Angst

Angst is no longer just a German phenomenon: A specter is haunting the world – the specter of angst*.
*A play on words based on the opening sentence of the Communist Manifesto

People are suffering from Weltstress (global stress) and feel they are losing control of their lives. They are at the mercy of climate change; as a consequence of senseless wars, they suffer from high prices caused by resource shortages; they hear AI predicting their imminent demise; and they feel lonely despite an oversupply of friend requests on social media.

Many people are overwhelmed by the fast-paced present and lament, “Everything used to be better in the past.”

They see decline on all fronts. Germans no longer trust the established parties to get their country‘s problems under control. Anger mingles with citizens’ angst for their future: “Those who govern us are incompetent; they can’t get things under control.”

Former East Germany is AfD land,
while in the West the Christian Democrats are still (?) dominant (©Deutsche Telekom).

People are looking for ways out of this threatening trend and seeking alternatives. Hoping to restore a predictable outlook to their lives, they vote for politicians or parties that cater to this longing.

Indeed, these parties offer simple solutions with slogans like socialization, expropriation, Tax the Rich, remigration, Dexit*, back to our national roots, and the DM. These catchwords will surely make life cheaper and foreign influence more bearable.
*coined after Brexit

Who will bear the costs? Tariffs*, the rich, and big tech.
*or another country: Mexico will pay for the wall

©Deutsche Telekom

Meanwhile, in Germany, a shrinking centrist bloc is fighting to keep its government afloat amid dwindling revenues. Social benefits, personnel costs, and subsidies rise; public spending on these items will climb to 52.0% of gross domestic product this year, and the trend is upward. Germany is not yet the European champion, with Finland (58.9%) taking the gold medal and France (57.4%) the silver.

Because the ruling parties are suffering one election defeat and one poll shock after another, they shower people with favors, even though there is nothing left to give. An economic expert called the second German fuel rebate - costing 2.5 billion euros - an “expression of political desperation.”

On Monday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced a lowering of the electricity tax for everyone to the European minimum, making German energy-hungry industry internationally competitive and easing the financial burden on private households. According to Merz, the government will use financial leeway in the budget to achieve this, but in reality these subsidies are paid for by increasing our national debt.

For decades, citizens should have realized that the state pension is no longer sufficient to maintain their standard of living when retired. Nevertheless, few did make provisions for the future. Only 48 percent of West Germans have a private supplemental retirement plan; in the East, the figure is a mere 27 percent.

When Merz plainly said in April that the statutory pension would serve only as a basic safety net in the future, there was an outcry. Citizens expect the state to rescue them.

Germany still enjoys a high standard of living. We remain the world’s third-largest economy. But the German economic model has limited long-term sustainability. The welfare state is severely overstretched, non-wage labor costs are high, and bureaucracy is enormous. If we do not address these problems, Germany’s economic performance will decline.

©NTV

89% of our citizens recognize the need for reforms, which will inevitably lead to sacrifices, but only 32% are willing to make them.

Germany is incapable of reform, and people’s angst will grow.
**

Ice-Cold Neutrinos

This blog reveals a connection between the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft and CERN, and its personal too.

©THE CAP TIMES

Francis Halzen, a Belgian-born physics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and, from 1969 to 1971, a colleague at CERN*, won this year’s Nobel Prize for his neutrino research. He learned about it while sitting in a hotel room in Italy: “I got the call at around 11 o’clock. … If I had been in Madison, they would have woken me up. I slept very well last night.”

*I joined CERN in 1968 and never met him

While writing a research proposal for a committee meeting with his peers, the newborn primus inter pares said, “I hope I don’t disturb the peace there too much.”

He told Madison’s THE CAP TIMES: “This project was challenging enough that it ending up with the Nobel Prize was so unlikely that until we started to finally achieve some results recently in the last 10 years, I certainly … never thought about this, and this certainly was not a motivation.”

“I was lucky enough that the right people showed up at the right time with the right talents to overcome the challenges the project faced. Some were overcome with pure luck, but that's science,” Halzen chuckled. “It's a combination of perseverance and talent and luck.”

Neutrino research was a field in high-energy physics where CERN led when Red Baron worked there.

And CERN continued its neutrino research beyond my retirement. In 2011, experimental results caused an outcry in physics when physicists measured neutrinos produced at CERN in the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso buried deep below the mountains that were “speedier” than the speed of light.

Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (©Alastair Philip Wiper)

The OPERA* experiment, designed to study the transformation (oscillation) of muon neutrinos into tau neutrinos during their 730 km journey from CERN to the Gran Sasso detector, observed a light-travel time of 2.4381723 ms while the expected time was 2.4382323 ms. This meant neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light arrived 60 ns too early.

*Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus

Did we have to rewrite Einstein’s Theory of Relativity? I can reassure you, no.

In May 2012, OPERA repeated its measurement with a new, short-pulse neutrino beam. The final conclusion was that the CERN-to-Gran Sasso neutrino flight time matched the speed of light. The physicists concluded that a faulty fiber-optic timing element caused the original OPERA result.

The team compensated for the experimental blunder. In 2018, OPERA produced the long-desired result, observing 10 tau-neutrino candidates. The researchers confirmed that muon neutrinos produced at CERN can transform into tau neutrinos while traveling 730 km.

Back from “speedy” to ice-cold neutrinos.

To put it right away, the neutrinos aren't cold; Francis Halzen’s detector is. Instead of building an enormous artificial detector, he turned Antarctic ice into a gigantic neutrino telescope with thousands of photomultipliers watching for the tiny flashes of blue Cherenkov light produced when a neutrino interacts. Francis proposed the basic idea of an IceCube Neutrino Observatory in the late 1980s, and the detector now covers about one cubic kilometer of ice with more than 5,000 light sensors.

The important results are:

IceCube established that extremely high-energy astrophysical neutrino fluxes in the 100 TeV* to PeV range are coming from outside our Solar System.
*CERN’s LHC has a maximum collision energy of 13.6 TeV

Its findings opened a new form of neutrino astronomy. Light is absorbed or deflected, and magnetic fields bend charged cosmic rays. Neutrinos interact extremely weakly and travel directly from their birthplaces to Earth.

As a result, IceCube has identified individual cosmic sources. A particularly important source is NGC 1068 (Messier 77), an active galaxy about 47 million light-years away. Over the past decade, IceCube has detected about 80 (!) high-energy neutrino events.

With IceCube's results, scientists can now locate neutrino sources, i.e., cosmic-ray accelerators. Extremely high-energy neutrinos point back to these active galaxies containing supermassive black holes.

In short, Francis Halzen created a new astronomical instrument that began identifying the cosmic engines producing the most energetic particles known.

While neutrino oscillation experiments essentially asked: “What are neutrinos telling us about particle physics and stars?” Francis’s IceCube tells us something fundamentally new about the universe: “What can neutrinos tell us about the most violent objects in the universe?”

As Red Baron wrote before: Astrophysics is the new spearhead of physics.

**

The Other Look

Red Baron reads the New York Times, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, and the local newspaper, the Badische Zeitung, all online. Lately, I’ve added the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and I’m becoming increasingly impressed by the unique perspective Der andere Blick offers on German politics.

The editors tell it like it is and don’t beat around the bush. They give me new insights into my homeland - which is so in need of reforms - and shed new light on old issues from surprising angles.

Last week’s topic in Der andere Blick: The Decline of the Mainstream Parties - An Opportunity for Democracy. The decline is obvious in Germany today, but across Europe as a whole, it is no new phenomenon. It’s just that, once again, Germany is a latecomer.

Suddenly, the Christian Democrats (CDU) are in a steep nosedive, while the Social Democrats have been crumbling away for quite some time. Populist and nationalist parties are filling the vacuum created by the evaporation of the established mainstream parties.

Why didn’t we see this trend sooner and take countermeasures earlier, before Jean-Marie LePen's France and Silvio Berlusconi's Italy drifted to the right? By now, Marine Le Pen’s Front National, Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, and AliceWeidel’s Alternative für Deutschland have become political forces to be reckoned with.

In the NZZ article, Eric Gujer calls Chancellor Angela Merkel the gravedigger of Germany's old party system. She committed the fatal sin of allowing the ideological differences between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats to disappear and of declaring their policies alternativlos, to be without alternative.

Now Angela’s successor, Friedrich Merz, must govern with a Christian-socialist unity coalition that is incapable of implementing major reforms, making only cosmetic adjustments to Germany's excesses of social welfare and bureaucracy.

Who can blame voters for looking for alternatives (!) and seeking salvation in new parties? The AfD and The Left make frivolous promises to voters, whether it’s “Make Germany Great Again” or “Tax the Rich.”

©NZZ

So, like many other countries, Germany is becoming increasingly politicized and polarized. The former is evident in rising voter turnout. Whatever reforms our centrist, Christian Social Democratic government attempts amid dwindling resources are, in the eyes of many citizens, insufficient and so merely play into the hands of populists. 

No matter how you turn it, the AfD is currently the only true people’s party in Germany.

**

Antwerpen

After a short break, our group headed to Antwerp for an afternoon visit. The bus found a parking space in a deserted hall of the once florishing port along the Scheldt River.

Red Baron felt as if he were at the Hamburg Landungsbrücken, though the Antwerp pier had no visitors or large ships. In the background on the right, you see the castle, Het Steen.

The Margraviate of Antwerp, established around 974, was a border march between the Holy Roman Empire and, on the opposite bank of the Scheldt, the County of Flanders, subject to the French king as its feudal lord.

Around 1200, Het Steen (the stone) was part of the city's fortifications, protecting access to the city from the western Scheldt. Most of the castle was demolished in the 19th century. Only the gatehouse remained of a larger complex belonging to the Dukes of Brabant. It is thus considered the oldest surviving building in the city of Antwerp.

Heading toward the Grote Markt, we passed the Vleeshuis (meat house) built by the butchers' guild in the late Gothic style around 1500. The red-and-white masonry was deliberately made to resemble speklagen (bacon layers). The towers, stepped gable, and the enormous hall were designed to give the rich butchers an imposing presence in the city.

Then we walked through narrow alleys lined with brick buildings.

The richly decorated guild halls on the Grote Markt bear witness to the city's former wealth.

A building with the inscription Bonaparte caught Red Baron's attention. In 1800, Antwerp belonged to France. Napoleon first visited Antwerp in 1803 and called the city "a pistol aimed at the heart of England." He loaded the pistol with two harbor basins, the Bonaparte and Willem docks, which were and still are the core of Antwerp’s modern port. 

The city became one of the Empire's most important naval ports and shipbuilding centers, where warships were built to support the Continental Blockade Napoleon announced in Berlin after his victory over Prussia. Cut off from global trade, the city was booming thanks to the arms industry.

And yet, the golden eagle on Antwerp's Renaissance city hall built in 1561-1565 is not l'Aigle Imperial, but the eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. It faces toward Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), the center of the HRE.

The Brabo Fountain (Brabofontein), right in the middle of the Grote Markt in front of the city halll, and the severed hand hold the key to explaining the name Antwerpen.

According to legend, a giant named Druon Antigoon lived on the Scheldt. He controlled shipping and demanded a high toll from every ship. Anyone who could not or would not pay had to suffer a cruel punishment: Antigoon would cut off their hand and throw it into the Scheldt.

When the Roman soldier Silvius Brabo passed by, he defeated and killed the giant, cut off Antigoon's hand, and threw it into the Scheldt. The figure at the top of the fountain depicts this moment when Brabo threw the hand. This throwing (werfen in German) gave rise to the popular explanation of the city's name: hand werpen → Antwerpen.

.

The legend of the hand lives on to this day: Antwerp's famous Antwerpse Handjes - a pastry or praline shaped like a hand - draw inspiration from this very legend.

The Antwerp Coat of Arms shows a castle or fortified gate (Het Steen) in the center and two hands traditionally associated with the Brabo legend. In fact, the Brabo-Antigoon drama features two hands: the giant's hand and the hand Brabo severed.

For the city, the hand is a heraldic symbol, part of the founding legend, and a play on words with Antwerp's name.

On our way to the cathedral, we passed the restaurant Het Elfde Gebot (The Eleventh Commandment) that reads: "Thou shalt drink your beer with respect." Onze Lieve Vrouwe placed on a pedestal welcomes the guests. The interior of this old residential building resembles a church or an antique museum rather than an ordinary pub. Walls, ceilings, and open spaces are densely packed with historic wooden and plaster statues of saints, angels, Mary, and Jesus. Old pulpits, stained-glass windows, crucifixes, and altar fragments complete the decoration.

And there it was: the Onze Lieve Vrouwekathedraal in all its splendor.

The richly decorated main entrance was locked, so we entered through a side door and were confronted with a paygate: Adults €12. Red Baron qualified for the 60+ at €10. Even that seemed too much for a quick glance, with the rest of the group impatiently waiting outside in the warm September sun.

A screen displaying changing images of the cathedral's interior enticed those standing in front of it to visit.

Suddenly, the statue of De Buildrager (The Dockworker), bearing the inscription Arbeid Vrijheid (Labor Freedom), confronted us Germans with our past. Initially a symbol of the working class becoming conscious of itself, it also came to stand for regained freedom after WWII. The statue became the memorial for the dockers who kept working under the German V-bomb terror.

When we discovered these Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) in Antwerp's Jewish quarter during an evening walk, our consciences were deeply troubled.

**

PISA

My late wife and her Golf

In Germany, golf isn't as popular a sport as it is in English-speaking countries. That's why Germans rather associate golf with the once-successful VW model series. Consequently, in my country, Generation X (1965–1980) is also known as the Golf Generation.

On our honeymoon at the Adria in Primosten, Yugoslavia, in 1965

Red Baron is of an earlier origin and belongs to the Beetle Generation, even though he is classified internationally as part of the Silent Generation (1928–1945).

But I digress. My point is that I no longer associate Pisa with the Leaning Tower, but rather with the "leaning" state of school education in Germany.

In fact, PISA stands for "Program for International Student Assessment." It is an international study conducted by the OECD that has been regularly assessing, since 2000, how well 15-year-old students can apply basic knowledge and skills.

The focus of the study is on:
📖 Reading literacy
➗ Mathematics
🔬 Science

So, PISA doesn't measure memorized school knowledge but rather whether young people can apply what they have learned to practical and new situations.

In Germany, "PISA shock" refers to the major public debate that followed the first PISA study in 2000, when German students performed surprisingly poorly in the international comparison.

Can German students still fall deeper?

Since then, some progress has been made, until the recent PISA study revealed alarming findings again.

OECD average: 469 All, 482 Science, 461 Reading, and 463 Mathematics

In the rankings, Far Eastern countries lead the way, and in Europe, Estonia - the country with the best IT infrastructure - tops the list.

Germany ranks 25th, right at the average performance level. Immediately, spin doctors rush to emphasize that our students are, after all, above the average of all OECD countries in every category.

It is cold comfort that European countries like Denmark and France fared even worse.

The U.S., ranked 16th, is in the red zone in math - one point behind Germany - but is only marginally worse than the average.

The decline in student performance is global. On average across the OECD, scores have fallen by 22 points in mathematics since 2015 and by 28 points in reading. Reading is more demanding than watching memes on the Internet.

The measured declines are equivalent to a lag of more than one school year. Currently, 20 percent of students in the OECD region are considered low achievers in all three assessment areas and lack the basic skills needed for success in further education, professional life, and everyday life. 

In Germany, one in three adolescents does not meet the minimum proficiency level in math and reading. These students struggle to understand everyday texts or solve simple math problems. Since 2015, the proportion of low-performing students has risen by 17 percentage points in math, by 15 in reading, and by 10 in the sciences. About one-fifth of young people lack sufficient basic skills in all three areas.

At the other end of the spectrum, the proportion of students with particularly high proficiency in the sciences has decreased slightly since 2015, from 11 to 9 percent. In math and reading, it has declined more sharply, from 13 to 8 percent and from 12 to 7 percent, respectively. The correlation between skills and socioeconomic status is now at its highest level since the PISA studies began. Only 2 percent of students from socioeconomically disadvantaged families achieve high proficiency levels.

In Germany, all efforts to close the gap between a family's socioeconomic status and children's educational success failed. Instead, the achievement gap in Science between the top and bottom 25 percent of the socioeconomic distribution even widened between 2015 and 2025, while it narrowed on average across the OECD. The family home plays an important role in children's learning. The educated middle class highly values a good education for their children.

I have a nightmare.

In ten years, today's Chinese students - who are well-educated in STEM subjects - will be celebrating their first research findings, while their long-time studying German counterparts will be - à la recherche du temps perdu - starting their 15th semester in the social sciences. If, contrary to expectations, they managed to complete their studies, they'll flood the job market in search of a "suitable" occupation and ultimately end up, utterly frustrated, as taxi drivers.

All that's left for Red Baron to do is lament, along with Adenauer:

The famous sentence "My God, what will become of Germany?" fell, although not quite, on September 28, 1954, on the first day of the Nine-Power Conference in London. Adenauer was at Claridge's Hotel in London, where he spoke in German with Luxembourg's Foreign Minister, Joseph Bech, and Belgium's Foreign Minister, Paul-Henri Spaak.

In August 1954, the French National Assembly had rejected the European Defense Community Treaty. This jeopardized Adenauer's plan to integrate the Federal Republic into a European defense structure rather than build an independent German army, which he feared.

At the time, Adenauer served as chancellor and foreign minister in a dual role. So he said to his Belgian and Luxembourgian colleagues, "I am firmly convinced that a German national army will become a great danger to Germany and Europe - once I am no longer here, I do not know what will become of Germany if we do not succeed in creating Europe in time."

**

Belgian Gems

... Belgische Juwelen was the name of a bus trip to Flanders. Unfortunately, the ratio was two days on the bus and two days of sightseeing.

Gaius Julius Caesar taught us: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt ... and Red Baron adds: Belgium too consists of three parts - Flanders, Wallonia, and the Brussels Region.

Caesar continues in lingua Anglica: Of all these tribes, the Belgae are the strongest, because they are very far removed from the culture and civilization of the Roman province; merchants rarely visit them and do not bring goods that might soften their spirits; and they are neighbors of the Germans, who live across the Rhine, with whom they are constantly at war.

This might have been true 50 before Christ, but in the Middle Ages Flanders, together with Northern Italy, was one of the richest regions in Europe. The cloth trade, in particular, made cities like Antwerpen and Gent wealthy.

©landgeist.com

To soften their spirits, the Belgians brew beer in 395 breweries and drink 87 liters per year per capita, but in Europe their consumption is clearly beaten by the Czechs with 135 liters.

©Der Spiegl

The other famous Belgian "softening" product is no longer cloth but chocolate. In Brussels, every second shop sells chocolate to tourists, but when it comes to consumption, the Swiss, with 10.5 kg per year, are the frontrunners and the Belgians are way behind.

And finally, the only time we're "at war" these days is with the Belgian voetbalelftal- the Red Devils wearing red jerseys - in soccer.

What splendor!

We arrived in Antwerp after a ten-hour bus ride, had time to visit the famous central station just opposite our hotel, and later had dinner at one of the downtown restaurants called brasseries.

Why is the flag at the top La tricolore?

The following morning, we visited Brussels, and our first stop - where else - was the Atomium, combining the words atom and aluminum, the metal with which the spheres were initially covered. Since its inauguration at the World's Fair EXPO 58, the spheres of the Brussels landmark have become unsightly from corrosion and have been coated with stainless steel.

A close-up taken through the window of our passing bus

The nine spheres represent one elementary cell of an iron crystal, enlarged 165 billion times. Eight iron atoms are at the corners of a cube, and one is in the center.

Staying on the grounds of the Brussels World's Fairs, we drove toward the Palais 5 of EXPO 1935. Built in the Art Deco style, it has a stepped, almost pyramid-like silhouette and an austere, monumental facade. Verdigris-colored bronze statues top the vertical pillars.

In the background, the Palais de Justice dome rises.

As we entered Brussels's Manhattan district, the bus had to stop at a traffic light. We got a glimpse of a triangular steel form from which an arc has been removed and displaced. The black satin-painted object stands in the center of a shallow reflecting basin. The artist, Maria Wierusz-Kowalski, created the sculpture in 1997 and called it Esprit ouvert - Perspectives et Réflexions.

To the right, you enter the "bilingual" Galerie des Princes / Prinsen Galerij.

Eventually, we stepped off the bus and walked through the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert. This shopping mall was modeled after Milan's famous shopping gallery, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

We passed the chocolaterie, Neuhaus. Jean Neuhaus, a Swiss immigrant, founded his company in 1857 in Brussels and opened the first chocolate store in the Galeries Royales. In 1912, his grandson, Jean Neuhaus II, invented the chocolate praline, a decadent chocolate cream ganache center inside a chocolate shell. 

On our way to the other landmark every visitor must see, we noted La Friterie. Looking inside made our mouths water. 

Eventually, we reached another Brussels landmark: the Manneken Pis. His origin is rooted in a legend. In the 14th century, foreign troops besieged Brussels. When the city stubbornly held ground, the attackers secretly placed explosive charges at the city walls. A little boy named Julianske, observing the preparations, urinated on the burning fuse and thus saved the city.

The earliest mention of Manneken Pis in a document dates to the mid-15th century. At that time, the pissing boy wasn't a tourist attraction, as Jacobus Harrewijn's 1697 gravure shows.

The water jet must have been stronger back then (©Jijuc/Wikipedia)

The Fontaine de Manneken-Pis was part of Brussels' water supply!

In 1695, during the Nine Years' War, Louis XIV's troops bombarded Brussels, heavily damaging the city's water supply. For some time the Manneken could not deliver his water. When the pipes were repaired, the little pisser was triumphantly returned to its pedestal. Above his head, the grateful citizens placed the text of Psalm 27:5-6: In petra exaltavit me, et nunc exaltavi caput meum super inimicos meos (He hath set me high upon a rock (pedestal). And now he hath lifted up my head above my enemies.)

On our way back, we passed La Frieterie again, and this time we stopped and stepped in. Without exaggeration, I had the most expensive, but best, French fries of my life. How do the Belgians make them ...

Seen in Gent

I asked ChatGPT, and here is the answer:

1. The potato
They traditionally use floury, high-starch potatoes, such as Bintje. The high starch and relatively low moisture are important for the fluffy interior.
2. Cut thick
Belgian frites are generally cut considerably thicker than fast-food fries - roughly 10- 13 mm. This gives enough potato inside to remain soft and creamy.
3. First frying - relatively cool
The raw fries are fried at around 140-160°C for several minutes. They cook through without becoming brown. The inside becomes soft and fluffy while the outside develops the beginnings of a crust.
4. Resting
This is an important part. The fries are taken out and allowed to drain and cool for a while.
5. Second frying - very hot
Just before serving, they go back into the fat at about 175-190°C. The remaining surface moisture rapidly turns into steam, producing a dry, crisp exterior.

Spectacular Gustav Klimt for sale.

Little of the traditional Belgian broderie remains. I didn't ask for the price.

Then our guide led us to Brussels' Grand-Place, devastated by the French bombardment in 1695 but, like the Manneken Pis, it rose from its ashes. The place is surrounded by the Hôtel de Ville, guildhouses, and La Maison du Roi. Many buildings around the Grote Markt were rebuilt and date to the late 17th century.

The Stadhuis, from the 15th century and built in Brabant Gothic, has a 96-meter-high tower crowned by a statue of the Archangel Michael. It largely survived the 1695 bombardment. But our guide didn't rant at the French but at the Spaniards.

At the end of the Middle Ages, Flanders, along with Brussels, was part of the Spanish Netherlands. La Maison du Roi, the Broodhuis, bears witness to this. Originally, bakers sold their bread there. The Dukes of Brabant kept the original name when they converted the house into an administrative building. Later, the building became the Habsburg governor's residence. 

Karl Marx, expelled from Paris, arrived in the Belgian capital in February 1845, and Friedrich Engels joined him that spring. La Maison du Cygne was a meeting place for the Democratic Association of Brussels where the pair often gathered. Marx was active in the group and gave lectures. 

In the aftermath of the February 1848 revolution in France, Belgian authorities moved against foreign radicals. Marx was arrested, expelled in March, and returned to Paris.

Horses pollute; electric vehicles don't.

Another historic building on the Grand-Place is La Maison du Pigeon. After Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup d'état in 1851, in which he established an anti-parliamentary constitution, Victor Hugo, a staunch Republican, openly declared Napoléon III a traitor to France. Hugo fled to Brussels in December and stayed in the house decorated with a pigeon until the Belgian authorities pushed him out in 1852. He moved on to the Channel Islands, first to Jersey, from which he was expelled, then to Guernsey, where he stayed until 1870.

Stay tuned for more Flanders.

**

Kaub: - 2

©Wikipedia/Marion Halft

Today, the water level gauge in Kaub couldn't handle a negative value. At - 2 cm, the navigation channel on the Rhine River is a mere 111 cm deep.

The classic water level gauge jutted out as a “writing above the water” (©SWR)

After standing at four centimeters last Friday, the gauge level had already dropped to minus one centimeter by Saturday afternoon. This is a dramatic change from the gauge level of 24 cm I reported on August 5.

©SWR

At this new historic low, the Kaub Rhine ferry service, already suspended for ten days earlier this summer, once again came to a standstill, since it requires a minimum gauge level of 15 centimeters to operate regularly.

It is unclear when service can resume; substantial rainfall is not in sight. Today in Freiburg, it was 30 °C, with rain showers expected and a temperature drop announced for the coming Thursday.

Construction materials must be expensively transported by rail or road (©SWR)

Economists at the German Economic Institute estimate the overall economic damage from logistical shifts, production cutbacks, and lost cargo during the months-long low-water period is already at 18 billion euros.

According to experts, it all began with the extremely dry and hot summer of 2018. Some shipping companies never recovered after the resulting extreme drought. It was a wake-up call, but as usual, nobody listened.

The water problem starts in the Alps, where winters bring little snowfall. Also, higher temperatures mean less snow remains on the ground in the low mountain ranges. Normally, this snowpack acts as a temporary reservoir: it melts slowly over weeks, and the water seeps continuously into the ground, replenishing groundwater and flowing into rivers. Everywhere snow is missing as a silent water reservoir.

A worldwide challenge. The same story at Park City Mountain Resort (©WaPo)

The Rhine River has another water source: melting glaciers in the Alps. Enno Nilson of the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) says, “For now, glacial melt is still masking the effects of low water levels: During hot spells, up to one-fifth of the Rhine’s water comes from the glaciers, while normally, it’s only a small single-digit percentage.”

But we all know that this buffer is disappearing along with the glaciers. Climate change thus only temporarily offsets a problem that it causes elsewhere. This does not bode well for navigation on the Rhine River. Climate models show that in the second half of the century, low-water periods are likely to become even longer and more pronounced. With every additional year of drought, transport on Germany’s waterways becomes more uncertain and more expensive.

The mighty Colorado River suffers from lack of water too (©WaPo)

Authorities and companies are working to adapt shipping to low water levels. Low-water vessels are one way to adapt, and on the Middle Rhine, the federal government plans to ease the Kaub bottlenecks by dredging the riverbed and deepening the navigation channel. But that won’t make much difference if there is even less water to begin with.

October, often praised as the "golden month," is known for its low rainfall. Therefore, it is likely that the water level at Kaub will drop even further. 

Will the Rhine River eventually dwindle to a trickle or even dry up completely, and will weeping help?

Oh, tears are salt water.

**