked, and there died of alcohol poisoning. Ironies, says the site.

So am I.

Guild Hall, Luneberg, Germany

Have to check that one. I seem to remember another use, perhaps as council chambers. This is not the town hall.

Sachsenhain: Saxons' Grove. Charlemagne's Slaughter of 4,500 Saxon Prisoners?

2011-02-10T14:29:00.001-05:00

Sachsenhain

A walk in the woods. The old Saxony. Standing stones. A long story.

The year: 780-2 AD.

The setting: Charlemagne was pushing to take over Saxon lands and to force the Saxons to convert to his version of Christianity (the Pope's, with armies of each helping the other out). He had been thwarted for decades. These people wanted nothing to do with his religion or his invasion. Sometimes Charlemagne won, sometimes he didn't.

The Saxons wouldn't stay defeated.

They rose again and again, said this to get Charlemagne to think he had won, then popped up somewhere else. Whack-a-Saxon. What to do?

The Saxons were not inclined the Roman organization way. They were a decentralized group: many within the larger tribe over a large area, with a common culture; and leaders arising as needed, then blending back into the community to carry on with an ordinary life. Thought Charlemagne, perhaps: How to get hold of such a ridiculous arrangement: Charlemagne and the Pope were used to Big Leaders, hierarchies, subjugate, dammit, subjugate!

And the Saxons continued to fight, melt away, feign conversion (who would want Charlemagne-Pope's version anyway, many might have thought, seeing the macho-military bent of the "Christians").

Sachsenhain, Verden, Germany

Standing stones, Sachsenhain, Saxon's Grove, Verden, Germany

Saxons Grove, Sachsenhain, DE

Varieties of memorial standing stones, Sachsenhain, Verden, Germany

So what happened? Versions vary. Some versions support Charlemagne's goodness, as would be needed for a saint.

They were aware that Charlemagne later was sainted, so history was rewritten:

a) So all his sins had to be forgiven for that status.

b) So forget about the massacre at Pamplona, where it is said that 30,000 were killed in his leveling of the city, see this view of Charlemagne from the Evil side, ://one-evil.org/people/people_08c_charlemagne.htm/; and

c) So forget about the massacre here at Sachsenhain that we are getting to), and excise it from the written histories.

Others say that a Latin word from the early texts was mistranslated, so that a concept for "exiled" or "relocated" became "beheaded". See ://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Bloody_Verdict_of_Verden/. That site also notes, however, that a 681 AD edict by Bishops in Toledo called for beheading nonbelievers, so the policy was in place.

The oral tradition of the Saxons, however, whether tied to a mistranslation, or an example of history's rewrite to purge it, held.

Either way, the story of a massive massacre was passed on, and on. And fit with other acts of Charlemagne, as at Pamplona.

What is their proof? It was the victor Charlemagne-types who had the written language. And they wrote what they wanted. You will not find a negative account of Charlemagne there.

So what did happen? Smart: rewrite history. Who is to say what is right? Just like seeing something on TV, it gains credibility just because of the medium. How to contradict that, when another version is on the big screen?

Enter the Third Reich.

Heinrich Himmler put together a public works project in 1934-35, a memorial was erected at Sachsenhain, ostensibly to honor the Saxon dead -- all 4,500 with 4,500 standing stones, lining a broad smooth dirt road around a rural pastureland, through woods, around. Wide enough for vehicles. Handy because, once the community was thankful to the Reich for their memorial, the Reich took it over for the Hitler Youth and the SS. See next post.

Sachsenhain, Saxons' Grove, slaughter of 4,500, it is said, Verden, Germany

Essentially, condensing, Charlemagne finally was victorious over a large group of Saxons, and took 4,500 prisoners. One story says that he demanded that they produce their leaders, and he would let the rest go. That story says that the group said they were all leaders, and all stood up, and would identify none among themselves.

So Charlemagne, to teach a lesson and ensure no more nonsense from Saxons, ordered their slaughter -- out came the swords (big, good for beheading) and down the lines, around the circle, went Charlemagne's executioners. Whack, Whack. Other stories tell of fathers and sons clinging together, or brothers, or friends, as the sword descended nearer and nearer. It was a travesty, if it happened that way. The Saxons never forgot. This was their Wood. Their Grove. Sachsenhain. Saxon's Grove.

Memorial stones to the fallen Saxons, Charlemagne's murders, say some, Sachsenhain, Saxon's grove, Verden DE

How many stones ring the walkway? This site says only 1000. See ://www.fact-index.com/v/ve/verden_s_bloody_trial.html

Saxon's Walkway, Sachsenhain, Verden, DE

Standing stones, Sachsenhain, Verden, Germany

Stones, closely affixed, Sachsenhain, Germany

As a memorial, however, it remains moving, with stones seemingly tilting toward each other, some sheltering lesser sized stones, others defiantly to themselves.
Individualized standing stones, Sachsenhain, Germany

The current owners and operators, an evangelical group, unfortunately has defaced some of them. They etched in the stones their own religious motivational slogan words, but ignore those.

Evangelical defacings, stones at Sachsenhain DE

The area is now owned and operated by an Evangelical group, with slogans and words on the stones difficult to translate. We think this is Menschen Wie Vele Leben or men will live, something like that. Some stones as we recall had one word, or perhaps two. Looking for others' accounts of the translations. We simply prefer historic stones kept as they are, free of any agenda.

Walk the perimeter, think of the fallen -- you can't help it.

Those of us who are fond of anthropomorphism will see and hear many things. Other than that, we are quite sane.

More on Charlemagne: see://books.google.com/books?id=IJrN8rDirxkC&pg=PA294&lpg=PA294&dq=scribe+Charlemagne&source=bl&ots=D_mTgC0WCA&sig=3t8u9VaKAuqrXxYJ4yRtv1qLUck&hl=en&ei=sjZUTbCSM5PVgAfyj_XMCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=scribe%20Charlemagne&f=false

Verden and Sachsenhain: Memorial Appropriated by Himmler for Hitler Youth, SS

2011-02-08T11:30:00.004-05:00

Hitler Youth and SS

Propaganda's Tactics - Appear to Sympathize, Represent a Group's Interest;

Then Highjack their most Treasured Symbol

Himmler: Build a Memorial to Nurture the old Patriotism of a Population;

Then Appropriate It for Hitler Youth, SS after the population is off guard

Sachsenhain. Saxon Grove. Near Verden. From memorial to a massacre of Saxons by Charlemagne, to Hitler Youth; SS. A park area near Verden.

Origins. This nature park was built as a public works project, supposedly as a memorial to the Saxon Slaughter of 782 AD by Charlemagne, at that place, known as Saxon Grove.

In 1934-35, the National Socialist Party, pursuant to orders of Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, set it up as a memorial to the slaughter of 4,500 Saxon prisoners by Charlemagne, in 782 ACE.

Dan Widing at Sachsenhain. Verden, DE. Saxon Grove. Standing stones as a memorial of the slaughter of 4500 Saxon prisoners by Charlemagne, so the story has been passed down

Strategy. The community was thrilled: at last, they were receiving official recognition of the great sacrifice of the Saxons of more than a thousand years ago; the area where the murders happened (defenseless prisoners, retribution); and the great injustice of Charlemagne and his forced conversions, invasion of their lands, bringing the Papal religion in tow and down their throats.

Sachsenhain, erecting the standing stones, Saxon Massacre Memorial, Verden DE

Not long after the memorial was built however, with a several miles long perimeter smooth path wide enough for vehicles, and 4,500 memorial standing stones representing the deaths, once the local population was in sync with Himmler's plan for the area and surely Himmler was their friend; it all changed.

The memorial area was appropriated as a training ground for the Hitler Youth, see Hitler Youth at ://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/hitleryouth/hj-prelude.htm; and also provided housing for the SS. Himmler softened the population by pretending to act in their interest, then substituted his own.

Go back to that era, to see the unrelenting focus on reinstating "Germany" as rightful rulers of others, then see how effective the manipulations were even here, at Verden. After World War I and its humiliating and devastating defeats, Adolf Hitler analyzed brilliantly how to use propaganda to get at the heart of the masses, see Natural Pragmatism, Unser Kampf, Mein Kampf, Hitler as Propagandist Use their emotions, and let nothing distract.

The Loss of Place. There would be so much history to learn at this place, if it had remained a memorial to slaughtered Saxons. A main point could be a study of the nature of history itself: that proofs from that 782 AD era are difficult, and conflicting. See this site, not friendly to Charlemagne, but with a somewhat different version of the killings. See ://one-evil.org/people/people_08c_charlemagne.htm Nonetheless, a population's memory of injustice does not require exactitude or agreement on all the facts. The grip of an injustice is still there, and ongoing with this new use.

Reality says parks cost money, and if an evangelical center can pay the rent, fine. Still, we wish they had kept their chisels off the stones, and kept their motivational sound bites to somewhere else.

Hitler Youth and SS took over the cultural memorial park, Sachsenhain, Verden DE

This Himmler-inspired public works project then was taken over by Himmler for the Hitler Youth and SS.

Sachsenhain, DE. Several half-timbered buildings housed SS and Hitler Youth

Hitler Youth: Hitler addresses the Hitler Youth, see and hear, watch videos, and read at the History Place:

"We do not want this nation to become soft. Instead, it should be hard and you will have to harden yourselves while you are young. You must learn to accept deprivations without ever giving in. Regardless of whatever we create and do, we shall pass away, but in you, Germany will live on. And when nothing is left of us you will have to hold up the banner which some time ago we raised from nothing. (Applause) And I know it cannot be otherwise, because you are flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood, and your young minds are filled with the same will that dominates us. (Applause) You cannot be but united with us. And when the great columns of our movement march victoriously through Germany today I know that you will join these columns. And we know (Applause) that Germany is before us, within us, and behind us."

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/hitleryouth/

The area is now a Youth Camp for an Evangelical group.

Sachsenhain. Still not a dedicated memorial. An evangelical center. Verden DE

Road around perimeter, Sachsenhain; bucolic

The nineteenth century fostered great interest in the idea that there was a special connection between nature and the German people, and those carried over into design in the 20th Century, see Nature and Ideology, Natural Garden Design in the 20th Century, by Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn at://books.google.com/books?id=wQ9KaBPtL-cC&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&dq=sachsenhain+SS&source=bl&ots=M7Z8Ut3xvi&sig=iHOjgROUDN3N5xX41u-J8tHDVUI&hl=en&ei=JoxRTbanLYeglAemhZ2WCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CEsQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=sachsenhain%20SS&f=false

See also Pseudo-Archeology and Nationalism at ://uwm.academia.edu/BettinaArnold/Papers/324555/Pseudoarchaeology_and_Nationalism_Essentializing_Difference/ Participation in a fictitious past, or partially fictitious: human nature to associate and appear greater than one is?

But is Sachsenhain fictitious? How much of what we think we know now, came from the National Socialists seeking to purify Germany, bring it back to its pre-Christian glorious roots. Or was the story already there, ready to be taken to new levels with the SS and Hitler Youth. Some German-speaker: the sites are online.

Standing stones; memorials to Saxon prisoners, killed by Charlemagne 782 AD

Revisit Charlemagne at ://www.docshare.com/doc/125238/Life-and-times-of-Charlemagne2/ Some accounts say that fathers and sons were among the Saxons, and that they clung together as the swords whack, whack, whacked down the line. Is this a motivation for so many placements, stones protecting each other. Workmen: Tell us. What were you thinking?

And would the current owners, the Evangelicals, please keep their personal philosophies off these stones.

Evangelical groups deface the memorial's standing stones, Sachsenhain DE

Chiseled graffiti. Take it off.

The Circus! German Circus Tradition

2011-01-26T14:23:00.001-05:00

The Circus in Germany

All over Europe, find traveling small groups of performers camped at the side of a road near a town; or large, elaborate and big-tented circuses, like this one found between Hanover and Celle. Find a history of circuses at ://www.circopedia.org/index.php/Short_History_of_the_Circus

Recent history: See Circus Williams, Great Circus Williams-Althoff, German National Circus, at ://www.circus-williams.de/history3.html/ The tent colors and trailers are different from these that we saw, but the history of that particular group shows the appeal of feats of daring and skill.

Roadside Circus, Germany (near Hanover)

From the circus site:

Englishman Philip Astley (1742-1814) began the first modern circus format, featuring equestrian trick-riders from the training schools of various military groups. An early showman was another Englishman, Jacob Bates who focused his activities in the German States, and inspired Astley. Astley did not think up the round performing ring, however. That developed naturally among equestrians because the centrifugal force generated by the rider and horse going round and round, enabled the rider the better to keep balance while standing up. A gallop in a straight line would not produce the same derring-do possibilities. Astley used a 62' ring diameter. The standard now is 42'.

There was a German equestrian named Carl Magnus Hinne (1818-1890) set up circuses in Germany, Poland, Denmark and Russia. Names of old circus families that originated in Italy or Germany could well become associated then with Russia, or Denmark.

Horse acts declined after WWI, but in Germany, the era between WWI and WWII was boom time for traveling circuses, very flamboyant. As the core of the show, equestrian trick riders were replaced by and joined by balancing acts, tight-ropes, clowns, trapezes, acrobats, wild animal trainers (the German Hagenbecks, importers and dealers, spearheaded this), and menageries, and then booths for feats of skill and a reward of a pink fluffy stuffed something. Then came formal schools in the different nations, serving a nationalized circus, or national interests. Other countries preferred permanent circus buildings to the traveling variety.

German and Italian tent-makers were considered tops for the Big Top, apparently.

1977: Enter the Big Apple Circus, performing branch of a circus school (reintroduced the old one-ring idea); then the German Roncalli Circus brought back the old flamboyance; and Cirque de Soleil has been innovative; so circuses remain on the move.

Bergen-Belsen Documentation Center, Concentration Camp Memorial Park, near Celle

2011-01-26T13:15:00.002-05:00

Anne Frank is Somewhere Here.

So is everyone else.

Anne Frank, Bergen-Belsen Documentation Center, Celle, Germany

Some scholarship challenges the numbers of German Jews killed, and the focus of the holocaust, see Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder, review at ://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/09/bloodlands-stalin-timothy-snyder-review/ The impact remains. The Memorial Park itself is flat acreage with woods, and cleared areas, remains of structures, some relief maps, a few large memorials like the Polish Cross, and specific memorials to groups victimized, including Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the mentally handicapped, and "enemies of the state," including those who criticized the Nazi rise to power, see ://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi_police_state.htm.

Memorial Park, Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp, Celle DE

Find a walk through the Memorial Park at Memorial Park, Bergen-Belsen, Celle, Germany. There are isolated and grouped headstones (as memorials, not actual persons necessarily), a long pathway, cross-paths, and many, many raised flat mounds, deep pits into which hundreds of bodies were bulldozed, a mound made on top, flattened, and heather or other low brush covering, and a memorial set in the raised turf wall indicating how many souls were interred there: 750, 250, 1000 and so on.

Still, what happened there? A child, a visitor, would have no idea except that there are flat maps here, like toys, like a board game; and there are so many numbers for the dead.

Child, peering at relief map, Bergen Belsen Documentation Center. What does he understand? Near Celle, Germany

So go into the Documentation Center, a modern building, with the photos, exhibits, relief maps, films.

Map of Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp, structures, 1944

Relief map of barracks, Bergen Belsen KZ, Germany

The place was structured, meticulous rows, functions. Read Heinrich Himmler's speech to the SS at Poznan, Poland, in 1943 on extermination of the Jews in particular, at ://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/speech-text.shtml/ Hear and see it at ://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/ A list of selected quotes: at including loyalty and responsibility only to own German blood, no one else ://www.bookrags.com/quotes/Heinrich_Himmler

Bergen Belsen: originally a transit center. Later, an end-stop concentration camp. Germany

See the connectors between Bergen-Belsen and the labor and death camps elsewhere. Allies have been criticized for knowing what the railroads were being used for, yet not bombing the rails and stations to stop it. Aiming for stations and railways would have hampered the transit, without also killing the prisoners the bombing was supposed to help. Is that so? Find other debate about bombing the camps themselves, which would have also caused deaths of thousands, see that discussed at ://www.ihr.org/jhr/v05/v05p215_Gleason.html

Anne Frank and her family, photo 1941, Amsterdam. Bergen-Belsen Documentation Center, DE

Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS: "We have always selected the highest and abandoned the lowest. As long as we maintain this principle, the Order [the SS] will remain healthy. After the war, we shall really build up our Order .... it will provide Germany with an elite. This elite will provide leaders to industry, agriculture and politics and the activities of the mind."

Women Prisoners, Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp, Intake

Tragic camera moments. The exhibit regarding women prisoners notes the irony of women before the Bergen Belsen ID camera, not knowing what was coming; and out came a "camera" response -- they fixed their hair, made a shy smile, even a little coy, as though this were its own occasion. Please, like me. I see me. My aunts. Would we be different?

Meticulous record-keeping, transits, Prisoner 183706, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp DE

Liberation, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp 1945

Memorial Chapel, Jewish, Multi-Denominational, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp Memorial Park

Plan your visit to Bergen Belsen so that there are several hours left at the end of the day to appreciate all the exhibits. Films take time, the whole presentation is overwhelming - not in how it is arranged, because that is in manageable sections -- but overwhelming in the human sense. Those Germans look just like us. Does that mean we could do that, too. Reference to a few exhibit photos must be fair use out of such a total. Photographic and other teaching tools -- the information belongs to the world, is that so?

Bergen-Belsen KZ. Concentration Camp. Memorial Park Grounds

2011-01-22T11:30:00.006-05:00

Bergen Belsen Konzentrationslager (KZ)

Nazi Concentration Camp, Germany

Learn the KZ road sign for Concentration Camp because that will be on many signs to Bergen Belsen; the name, however, may not be given at all. This place began as a transport center, a way-station for prisoner destinations elsewhere; then it evolved into a Concentration Camp itself. It is in Northern Germany, Saxony, near the town of Celle.

Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp, Train Transport Station, small portion of Exhibit, at the Camp

Of the camp itself,it is in two parts. First, structures. There are no structures left. None at all. It is a Memorial Park. The only way to get an idea of what happened there, without independent information, is ground level relief maps scattered about ("You are here," they point out from time to time, so you know which way to go next).

Second, there is an impressive - but removed emotionally since there are no physical structures to support what the Documentation Center "documents," a Documentation Center. See Bergen-Belsen Documentation Center. That building is large but appears almost as an afterthought: It is as though Germany had been directed to maintain education centers for the concentration camps, they are supposed to tell what happened here, so enjoy your walk first, and then here are the pictures, Goodbye.

The Center is indeed very large, with thorough exhibits including photos of inmates like Anne Frank who died here at age 15. See if first, before the long walks outside. How else to orient.

We started with the outside, to see what we could learn if we already did not know about Concentration Camps (we have been to

Dachau (early trip with family),
Buchenwald also in Germany,
Auschwitz in Poland,
Mauthausen in Austria. See it as an example of the best preserved site, actual equipment, http://austriaroadways.blogspot.com/2009/11/mauthausen-kz-konzentrationslager.html.

On the outside walkways intersecting the park-like setting at Bergen Belsen, find only memorials, explanations on signs as you walk around the circumference and across, much heather, and raised mounds.

Bergen Belsen KZ is a Memorial Park and Documentation Center, Celle, Germany

Much is in English. Thank you.

Leave stones. The memorial custom in Judaism, we understand and have seen, is to leave small stones on markers, signs, graves. This dedication wall, "To the Memory of All Those Who Died in this Place," is covered with small stones and pebbles. The origins of the practice are Biblical, and sensible. Honor, and replenish and preserve the site. See ://www.jewish-funeral-guide.com/tradition/grave-visitations.htm/ We do not know the rituals, but do leave our stones everywhere.

Memorial Obelisk, Bergen Belsen

The Obelisk at Bergen Belsen was erected between 1945 and 1952, see ://www.stripes.com/military-life/travel/bergen-belsen-where-sorrow-never-sleeps-1.70532/.

The Polish Cross. Wooden Cross, Bergen Belsen DE

We were told that, immediately upon liberation, the Polish prisoners erected a tall wooden cross, just like this. It stood until it needed to be replaced; and has been replaced many times, but always on the same spot, same design. Imagine the spirit, for starving, abused, near-death inmates to erect such a structure.

Jewish Memorial, Bergen Belsen. Symbolic graves around.

This is a destination point for families but with so little to really show of the purpose of the place, and kids trotting about playing, what are they learning. That this is a remote park, and fun to visit. Or does awareness grow. But that takes returning, and returning. The grave markers are all symbolic: no-one knows exactly where anyone died and was interred. Families could request monuments and stones, however, and many did.

Burial mound, Bergen Belsen KZ, Celle, DE

The mounds blend in, no exotic plantings, heather and low growth the maintain the shapes, flat tops, large footprint, rectangular or square, angled sides, and the designation: "Hier ruhe 2500 tote," for example; here rest 2500 bodies. Or 800. Or 1000. There were 10,000 unburied dead at Bergen Belsen upon liberation, see the Auschwitz site above. Of the 40,000 alive, some 28,000 of those died soon after liberation. The task of burial was overwhelming. They started with heaving bodies onto trucks and piling them. That was too slow, so the documentation center shows bulldozers pushing and piling them into holes, cover up, level off. Over and over.

And those are only the individuals found at liberation. The deaths took place for years, from starvation, beatings, mistreatment, disease. This was not an extermination camp predominantly, as it began as a transit stop for the extermination camps and the labor camps; I do not recall gas chambers. Perhaps they were built. But there were thousands of shootings and killings, and a crematorium for the dead. Need to check.

Remains of structures, Bergen Belsen KZ, Celle, Germany

How else to communicate the overwhelming size of this place, on and on, many markers giving the function of the structure that had been there.

Rubble, foundations, Bergen Belsen DE

The danger is that the place will become just a nature walk.

Memorial bricks, individual names. Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp, Germany

Remembrances, memorial bricks, Bergen Belsen KZ, Germany

The walkways go on and on. It is difficult to see where to go next.

Fetid water source for inmates still there, Bergen Belsen

Bergen Belsen is a large memorial park - there is no one orienting feature until you make it to the far end and the Obelisk and the Cross.

Memorial Park, rough-hewn, Bergen Belsen KZ

Then suddenly a part will be manicured. See the size of the burial mounds. There are byways and markers scattered, as well as in particular locations. They tend to retell a story, or give a name and relationship. Remembrance stones are on most of them.

Bergen Belsen burial mound, symbolic graves, Celle, Germany

Mound markers note the number of dead buried there: 1000, 750, 500, 2500. Bergen Belsen KZ

Symbolic graves for unknowns inmates, in the woods and pathways. Bergen Belsen KZ

With so many burial mounds, appreciate the variety of shrubbery used to differentiate them without requiring upkeep. It all is rough. Heather. Excellent.

Heather, covering mounds and burial plots, Bergen Belsen DE

Here rest 800 dead. Bergen Belsen KZ. Burial mound.

Artifacts are still being found as they rise to the surface. People leave them on markers.

Artifacts, still appearing. Leave what you find on a marker. Bergen Belsen, KZ

Symbolic marker, an unknown dead, Bergen Belsen DE

Now: Of all those who died in the Holocaust, we all know of the Jews. They have advocates, and funds, and justifiably memorialize that group. There are other groups targeted by the Third Reich, as being less than Aryan, or the chosen Superiors; the Gypsies (here memorialized as Roma, Sinti, Zigeun, the homosexuals, the Jehovah's Witnesses - did you think of that?

Here is a specific marker to the often-forgotten.

Marker, Memorial to Juden, Sinti and Roma, Zeugen , Jehovas, Homosexuelle, Victims Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp, DE

The marker here specifyies groups targeted :

Juden,
Sinti and Roma,
Zeugen (Gypsy groups),
Jehovahs,
Homosexuals.

See the Holocaust Glossary at http ://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/wiesenthal_glossary.html/, click on Concentration Camps, and find that the camps began in 1933 with Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachenhausen (near Berlin) for the enemies of the Nazi regime. Those initially forced there were defined as Gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, the handicapped, mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, communists, monarchists, socialists, "asocials" and other actual and potential political enemies.

Among the Juden: Anne Frank and Margot Frank: no known actual place of burial.

Size of Bergen Belsen. Very large.

Stark. Bergen Belsen.

Finally, see the Obelisk, and nearby is the Documentation Center and a Memorial Religious building.

The Broken Tree Memorial, Bergen Belsen

Symbolic stones, families requested markers, not actual graves. Bergen Belsen.

Memorial: 30,000 Jews who died at Bergen Belsen

The numbers are unfathomable. But, after seeing all the mounds, the visitor is persuaded that tens of thousands were killed and killed and killed. Do see the park first, then go to the big memorial structures and then the documentation center. Otherwise, the numbers are just ho-hum It took us a long time to walk the full perimeter of this Camp, and we also got lost in the by-ways.

Burial mound at Bergen Belsen. 1000 here? 500? Markers do the counting, we did not note the number of bodies in this particular one.

Now: gas chambers here? Yes, say several sites. No, says the Institute for Historical Research http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v15/v15n3p23_Weber.html; the researchers at http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v15/v15n3p23_Weber.html/ The conditions at Bergen Belsen were generally better than elsewhere until 1944, when most of the mass deaths occurred from conditions, starvation, epidemics, and the prisoners surviving showed those effects. Gas chambers, repeats Institute for Historical Research, no.

The problem at this kind of Memorial Park without structures where someone (particularly children, who need to carry this memory along, is that so?) cannot see, and remember (even if there is some little sign saying so): is that without a sign that here was a gas chamber, or its reconstruction, is that we don't even think of how so many people were murdered. Neglect, absence of treatment unto death, beatings, shootings, and the epidemics and starvation.

Germany. The impact of concentration camps here is muted. Visit Mauthausen in Austria. Austria Road Ways, Mauthausen Concentration Camp. There is a gas chamber, intact, places where hangings took place, tools of the killing trade. By pulling facilities all down, as happened in Buchenwald and here at Bergen Belsen, even in anger and reprisal and remorse and guilt, what is destroyed is a means of passing on the memory of what hate, polarization, propagannda and demonizing do. We are coping with that in the US and may not pull out. Fodder Site: The Way to Mauthausen.

For any nation: which groups are targeting our own children for domination. Prime the children. Bellwether Haiku. Nicens Baby Tuckoo at Shooter Camp

Hannover: Detail, War Memorial Door Panels, Marktkirche; Theology and War

2011-01-08T03:24:00.002-05:00

Hannover - Hanover
War Memorial Door Panels, Marktkirche, Hannover

a/k/a Lutheran Church, Hanover

Market Church

Spellings affect search results. For Hannover, also search for Hanover. Visit Hannover for these memorial doors, a teaching and remembrance. Marktkirche. Market Church.
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Market Church, Hanover. Holocaust Memorial Doors, Marktkirche, Hannover, DE

This set of doors is one of the finest, most moving set of war memorial constructs we have found as to WWII. Germany usually does not go out of its way to present what happened to Jews and others, and its own citizens, in the war. Usually it chooses to downplay even the concentration camps as parks, neat and tidy, with somber documentation centers getting concrete but the outside -- how would a child ever learn the magnitude. Bergen-Belsen -- hard to find, all leveled on the outside as to actual buildings. So spend time with the doors.
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The sequence: First set, the panels of the war experience. Second set, the return to normalcy. Third set, the theological reconciliation representation.
Panels show great detail. Click on any to enlarge.
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1. The War experience, WWII
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Market Church, Holocaust Memorial Doors. Woman and dead child, Hanover, DE

Fleeing the fires, Memorial Door Panel, Market Church, Hanover, Germany

Hannover was severely bombed, including its suburbs and surrounding villages.

Burials, Memorial Doors, Marktkirche, Hanover DE

Hitler salute, Memorial Door Panels, Marktkirche, Hanover Hermany

Death by hanging, Memorial Door panel, Market Church, Hannover DE

Pleading, chair overturned, Memorial Doors, Lutheran Church, Market Church, Hannover DE

Divided panel, tank, death; while starving person serves glutton, Memorial Door panels (2) Market Church, Hanover Germany

The doors open at that center divider line.

Tank detail, Memorial Door Panel, Market Church, Hanover Germany

Detail, starting person serving dinner to official, Memorial Doors, panel, Marktkirche, Hannover DE

...........................................

2. Return to normalcy

Then see what appear to be returns to humanity, afterwards. Is this a child being returned, extending its arms to a familiar person; return to ordinary occupations like farming. The time frame is ambiguous -- happier times before; or a return to normalcy after. Fill in your own caption, setting. These are not official here, just a best effort to distinguish each.

Child, passed from one adult to another (a returned child?) Memorial Doors, Lutheran Church, Hanover Germanys.

Ordinary life, farming, scythe. Is this before, or a return after? Lutheran Church, Marktkirche, Hanover Germany

Return to plowing, or is this part of the War work? Market Church, Hanover, Germany. memorial door panel

Rebuilding, Memorial Door Panels, Lutheran Church, Marktkirche, Hannover DE

The wounded, or perhaps inmates, walking. Memorial Doors, Karket church, Hanover, Germany

.........................

3. Theological reconciliation, forgiveness represented

Reconciliation, forgiveness, church communion service, Memorial Doors, Market Church, Hannover DE

Inmate, starving person as the Crucified, Memorial Doors, apex panel, Marktkirche, Hannover DE

Hannover -- Worker-Printer Fountain, Caduceus. Compare Asclepius, Reichsadler, Parteiadler

2011-01-06T16:02:00.005-05:00

Fountain Details

Tracking Symbols

Street sculpture, Hannover, Germany

Here, look closely among the curlicues and distractions, and find a figure in the center, holding a winged staff aloft. What details are symbolic, if any. So we looked it up, and found several similar motifs, but each meaning something different.

Compare

Caduceus (wings, staff, two snakes, commerce, printing, negotiation) with the
Rod of Asclepius (in Europe, no wings, staff, one snake, medicine things); and the
Parteiadler (full eagle, looking over left wing, Nazi) and
Reichsadler (full eagle, looking over right wing, stands for whole country)

Don't Rush to conclusions -- Limbaugh did.

Street fountains. Street sculpture. Wonderful in Germany. Often a combination of light-dark human experience themes, marriage, money, and carnival fun with puppets and puppeteers, and whimsy. Here, we looked more closely at the photograph of this Fountain after we got home. We thought the center figure, rather little, is a National Socialist Worker. Now we think he is a printer.

The figure in the center, a small figure in a leather apron, holds aloft a staff with snakes twining up and wings at the top. Mystery: It looks like the symbol we connect with medics -- is it? But this fellow in the center looks very like a blacksmith.

Worker Statue, staff with snakes, wings: Caduceus symbol, commerce, printing, Hannover, Germany

It turns out to be, we think, the Caduceus symbol, and two snakes is the important part. With one snake, it would be a medic-related, in Europe.

We are staying with Wikipedia here because the issue is straightforward enough there and on other sites as to form of symbol and what each is.

Our angle is how to spot which, on statues, fountains. What other cues help. For overview of the forms, see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus/.

The Caduceus Symbol.
Commerce

Two snakes. Fair use thumbnail from ://www.nflpn.org/images/caduceus.gif/ Some images show a clearly tiered set of wings, three tiers down. That approaches the Zoroastrian winged symbol, with the tiers, as is seen on the Parteiadler and Reichsadler (see below) but that does not seem to be an issue here.

The Caduceus has several meanings:

1) As a printing symbol, and the blacksmith could well be a printer here, we suppose. Both need big aprons; and old printing equipment was heavy.

2) As a larger concept, the Caduceus symbolizes commerce, negotiation, the balance of ideals in coming to a resolution, exchange, reciprocity, says Wikipedia.

The Caduceus is not a medical symbol in Europe. The medical symbol we often see in the United States does have two snakes, in this country, but that is only since the beginning of the 20th Century when the US Medical Corps adopted it as their symbol in 1902. See://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus/.

That seems to have been a mistake. The Rod of Asclepius, a single snake twining up, and had no wings up there, only had -- one snake. Check it out on an images search. You will find some two-snakes and even some wings, but email those people because the real Asclepius had one staff and one snake to comfort him.

Rod of Asclepius.
Healing

Fair use of the Greek healer himself, from ://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/Rod_of_asclepius_0.jpg

/

No wings, just a staff and a single snake.

Parteiadler:
Nazi - faces left (from wearer viewpoint)

At first look, we thought the Fountain Man was a National Socialist Worker with the symbol associated with those things in Germany's past. The wings were clearly visible on the Fountain staff being held up.

Eyes left.

But the Fountain man is not holding up a Parteiadler. The Parteiadler is clearly a whole bird, an eagle, and it looks over its left wing. It became the symbol for the Nazi Party. Here is a fair use thumbnail from Wikipedia, at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party.

And the worker statue has no swastika -- see the swastika's history as a symbol in other parts of the world, at Insignias: Swastika

Swastika
Nazi if turns left, Life if turns right

Swastika. The way the eagle's head turns makes a difference in the Parteiadler and the Reichsadler. It also makes a difference how the swastika turns. It is also known as the hooked cross, and stood for peace and wellbeing. See ://www.thegavel.net/Octbat.html.

Our old hatpin, Swastika turning to the left from the wearer's view

Feet left. Clockwise?

The story is that Hitler, being left-handed (this is assuming that ours was a left-turning swastika from the wearer's viewpoint), turned the normally right-turning swastika to the left. That is the perspective of the Parteiadler as well: head turning left from the bird's viewpoint.

That became the military meaning. A right-turning swastika would be good luck, turning to the right from the wearer's perspective, and from the Sanskrit. But it all turns on whose perspective is used.

Do an images search for German swastika and they all turn this way, to the left from the wearer's view. Some are all mixed up.

At first look, we thought this was a National Socialist Worker with the symbol associated with those things.

Reichsadler
National symbol, faces right (wearer viewpoint)

The worker is not holding a Reichsadler, either. That was the old symbol of the country, the Reichsadler.

Reichsadler:

Eyes right.

The Reichsadler has the same kind of eagle and swastika, but it looks over its right shoulder. This is another fair use thumbnail from the Wikipedia site. Look on the net -- everybody seems to have Wikipedia symbols up. Are they just all alike? That (says the site) Reichsadler stands for the whole country, not the Nazi party. Over time, the Reichsadler, right shoulder, was replaced with the Parteiadler, left shoulder. But each has the swastika, in itself an old, old symbol predating Nazis by centuries. Thank you, Wiki.

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Other details

Peer inside the bars at the street sculpture, fancy ironwork, floral, cagey, figure in center. There is a face. Staring out. Serious, barely noticeable.

Detail, Printer Fountain, Hannover, Germany,

Detail, Face, Hannover Germany,street fountain, Worker or Printer,

Ironwork detail, Worker Street Fountain, Hannover DE

Floral detail, Printer Street Fountain, Hannover, Germany

Little Caduceus Symbol, Printer Fountain, Hannover, Germany (lower right)

Hannover -- Market Church, Reconstructions, War-Theme Entry Doors

2011-01-06T15:14:00.001-05:00

Hannover, Germany

In English, Hanover

Ties among royal families and rulers in Europe over the centuries: there was an unusual such tie between Germany and England. Hanover was founded in the 1100's, then in the 1600's became the capital of a duchy that included the town Luneberg (a duchy is ruled by a duke). The duchy was renamed the Electorate of Hannover and the town prospered as a member of the commercial Hanseatic league.

All fine, but in the 1700's its own ruler -- called the Elector -- was crowned as King George I of Great Britain. That meant that for the next 125 years, Hannover was ruled by a British monarch. See://geography.howstuffworks.com/europe/geography-of-hannover.htmThere are stories and reports of British royal ambivalence toward taking a firm stand against Germany in the years leading up to WWII, and family ties went deep between the countries. See The British Royal Family and Their German Heritage at ://www.suite101.com/content/the-british-royal-family-and-their-german-heritage-a267872

Martin Luther, statue, Marktkkirche, Market Church, Hannover, Germany

Martin Luther: 16th Century Reformer.

This Lutheran Church in Hannover is also known as the Church of Saint George and St. James. See://www.tripwolf.com/en/guide/show/178120/Germany/Hannover/Marktkirche/ Fourteenth Century.

Go to thie website and find a fine way to end an informational piece: "Stay protected." At ://www.kirche-hannover.de/marktkirche/

For and index and links to Martin Luther's works, including sermons, treatises, see http://history.hanover.edu/early/LUTHER.html/ Start with the one on translating, and see the issues of the Reformation from the Roman Catholic Church take shape, and Luther's humor.

Marktkirche, Church of St. George and St. James, Market Church, Hannover, Germany

The church dates from the 14th Century, but an earlier structure had also been a place of worship there. Hannover was heavily bombed, and has been reconstructed, but you can still see wafts of the old in the crooked floor levels of the buildings.

Entrance doors, Marktkirche, Hannover, Germany. Modern, relief

Close-up, Entrance Doors, Market Church, Hannover. The war experience memorialized, see tank and the dying, for example, lower left

Old altarpiece survived, taken down during bombing, Market Church, Marktkirche, Hannover, Germany

The Lutheran Church is not all that old -- 1895 -- but was bombed on March 25, 1945. See the photos of the damage, and its interior prior to the bombing.

Market Church, Hannover, from photo after WWII bombing

Market Church, from photo before bombing WWII

Interior, Church of St. George and St. James, Marktkirche, Hannover, Germany, before WWII bombing

Brick gothic: Use of local materials. This is a flat area overall, and there are not the hills, mountains and rocks easily available for structures in areas, like France, where there are soaring towers and flying buttresses.

Altes Rathaus, Old Town Hall, portion reconstructed 1964 after WWII damage, Hannover, Germany

Parts of the Old Town Hall complex date from the 1400's, see ://www.worldtravelguide.net/germany/altes-rathaus-old-town-hall

Enger - Sudden Saint Widukind and the Church

2010-12-22T18:20:00.000-05:00

Enger

Widukind, King or Chieftain or Saint or all of these

Widukind, representation of Saint, Collegiate Church (Stiftskirche) Enger, DE

or mere Saxon leader arising as needed

to oppose Charlemagne and the Christians invading,
subduing, and taking over Saxon lands

What was Widukind's relationship to the Church. He was forced to convert, but was that also "voluntary" in that he had a vision and saw the light? Did it stick either way. Was he banished to a monastery to get him out of the way of Charlemagne once and for all, or did he seek to go in order to be devout? Is that his body in the Church at Enger. Why is he made a Saint? To absorb, spin and defuse? He is said to have ridden a dark horse before his conversion and a white horse after. Why decides if that is so, and what it signifies, if anything.

Germany is as full of whimsy as it is the serious, so some things we will never know, and there is noone to ask.

Gargoyles at Enger, DE

A small Widukind in the Town Square.

Widukind, diminished in the Town Square, Enger

Geneologies claimed from Widukind, here Mathilde, wife of Henry I of Germany, said to be of the same family as Saxon Widukind and descendants follow, Illustration, Widukind Museum, Enger

Many groups (volkisch), including Nazis, celebrate at Enger

Click to enlarge any of these.

Widukind Rex Saxon, Saxonia (Kingdom of Saxons)

King of Saxons, or Chieftain, depending on representation of costume, projections of others about their own political systems that necessitated hereditary authority figures. Some say that the Saxons were decentralized, which drove the Romans crazy. Leaders appeared as the disparate groups were threatened, then melted back into their own groups when there was a breather. Who was the leader here?

Finally, one set of tales tell, Charlemagne asked 4500 of his Saxon prisoners of war, who are your leaders? They would not identify only a few. They all saw themselves as responsible. Charlemagne had them all beheaded in one day, at Sachsenhain, near Verden, not fat. Is that so?

Legends of Widukind. These grow, morph. This version also appeared in a children's book for the 10 year age group here in our Library. Interesting. Even there, Charlemagne's choice was seen as a terrible reflection on him. Widukind: who would not say he converted, faced with that kind of consequence. Did he really? Tooth fairy and rewriting history to suit the winner's dogma. Is that so?

Widukind replica display statue, Museum. The original was melted by the Nazis for munitions.

Widukind portrait, imagined

Church at Enger: an active parish (baptism going on). Widukind behind altarpiece_

A body labeled Widukind is on display behind the altarpiece. Walk around. The ambulatory.

Altarpiece, Church at Enger, Germany. Wooden, carved, painted and gilded

Altarpieces were teaching tools as well as objects of devotion.

Baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist. Nude baptizees. Detail, altarpiece, Stiftskirche, Collegiate Church (Widukind said to have founded) Germany

It is not at all unusual to see representations of Baptisms as taking place nude, including as to Jesus, in many places in Germany and Scandinavia.

Widukind relic, side view of skull, bones.Said to be Widukind, Enger Church

There have been tests to try to identify these bones, but nothing firm resulted.

Widukind long-bone relics, said to be Widukind, Stiftskirche, Collegiate Church, Enger, Germany

Widukind Sarcophagus, said to be Widukind, Collegiate Church, Enger DE

The medallion is behind the glass case is upright, reflecting and obscuring the head area, the Saint representation at top.

The skull and other relics are separate.

Widukind claimed genealogy, details, to present day claims.

The Museum at Enger houses other skeletons.

Have to look back at notes here. Were there competing bones?

Enger - Widukind, Saxon Bane of Charlemagne

2010-12-19T13:37:00.001-05:00

Widukind. Saxon. Wittekind.

No Uniform Spellings in That 8th Century Time

Some names culturally will not die. Widukind is one. He led the Saxons for decades against Charlemagne and the Pope, in the 8th Century in northern Europe. The Century's horrors for people who sought to remain independent in their own lands extended into the 9th, when Widukind appears to have been elevated from folk hero to legendary heroic; and to the present. Like the Symphony without the glorious affirmation at the end. Just slaughter for the resistors. Is that so? Widukind capitulated to Charlemagne and agreed to convert after decades of fighting, in exchange for safe passage of the people. Charlemagne responded by slaughtering 4500 Saxon prisoners in a single day. See ://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/ChurchHistory220/LectureTwo/TimeLineCharlemagne.htm

Was "religion" used as a weapon. Convert or die. Is it now. Believe this way, or we will get you.

Widukind cut an impressive figure. Here is the original statue, a photograph of it from the Enger Widukind Museum. This stood, as we understand it, at the church, then was moved to the town square.
.

Widukind, original statue (photo), at church; then Enger Town Square, Enger Germany

Enter Enger. Enger is the town that lays claim to Widukind. We had seen the photo of the statue and had come to see it. The photo shows a life-size representation. See the head of a real person below -- note the very distinguished top-hatted gentleman at the lower right. The original Monopoly model.

Someone there even still claims direct descendance.

So could we (shall we? with tongue in cheek aimed at runes, we do, see Riding the Royal Ingwaz) with the Wid word root meaning wood, or forest, or underbrush; and the -ing or its equivalent as to ingwaz and old concepts for king.

It is said that the 10th Century Holy Roman Emperor Otto is descended therefrom -- see if you are interested in the leads of Wiki, ://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Otto_I/ People there are skeptical of the contemporary claim of a Duke, so we heard when we asked. Smiles of indulgence. No way to prove anything. Other overviews: at ://www.artquilt.com/Widukind/encyclopedia.htm

Stiftskirche, Collegiate Church, Enger, Germany. Is Widukind inside?

We went back to the church after services concluded to see if Widukind is buried at the church, as some said. They also (coffee shop) said it was not clear at all if that was Widukind. Later post.

The Church at Enger is said to have been begun by Widukind.

Doubtful. The town was not even there, see ://www.wordiq.com/definition/ Enger: again what is fiction and what is fact in the almanac that has to turn a local heroic figure into something the Church can embrace and justify as one of its own. Remaking history is a global phenomenon, and one that sometimes can be noted with some fondness, depending on the intent of the distortion to glorify the historian's cause

. Here, however, after the killing of the Saxons, Widukind as sincere and continuing convert is dubious. Vet it yourself.

Best source we see yet: Read the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, for ongoing questions that even the Church people had as to their own positions, and perhaps a better summary of Widukind's life (what do we know?) than we get now, at ://books.google.com/books?id=3FEsAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA618&lpg=PA618&dq=widukind+church+enger+germany&source=bl&ots=8AwAtrpA7P&sig=S6CCbYeTalFuLLp87oGFOZO9JQQ&hl=en&ei=pEcOTfK5OoG0lQeKhty8DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=widukind%20church%20enger%20germany&f=false

Collegiate Church, Stiftskirche, Enger DE. Was Widukind's original statue here, on the grounds..

Enger is charming -- really. Twisting streets up the hill to the church, elegant patterns of shingling.

Enger, Germany. Half-timber buildings, elegant carved doorways.

We arrived as the service was starting at the church, so walked around looking for Widukind on our own. Oh - here is the town square. What?

Widukind, reduced form, at Enger Town Square.

Is this it? Is this Big Widukind? Squint up closer. It is absolutely tiny.

Widukind, close-up, but still so small, Enger Town Square, Enger, Germany

What does the loop and ball pattern represent? It looks like a topper to a well, but no well is beneath. Oh ....

Yet, there is a pedestal over there. Not here, but by the building, another lovely half-timber. And at the square also.

Empty pedestal. Widukind's? Widukind has risen? view at town square

He is not here. Was the pedestal brought from the church grounds, or was it always here? Where is Widukind? We saw the fine photograph!

Enter the museum. There he is, a reproduction of what had been that huge monument, now in a little glass case. But looking regal and very winged, as we had hoped, but in such a shrunken state. What happened?

Reproduction statue of Widukind, Enger Museum, Enger DE

Compare this with the original photograph at the top. It is very close, but not exact. Perhaps the small one was done only from the photograph, and not from the original. Have to find out. Still, what happened to him?

Q: Why is he not on his pedestal?

A: The Nazis

See them celebrate Widukind with the people, at a parade before the war, Widukind's original statue as shown at the top. We believe this is part of the same series of photographs in the museum, but would have to check again. Notes are not always detailed enough.

Nazis in Enger, parade before WWII

Nazis celebrate in Enger, before WWII

German Reich, in Enger DE, before WWII

Could this event have been after the War began? Possibly.

After celebrating the town, and their cause, either way, the Nazis returned and removed the statue of Widukind and melted it down for munitions.

Far more cared for, is this modern representation of the German soldier, the "Wanderer"

German soldier WWI, The Wanderer, Enger DE

We believe this to be at Enger, but have to check. The point is the same: history's Widukind, diminished, cartoonish in public view; the WWI soldier with weeping woman, child, imposing, living on.

Enger claims Widukind, but Enger should commission a real statue of him. But money is tight, we know. Money is tight and memories are shorter.

Wanderer. Das du die sonne noch siehst das dankst du den helden! Beuge dein knie und gedenke ihrer in stillem gebet! Enger DE, German Soldier Statue WWI memorial

"WANDERER, DASS DU DIE SONNE, NOCH SIEHST, DAS DANKST DU DEN HELDEN! BEUGE DEIN KNIE UND GEDENKE IHRER IN STILLEM GEBET!"

Google translator: they want to know if we mean "denkst" instead of "dankst". We looked back, and it says on the statue, "dankst". Moving along with denkst, the translation is:

WANDERER, THE SUN THAT YOU STILL SEE THE THANK YOU TO THE HEROES! BEND YOUR KNEES AND THEIR MEMORIAL IN SILENT PRAYER!

And with "denkst" --

WANDERER, THE SUN THAT YOU STILL SEE THAT DO YOU THINK THE HEROES! BEND YOUR KNEES AND THEIR MEMORIAL IN SILENT PRAYER!

...................................................................

FN 1 The Pope and would-be Emperor in Chief, see timeline at ://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/ChurchHistory220/LectureTwo/TimeLineCharlemagne.htm; combined philosophies and forces. Deference to the Pope and dogma lent Charlemagne the "motivator" force he otherwise lacked; and as to the Pope, he needed Charlemagne to further his own expansion of the religion he created out of a mild Iesu. Convert or die, said they, and so they did. Saxons died, tribes died, people trying to hold on to their traditions.

So, that sad retrospective on Western "Christian" expansion rant over, meet what we know -- or don't know -- of Widukind.

Varusschlacht, Kalkreise hill, Battle in the Teutoburg Forest. Roman Legions Defeated

2010-12-16T21:23:00.003-05:00

Tribes vs. Rome

Tribes Won --

Germania was Never Made Part of the Roman Empire

Battle in the Teutoburg Forest

The Northern Germanic Tribes were never conquered by Rome, Germania -- their lands -- were never made part of the Roman Empire. What happened to stop the Roman advance.

At the archeological park and memorial at the Kalkreise hill area, at Varusschlacht, at the Teutoburg Forest, there are clues. See http://www.kalkriese-varusschlacht.de/en/varusschlacht-archaeology-2-6/; and the account of the Roman historian, Livius, at http://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg04.html/ There, it appears that the Roman Commander named Publius Quintilius Varus (thus the Varusschlacht) and the three legions he led, were defeated, and by decentralized Germanic tribes called "Cheruscian" led by one Arminius, and in 9 BC.

Roman cavalry face mask, silver removed, from Varusschlacht, Kalkreise, Battle of Teutoburg Forest, Germany 9 BC

There have been other archeological claims for the location of the Varus battle, perhaps in Holland. But in 1987, combinations of finds, including coins and military objects, led to the Kalkreis hill site here, near Osnabruck., near Vorden. Roman army, auxiliary soldiers and cavalry, an ideal site for an ambush. A nearby town, Engter (the same as "Enger?") means , and the topography fits the ambush idea.

There is this memorial, specifically mentioning this battle, and one of the legions believed to have fought here.

Roman cenotaph, Marcus Caelius, Centurion of the 18th Legion, from Bologna, "fell in the Varian War," now at Bonn; Varusschlacht

There is a museum, and a planned walkway around the areas of battlements, fortifications, wicker fences high, and descriptions. See Marcus Caelius, Livius site

But the main point is how it is presented to German children. The displays pound home the idea, that could well be right, that this battle was suppressed by historians of the time because it was so unthinkable. How could disciplined, well supplied Roman legions -- even three of them -- be defeated by wild tribes, as they saw it. These barbarians had no centralized system: they came together when they had to, rallied and fought with a fervor that mere skill in the arts of combat could not combat. Fervor. Emotional frenzy. Think berserk, although the berserkers were more Norse. Look them up. No stopping them. Rome was humiliated, and never forgot that they had been bested by the Germans -- clearly superior Germans in how they fought, overcoming all that Rome stood for.

Kalkreise face masks, schoolchildren learn, Varusschlacht, Germany

That is the lesson. That Germans on the move are unstoppable. That Germans have an internal grit and source of such energy and ferocity and Germans are to be feared. Rightfully so because Germans do what needs to be done to win. Visit the exhibits. Very nationalistic, patriotic even, although there were only loosely associated populations at the time. They had fervor when they chose to let it loose.

Kalkreise, Teutoburg Forest, Germany. Tribes beat Romans. Remains of mules, horses, fighting men: memorial reproduction

Ramparts, marsh, narrows: the ambush

Now, the scene is a park.

Varusschlacht, Germany. Roman defeat, walkway and descriptions

Kalkreise, Teutoburg Forest, Germanic tribes defeat Roman legions. Reconstructed wooden and wicker battlements and Dan

And a botanical note. This appears to be a poster alerting us that there is St. John's Wort about -- a plant used in healing, medicinal uses. Watch where you step.

When in doubt, take the picture. Here, a poster about St. John's Wort, a botanical, at the battlefield of Varusschlacht, Germany (Romans lost, big)

Try some for depressive moods, or agitation.

And look for a historic pattern: Unlikely action; predictable reaction. The greater defeated by the "lesser" -- and the lesser suffering for it.

Custer defeated by Native Americans asserting rights to lands that had been set aside for them, led by Sitting Bull at the Battle of Little Bighorn;
Russia and probably (perhaps, realistically, now the US and United Nations) US defeated by Afghans asserting rights to lands that had always been Afghan of one ilk or another;
Iraq, fast-overwhelmed about a decade ago; now coming back and expelling the US for its miscalculation
Rome's legions defeated by Germanic tribes at Varusschlacht
Teutonic Knights defeated by Poles at Grunewald, later Tanenburg

And what happens afterwards: the humiliated power does not forget.

Native Americans ever more deprived, led to death. US resources and spirit gone, perhaps, in Afghanistan and the futility ; and Saxons defeated ultimately -- centuries after Varusschlacht -- by Charlemagne and the Pope; and Germany, aiming once again to "redeem" its humiliation at Grunewald, making that a major battlefield in WWI -- and prevailing, at least for a time.

Osnabruck -- Charlemagne and a Dance Contest

2010-11-18T21:05:00.001-05:00

Arrive just right, and sometimes thee lucks out and the hotel right up from the main City Gate will let you have the A-1 suite just because it is late, and nobody is probably going to ask for it now. Just go up to the desk and ask. We ended up in a penthouse, top floor, the glam of private spacious dressing rooms, kitchen (we did not need) and gleaming everything.

First, the hotel hunt. The GPS put us right in the middle of the Old Town, a no-car zone. Out fast.

Half-timber Hotel Walhalla, Osnabruck, Germany

This is elegant, but right on the main Square. Noisy? We headed just outside the gates instead.

Half-timber pub, Osnabruck, Germany.

Outside the gates, we lucked out. Got a suite, would you believe, because it was late and we must have looked deserving. Excellent price. Hotel Remarque. Here is the glass elevator. Aargh.

Elevator, glass. Big fancy Hotel, Osnabruck, Germany

Meanwhile, inside the Gates at the main square at Town Hall, a dance contest was setting up,

Dance contest, Osnabruck, Germany

More dance contest, Osnabruck, Germany

Much loudness and a good time, some rain. Back to the hotel.

All was fine until the TV went on at 7AM and we couldn't get it off. We are not techie, so got up.

Hotel view of Osnabruck, Germany

View of Osnabruck from hotel room

Excellent.

Osnabruck - City of Peace. A Treaty signed here. But More Warring than Peace?

2010-11-14T15:30:00.000-05:00

Charlemagne started a Christian mission here in 780 AD, and the town then grew some 20 years later into a market town, a place for minting coin, and a commerce center. It is surrounded by a nature park, including the Teutoborg Forest. Long history as an administrative and cultural center - see ://www.osnabrueck.de/25374.asp/

The City of Peace they call it. Friedensstatt. That is ironic because the mission was clearly still on the frontier area where Charlemagne had been fighting the recalcitrant and frustratingly decentralized fierce Saxons for decades. His efforts to subdue them -- they had the gall to want their own lands, their own culture, their own religion -- started just two years before Charlemagne's disastrous and fabled massacre of 4500 Saxon prisoners. Defenseless. Whack whack whack. See Verden, and Saxon Grove or Saxon Wood nearby. Sachsenhain. See summary at ://www.planetware.com/verden/saxons-grove-d-ni-vershn.htm/

Peace. Harrumph.

See the city walls. The famous watch towers. More peace? Who is watching out for them still. Towers like this, tall with the conical top, were often called "witches' towers" because women accused of witchcraft were kept there. In Osnabruck, another gate (looks like this one, with more ivy) was used as a prison, and also a witches pen. Some 300 women were burned as witches in Osnabruck, says this blase article. See ://www.derby.gov.uk/CommunityLiving/Twinning/OsnabruckToday.htm/

Peace. More harrumph.

Osnabruck, Germany, watch tower city walls

Then again, any country remembers its dead, its lost causes; and glorifies it anyway. So also, our South, our Dixie, with Johnny Reb.

Nazi memorial, Osnabruck watchtower, city walls

Back to Osnabruck: Protests against imprisonment, but not clear which groups these are. The hands do touch, see the lower arc.

Protest graffiti, people imprisoned (which cause?) Osnabruck, Germany

Then, in through one of the many gates.

Heger Tor, the old Waterloo Gate, Osnabruck, Germany

The gate was built as a memorial to the German soldiers from Osnabruck who died at Waterloo. See the inscription: there is the Waterloo. It is now known as the Heger Tor. See ://www.derby.gov.uk/CommunityLiving/Twinning/OsnabruckToday.htm

Waterloo Gate, Heger Tor, Osnabruck DE, inscription

The Treaty of Westphalia, that ended the Thirty Years' War, was signed here, in the Town Hall, in 1648.

Town Hall, Osnabruck, Germany

That is Charlemagne at the upper level. In the marketplatz outside a dance competition is setting up, and the food and goody booths are ready.

When the rain got serious, we ducked into a fine old tavern.

Dan in the tavern, Osnabruck, Germany, out of the rain

Vorden - World's Best Church Chandelier. Searching for the Saxons and Charlemagne

2010-11-04T14:14:00.000-04:00

Vorden is not Verden, and not Verdun

Vorden is Vorden, and fine it is

Story is: Charlemagne had killed some 4,500 Saxon prisoners after a particularly bruising battle, in a series of battles over 30-40 years to force conversion and subjugation of the Saxons. Year: 782 AD. Place: Verden.

We had trouble finding Verden, but found little Vorden and aimed for it thinking it was Verden spelled differently, silly us. If that is not the Saxon place, other things were bound to be there.

Tiny crossroads, lovely old church, half-timbered houses, a nice deli and convenience store with excellent sandwiches. And a slice of ordinary hometown life, no hype. Sit and chat a while.

But not our Saxons. A little trove of its own, however.

Vorden, Germany. Church yard, and soccer

Black Madonna, Church, Vorden, Germany (probably a reproduction?)

Follow Black Madonnas throughout Europe. This one is in a similar pose to others, but is costumed differently, and with a prominent nimbus at the child's head.

Chandelier, Vorden's Church, Vorden, Germany. World's best church chandelier.

This chandelier just has Charlemagne coming out of every pore. The famous chandelier at the Cathedral in Aachen, however, the Barbarossa Chandelier made to commemorate Charlemagne's canonization, is fussier with towers and walls -- see ://www.sacred-destinations.com/germany/aachen-cathedral/

The chandelier here may have no connection to Charlemagne, but we think it is dignified and lovely.

The frescoes look as though the shown parts were preserved, and other parts whitewashed. Perhaps unrecoverable.

Vorden, DE. Half-timbered house

Half-timber as a building technique produces a strong frame, and a fill of bricks increases its durability. This site for children, to introduce the method, works for grown-ups, too. See ://www.historyforkids.org/learn/medieval/architecture/halftimber.htm/ The size of old half-timber houses and other medieval buildings is surprising. Big. Very big.

Ask at a house where Charlemagne and the Saxons might be, and get redirected -- it turned out to be directions to where Roman Legions met their demise at the hands of fervored Germanics in 9AD, at nearby Varusschlacht. That is different from the Saxons of Charlemagne's time. So we went there anyway.

Bremen: Heaven and Earth. Church Music, Trams, Crowds and Market

2010-11-02T21:16:00.001-04:00

Bremen: Death by Tram

In the Company of Angels

And All with a Full Stomach

There is something so sensible about the mash-up of concepts in old cities. How did earlier generations live, balanced between the concepts of the ethereal and the necessary, the angelic ethers and the need to shop. Welcome to the other side of Bremen: inside, the heavenly music. Outside, the trams that run right through and can run you right over; and the market with its colors and smells.

Bremen Market, Cathedral adjoins, Germany

.Bremen Cathedral, interior, orchestral practice, Germany.

Orchestral practice, Bremen St. Peter's Cathedral, Germanymm

Residence packed right by St Peter's Cathedral, Bremen, Germany. Secular and sacred, inseparatble,

Market, Bremen Germany, and St. Peter's Cathedral

Tram Tracks outside Cathedral, pedestrians watch out, Bremen, Germany,

Death by tram for the unwary, Bremen Town Hall Square, Germany

Take tram tracks seriously. Assume they are in good working order. Flush to the street, hardly noticeable until one is upon you. Park nose in at some hotel, go back to get a bag from the trunk, back up a little yourself to get the trunk lid down, and there it comes right at you, butt-close.

We are too accustomed to warning signs. In Europe, you are supposed to keep your eyes open. You get hit, you die, rule of tough. Is that so? Don't know. Don't want to.

Angelot Scharfe, is that sharp cheese? And hack-chilli noodle bags? Bremen Market, Germany.

Bremen: Babies and Gryphons, Crypt, Celts, Things Etched in Stone. Secular and Sacred.

2010-11-01T15:09:00.003-04:00

BREMEN

Bremen was founded in the 9th Century but had been a Celtic settlement centuries before that. In 27 BC, it became a Roman colony. * Bremen was heavily bombed in World War II, see ://www.exulanten.com/bombb.html/. As with many old Cathedrals, built on even older crypts, the crypts survived well and, as in Augsburg, served as a shelter for the people. Here, see some of the outside side of Town Hall, and then the interior Crypt area of the Cathedral.

1. Bremen's Secular Stones

A. Town Hall.

Bremen Baby Series

Bremen Baby with nasty goose, Bremen Rathaus, Germanynm

Bremen Baby with Nice Bunny. Bremen Town Hall, Bremen, Germany

Bremen Baby with Cuddly Fish, Bremen Town Hall, Bremen DE

B. Town Hall.

Gryphon Bitten by His Dinner; or Eagle and Snake; Town hall, Bremen

Connecting the eagle with the snake is an age-old source of tales. The twist here is that the Eagle is being bitten by the Snake.

In the dualistic view of life and religion, largely Eastern, Zarathustra looked up and saw the eagle, prideful and considering itself superior and far above humanity; and around its neck like a friend, not like prey, was a snake, a symbol of the practical, literally down-to-earth wisdom. The divided nature of mankind: some saw self-control v. chaos, the conflict that produces tragedy; others, more like Zarathustra, upper air and earth, heaven and earth, good v. evil, constructive v. destructive, see The Significance of Zarathustra's Eagle and Serpent, at ://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100509073158AAJEoQH/ See FN 1 for Nietzsche and Zarathustra, a fast reference
Or comments: St. John's symbol (Eagle) vs Evil in Eden (Snake);
Or Rome's symbol Aquila, the Eagle, and each military cohort carried an ensign of a serpent (this from the site). So, look again at Varusschlacht, not far, where the tribes beat the Roman Legions, and it was said there that some of the Germanics that Rome trained and outfitted, turned against them and betrayed. Snake.
Norse mythology: The snake that coils itself around Midgard, to hold the world together; when it gapes, things are falling apart. A snake guards Midgard in Norse belief, with heaven above and underworld equivalent beneath. Thor tangles with snakes.
Lost Tribe of Dan - see symbolism of both the eagle and the snake; the snake will bite. These at Town Hall make sense with the Biblical Dan as judgers. Symbolism discussion at http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/il_tribe.html (do a find for Dan, scroll it)

2. Bremen's Sacred Site Stones

St. Peter's Cathedral Crypt

Celtic-era Cauldron, Cathedral Crypt, Bremen, Germany

Celtic-era capital, woven-knot pattern, Crypt, Bremen Cathedral, Germany

Common Celtic design includes knotwork, plaitwork, chain-link,key-patterns, spiral, interlace, and the early swastika, a symbol of or like the wheel, as in an early wheel-cross.

Click on any photo to enlarge, like this.

Story-board carved door segment, Bremen Cathedral

The earliest church on the site was made of timber. Were any of these from that era, fragments as they are?
Old wooden story-board doors, Bremen Cathedral, Bremen DE

Celtic-era capital and designs, Crypt, Bremen Cathedral

Does this show the theme of dawn and rising sun,seen on other Celtic designs. See especially Symbolism of the Celtic Cross, by Derek Bryce, 1995 Weiser Inc.

Grave marker, perhaps against wall of original church? Bremen Cathedral, Germany

Seated figures, Jesus and a woman? Cathedral Crypt, Bremen, Germany

These unidentified figures and contexts become a Rorshacht.

Celtic style capital, wheel and lily motif, crypt, Bremen Cathedral

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* Early Bremen history, see ://books.google.com/books?id=GN9UQMuNQNkC&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=Bremen+Cathedral+Celtic+history&source=bl&ots=gUw439wvDl&sig=NbVR8qHwJJvGkc0_2f-NTfqyqn8&hl=en&ei=NgrPTOrANMX6lwfi0qDnCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Bremen%20Cathedral%20Celtic%20history&f=false/

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FN 1

The German connection with Zarathustra and interpretations of him, in its own history, is a strong one:

Read the German Friedrich Nietzsche's account of a spritual journey in his Thus Spake Zarathustra, at this site: Nietzsche's Zarathustra, at ://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/Zarathustra.htm/ For disquiet and the overman, see paragraph 3 there. Individual inspiration exists on a plane beyond good, evil. Spend time reading about that. Is that so? The true view of life is not clouded by morality. Rough summaries there. Do nations go through that stage? Must they? How about The Family in our DC -- self-determination, ordinary people quite literally do not matter, the self decides, its highest calling.

Bremen - Roland, The Town Musicians. Town Hall Facade

2010-10-28T18:25:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Bremen:

Reasons for Being
for All Ages

Town Hall Square, with Statue of Roland, Bremen, Germany

Bremen's town hall, the Rathaus, is a World Heritage Site. Built in the early 1400's, it was never destroyed.

Roland. The statue in a prominent position in front of the Rathaus. Some say he was the nephew of Charlemagne, was killed by Basques in a retreat from fighting the Moors, but the story changes depending on whether it is the long Song of Roland, or earlier oral traditions, or later legends. He became the patron saint of market towns, signifying the bestowal of a charter on that town and fostering is economic success. Freedom and market rights! Bestow on these, but not on those. See ://www.rathaus.bremen.de/detail.php?gsid=bremen54.c.2309.de

Roland, Bremen, Germany

Why his knees are dark we do not know. But clearly soiled they are.

Now: The Bremen Town Musicians. Who? You think you know?

Bremen Town Musicians, Bremen, Germany

The donkey, with a dog atop, with a cat atop, with a rooster atop. Why? What were they doing? And why did they have to?

Find the real tale by the Brothers Grimm at ://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm027.html/

But, like so many stories that begin with real substance, after a time they get watered down.

The later versions edit out the guts to fit the agenda of the teller du jour. See, e.g., ://www.brementownmusicians.com/flash/story/en/. Children's books now often leave out the most important parts, the parts where life is tough, matters are not always fair, and people are not always gentle and kind. So deal with it. The Flash story at least obliquely refers. Others do not at all.

In this tale, remember that there are animals who band together and frighten robbers out of a house on the way to Bremen (they never get there), and the reason for their being on the loose anyway is seldom mentioned. Check it out. In the original story, each had to leave because profits take over loyalty for service. Is that so? Each heard the owner, the farmer or the housewife or whoever, say that the individual animal was no longer worth its keep -- too old, not catching mice any more, weak, sleeping in the sun -- just plain OLD. Good for nothing. Waste of money keeping that one going. Next stop: the glue factory, drowning in the lake, the stew pot, etc. So one by one they slink away.

Choose between Euthanasia and ongoing life as you may be able to cobble it together, and they - these fine and still-able in many ways, but over-the-hill as to profits beasties-like-us, choose life over the profits of those they served in prior years. Sound familiar?

See how the tale continues to morph depending on the agenda of the teller. Double dare. Go!

Try this version for today: At "Lessons from the Sassafras," The Bremen Town Discards. Euthanasia in folk tales. Leave it in. It is a live issue in many cultures, and always has been.

Dumbing down folk tales. See it again at Bremen Town Musicians, Euthanasia or No? This is at "Migratory Patterns of Cultural Tales." How we move. But usually backwards. Lean Forward? Away from profits as the sole measure of worth? Can we learn?

Hamburg: Johannes Widingh - State Archives. German Roots for Surnames -

2010-10-27T10:58:00.001-04:00

Home research leads to silly places. I found a random reference to another spelling of my husband's Swedish name, Widing; and this new one had an "H" at the end. Widingh. So I looked up people with that spelling, and found one Johannes Widingh of Hamburg. We took this with us:

Hamburg Archives, online Record of a Will of a Johannes Widingh 1376

So, fast forward to now, and what if the Widings like us, today, obviously direct descendants, now own all the waterfront in Hamburg. Go see.

We went over there, to the Archives, like Miss Marple looking for clues. You will need a GPS to get there, but in the rain, why not.

Here is what came of it:

Staatsarchiv - State Archives, Hamburg, Germany. Looking up Johannes Widingh 1376.

Here is the bottom half of a photocopied Will of the Great Johannes Widingh from 1376, and, yes, bombs and wars and all, they have the Archives.

So -- what did Johannes have? Part Deux of the Great Will of somebody we obviously have no connection to: The point is, Germany keeps its records. Very carefully.

Copy of actual Will, Testament, Johannes Widingh, Hamburg 1376

I found the name Widingh with the H, with a silly search because we found it somewhere that way, perhaps in "Images" on Google. Go look. I found an "h" some Scandinavian - German people who add or retain the H at the end of the name Widing, that has its own ins and outs as a Swedish thing. Some say, in Germany, that the H means "hof" or farm, or even a court connection. We are not "Court". Not us, we are yokels in heart and mind.

I have lost where the scan went. Where is the top half?

Try again:

No, I keep getting the large version of the list of documents.

Is that the same half? Who can read this Olde Germanica!

In 1376, this Johannes Widingh with the H (we say, at our dinner table, Widing-HHHHHH. Like blowing out a candle. That is not Widing HUNNHHH. That asks a question.

No. Widing-HHHHHH. Flicker the match.

So, here we are in 1376, and here is the portion of the computer page we came up with: Scroll down for Our Boy -- are you tempted to go look up your own non-relatives with linguistic similarties?

Hamburg - Churches, Ruins, Memorials. And the Bubble

2010-10-15T14:58:00.070-04:00

Images Juxtaposed

There are offsets to the reminders of the past -- bombing, and Holocaust; and also to the modern focus on redevelopment, show and economic success. Secular elements probably have supplanted the traditional in Hamburg, but see these persistent little signs like these near the Town Hall: pointers to pilgrimage sites. These include Hamburg.

Find distances to Rome, Santiago di Compostela, Trondheim and Vastena. There are still pilgrimages along ancient routes attracting the devout.

Find the religious history of Germany, and its main pilgrimage sites, at ://www.cometogermany.com/ENU/culture_and_events/religious_traditions_pilgrimages.htm/.

Pilgrimage route sign, Hamburg

Brick gothic is the building material of choice in lower-lying areas like this, away from rocks of mountains.

St. Peter's Church, Petrikirche, Hamburg, Germany

Jacobkirche was largely destroyed by the bombing, but has been rebuilt. The stained glass windows were irreplaceable, and here the replacements have been kept plain. The altarpiece, however, was saved -- the tryptych format meant it could be removed, folded, and taken to a shelter.

Altarpiece in plain setting, Jakobkirche, Hamburg

Altarpiece, Jakobkirche, Hamburg, Germany

The best way to navigate in Hamburg - and many European cities - is by steeplechasing. Look up and out, and match the steeple to something in the guidebook, or just aim there and then see what the streets are. The canals and bridges keep going the wrong way.

St. Michael's Church, Michaeliskirche Hamburg, Germany

St. Nicholas' Church also was destroyed, but this has been kept as a ruin as a memorial. It includes specific focus on the Holocaust. There is one steeple remaining, some parts of walls.

St. Nicholas' Church, Saint Nicolai, Hamburg, Germany

It is right in the middle of modern buildings. Take up a glass elevator and see the views of the city, best when not raining.

Nikolai steeple, Hamburg, Germany

The size must have been huge.

Park memorial, St. Nikolai, Hamburg, Germany

There goes the elevator. Outside the church ruin is an ongoing effort to keep trees and plantings thriving.

Exposed interior, St. Nikolai, Hamburg, Germany

The exposed interior is stark. This memorial on the side appears to be rising from ashes.

Memorial statue, St. Nikolai, Hamburg, Germany

Holocaust memorial.

Holocaust Memorial, survivor, grief, Saint Nicholas Church, Hamburg, Germany

It can be difficult, however, in Germany, to determine the memorials to grief and destruction; and those specifically for the Holocaust. Some are specified. Others are ambiguous, as though we are to look away from a painful personal moment.

But Hamburg returns quickly to the modern era. Offsets begone. Here, the bubble outside a museum -- inside there is a hammock and palm trees.

Hamburg - Confiscation Issues, Third Reich, Statsarchiv, Archives

2010-10-13T14:32:00.005-04:00

Housing markets, buy, sell, be sure to get clear title, or at least, title insurance.

What happens to title when a State -- later found unlawfully -- confiscates, or forces fale, of property in order to force ethnic groups or individuals to leave. Think World War II. The Jews. Excluding Jews from economic life, and how to do that. Jews in Hamburg.

Clearing title: Our initial thought is that matters of public record, such as real estate transfers, remain open to claims for reparations until the legislature involved sets an outside date for claims; and after that, adverse possession begins. That gives a further period already in the law books.

If an early claimant does not file before the expiration of the adverse possession, the property goes to the holder. Why not? But it takes the legislature setting the outside date for beginning adverse possession. That process alone should cause publication, motivations to get going, etc. Some folks may just say after all these years, skip it. We understand reparations claims take years anyway, and have produced so little. Is there any appeal to the amounts offered? Tangle.

Are these examples? Does anyone care any more?

Find here two lovely homes in a fine old Edwardian district, still lovely. They belonged to Jewish families, in the 1930's they were forced to sell or the property was confiscated, and given to Aryans. Are later purchasers, or even the original recipients considered bona fide purchasers for value, so their title is protected? Or are they on notice ever after because of illegal confiscations, that a prior owner's line can ask for reparations, etc.

Jewish home prior to Third Reich, Hamburg, Germany, forced sale or confiscation; is title clear

Later purchasers in the line of succession: what is your title, so your investment as you buy, improve, enjoy, is protected. How far back can prior owners go, for compensation, even reinstatement. Is there a kind of adverse possession that takes over. Delay and lose out. These are global issues: Palestine, Israel, cowboys and the US Cavalry vs. Native Americans and the Trail of Tears. Use and possession over time, vs. original usurpation.

Another Jewish home, Third Reich forced sale or confiscation, Hamburg, Germany. Title clear?

How to find out your rights. To any property matter.

You can find out your rights. Go to the town hall. We were pursuing something frivolous, so follow along.

Hamburg Town Hall

The land records and documents people will send you to the Archives. Here we are, still in Hamburg but some distance away (need GPS).
Leave off your backpack, go meet with fine people, and learn that this kind of research is done by contracting with the paper-elves who do it, with offices right there in the building.

Put in your order, explain what you are looking for, see what comes up. Do some research: on looting Jewish art, see Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust 1933-1945, at ://www.lootedart.com/NNAURN730391/

Then see Aryanisation in Hamburg, the Economic Exclusion of Jews and the Confiscation of their Property in Nazi Germany, at://www.worldcat.org/title/aryanisation-in-hamburg-the-economic-exclusion-of-jews-and-the-confiscation-of-their-property-in-nazi-germany/oclc/47930649?loc=20024/

Why were we there?

We went to the Statsarchiv for a clearly frivolous matter unrelated to confiscation of property and title: we had found reference to a will in 1267 AD or so, by on deceased Johann Widingh, and ordered that from the archives.

We got our copy of the old will (called a "testament") about a month later, a single page -- so it seems clear that we do not own the waterfront in Hamburg, that our Johannes Widingh was an ordinary householder. We were disasppointed in the quality of the photocopy (adjust the thing for legibility, please!), but it may be enough for an Old-German speaker to decipher when we find one.

Do you know Old German?

Hamburg - Canals, bridges, tunnels and traffic jams

2010-10-12T10:14:00.000-04:00

What to do when all you want to do is leave, but the GPS sends you out on the docks (see several others wandering, bewildered there, all of us thumbing like mad and getting nowhere but there) and it is raining so you can't follow the sun, and the tunnels and bridges are backed up (Dan fell asleep, and when he woke up 45 minutes later, we hadn't moved more than 10 feet)?

Get philosophical. See what lessons can be learned from natural surroundings.

Hamburg traffic jam, Germany

It works! A diversion! Meet a fellow jammee skimming up the center line with this great jacket that says, aptly, "Mr. Magic on Tour".

Mr. Magic meets the Hamburg traffic jam

There he goes. Ands, ifs, and butt.

Walking in Hamburg is difficult enough, with all the canals.

Canal, Hamburg, Germany

The city is a mega-Venice for water, without the charm of the old (too much bombing inWWII), but clear signs of prosperity. At least Venice keeps cars out, mostly, in the oldest parts.

Fully navigable waterways, waterfront, canals, Hamburg, Germany

So, understanding the problem of getting all the vehicles moved in Hamburg, where bridges and tunnels are all you can use, go back to philosophy.

Aha! A fun time with words! Not original, this spotting of silliness, and everybody probably who goes to German-speaking places takes pictures of the results. We pollute with our Anglo-Saxon four-letter word implants in mind. Adolescence lives on.

Traffic jam amusement, Hamburg, Germany

Zounds It gets better! And we only had to take 25 minutes to get that extra 50 feet closer!

Worth it!

Juxtaposition. Sculpture plus sign equals adolescent humor. Hamburg, Germany, traffic jam

So, get through the tunnel, hit more traffic and just park (use the pay-0-mat), and get out. Go up the little stairs to the waterfront, order a sausage on a bun, relax, wait an hour, and enjoy.

Waterfront view, Hamburg, Germany

That worked. Traffic filtered away, skip the GPS entirely, just somewhere out, and recalibrate on the other side.

Buchenwald Inmate. Alfred Dube 1923-2008. A Survivor. Ceramics and Design..

2010-08-09T14:35:00.032-04:00

Alfred Dube: An Outsider's Tribute to a Survivor.

Alfred Dube; American citizen. Immigrant. WWII.

A Czech, from Pilsen and Prague.

His extended family members then in Europe died in the Holocaust.

Buchenwald held him as Inmate, briefly; in transit.

He passed from one labor-concentration camp to another.

He was held in 4-5 of them,

Including: Dora, Czestochova, and Bergen Belsen, see chronology.

He then was involved in liberation, resistance work, and finally arrived in America where he continued to contribute.

Not an easy path, for self, family, skills. But he Did It.

Internet sources here. Family may have revisions, of course. But this is a well-intentioned gist.

I. Alfred Dube, Survivor.

BACKGROUND

Family ties to confiscated property, perhaps.
Our interest is in his Life.

This is a small tribute by a stranger to one Alfred Dube, who was in successive concentration and labor camps in the Czech Republic, and Germany; survived, and later excelled in his work and community work in America, see tributes. He died in 2008. Our interest stems from our visits to several concentration or labor camps: Buchenwald, here in Germany; Jasenovac, in Croatia; Mauthausen, in Austria; and Auschwitz PL. We later visited Bergen-Belsen in Germany, that posting in process.

And our interest stems from a chance hearing of a story: That this family line in Europe, 37-40 members, died in the Holocaust and may have been part owners before 1900, or otherwise involved in the Pilsen Urquell Brewery interest, or it could be Budweiser, and/or as in Cesky Budojovice, CZ - home of the true Budweis Beer. FN 1 Whatever that issue, we salute Alfred Dube on his own: welcome immigrants. We need the mix here, the talent. Who can prejudge.

Here, find a specific skill, a talent, beyond mere perseverance: Brilliance in ceramics design. The Number 504? That was his place on the emigration list of those who would be allowed out after the War. Maybe the first 100 could get on board. He made it. The long shot.

And Post Traumatic Stress - Anyone would ask now, but no-one paid much attention to it then. Under the rug. Did Alfred escape it. Look at what he lived through. See this overview of the condition, at ://www.lib.auburn.edu/socsci/docs/ptsd.html

We find his life story from a number of internet and public sources, because that is our inspiration here.

Family would have many corrections.

Still, the tributes online seem to share similar information. We note where there are missteps we find, but basics come from the funeral home narrative, at ://www.irakaufman.com/funerals/index_listing.cfm?funeralID=2956; and at Journal: The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, at ://amgathering.com/page/177/

There is/may be a difference totally between the Pilsner-Urquell brewery interests, and the Budweis-Interests of Cesky Budovojice, see Pilsen, Pilsner Urquell Brewery Interests, and Hamburg Connections; that is beyond our deciphering. But the principles remain: economic interests unjustly confiscated, what next.

We were in Pilzen, Pilsen Plzn -- how to spell between linguistic sources. Alfred Dube would have known it well.

The synagogue, Pilsen, Plzn, Pilzen, CZ. The Synagogue, had been among the largest and most prosperous in Europe, is a museum, asking for contributions. Get a paper yarmulke as you enter, pay a small price, add more, please.

Plzen CZ, Synagogue (now a museum) visitor yarmulke

II. CHRONOLOGY, ALFRED DUBE, FROM PUBLIC SOURCES

Alfred Dube: Born in Pilzen CZ
Eagle Scout
Engineer, Czechoslovakian Institute of Ceramics
Then comes the Reich. Meet hell. There were 37-40 members of Alfred Dube's family alone, killed; or as Yas Vashem says, perished.
Lodz Ghetto, in Poland, see ://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/lodz.html; and ://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/Lodz/lodzghetto.html/ we think also known as--
Litzmanstadt Ghetto -- (also spelled Litzmannstadt as on the cityoflodz site here) This is apparentlly another name for the Lodz Ghetto, same place, see ://www.edwardvictor.com/Ghettos/Lodz.htm; as a special section of Lodz, set off to be the ghetto, see map and other pages at ://en.cityoflodz.com/_plik.php?id=71/. You can follow the memorial walking trail, read what happened at the various locations, at ://en.cityoflodz.com/_plik.php?id=71
Munitions Factory Hasag #2, we think that is in what is now known as Czestochowa P? Hasag was a privately owned company that used concentration camp prisoners as workers, see ://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/hasag.html/. We don't see #2 there, but understand there were 8 in German, see ://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206352.pdf/. For Czestochowa, see ://www.zchor.org/WWII.HTM
Buchenwald , Germany. See reference to book by Fred Wander, The Seventh Well, there.
SA Dora-Mittelbau, see ://www.suite101.com/content/the-nazi-concentration-camp-dora-mittelbau-a218260. Underground munitions facilities. Quarries. We see reference to assembly plants V/1 and 2
Bergen-Belsen, see ://www.auschwitz.dk/bergenbelsen.htm
Liberation of Bergen-Belsen, see ://www.scrapbookpages.com/bergenbelsen/BergenBelsen05.html
Post-war: Underground to get passports to Jews who wanted to escape occupied territories and emigrate to Palestine, the Joint Distribution Committee, we believe (if so, see it now at ://www.jdc.org/about-jdc.aspx), and that involved working against blockades at the time. This work may have cause authorities to delay his emigration.
Model for sculpture-skeleton series, Muselman, meaning, we think, the concentration camp word for "last stage before death", see://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/documentary/ganorBearingWitness.pdf/, by friend artist David Friedman, who also was a Holocaust survivor, and at some of the same locations although perhaps not simultaneously. Site for David Friedman: ://www.chgs.umn.edu/museum/responses/friedmann/. Find art at ://www.chgs.umn.edu/museum/responses/friedmann/because.html/ We have not yet found the series.
Was married, 2 year old daughter, emigrated to US; this info is scanty.
Had $.60 - yes, sixty cents - to start over when he arrived.
Spoke five languages
Learned English while working as a bowling alley pin setter
Professional accomplishments: Ultimately became director of design research and general manager, president, national sales manager and technical director of a variety of ceramics, brick, tile, china companies, see either site above.
Peace and development. The tributes list achievements in these areas. Here we are not sure if this is the same Alfred Dube. There is one whose last name is pronounced "Dube-uh" but he is a black individual who is on this panel for the Brookings Institution, see ://fora.tv/2006/10/11/Use_of_Force_and_Legitimacy/. Slide the time marker to 35.45 to see him introduced and hear him. Need info re the listing on the bio sites as consultant to Jamaican Government. We found this same name at this UN site, described as a permanent representative and ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the United Nations, but can't get at the rest, think this is accurate description but may not be the same person, see ://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/documents/a_ac265_2004_inf_1.pdf/ but the download is too big to wait for. See also ://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npt-conf2005-inf6.pdf (cited in the search, but too big to find exactly where)
Presidential commendations. Tributes also add these, by "every president since 1949". We have not found them yet. Is that the other Alfred Dube?
Design. Called "Father of Modern Dinnerware Design" - book by Michael Pratt, Mid-Century Modern Dinnerware, see ://www.amazon.com/Mid-Century-Modern-Dinnerware-Michael-Pratt/dp/0764315676/ See full size nesting place setting at Stetson ://www.modish.net/nest-stone; and another at Stetson, ://www.modish.net/20th-century-modern-style-furnishings-design/hiawatha

This is identified as the Hiawatha pattern or Prim Rose. Fair use thumbnail from ebay qcyjohn. If this next one is the Hiawatha, then the top one has thicker, stubbier lines. Would it be Prim Rose? Is Prim Rose by Alfred Dube? Hiawatha is. Have to get into this. This second one is from ebay labbags. Bid fast.
We bet the second one.

See this other fair use thumbnail, from ://www.etsy.com/listing/30707064/stetson-china-co-4-nest-plates. Alfred Dube. We remember.

Author of manuscript, in hands (unpublished, but we have read it) of American family members and the Washington Holocaust Museum: And Where Was God. Do visit the Holocaust Museum, in Washington, reference RG-02.127, and works from those who had been in Mittelbau-Dora ("Prodkiton des Todes: das KZ Mittlebau-Dora" by Jens-Christian Wagner, Stiftung Gedenkstatten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora)
See http://books.google.com/books?id=pfDsKI94xSMC&pg=PA587&lpg=PA587&dq=%22Where+was+god%22+alfred+dube&source=bl&ots=LqI40tkZ_I&sig=pIu6qlpVvpLjjWyvyY0iqj20QXw&hl=en&ei=xkdgTPH1DIO8lQfj5MGfBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CC0Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22Where%20was%20god%22%20alfred%20dube&f=false. For all the Holocaust Museum's flaws in whitewashing, say some, the knowledge that our officials had of events as they were occurring and taking no steps to prevent the use of American corporation's materials in facilitating such in transport and record keeping, it is worth your time.
Shoah. Interviewed by Shoah Foundation (Shoah - Holocaust - see ://www.zwoje-scrolls.com/shoah/index.html), and visited by Stephen Spielberg in part of that 4-hour interview, Spielberg funded Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, see://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Spielberg
Patents - include a ceramics time analyzer (?)
Outreach. Supported and held positions in many charitable-educational-community organizations: Boys Town, Chamber of Commerce, Toastmasters, Huronia Tourist Association, Canadian and American Ceramic Societies, Rotary

A peaceful, reconciled end. We hope that was true for Alfred Dube.

..............................................................

FN 1 Earlier research, that led us to this individual. We ask:

1. Did he meet the family of the Prague boy, Petr Ginz, who wrote the matter-of-fact WWII diary of his life with his family there, see Places of Petr Ginz, Lens and Legacy. Petr writes of individual friends and families, the Nazis, transports of friends and relatives to Theresienstadt or Terezin Ghetto, where Petr also was sent - then to Auschitz Birkenau where he was killed.

2. Did family members have a historical family interest in Pilsner Urquell, the Brewery. That involvement might be before 1900, and the family story is probably unverifiable, as those who knew, are gone. Pilsner Urquell: History of the Brewery.

This topic is beyond our research.

Any ownership interest must predate 1900, we think, as to the Hamburg brewery interests of the Guggenheims.

As to Pilsner Urquell, in Pilsen, the connections may not pan out. Of course. What matters is objective, factual information. Who has it? Who can, wants to, should pursue it. Our interest: stop confiscations from happening again, without recourse. Recourse deters. Is that so. Is that possible.

Pilsen. And Guggenheims. Two separate brewery interests, or overlap. Pilzen, Cesky Budejovice.

Guggenheim: One brewery was bought by two German Jewish businessmen in 1900. Is that connected to the Plzen.

Is there clear title now, in the present owners, although it is "stolen property."

There was a Dub Zivkovic, who made a clone in 2004, but it was a little thin then, see ://www.kingdomofcrafts.com/p/103396729 See Czech Republic Road Ways, Pilsner Urquell. That site tracks the ownership of Pilsner Urquell from 1900, owned by the Jewish Wilhelm Guggenheim The story of it is a microcosm of the upheavals of WWII, families, businesses, decimations. So, a brief look at the Strelows, who got the Brewery in 1938 -- and who we had thought might have something in common with Alfred Dube's family.

In researching Pilsner Urquell, however, we came to issues of confiscation of Jewish property interests that would apply to many situations. We are not in a position to research a connection to Budweis, however.
.
...................................

Who benefited from confiscations of Jewish* property?

II. The Strelow Family
Hamburg

We had thought the Dube interest was also involved here.
Annexed the Confiscated Guggenheim Brewery Interest
.

Ongoing curiosity.

No Dubes involved, in the Hamburg brewery confiscation, we now believe. Were their interests limited to Plzen, Cesky Budojovie.

As a matter of general principal, however, , how did the Strelows who received confiscated property fare in and after WWII.

Confiscation. What does it do to clear or fog title. Take the issue far enough, and is any forced taking legal. Native Americans want to know.

Pilsner Urquell, possibly:

We found a Hans Strelow a pilot; and Siegfried Strelow, a U-Boat captain respectively. Both "elites of the Reich," both killed. Are they of the same Strelow family-company annexed the Brewery after confiscation from Mr. Guggenheim. Strelow: Here is a wartime Hans Strelow who was a hero-pilot for the Reich: Hans, fair use quote from http://www.military-art.com/mall/more.php?ProdID=16657. Related to the beer-getting Strelows?

"Particularly successful was the duo of Lt. Hans Strelow and Ofw. Wilhelm Mink, both of 5. JG 51. They claimed five MiG-3s of 16 IAP on 4 January (Mink claimed three) and 9 days later Mink claimed a Pe-2 and Strelow destroyed two R-Z biplanes for his 30th and 31st victories. On 4 February, Strelow increased his victories to 36 by shooting down four Russian aircraft. The 19 year-old Strelow claimed his 40th victory on 28 February and claimed 4 victories on both 6 March and 17 March. The next day he was awarded the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes and also shot down seven Soviet aircraft. He was awarded the Eichenlaub on 24 March, his claims total at 66."

Siegfried Strelow.

Siegfried Srelow was a U-Boat commander - Korvettenkapitan - who died in 1943.He had been a torpedo officer on the Graf Spee, and the Schleswig Holstein, see details at ://www.uboat.net/men/strelow.htm/ Same family as the beer? There is also a town Strelow, near Rostock, toward Sweden. Here is a Strelow Company (GMBH & Co. but that is a transportation - machine thing perhaps that bought Strelow? No idea.), but maybe we are mistaken.

This Strelow in Hamburg deals wine, liquor, spirits, even soft drinks, see http://www.europages.com/STRELOW-CO-GMBH-CO/bcg-EUR-DEU445745-00101-25-xx/company-information.html/. Then again, SAB (South African Breweries), bought out Pilsner Urquell, that would have taken care of the beer side. Strelow is a common name, and the name of a town in Germany.

It is beyond us as a family to go see Strelows and poke about, but we remain interested in the issue. How long do wrongful acquisitions benefit the usurpers, or does passage of time just lead to another conclusion. Too late. Current owners had nothing to do with their forbears. Or did they?

Prussia, the Old Prussia: and Germany Now. Widing, Widingh, Roots, Saxons

2010-04-04T13:16:00.005-04:00

Widing - Widingh with the H
Heritage Crossing Boundaries
Saxons on the Move

1. Roots of a Surname: Widing becomes Widingh in Saxon territory. Is that so? Johannes Widingh 1376.
2. Next steps. See Hamburg and check the Will
3. Who let the Widingh's out? Appearance in Sweden 1748
4. The Chase - Migrations, Diaspora, Resettlements, Wars
5. Tracking names and side trips: No Robo-Tours
6. Saxon history: Does it make sense

1. Roots of a Surname Widingh (the H added to Widing)

Johannes Widingh, a Will from 1376

Hamburg Archives

The power of an H. We had thought that Widing was a Swedish surname, and found reasons for that, even if speculative after a thousand years. There were also possible connections to Widukind, a Saxon king who opposed Charlemagne for 30 years before being defeated, then he converted, and the Saxons were resettled, disbursed - a kind of Saxon Diaspora - including into other areas of Scandinavia, and even Romania.

Now we find a Saxon root to confirm the name Widing in that territory, Widukind's territory, in the name Widingh, Johannes, whose estate at his death recorded his Testament in Hamburg, the Will now in the archives there.

Here is what we find about the name Widing, silly-sounding, ordinary name, but here spelled as Widingh with the h at the end (Widing HUH?) in the town records of Hamburg - Saxon country, we think. We like the Widingh as WIDINGHUH (at which point everybody guffaws, and my husband, of that name by birthright, feigns insult).

The Hamburg 1376 public record online reads, at ://www.hamburg.de/contentblob/2116576/data/111-1-band-privata.pdf: -

Wow! Look! It's a will! That second one down, the 1376 XXII 4b for Johannes Widingh! Tell your Dad (who happens to be named Jon as in Johannes)

"Staatsarchiv Hamburg
111-1 Senat (Privata, Testamente bis 1700) 1314-1696
Bestel Signatur Titel Zeitraum

CI.X Nr.4 Ser.I ... [+ untenstehende Bezeichnung des jeweilegen Testaments] superscript 1 (how to do that?)

1376 XII 4a ---- Testament des Volter Oltzeburch und (seine Ehefrau) Adelheid
1376 XXII 4b -- Testament des Johannes Widingh
1377 ----------- Testament des Johannes de Warendorp"

Emphasis added.

Now: A vignette of silly American life:

Out comes Widing the Beloved, the Handsome and Heroic, here from his computer man-cave, who sees for Hisself, and hollers, "See? See? I'm rich!"

Widing. Huh.

2. Next steps. See Hamburg and the Will

So Dan and I now have to go the Staatsarchiv Hamburg (probably in the Rathaus) and claim our 9/10 of the waterfront in Hamburg. It is our clear birthright, through Jon Widing, direct heir to Johannes Widingh, and you better believe it.

After all, Great Hero Jon, directly named after his foreBear Johannes, has somethting to claim, and there is a Widingh and a Widing both in old ancestral begging areas.

3 Who let the Widingh's out?

The Widing -Widingh story continues

Appearance in Sweden 1748

Sven snuck in.

By 1748 they had snuck into Sweden, in the form of Sven Widingh -- Information from Rootsweb.

Blekinge County Parish Karlshamn Carl Gustaf's cemetery First name Sven Last name Widingh Farm Title Entries

And, by 1827, see the H get sacked in Sweden - also from Rootsweb -

Olaf Widing.

Älvsborg County Parish Billingsfors First name Olaf Last name Widing Farm Title Year 1827

They also give the healthcare type on the gravestone of Olaf. "Iron Cross". See how far behind we are?

Widing? Widingh? Hah.

Either way, obviously nobody owned the Hamburg waterfront.

4. The Chase: Migrations. Defeats. Diaspora.

Another point:

The fun of the chase. We like looking up odd name connections to places and cultures we did not anticipate, and did that with Skarf in Icelandic Saga, Skarfjellet = mountain in Norway, Red Scariff in Ireland, to
Scharf who then migrated from Ireland to Canada, to Scharfe, etc. Nobody cares but us, but we have a good time

Looking at our other collective surname, this has been sheer entertainment. Our own online game. No obsession, no delusions, just a hand-over-hand look at the past. Widing, that seemed to have connections to

either a chance encounter with a king in Sweden, and a renaming; or
nothing at all, or
Widukind, a Saxon King, among other ideas; or
Following the Widukind idea, a 14th Century Widingh, with the H, whose estate filed a will filed at Hamburg Town Hall or wherever the archives are.

We had been looking in Sweden. What is this in Hamburg.

Saxon Diaspora. That interest brings us to the Saxons. Names and old boundaries, tribes. Boundaries change with wars. Prussia, a part of old Germany, has been variously part of German lands, now Polish since the second World War, see Boundary Changes site at ://www.polishroots.org/genpoland/changes.htm/. *

Family names also cross boundaries, as the boundaries themselves were fluid. And tribes are tribes without our kinds of boundaries.

5. Tracking names and side trips.
No Robo-Tours

Who people are named for: This is the element of identity that those who were enslaved or otherwise are deprived of: their Names. They cannot reconstruct. They have little that is, even a little, stretched, firm.
Why reconstruct? It is mental activity and that is not only fun, full of adrenalin, but it may ward off Alzheimers and other forms of angst. And it gives a focus for a trip to a city that others on their robot-tours miss.

We are going to this Northern part of Germany soon, looking particularly for Saxon history.

A family name may relate to King Widukind (no royal blood here, just the awarding of a nickname so says the family, by the King for a heroic deed, That is what the patriarch tells us other at Thanksgiving).

The name is reasonably common in the US now - Widing.

It has roots so you can take your pick: as a Norse or Saxon then Anglo-Saxon Rune, as Saxons were finally defeated and many forcibly resettled by Charlemagne. It breaks down, in an amateur sleuth way, to refer also to that old heroic whatever. References to woods, icy day, despair, then heroism, etc. See the fun at Sweden Road Ways, Widing; and Sweden Road Ways, Widing, Delving into Widukind.
....................

6. Saxon or something else?

Saxon lands also have shifted, been awarded here and there after wars, including parts to Prussia, see ://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Saxony,_Prussia/.

In the 400's, Saxons invaded England - becoming the Anglo-Saxons. But not all went. Charlemagne fought the Saxons for 30 years before finally subduing them, and getting them (mostly) converted to Christianity in the 700's-800's. There was a clear identity there, but look up Saxon history in Germany and it is as though Saxony arose suddenly in the 1500's. See ://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/germany/xsaxony.html

The King of the Saxons, Widukind, moved between Saxony and Denmark to the North, while fighting against Charlemagne; and it was at Verden that Charlemagne had 4500 Saxons decapitated after they had capitulated. Widukind himself later converted, and was absorbed (because of his adulation) into the Catholic lexicon not as a saint, but as Widukind the Blessed.

So cultures absorb like amoebas those they surround, digest them, make them their own. Names and cultures not limited by modern ideas of borders.

Widukind. Widingh. WidingHUH. Believe!

.......................................................................
* These went to Poland:
Posen
West Prussia
Southern half of East Prussia
Most of Pomerania
One-fourth of Brandenburg
Most of Silesia
A fragment of the Kingdom of Saxony

German ethnic groups have also migrated to Eastern Europe.

So any look at contemporary Germany must include consideration of its presence elsewhere; true of any country, but more so for Germany with the boundary shifts.

Buchenwald - Forced Labor Camp. Slave Labor.

2009-09-24T00:52:00.001-04:00

Buchenwald, Concentration Camp, Germany; stake, hand ore cart

Buchenwald. See www.jewishgen.org/Forgottencamps/Camps/BuchenwaldEng. Labor Camp. WWII. Just outside Weimar. Outlines of barracks and buildings. One, reconstructed or preserved, houses the museum - the personal items, the collections of shoes, memorabilia, passports, photos, letters.

Slave labor. Find it listed at ://www.dpcamps.org/slavecamplist.pdf/. This resource is the Slave Labor Class I List, from the Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Banks), Special Master's Proposal, September 11, 2000. Pull up the pdf and do a search or find, at the upper slot, for "Buchenwald" and it will appear.

Labor cart. This was primarily a labor camp, not an extermination camp with gas chambers. Death was an integral part of the setting, however. See historical film footage: www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005198. Another is www.dunkirkma.net/inreview/features/night_and_fog. This is Alain Resnais' "Night and Fog". Check around yourself and make your own judgments on which films or sources are best in this area. We just lay out some that spoke especially to us. We include in our trips anywhere, time with those parts of history that we prefer to think never happened, and certainly were not and could not be inflicted by people like us. Not? Go there.

Buchenwald, Little Children's Zoo for Germans, outside barbed wire fence, Germany

Little zoo. This stone structure at Buchenwald, with the low walls here, is the little zoo, right outside the fence to the camp itself. It had little bears in it, we were told, to amuse the children and families of the staff. There the children sat with governesses and mothers, and played, and fed the bears.

Buchenwald is near Weimar, some 6-7 miles out perhaps. The people said they didn't know. How much do we block out?

Buchenwald, remembrance pebbles on memorial, GermanyPebbles for remembrance. There are memorial stone slabs for the different countries of origin, with the pebbles remembering. The roots of that fine tradition are at www.templesanjose.org/JudaismInfo/time/Life_Cycle/pebbles. And at www.myjewishlearning.com/lifecycle/Death/Burial_Mourning/TombstoneUnveiling.

See this site for a virtual tour of Jewish history in Germany. The site also connects to Jewish history in Eastern and Central Europe. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/germany.

Current topics include holocaust deniers, see the World Association of International Studies site at cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/index.php?cat=211.

For a gallery of photos on Buchenwald, the interiors of some of the buildings, see ://www.pbase.com/arodri3/germany.

Slave Labor Lists. The Dignity of Remembering. Is It Appropriate? Yes.

2009-09-23T12:20:00.001-04:00

Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation

Do your own research. Where are the rest of the camps and sites? More informative than Germany is Austria - and that only lately. See Austria Road Ways, Mauthausen Concentration Camp >

Also, look up the Slave Labor Class I List, from the Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Banks), Special Master's Proposal, September 11, 2000. Go to ://www.dpcamps.org/slavecamplist.pdf/

The camps and sites listed are for both Austria and Germany, but the point here is that a tourist can visit everywhere from Dusseldorf to Munich to Frankfurt Am Main and find no reference to what happened there.

Buchenwald. Book: "The Seventh Well"

2009-05-23T17:00:00.003-04:00

Fred Wander was kept in various concentration and labor camps in France and Germany during the World War II era, see his book, "The Seventh Well," reviewed at the New York Times, ://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Hoffman-t.html/

The review is far better than any summary we could provide, so we refer you directly to it. And the book. The French work camps - a different angle to the German. The book appeared in East Germany in 1970, and only now is in English translation, by Michael Hofman.

Mr. Wander was in Buchenwald at the time of the Allied liberation, in 1945.

See photos and description at Germany Road Ways, Buchenwald, Labor Camp.

Fritzlar and Alsfeld: And Teutonic Knights of the Era. Roots of Fealty.

2009-01-27T11:21:00.018-05:00

Preserved Towns

Where to Lean Does Not Mean to Fall

1. Fritzlar.
.

This town boasts a great ring of medieval walls. The town dates from early 8th century. The Fritzlar official site is at www.fritzlar.de/, and shows good photos. The Alsfeld official site lacks photos, so go to Alsfeld at Wikipedia, at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsfeld. Big squares.

Seeing these preserved towns, unbombed, was the best start for a trip in Germany. There has been destruction of entire cities, now reconstructed as best could be done with the money and time and urgency. Half timber is hardest to reconstruct, because the old cities show such bulges and tilted rooms inside, walls and ceilings askew. That cannot be replicated. The botox of reconstruction; but here, not voluntary.

2. Alsfeld.
.
This town is a contemporary of Fritzlar, dating from the late 9th century. In both, see later 16th-17th century half-timber houses so big and old that the top floors tilt over the little alleyways and nearly meet (some may even meet at the top).

3. Our interest: Life In Between the foundings and the later merchant eras: Teutonic Knights; Crusades and Post Crusades
.
Spending time in these old towns leads to considering what life was like from the many foundings in the 8th-9th Centuries, through the dominance of the Roman Church over the Orthodox Christians, and others, wars against Islam, and the Crusades, see that era at Crusader Characters at ://www.snunit.k12.il/njeru/crusaders_characters.htm. That may be the best site for a fast look at Crusader times.

Then, there is time until the later emerging wealth, independence and merchant eras, seen in the big half-timbered places of the 16th and 17th Centuries. What happened after the fervor and failure of the Crusades, to all those militarists who then had nothing noble to do?
.
That era includes most of the Crusades and persecutions of Reform types in Europe; and battle against "Infidels" abroad. Heady stuff. Adenalin, purpose, go!

The Teutonic Knights were separate from other Knights of the Crusades era.

It was strongly ethnic, as opposed to the Templars and the Hospitallers that were more international in character, although it began as a Hospitaller Order. See "The Knights of the Teutonic Order," at ://www.snunit.k12.il/njeru/ef37.htm.

They were recognized in 1199 - is that also when Pope Innocent III ordered their uniforms - the white tunic and black cross. We believe there was a Papal bull to that effect. There were many competitions and power-plays among rulers-sponsors, and it looks like only the Teutons lived on. See ://www.middle-ages.org.uk/teutonic-knights.htm/,

After the Crusades, they moved their center to Venice, and then to Prussia, looking for work and finally finding it. They became a mercenary-militaristic group commissioned to conquer the Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe* just as they had been after the "infidels" in the Holy Land.

The concept suited, even though those Orthodox were themselves Christian. Kill your brethren; the Grand Master and God so require. A human differential. The "other" is expendable.

They limited their membership to Germans, as Teutonic Knights, so there were no members whose relatives might be involved, to oppose the mission. At their Church of St. Mary, only German speakers received a blessing. This also from ://www.snunit.k12.il/njeru/crusaders_characters.htm/

Is it no accident that our concept of "club" comes from the German, an honored tradition - the old German gelubde, the "bodies of men united by a common vow," see the History of Friedrich II, by Thomas Carlyle, at ://carlyle.classicauthors.net/Friedrich/Friedrich16.html - this from Chapter 6, "The Teutsch Ritters or Teutonic Order."

The Teutch Order. Take time for some serious reading. Go there, at the Carlyle site.

Are these observations about old Germania on point:

That there are deep roots of fealty to an individual leader, even unto death. This was common in the middle ages, in a feudal social structure; so the question is whether it is more pronounced in Germany than in other European countries. Does loyalty to the leader trump what the follower is asked to do in the name of the leader.Of interest is the evolution of the Teutonic Knights during and after the Crusades. They continued openly, whereas the Knights Templar were destroyed; but the Teutons carried forward in a different and more mercenary and politicized function. Why the differing treatment? Why were the Teutons embraced, but the Templars ground down, as we are told they were. Were the Templars too independent of the rulers of the time, too wealthy, too powerful.

That there are deep roots of the special quality that Germans perceive in their own heritage. The membership in the Teutonic Knights was limited to Germans. Is that mere convenience of locale and common custom, or early Aryanism? This takes more research, and professionals and we are not that. We look and ask.

Did the Knights Templar accept Germans? It was international, so probably so. The Middle Ages site addresses the history of the Teutonics and division from the Templars. The Teutonic Order was originally the Teutonic Knights of the Hospital of the Blessed Virgin.

Was a combination of the Teutonic militarist power with loyalty to God and Mary and the Grand Master, combined with the exclusivity of only German membership, contribute to their amenability to the slaughter of the Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe, because the Eastern Europeans had not been converted by the Roman branch, and so were considered pagan (but were really just a threat to the Pope?)

See Martin Luther's Stove, Fear the Follower. What, if anything, does the Teutonic Knight or other Crusading experience have on our cultures. Obey the authority. Is that our heritage.

Difficult issues. Look up Saints Cyril and Methodius - their legacy of conversions to Eastern Europe to Orthodoxy is still strong despite all. * Look at the deep wounds from the perception of the Orthodox in the Balkan states during WWII that the Roman branch stood by as the Orthodox were killed by the Nazi regimes. People disagree. Look up Cardinal Stepinac, said to have stood by and converted Orthodox to Roman Catholicism before their deaths, rather than oppose the slaughter; is that so? and Jasenovac, starting with Zagreb, Croatia, and his burial place at Croatia Road Ways, Cardinal Stepinac, St. Stephen's. See also the site itself at Croatia Road Ways, Jasenovac. Is he asking for forgiveness, or giving thanks.

Religion, politics, who the leader, who the follower, who takes responsibility, who is freed from it, if anyone.

These issues do not stop at country borders. We all follow something. Everybody is everybody. Read further Teutonic Knight history, and see its emblem, at The Teutonic Order, at ://www.heraldica.org/topics/orders/teutonic.htm/

...........................................................

* Saints Cyril and Methodius:
.
They began their conversions in the 9th Century, when all were Orthodox who were Christian, and before the Roman Branch separated itself from the other Orthodox Branches of Christianity.

Starting from Thessaloniki, Greece, they moved north into eastern Europe, and that included parts of Germany and Prussia.
.
Read about Saints Cyril and Methodius at Czech Republic Road Ways, entry for Operation Anthropoid during World War II where members of the Czech Resistance were betrayed, found and died in the crypt of this Orthodox Church named for Cyril and Methodius. See http://czechrepublicroadways.blogspot.com/2007/08/prague-at-war-world-war-ii-operation.html

Kassel and The Brothers Grimm

2009-01-27T11:19:00.005-05:00

Kassel

The town of Kassel is first mentioned in documents from 913. See its ancient heritage at ://www.abnachkassel.de/en/history.php/. In 1943, British bombers destroyed 90% of the city, most not rebuilt in the old style, but as 1950's. Urban renewal was not helpful - the traffic pattern is hard to follow, but we appreciate the stresses and urgency to rebuild something.

We were interested in The Brothers Grimm Museum. Read one of the lesser-known fairy tales at Fitcher's Bird, Migratory Patterns of Cultural Tales. For the city of Kassel, see www.kassel.de/. There are photo galleries at images.google.com/images?q=kassel+germany&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-28,GGGL:en&sa=X&oi=images&ct=titl/ See how the Tales of the Brothers Grimm have been changed over the years, see in particular the Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel posts at Migratory Patterns of Tales.

.
There was an illustration silhouette exhibit at the time. If it is part of the permanent collection, do not miss the woodcuts and meticulous, cuticle-scissor-minutely detailed, silhouette-work used as illustrations for the fairy tales, see www.nationalgeographic.com/grimm/article, in black, gray, white, and sometimes a tiny yellow in a castle window. That is where she waits.
.
That might have been a roving exhibit and no longer there. We do not recall the artist, the superior snipper.
.

Nearby is a park that had labeled certain trees that survived the bombings in WWII. It is strangely moving to see them still there.

.
Kassel in the 1500's:

See it before its 1943 bombing at ://www. historic-cities.huji.ac.il/germany/kassel/maps/braun_hogenberg_I_26_2_b.jpg.

In Kassel, see the photo gallery at images.google.com/images?q=kassel+germany&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-28,GGGL:en&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title/

Wartburg Castle - Siege, Architecture, Half-Timber, Cannon. Duke Ludwig

2008-10-01T16:03:00.003-04:00

Wartburg Castle, Germany, at a distance

Wartburg - the castle on the hill - was founded in 1067 AD by Duke Ludwig de Springer - long before Martin Luther at the start of the Reformation 16th Century needed it for a safe haven, and translated the New Testament into German here.

If only medieval geneologies were more comprehensible to outsiders. We looked up Duke Ludwig, and lost our wits in names, cum barba or not (with beard, or not, we think) to find out more about the one who found a fabulous view of the Alps there, and started a fortress on this site. See://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/THURINGIA.htm Did the good duke have his wife's first husband murdered so he could marry her? That may have been the "cum barba."

The lands here, known as Thuringia, were part of the Soviet allocation after WWII - East Germany, the Iron Curtain. During the Middle Ages, the castle was known for its minstrel festivals and contests.

Wartburg Castle, interior: defense

See glimpses of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance architecture by now.

We forget that, during times of siege, the castle enclosed an entire living space, a mini-town.The defense could be sustained for a long period, so long as the well water and food held out. This cannon, of course, is not medieval. Perhaps 19th Century? See the history of small cannon at ://www.cannon-mania.com/history.htm

Wartburg Castle, interior half timber

The half-timber style is durable. Some of the oldest, tiltiest, biggest buildings from medieval Germany are half-timber. The timber framework was solid, and then the spaces filled with plaster, horsehair, straw, grease, mud, matter that retained some flexibility - instead of a crack that weakened the building when it shifted, it bulged.

Wartburg - A mighty fortress and a hurdy gurdiy

2008-09-30T01:45:00.000-04:00

Wartburg Castle, Germany, walls, tower

Wartburg, at Eisenach - that great castle where Martin Luther found refuge, and wrote, they say, "A Mighty Fortress." This is a World Heritage site, see whc.unesco.org/en/list/897, where Martin Luther found refuge 1521-22.

On the way up was an organ grinder, a hurdy-gurdy. There is a website on organ grinders at www.floraco.com/organs/history.

Wartburg Castle, hurdy-gurdy

Here is a musical site for organ grinder music, if you have the plug-in. www.pulseplanet.com/archive/Aug02/2729.. Note that the use of "hurdy-gurdy" in connection with the grinder's barrel organ is deplored my many. See this site, a maker of real hurdy-gurdies: www.midcoast.com/%7Ebeechhil/vielle/

This one, at Wartburg, has a practical alternative to a real monkey.

Here are sound samples. www.midcoast.com/%7Ebeechhil/vielle/. Here is someone who makes them. Elegant. See the closeup at www.hurdygurdy.farmcom.net/(looks like a dulcimer. This one called a synphonia, looks very different. Also listen. www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/hurdy.htm for a square hurdy gurdy.

See the post here on Cologne (Koln) for a big hurdy-gurdy.

The Vends - Wends - Ancient Culture Subserved But With Traces

2008-06-09T15:22:00.007-04:00

Imagine our current maps of Germany and Slovenia, with a wide swath of population stretching from Slovenia, where it dominated, through Eastern and Central Germany. These were the lands of the Vends, the Vendic culture, with similarities to the Celts. Here is a fine site: "The Vends and the Germans" at ://www.carantha.net/the_vends_and_the_germans.htm

Maypole - Traces of the Vends, Germany

Read the overview at Slovenia Road Ways, Expunged Ancient Dynasty of Carantania. That reviews the Vendic culture in the area then known as Carantania, and the rights of women to rule and conduct business was identical with that of men. Until another Germanic group, the Swabians, took over and poof- there went the ancient Slavica Lex and its equality. In marched the Germans, tramp tramp.

Place and people names and cultural traces that are Vendic, still there, customs living -

Buchwald now Buchenwald, the name of the forced labor camp
Several Berlin street names
The Maypole, the tree of life for the village, sometimes with a wreath beneath (see the "Vends and the Germans" site for pictures). See more Germany maypoles, including with the suspended wreath at the top, at Germany Road Ways, Maypoles.
Veneration of the Linden tree (not the oak, as other celtic groups chose). Note that Hitler had the Lindens cut down before WWII along that great boulevard, UnterDen Linden - and put up flagpoles - see ://www.voicesunderberlin.com/1950.html. Lindens have been replanted in Berlin now, still little ones, but just you wait.
Language - Ven vill I see you again; and commerce: Vendy's. Lighten up here.
"House Order of the Vendic Crown" established 19th Century, Mecklenburg-Schwerin roots
Legend at Schildhorn, read it at the Vends and the Germans site - miraculous rescue from a watery death in it

Now - speak German language, and Polish. Earlier absorbed into much of Prussia?

Schwabisch Hall - Swabians

2008-06-08T20:23:00.003-04:00

Schwabisch Hall. Swabians. The remains of a Celtic settlement were found here in 1939, dating from 500BC. See www.schwaebischhall.de/History.1943.0. If Schwabisch Hall had been bombed, all that would be gone, just as history is being bombed out elsewhere.

Look at the huge size of these medieval buildings. Schwabisch Hall is a town less commercial-touristy than another medieval town, Rothenberg. See www.tompgalvin.com/places/de/baden_wuerttemberg/schwaebisch_hall for one of the best city websites we found.

Climb the long stairs up to the church, and look back.
Schwabisch Hall, Germany. Medieval building (large)

Schwabians or Swabians. The Brothers Grimm in 1857 wrote a politically incorrect story about The Seven Swabians. See www.pitt.edu/%7Edash/grimm119. The site says, at the source section, that stories like these are taken in good humor. Doubtful.

They deserve better. They have played a large role in many countries.

Frederick of Swabia, son of Barbarossa, supported the founding of the Teutonic Knights as a medical order to aid pilgrims and the wounded in the Crusades. See grognard.com/zines/ph/p0304.

Many Swabians migrated to Hungary and the Balkans and elsewhere. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube_Swabians.

We found Germanic settlements in Romania, see Romania Road Ways, saxons at www.romaniaroadways.blogspot.com. The names mix - they seem to have been known as Saxons as well as Swabians, so I am not sure of the separation of the ethnic groups there, seelcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+ro0055%29 for more on Saxons-Swabians, Romania (temporary file - may be moved, it says). See the Swabians taking over Slovenia at Slovenia Road Ways, Expunged Ancient Dynasty of Carantania and destroying the grand Slavica Lex tradition of successors to the throne as either male or female . Thanks a lot, German machos.

The Saxons in Romania were known for their fortified churches. I understand many are returning, or financing the rebuilding of the old churches, after expulsions in WWII. This does not look like the Swabian heritage group?

The Swabians also went to Sicily - even ruling there as an extension of the Normans - and other parts of Italy. See Swabians in Italy. That site says that the Swabians in the 12th Century lived in territory extending through Bavaria and Switzerland.

Saxons: This site oriented to schoolchildren, about germanic tribes in Great Britain, uses the same term - Swabians and Saxons. See www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/kids/sax, on Saxons and Swabians. That seems too broad, even for kids.

This next and more comprehensive Teutonic-origins site says that some Saxons were descended from Alexander the Great's army in Macedonia, and some from Danes and Northmen; and that the Swabians also descend from Northmen, but that they (read all about it) undertook a long boat journey to the Elbe and other places - a different sea tack. See www.northvegr.org/lore/rydberg/016. This lays out the Saxon and Swabian Migration Saga. Bloody battles all around.

Dresden - Neustadt and Altstadt. City navigating; War Treasures Reunited.

2007-12-19T17:52:00.001-05:00

Dresden, Germany. Baroque facade.

If you are on a motorway or secondary road and get off to visit a city, look for the signs for "Centrum," or its language equivalent. Aim and go. Skip the maps, the streets, the landmarks. Just get in the middle of it by following the Centrum signs.

Most cities direct traffic to the old town by prominent signs, expecting the new town to be near enough not to require a poster. That works. We aim for the old town sections anywhere. Once there, find any hotel, go in and get a local placemat sized map; and perhaps even stay there. But just get in the middle of it all.

For Dresden, look back at the New York Times "Going to Dresden" in the travel section 10/24/06, at page 13. That is the kind of cartooney map that is the best help when you are starting out. There, the Elbe running through, new town on one side, old town on the other and some bridges. In 2006, the article says that Dresden turned age 800. Nearly fire-bomb flattened in just days, WWII. Think of the history we collectively trashed.

The NYT article says that 300 years ago, a great treasure, known as the Green Vault, was gathered in Dresden by Augustus the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony- a part of the Holy Roman Empire in its day - see him on his white steed at -www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/AugustII. The treasure included a 41 carat green diamond and diamond-encrusted swords. All stolen after WWII, and just now put back together at the Royal Palace.

Dresden Lives

2007-04-15T15:43:00.001-04:00

Dresden was fire-bombed, carpet-bombed during World War II. Some buildings remained, most were flattened or so gutted that little could be salvaged. See some survivors here.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died last week - this is an update 4/07 from earlier 12/06 post. He was that fine novelist-icon who happened to be a prisoner of war in Dresden, underground in a meat locker, and who emerged to find the devastation. He said in a rerun on PBS last week, an interview in the 1980's I believe, that noone benefited from that surprise attack. The war was not cut short by a single minute, no strategic goal had been even set forth, no allied effort was facilitated, and the only one who benefited was himself - Kurt Vonnegut who subsequently wrote his "Slaughterhouse Five." See www.vonnegutweb.com/sh5/index

"Dresden Lives" was on numerous street posters when we were there.

For pictures of Dresden, do an images search in Google for Dresden bomb fire.

An overview of the Baroque buildings still standing is at www.pbase.com/bauer/dresden.

Dresden, Germany. Square.

.
Here is the larger photo of the large square. The Dresden area is a UNESCO World Heritage site, on the Elbe River. See whc.unesco.org/en/list/1156.

Lili Marleen- Small History of a WWI War Protest Song, Defused By WWII and Marlene Dietrich, Idealizing Love in War

2007-03-28T15:51:00.001-04:00

Familiar song with a fascination, nationalist propaganda-related history: Lili Marleen. FN 1

The original message of "Lili Marleen," the one we do not hear, was a protest against war, from WWI. Lili Marleen, the song, was originally written by a German soldier headed for the Russian front in World War I, as a "plea for sanity in World War I." See ://www.ingeb.org/garb/lmarleen.

But, over time, as parts of the world revved up for war again, for nationalism, the theme of the message of Lili Marleen was changed from war protest, to presenting a dreamy reverie about love in war. See the changes as they evolved at the ingeb.org site. Parallel verses.

1. The torch rendition. Check your own knowledge. Are you most familiar with Lilli Marleen as a misty torch song. "Lilli Marleen" was sung so memorably that way during World War II, by Marlene Dietrich see FN 2, and Edith Piaf, among others. A steamy soft agony song. A separated by war song. A longing song.

Those froggy voices. For Dietrich, the slouchy hat. The slouch. Hear it now at eri.ca/refer/marlened.MP3. Take advantage of internet audio.

Do an images search for "Marlene Dietrich Lili Marleen." Or Lilli Marleen. Put the two names together. Picture the lamp post, the girl in the mist draped around it, the throaty voice of WWII radio and stage. Both genders, relationships all ways, and always, in important ways, all just humans. Look into the lives of our icons.

2. The Panzer martial march rendition. You may also know it as a German marching song. Hear a Panzer Division sing it. See the Nuremberg stadium as its backdrop here at ://61.139.55.94/dvd/pic1/Lili.Marleen.jpg.

3. The world making it its own. Hear many renditions at the Lili Marleen website, at ://www.ingeb.org/garb/lmarleen. Hear it in Hungarian, Finnish and Dutch.

4. See how the words changed with the times. There are two sites we used:

a. ://ingeb.org/Lieder/lilimarl.html. This has all three versions -
a.1 with the 1915 German, identified as Hans Leip;
a.2 then a 1998 translation of that by "Frank;"
a.3 then a 1944 evolved version translated by "Tommie Connor."

b. Then see the WWI words at www.jazzprofessional.com/report/Norbert%20Schultze.htm#english, as translated by the jazz trumpet player, Ron Simmonds.

5. The World War I.

1913, sometimes told as 1915 (soldier, Hans Leip, lyric, see http://ingeb.org/Lieder/lilimarl.html) for the three parallel versions.

We like the Ron Simmonds at www.jazzprofessional.com/report/Norbert%20Schultze.htm#english. The occasion for resurrecting the original was the death of Norbert Schultze, 10/14/2002, composer and protector of performing rights. Ron Simmonds died recently. See the coverage of the Schultze tributes, at www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=7762.

Scroll down to the English translation, and you will see the words that mean as much now as they did in 1913, written incorporating the name of the soldier's girlfriend, Lili, and perhaps the name of a mysterious nurse in the mist, Marleen. The Ron Simmonds version of the original, included at that website, reads like this, with line breaks added: Scroll down to the very bottom.

There is a lantern in front of the barracks,
And the big gate, still there.
It does not and cannot figure out what is happening,
"As did once Lili Marleen!"

Is it pride or power
That brings us "out of our senses?"
However we try to get away,
We will be judged.
"Some day, Lili Marleen!"

The dead on sand or beach,
Who buries or counts?
How much more pain
Until we see how stupid and senseless this is.
"Oh God, Lili Marleen!"

And, since copyright permits "fair use," see www.bitlaw.com, this little excerpt is just as it is --

"From the quiet rooms,
From the earth,
There rises before me as in a dream
Your deathly pale mouth. [the other translation avoids that and says, "hale' mouth -see ://ingeb.org/Lieder/lilimarl.html]

Before the swirling mists clear,
Let war and hate come to an end - now,
Today,
Lili Marleen!"

Toggling back and forth between the translations, we think these are close.

1944: Then go to how the song was later used, and changed to meet the needs of both sides in World War II. It became a song of longing - see www:// ingeb.org/Lieder/lilimarl. By 1944 it was a love song. And Marlene Dietrich synonymous with it.

Amen. We have Edith Piaf singing it.
..............................................
FN 1. Bump Bump-a Dump Dump
Bump-a Dumpy Dump.
(BBCDBCBCFD. AABCDFEDCB - now. The rest yourself.)

Bump Bump-a Dump Dump
Bump-a Dumpy Dump!

Bump Bump-a Dump Dump
DUMP DUMP DUMP

A-Dump Dump Dump
A-Dump Dump Dump

A-Dump Lili Marle-e-en
A-Dump Lili Marleen.

etc. Sometimes written as Lilli Marleen.
FN 2 See network channels 3/28/07 - the news word is that Marlene Dietrich, who vanted to be alone, had a letter-writing and perhaps more relationship with Ernest Hemingway. See ABC news, 6:30 eastern daylight time.

Vikings and Geneology - Roots of Names

2007-03-02T10:02:00.000-05:00

It is easy to stop with the easiest explanation for a name - but dig deeper. Our "Scharfe" looks German (a variant of the word means sharp, I believe) . But we found in Orkney and Ireland a different connection - Viking. The Vikings traveled and settled and plundered up and down any river and waterway they could find, apparently, and including Germany - and the Scharf is old Nordic for cormorant, with family coming from Ireland (a Viking playground as well as a place for serious settling); and Iceland in the sagas. Look up the surnames of a thousand years ago, and the meanings. See geneology posts at Ireland Roadways; and Orkney Roadways.

Go ahead. Take your name, hunt around, then go wherever you find a connection and enjoy. May be no connection at all, but fun is in the process. Don't worry about spelling differences. Even our folks in Canada added the "e" in the earliest 1900's just to make it easier for the postmaster.

Geneology.
Joke on uncle. Old name his:
Squinty cormorant.

Salute to Ingenuity - German fountains

2007-03-02T10:01:00.000-05:00

Salutes. Today, I salute the sheer ingenuity of the Germans. Fun. German whimsy, German fountains.

See Nuremburg, at Germany Road Ways, Nuremburg posts, Altotting post: fountains. In Munich, look up and see some sculptural figure teetering outside the the 5th floor at the corner - just for fun. Imagine the money fountain in Nuremburg - a broad flat slow whirlpool down the center drain, and around the perimeter, the rich pass money between themselves and hide it behind their backs, the poor reach out their arms and never get anything, a man and boy go fishing, the man with some, but fishing for more. You go around and around it, looking more closely, drawn in yourself to the expressions and you think, yes, this is a true universal.

So, today, to German ingenuity. See the marriage carousel fountain, also in Nuremberg, the puppet fountain, and the plague memorial fountain in Altotting. Check the site references for more pictures of them.

In no other country were the fountains such fun, and so true to human nature. Others' fountains may be grander, but they don't tell a story that goes deep inside.

Berg or burg? Nothing ever ends.

Nuremberg: What did it mean. The Law of Atrocity. Leadersorganizersinstigatorsandaccomplices.

2007-02-10T18:33:00.003-05:00

War Criminals

War Crimes

The Law of Atrocity
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LEADERS, ORGANIZERS, INSTIGATORS AND ACCOMPLICES
.

A distorted Mary Poppins
.

All are one:

leadersorganizersinstiragorsandaccomplices
hum diddle diddle diddle hum diddle i

What makes a war criminal. War criminals are not only the wielders of the electric shock wire or other technique; war criminals by law are the leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices. Common Plan or Conspiracy law applies.

Nuremberg Stadium, by the Nazi Documentation Center

See an overview of the entire Nuremberg war crimes trials after World War II. A good starting site is at nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/php/docs_swi.php?DI=1&text=overview.

See the law arising from the 13 Nuremberg trials at law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/NurembergIndictments. Better, go to the Nazi Documentation Center at Nuremberg itself, by the stadium that still stands. Or see Leni Riefenstahl's 1930's film, "Triumph of the Will," - look it up. Watch, transfixed.

1. Here is a small fair-use excerpt from the umkc.edu website, spacing changed for clarity: note that not only the immediate actors are the war criminals, but also the leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices.

"The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:
"(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;

"(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

"(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war,14 or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated.
"Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan."

Our issues, given our leadership and those who are expected to follow:

2. Can or will a soldier or officer refuse to obey. When.

Educate yourself. See, for example, www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/57JQ7H - "Superior Orders and the International Criminal Court." Look up our human vulnerability to following authority, and in so doing, believe ourselves guiltless. See The Milgram Study, and here is a paper written about it and its acting out in police work, }Obedience to Authority and Unjustified Police Violence," by David Coady at this Police Ethics site, at ://www.utas.edu.au/philosophy/cape/WORD%20FILES/Police_Ethics.pdf/

Coady's Premise: The Selfish Person Is Less Dangerous than The Integrative Person.

Coady's thesis is roughly this: That the "selfish" man is far less a danger to society than is the "integrative" man, the one who surrenders his identity to the leader, or group -

religious,
social,
political party,
another cause,
whatever.

Read the Milgram Study, see "Stanley Milgram's Experiment, 'Obedience and Individual Responsibility,' " at ://www.cba.uri.edu/Faculty/dellabitta/mr415s98/EthicEtcLinks/Milgram.htm/

3. On what grounds can a country decide it will be not subject to that? Again, educate yourself.

We have an officer, Watadi, who refused as to Iraq, now a mistrial. See, for supportive overview, www.thankyoult.org/. ABC news says this:http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2857628. How do those match up with the standard we applied at Nuremberg? And wasn't there a Japanese commander held responsible for atrocities committed far away from his presence as well? Need to keep the consistency going if we are to have a chance.

Update January 2009. Mr. President Obama. Laws cannot be flaunted, or laws fall down. Prosecute. For all our sakes.
...................................................

Lighten up perhaps a little because this is so hopeless. Have to. Compelled. A frivolous alternative to hanging is to generate a Shakespearean insult. See william-shakespeare.org.uk/a1-shakespearean-insults-generator.

Update to Remagen Post 10-6 and The Dogs of War. US and Vanishing Atrocities.

2007-02-08T16:18:00.001-05:00

Remagen, Germany, where the bridge was

Remagen.

The place once spanned by a vital bridge.

Shakespeare's Antony spoke of the dreadful consequences of the dogs of war, in "Julius Caesar:" "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." Question here: is atrocity another of the dogs of war, that we - as well as our "enemies" - fall prey to, or intentionally indulge in?

That cry, to havoc, signified the shift in old military campaigns from conquest to pillage - to be given permission to cross the fine line that holds back the dogs, and that then the dogs only need only be allowed to "slip" - an almost inadvertent act. Just let them slip. Nobody really responsible.

1. Earlier post, we think, was wrong.

The focus of an earlier post 10-6 criticized the tape recording, at the bridge base, that claims that allies committed atrocities against German prisoners. This apparently is part of the exhibit at the museum that had closed by the time we got there, so we put the coin in the slot for the recording instead. It sounded, at first, unfair, and misrepresentative of what happened.

2. We now believe there may be truth in the German tape at Remagen, there that we simply ignore.

With knowledge now that our own government tortured at Guantanamo (this is a further update January 2009, Obama now president), we look back further.

Explore with us more on that issue.

We looked up

Andersonville, the prison during the Civil War operated by the Union; see the Angelfire site at ://www. angelfire.com/ga2/Andersonvilleprison/; and
Vietnam My Lai, see hnn.us/roundup/entries/5285,
Iraq and Abu Ghraib, and other instances in Iraq. Look up your own news on that.

3. An invitation. Help find out. We want to quantify facts to see what might be true about the Remagen tape recording.

How many German soldiers were captured and in allied POW camps.
Then ask how many were returned.
Ask what happened in between.
How are the deaths accounted for? Should not be that difficult. But it is.

4. Your own research. Try these to get started.

Sites: Disappearing Atrocities.

4.1. Start at nizkor.ort/hweb/people/b/bacque-james/ambrose-.001 (from"Ike and the Disappearing Atrocities", New York Times Book Review, February 24, 1991, on James Bacque's 'Other Losses', a Review by Stephen E. Ambrose).

At this website, claimed atrocities (active and passive death-dealing of prisoners) by the allies are addressed, resulting in the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of German prisoners.

Early numbers about the gap were huge, later numbers were far less - or denied altogether. And the issue is carefully counter-argued. But it still does not go away. In this era of spin and cover-up being the norm, satisfy yourself on your own.

4.2. Then go to Niall Ferguson's War of the World, see review from Amherst college's journal, The Inicator, at halogen.note.amherst.edu/~theindicator/articles.php?date=12072006&page=13.

Or search for Niall Ferguson War of the World. The TV series based on it is outlined at www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/warworld.

From a fast overview, I understand that German prisoners preferred being caught by British rather than Americans, because word had spread that their survival with Americans would be far less likely.
.
Wonderful. Who are we serving when we pretend/turn away/deny, so that each generation of soldiers marches in anew, with an unrealistic view of what they, good folks like us, may well become, when faced with the dogs of war.
.
5. Now, you take it from here.

Now we have Gitmo and the pattern continuing - laws of atrocity apply to others. Will President Obama follow along?

Do we serve the next generation by hiding reality, and so continue in enabling war; or is war such an inevitable part of life that we must hide its reality (say, in over-stressing the heroism and patriotism) in order to dupe impressionable young soldiers to go to war for us at all.

The real "war of the world" may be against untrammeled testosterone.

Remagen and Revisionism - The bulkheads of the old bridge, the movies, and spin.

2007-02-07T20:01:00.001-05:00

Updates: Perspectives on events -- irreconcilable differenes. See New York Times 4/17/2011 includes Week in Review, Op-Ed by Lizabel Monica, Bay of Pigs, Cuba. differing views between US and Cuba as to significance, implementation and errors at Bay of Pigs, Cuba. See also Germany Road Ways, Update to Remagen.

Remagen: Town, Bridge, Movie About,

Polarized Recollections, Propaganda

Bridge at Remagen, Promenade. Bulkheads remain, Germany

.
The bridge over the Rhine at Remagen - the last access to Germany in World War II's closing days. Allies managing to hold it, deflect/otherwise neutralize enough explosives so the bridge stood long enough for equipment and soldiers to cross.

We found alone piper down the promenade. This is not "the bridge." The bridge itself is gone, leaving just bulwarks on both sides of the river, long expanse of gap between. Remagen, at least the name, may be familiar - go to the movies: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_at_Remagen; stories.

But at the bulkhead at this side, there is a little museum and, when you get there after hours and it is closed, you put in a coin and hear a little presentation. The presentation begins with the atrocities of the Allies against German prisoners at the end of the war. Reaction: No, no, can't be. What are the Germans doing, at this site, where Allies were heroic, and the Germans to blame for the War - think we. This is manipulative, propagandistic revisionism at its worst, think we.

And in the town, at a square, a vicious sculpture (fountain also? not sure) of a sleeping, benevolent German soldier, and monstrous, leering allies in fatigue hats and with knives in their mouths, sneaking up on him. Should have taken a picture, but the perceived"revisionism" was so repulsive to me at the time, that I did not even show it to Dan.

The museum and the sculpture may be right in some ways, maybe not. Either way, worth pursuing. They raise the old issue -- what is unleashed in battle. "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war." A history of that phrase, beginning with the medieval battle cry signifying the line between attack and now go ahead and pillage, to Shakespeare (Antony's speech in "Julius Caesar"), is at phrases.org.uk/meanings/105600. Then do an images search for "dogs of war" and Europe, for the moving poster from World War I. Some with that theme are at the Perrone WWI museum in France, at the Somme area, see France Road Ways. What really are the dogs of war - we see them loosed in others, and point fingers, and deny (Swiftboat) those people who point them out in ourselves.

Remagen, Town, Bridge, Polarized Recollections

The heritage of Remagen. The spin depends on the spinner. In the town, children are credited with putting up that monument to the "victims" of the Remagen Bridge. We all spin our histories. I cannot find that statue on the internet. Go look. Not in the town center, off to the side.

So - this is Remagen, famous for its bridge - now only two hulk shapes on either side of the river. More about the 1969 film at www.imdb.com/title/tt0064110/. One German soldier wrote that the loss of this Bridge in WWII, and the loss of Trier, were the two greatest catastrophes of the war. See www.militaryhistoryonline.com. Best to read direct accounts.

Now: with that negativity out, go back to a nice photo gallery by a tourist in 2004 - all of Germany - at www.pbase.com/hosmer/germany_2004. We missed the Scallywag Fountain that I later read about in Remagen - a fountain where a boy spits on passers by at random.

Maypoles: Wends, Vends. Advantage of Early Spring Trip. The Vends Started It.

2007-01-11T21:04:00.004-05:00

Vendic Tradition

Wends

Maypoles

Maypole, Germany

.

First, an update to ourselves, this in 2008.
.
We recently learned about an ancient people called the Vends, the Vendic culture, in Slovenia and eastern and central Germany. Not only did the Vends or Wends thrive, with rulers in the line of succession being male or female, no discrimination or prohibition (the Slavica Lex), but many traditions and names survive - including the Maypole.

See what we found at Germany Road Ways, Vends, Ancient Culture; and in the land known as Carantania (Slovenia now, we believe, but boundaries were fluid) at Slovenia Road Ways, Expunged Ancient Dynasty of Carantania.

..............................................................................
May and its high poles go back a long way.

May 1 is May Day- a public holiday since 1889. www.germanculture.com.ua/library/weekly/aa042601a.
.
Maypole, Germany, Schwabisch Hall

The Maypole with the dangles is at Schwabisch Hall, as we recall. See Schwabisch Hall post here. We arrived just after May Day, but many of the maypoles were still standing. No reason to take them down.
.
Maypole, Germany, Munich

Some Maypoles are the oldest traditional type- a real evergreen tree, tall tall, with all branches stripped except for the top five feet or so.
.
Much of Europe used to be forested with trees of this height - taken for centuries for ships and building.
,

Maypoles have a long history.

Read about the deep roots of the Maypole at http://www.lewrockwell.com/barnhart/barnhart11. And details and more details at german.about.com/od/holidaysfolkcustoms/a/mai. See http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/pd--12412179/sp--A/

Maypole_on_Viktualienmarkt_Munich_Germany.

Maypoles also are in England, see www.otleymaypole.org.uk/history. This site connects the English maypole with the Saxon invasions, see www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usmi&c=words&id=11291. Scroll down about 8 paragraphs, or do a little "find" for "maypole." Read the site if you don't mind things about pagan, or wicca, origins. I think all information is interesting. The site connects the Saxon use of red and white ribbons with "healing bandages," and the barberpole. It says some maypoles in Germany are 1600 years old.

The witchvox site also credits the origin of the maypole custom with the Basques and ancient Greeks. Must find out more.

Find out about other German holidays, so you can time your trip to see them, at www.germany.info/relaunch/culture/life/G_Kids/holidays.

Pantera Tradition Adding to Christmas - Bad Kreuznach and Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera

2007-01-11T11:08:00.002-05:00

Bad Kreuznach;
Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera

A town we did not see; a person of interest we did not know at the time. Noone ever told us. We put the two together afterwards, however, and look how these trips end in unexpected places. We have found a possible-strained-possible-maybe connection between ancient Germania and ancient Israel. See the Roman historian, Tacitus, on the topic, but he is not unbiased, at www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus1.html/.

The gist:

1. The Place.

First, see Bad Kreuznach. The word "Bad" means that it was a place for bathing, perhaps healing waters. See ://dictionary.reverso.net/german-english/Bad/. "Bad" also can mean spa. See odge.info/index.php?ebene=Search&kw=Bad.

See pictures at the US Historical Archive at ://www.ushistoricalarchive.com/photochroms/2116. Do it in two steps: Go to the home page first, at the dot com; and navigate to the photographs on your own. Longer address is to be sure you get to the right place, but a direct search to it may not work.

Where is Bad Kreuznach? It is near Bingen. See www.sims-windsurfing.de/guide_bingen.html. The original grave was discovered in about 1859, in a Roman graveyard, maybe at Bingen. The history around Bad Kreuznach itself long predates the Romans, and is laid out at the website for the base, at www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/bad-kreuznach.htm%20. Bad Kreuznach has a long history of military installations through the centuries, including Nazis before and American after WWII. Scroll down at www.usarmygermany.com/USAREUR_City_BadKreuznach.htm/.

2. The person: Pantera

At Bad Kreuznach is the headstone of one Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera. See encycl.opentopia.com/term/Tiberius_Iulius_Abdes_Pantera. We understand that the "Tiberius" references his Roman citizen status.

A search for "Pantera" shows some interest among archeologists and others in the family ties between Jesus and the last name found in this Roman graveyard, now in a museum. The father of Jesus? See also abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1815838&page=1 on the book, "The Jesus Dynasty" by James D. Tabor 2006. I am reading the book now. Mr. Tabor himself is an archeologist, not a religious apologist or promoter, an archeologist - report what you find.

3. The juxtaposition: Pantera, a father of note?

Some find enough links to propose that he was the natural father of one later called Messiah, and as to whom a natural birth was not adequate.** So: Go to Bad Kreuznach and report for all of us. We report, you decide. Try further web meanderings from Tabor's book to the Yeshua ben Pantera section in Rabbinic literature - the topic is not new: see www.users.zetnet.co.uk/kking/extern6.html. Then go back to the 2006 Tabor book.

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* Details for the fearless interested: The father of Jesus. Facts add to faith, do not defy it; and simply refine what has to be taken on faith. Is that right? Overviews on most topics are also at Wikipedia, or other online encyclopedia, so I also went to see the non-Christian writings, other sources from the period and what agendas they may or may not have, to see what they said at the time, if anything, and discussion at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus/temp#Non-Christian_writings. Look for the agendas of any writers first, then see what persuasion techniques might be used in order to get their viewpoint accepted - or is it (surprise) a neutral compilation, for you to make your own conclusions.

Marburg -the Clifftop University

2007-01-09T12:20:00.000-05:00

The medieval university on the cliff. Type in a search for "Marburg photos" and splendid ones will appear.

Park below the cliffs. Take the people-elevators up. This has been the place of theologians and thinkers for centuries - join them. Paul Tillich at thinkexist.com/quotes/paul_tillich/, Rudolf Bultmann at www.theology.ie/theologians/bultmann.htm, Martin Heidegger at www.philosophypages.com/ph/heid.htm, Martin Luther at www.educ.msu.edu/homepages/laurence/reformation/Luther/Luther, Hannah Arendt at www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/arendt. A place of genius.

Also a place of spaetzle, up the little cobbled streets. Make some: www.aaltonet.com/spaetzle/recipes. Add bacon, the thick, hefty smoky slabs or cubes, not out skinny deprived strippies.

More blogs about Germany Road Ways.

Castles - Here is Burg Eltz. Electors, a Siege, Survival

2007-01-08T11:41:00.003-05:00

Burg Eltz
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Burg Eltz Castle, in the hills, dates from 1157. The Eltz River used to flow around three sides. It is near the Moselle River, that flows into the Rhine - standing after centuries of wars around. See ://www.great-castles.com/eltz. Here the powerful Electors met to elect the next ruler. As years passed, various branches of the family set up housekeeping in various towers, and now the "Lion Or" branch owns it all.

The family managed, we were told, because they were master diplomats, able to bridge any dispute; and minimize conflict.

The same family has owned the castle for all that time, and ongoing. In the 14th Century, one powerful Elector, Balduin, nephew of Emperor Charles IV, wanted to enforce peace in his Electorate. However, the free knights of the Holy Roman Empire objected. They wanted to retain their rights to private warfare. The Eltzes joined with the free knights group to keep rights of private warfare, and Balduin set up a siege tower on a hill around, and you can see where they lobbed boulders over the walls, and finally cut off supplies.

Eltz surrendered. Charles awarded Eltz to Balduin in 1354. The free knights of Eltz became vassals of Balduin, holding the castle only as a feudal tenure.

The French in the later 30 years' war destroyed many German castles, but this survived. See ://great-castles.com/index.pl?eltz.html/.

There are original furnishings in many rooms; and little windows with little window seats carved out for children.

Cars can only go so far, to a distant lot; then visitors walk down the longish winding road to the castle, with views at the switchbacks. Fine photo gallery at www.pbase.com/sandpiper/burg_eltz.

Burg Eltz Castle, Germany

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There is a rose symbol above a door in the imposing council room. That rosette shape means confidentiality: what is said here, stays here, a custom stemming (ahem) from Roman times. For more on sub rosa, see www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sub1.

We may be more familiar with the now-commercialized uses of rose traditions, for example, this site from a florist: www.northsideflorist.com/The%20Meaning%20of%20Roses.

An English speaker who does not want to wait for an English tour to gather, gets a laminated card with the information that is being given in the other languages. A read-along. Works fine.

Wittenburg - Martin Luther: 95 Theses Church, Home, Stove

2006-12-31T08:15:00.003-05:00

Wittenburg, Schlosskirche, Castle Church of Martin Luther, Germany
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Wittenburg, the home base of Martin Luther, is a World Heritage site. See whc.unesco.org/en/list/783. With damage from WWII, it has many reconstructed buildings in a minimalist (read "botox") style, but much of that plain, stretched look is dictated by the cost of renovation, and the flavor of Martin Luther's old city remains. Some call the Reformation, to which Luther's work gave focus and momentum, a revolt against the established Catholic hierarchy. Others call it a needed course correction, back to original intents, since the original J never espoused hierarchies, authority, acquisitions or force in the first place. All in the name.

Here are the church where Luther is buried and where he posted his 95 Theses (Schlosskirche, or "castle church"). The doors are reconstructions..

Here also is Luther's stove, prominently and theologically located in the home that he shared with his wife.

See Martin Luther's Stove for what began as a light-brained review of the uses of the stove in great thinking; now delving into serious matters of what original texts really say - transliterations, word for word, rather than someone's interpretive translation.
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Martin Luther's Stove, in his house, Wittenburg, Germany
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Theology blooms around the heater.

Here, in this house, he served as mentor to many who gathered in the room. For Aga lovers, see www.aga-ranges.com/aga/history.asp, this predecessor probably rates deification.

Luther's home dates from the 16th century (probably before, since he lived there in the 16th century), on monastery grounds in Wittenburg.

See a photo gallery about Martin Luther's Wittenburg, and the interiors of some of the buildings he knew well, at ://www.pbase.com/arodri3/germany. There is also a picture of the stove there. Armando Rodriguez - fine job there.

Wittenburg - reconstructions

2006-12-30T14:22:00.001-05:00

Wittenburg, Germany. Square, Martin Luther, Schlosskirche
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Wittenburg: Martin Luther in the foreground, the Schlosskirche behind the new buildings.

It is not a smooth transition between the reconstructed buildings, and the old, in East Germany. How could an entire country be rebuilt as it was, and with the same detail and materials, and this sector did not value preservation of religious sites.

Wittenberg chose to reconstruct - but in the simple, evocative style. It takes your eye from the old church, rather than lead you to it, but there was not enough money to create ambiance, especially here, in the old East Germany. That is Martin Luther in the center. We wish they had focused at least on recreating the old in this critical space. Other towns did combine both, the old half-timber and the new, so the some of the old tone remains. Not here, yet.

Wittenberg is in the old East Germany, however, and funding and interest in those things was limited.

It still is jarring, though, when you do see the very old. Nothing can compare.

What a waste. A culture decimated.

There are constant reminders of the wars, with most of the focus (we thought) on the Allied damage, and not why they were there in the first place. In Wurzberg, there is an entire room with a model of the city; then, in the next room, the model of 22 minutes later, after the bombing. Devastation, but perhaps a reference as to why the bombs fell, even if it had been overdone (I have no idea, but it was awful) would be helpful to the next generation.