Réaumur

During this year's excursion with the Museumsgesellschaft visiting some cultural highlights on the north bank of Lake Konstanz, I saw two thermometers scaled in Celsius and Réaumur.

In my school years, I remember learning about degrees Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Réaumur. Later in my studies, Kelvin became vital because it is the fundamental temperature scale in physics. Fahrenheit, you still need in the States to choose the proper clothing before leaving the house.

Degrees Réaumur are easily scaled into centigrades by multiplying them by 1.25. Are degrees Réaumur still used? Wikipedia tells you that cooks and pâtissiers still measure temperatures in Réaumur when preparing a sugar solution.

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Hugstetten

Yesterday, I participated in an excursion to Hugstetten organized by Freiburg's Geschichtsverein Schau-ins-Land. What is so exciting about this village Northwest of Freiburg? Konrad von Andlaw planted an English Garden around his castle in Hugstetten in 1827.

Erected by his children: Andlaw's tombstone at Hugstetten's church wall

He had the adjacent farmhouses torn down to create enough space. The "Rössle" inn also had to make way in the process. As a replacement, Andlaw had a new inn built a little further on, which - in reference to Andlaw's coat of arms - was given the name "Zum roten Kreuz" ("To the Red Cross"). 

Andlaw built an artificial lake and a canal. To the west of this canal, on the Mühlenberg, a natural landscape garden was laid out—the "English Garden." In doing so, the baron followed the model of the park in Arlesheim, Switzerland, the previous seat of the Andlaw-Birsecks.
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Tea Party Patriots on the March

A tea party

Kathleen Canning, professor of modern-era German history at the University of Ann Arbour, presently visiting professor at Freiburg's University, introduced political Polarization in the US at the Stammtisch of the Freiburg Madison Gesellschaft. Here is what I wrote down about the evening:

In a political environment where many things went out of control – the wars that America fights, the derailing of the international financial system, the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico – a government has to adjust to facing old and new challenges. But how much government is needed? Enter the Tea Party Patriots fighting the Obama administration on all fronts.

Professor Canning informed an amazed audience about the right-wing movement in the States questioning whether the President is an American (Barack the Magic Negro), moving the public health insurance close to the Nazi euthanasia program, and calling adversaries socialists or even threatening them with physical attacks. While Kathleen was somewhat afraid about this political polarization in the US, we Europeans still regard the States as a bulwark of democracy. The discussion that followed was one of the most lively ones we ever had at our Stammtisch.

Here are some personal thoughts: During her talk, Kathleen occasionally referred to the Weimar Republic in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The Germans lost not only the First World War but also their dignity when the victors charged them with full responsibility for the disaster that had afflicted Europe. No wonder a song became popular in the Weimar Republic: Wir wollen unsern alten Kaiser Wilhelm wieder haben, aber ohne Bart (We want back our old Kaiser Wilhelm but without his beard). 

Mind you, nobody meant Wilhelm II but his father, Wilhelm I. Under his reign and due to its unification in 1871, Germany developed during the Gründerjahre into a country with a prosperous bourgeois society and a working class not wholly decoupled from wealth. Old fox Bismarck curtailed the socialist movement by introducing an old age and health insurance system run by the State.

After the lost war, the ideals of the bourgeoisie were in shambles, and the working class was unemployed. This caused a political cleavage in Germany with the formation of radical political parties at the right and the left of the party spectrum. Political murder and putsches were frequent. As the economic situation deteriorated with the Black Thursday in 1929 and unemployment rising, the gains of Communists and Nazis in democratic elections surged, preventing the formation of stable governments. The disaster that followed, you all know.

Would Joe the Plumber* yearning for traditional American values, hum a similar tune today as the middle-class German in the Weimar Republic? I don't know, but considering what I wrote above about the situation in the US cannot be compared to the Weimar Republic. In the States, contrary to Europe, right and left-wing parties, although they exist, do not play any role. The fight between right and left takes place within the two traditional parties. Will, in particular, the Republicans split as the moderate intellectuals may no longer tolerate the primitive propaganda of their extreme right.
*Not to be confused with Piotr Adamski, the plombier Polonais in France, who has a different profile

Middle-class America is greatly disturbed, feeling that many traditional values no longer hold while the US faces new challenges. Can one really go back to the good old times with church and sheriff where the minister told the congregation the right way on Sundays, and sheriff Mad Dillon's six-shooter assured that no killers or spoilers disturbed the hard-working and country-loving people?
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I’m going to fight mit Sigel

During the preparation of a presentation at the Freiburg-Madison Gesellschaft about the 48ers, i.e., those revolutionaries who fled to the States in the years 1848/49 following their total defeat in Germany, I came across the lyrics of a one-time popular song.

German volunteers sang the song who were fighting in the American Civil War with the Yankees against the Federate States under the command of a former officer from Baden (Germany), Franz Sigel:

I'm going to fight mit Sigel
Written by John F. Poole

I've come shust now to tells you how
I goes mit regimentals;
To schlauch dem voes of liberty
Like dem old Continentals,
Vot fight mit England long ago
To save the Yankee Eagle,
Un now I gets mine sojer clothes
I'm going to fight mit Sigel.

Yaw! Das id drue, I shpeakes mit you,
I'm going to fight mit Sigel.


Ven I comes from de Deutsche countree,
I vorks somedimes at baking.
Den I keeps a lager bier saloon,
Un den I goes shoemaking;
But now I vas a sojer been
To save the Yankee Eagle,
To schlauch dem tam Secession volks,
I'm going to fight mit Sigel.

Yaw! Das id drue, I shpeakes mit you,
I'm going to fight mit Sigel..


I gets ein tam big rifle guns,
Un puts him on mine shoulder,
Den march so bold, like a big jack horse,
Un may been someding bolder;
I goes off mit de volunteers,
To save de Yankee Eagle,
To give dem rebel vellers fits,
I'm going to fight mit Sigel.

Yaw! Das id drue, I shpeakes mit you,
I'm going to fight mit Sigel..


Dem Deutschen men’s mit Sigel’s band,
At fighting have no rival,
Un ven Cheff Davis’ mens ve meet
Ve schlauch ‘em like de duyvil:
Dere's only one ting vot I fear,
Ven pattling for de Eagle
I vont get not no lager beer,
Ven I goes to fight mit Sigel.

Yaw! Das id drue, I shpeakes mit you,
I'm going to fight mit Sigel.


For rations, dey gives salty pork,
I dinks dat was a great sell,
I better likes de sour krout;
De switzer kase un pretzel.
If "Liddle Mac" vill give us dem,
Ve'll save the Yankee Eagle:
Un I'll put mine vrou in breechalons,
To go un fight mit Sigel.


Yaw! Das id drue, I shpeakes mit you,
I'm going to fight mit Sigel.

Quite amusing, isn't it?

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Lennet Kann

For years, Red Baron has watched the Verleihung des Ordens wider den tierischen Ernst (Medal for Combating Deadly Seriousness) on German television. Each year this popular award decorates a person who has shown in his political life, as a businessman or actor, a certain amount of humor, a quality we Germans are thought to be lacking.

The award ceremony occurs during the carnival season in Aachen's Kaisersaal, where equally the more serious Karlspreis (International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen) is awarded annually.

Internationally known knights of the Medal for Combating Deadly Seriousness were in the past:

1959 Konrad Adenauer: Founding Chancellor of the Federal Republic
1961 Bruno Kreisky: Austrian Chancellor
1972 Helmut Schmidt: the former, still popular, German Chancellor
1974 Walter Scheel: German President
1978 Ephraim Kishon: Israelian satiric writer
1979 Hans-Dietrich Genscher: aka Genschman, German Foreign Minister
1985 Norbert Blüm: aka Nobbi, popular Social Minister
1986 Johannes Rau: German President
1989 Franz Josef Strauß: the sometimes unpopular Federal Minister
1992 Jack Lang: French Minister for Culture
1999 John Kornblum: US Ambassador in Germany
2001 Guido Westerwelle: confessing gay Foreign Minister
2003 Wendelin Wiedeking: aka WW, CEO of Porsche
2005 Karl Kardinal Lehmann: Archbishop of Mainz
2008 Gloria, Princess of Thurn und Taxis
2009 Mario Adorf: popular German-Italien actor

On Sundays and public holidays, the öcher Original
(Aachen character) Lennet Kann often strolled
 to the two pubs in the nearby woods
 Waldschlösschen and Waldschenke  (©Stadt Aachen)

Every year when watching the show, I impatiently wait for one of the highlights: An old tune from Aachen with lyrics in the local dialect about a city tramp. I initially thought his name was Nellen and the title of the song: Das ist der Nellen. Only recently, I learned that the man in question is called Lennet, and the song's refrain is: Dat es der Lennet. 

With this information I eventually got hold of the full text. Now I am looking forward to next year's award ceremony in February when I shall sing along:


Was zog einst durch Aachen für eine Gestalt,
Mit Orden geschmückt, mit Ehrenzeichen.
Die Hosenpfeifen gemahnen sobald
An Spazierstöckchen oder dergleichen.
De Arme, se baumeln an den Seiten herab,
Als hingen sie los wie in Scharnieren,
So ist er geschravelt bergauf und bergab,
Die Domgrafen aber jubilieren:
Dat es der Lennet, dat es der Lennet Kann.
Dat es der Lennet, va Oche der schönnste Mann.

Und ging man des sonntags in den Wald man hinein,
Die Waldschenk hinauf nach Siebenwegen,
So kam einem dort von einem Stein
Ein seltsamer Ritter entgegen.
Als ob jedes Bein nur ein Streichhölzchen wär,
So kam er geriffelt und geschravelt.
Man gab ihm ’nen Groschen, das machte ihm Pläsier,
Und schon ist er weiter getrappelt.
Dat es der Lennet, dat es der Lennet Kann.
Dat es der Lennet, va Oche der schönnste Mann.

Der Nandes, de Latts än der Spiene Jupp
Sind alle schon längst verblichen,
Der Jokeb met et Feißje und de Frau Zupp
Se sind längst zum Himmel geschlichen.
Sie lurten herapper und als kam die Zeit,
Als Lennets liebe Seele wollt’ entfliehen,
Da standen sie alle am Himmeltor bereit
Und fingen mit de Engelscher an ze singen:
Da kütt der Lennet, da kütt der Lennet Kann.
Da kütt der Lennet, va Oche der schönnste Mann

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