Benedict Bashing

Those who follow my blogs may remember the one I wrote about Pope Benedict's visit to Freiburg. The other day, I commented on what is typically German concerning seeking justice in court.

Now, here comes a surprising association: A guy from Dortmund had his lawyer in Unna file a suit against the Pope for not having put on a seat belt while touring Freiburg: Mr. Joseph Ratzinger born in Marktl/Landkreis Altötting on 16 April 1927, drove on 24 and 25 September 2011 for more than an hour without a seat belt in his papamobile. Witnesses are the Archbishop of Freiburg Robert Zollitsch and Baden-Württemberg's Ministerpräsident (governor) Winfried Kretschmann. Freiburg's district court confirmed the receipt of a fax in this respect.

Pope Benedict XVI in his papamobile without a seat belt on Kaiser-Joseph-Straße (Wikipedia)

The Dortmund guy said he does not seek publicity, but justice must be done. There is a 30 euro fine for driving without a seat belt in Germany, increasing up to 2500 in case of recurrence, which the Pope indeed was guilty of. Do you still feel that my earlier allusion to Shylock standing for his bond was far-fetched? If not satisfied by the district court's decision, I am convinced the man from Dortmund will drag the case to our highest court in Karlsruhe.

What will happen? Freiburg's district court will declare not competent in the case as the Pope being head of state, enjoys diplomatic immunity. And indeed, taking the fact that diplomatic staff serving in Berlin gets away unpunished with drunken driving and car crashing, so not wearing seat belts is just a petty offense. However, Freiburg's district court's declared incompetence will open the way for an appeal to the next higher instance, and if all goes bad, the Pope's case will end up in Karlsruhe.

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My First Referendum

Today I cast my vote in my first referendum in a typically German affair, what the French call une querelle Allemande.

Over more than ten years, discussions and plans had been going on to replace Stuttgart's 19th-century terminus station with a modern underground through-station. This win-win solution will accelerate train traffic and, at the same time, liberate precious ground within the city for green spaces and urban development. The project, named Stuttgart 21, was discussed in all aspects by experts, presented in public hearings, and quickly passed the state parliament in its final version since the Federal Railway will bear the lion's share concerning financing. Only the Green party always was against the project. All seemed clear and had been democratically approved, but when the construction eventually began, citizens opposing the project started public protests at the building site, hindering the work's progress. A mediator failed in his attempt to arbitrate.

The situation became delicate for Baden-Württemberg's green-red state government, with the Social Democrats in favor and the Greens against Stuttgart 21. The only possibility to keep their coalition intact was to ask the people and have them decide in a referendum. Such a procedure is complicated to launch. Eventually, we were asked whether we agreed that the government would bail out of negotiations with the Federal Railway. 

Estimated costs for abandoning Stuttgart 21, the state of Baden-Württemberg would have to shoulder range from only 350 million believing the adversaries to 1.5 billion, according to the project's supporters.

You know from my previous blogs that I am a railway aficionado preferring a six-hour train ride to a ninety-minute flight like the other day from Freiburg to Berlin. I hate the stress of going to Basel airport by bus and having to be there too early. I detest the checks after the check-in and don't like landing far out of the city by taking a bus downtown Berlin. On the other hand, I step on the train in Freiburg and step off at Berlin central station enjoying a good book, and you guessed it, the pot of coffee and the Butterkuchen now 5.70 euro compared to 5 euro last fall.

Coming back to our topic: A couple of weeks ago, the state government issued a booklet containing the pros and cons of Stuttgart 21. This didn't change my mind, but not because I am biased. I was open to any good argument, but those of the adversaries were just aggressive statements.

What made the referendum really weird was that those who want Stuttgart 21 to be built must vote no, and those who are against it have to vote yes. As I wrote above, the people only decide about a law authorizing the government to negotiate with the Federal Railway to abandon the project.

Although the nays will undoubtedly have it, the protests against Stuttgart 21 will continue. Crazy!

November 28, 2011:
Note added in proof: As expected, the referendum ended with 58.8% nays in Baden-Württemberg. Thus Stuttgart 21 will be built. The participation was only 48.3%. Even in primarily concerned Stuttgart, 52.9% voted with no. Freiburg, however, was the great exception and had only 33.5%, the lowest figure of naysayers in our Ländle. Should I now feel like a loser or a winner?

In today's Badische Zeitung

Even before the final result of the referendum was known, adversaries brandished panels in front of Stuttgart's central station: You won't get rid of us.

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In Memoriam Heinrich von Kleist

 Two hundred years ago today, Heinrich von Kleist, a giant of German literature, committed suicide at the Kleiner Wannsee near Berlin at the age of 34. For me, he is one of the grandmasters of the German language, together with Georg Büchner, Heinrich Heine, and Berthold Brecht. Goethe and Schiller are great but did not write with such density. One critic said that the masterpiece is spoiled if you take just one word away or try to add a word to one of Kleist's texts.

I want to avoid developing Kleist's biography. Many books were written on the occasion of the sad anniversary. Red Baron read: Peter Michalzik, Kleist, Dichter, Krieger, Seelensucher, Propyläen Verlag Berlin 2011.

The book cover shows the only confirmed portrait of this disturbing personality. Heinrich was a soldier, student, dropout, traveler, letter artist, farmer, soul seeker, playwright, civil servant on probation, hater of Napoleon, war correspondent, short novel writer, publisher of a literary magazine, newspaper editor, and rebel who during his whole short life was always attracted by suicide. His "problem" was that he did not want to go alone. All of his friends, although sometimes depressed like him, refused. Eventually, he found a 31-year-old married woman, a friend, cancer-stricken Henriette Vogel, who was ready to accompany him on his last journey.

I want to show some pictures I took from 12 to 15 November while attending the Kleist Festival in and around Berlin. This included a theater marathon with three pieces on three evenings: Der Prinz von Homburg, Penthesilea, and Der zerbrochene Krug (The Broken Jug), followed by nightly discussions with the director and actors.

The Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin Unter den Linden. 

On its front face is Kleist's Das Erdbeben in Chili (The Earthquake in Chile).

The Kleisthaus, where Kleist lived during his last years in Berlin
 is not the original building.

The relief at the front shows a scene from Penthelisea and Kleist's profile.

The Kleistmuseum in Frankfurt on the Oder in an old manor house.
The house where Kleist was born was destroyed during the war.

A modern Kleist portrait I like most shows him as a rebel.

We experienced a sunny November morning at the Wannsee 

like Heinrich and Henriette lived through before their deaths.

Kleist's memorial stone at the place where he shot Henriette first
and later killed himself.

Nun, o Unsterblichkeit bist du ganz mein! (Prinz von Homburg) 

O immortality, now you are all mine!

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Sascha's German Neologisms

 Living languages need and subsequently bear new words, primarily for terms our ancestors didn't know. Luther, when translating the Bible into German, created neologisms for Latin words like Morgenland (the land where the morning sun rises) for orient, Schauplatz (the site where something can be looked at) for a scene, Ehrgeiz (craving honor) for ambition, and Vorhaut for the prepuce. Question: Was the English word foreskin known before the German Vorhaut?

Later in the middle of the 17th century, a guy called Philipp von Zesen fought the pernicious influence of French on the German language and created words like Abstand for distance, Anschrift for adresse, Mundart for dialect, Leidenschaft (creating suffering) for passion, Rechtschreibung for orthographie, and Emporkömmling for parvenu.

American English words nowadays adopted in German are primarily due to technical developments even though German native words exist. They are rarely used. For to browse, the old German verb stöbern could be revived, and Klappliste could replace the drop-down list. Having learned computers in an English-speaking environment, I find it challenging to integrate the perfect German term Festplatte for a hard disk into my vocabulary.

Sascha Lobo in 2009
(©Mattias Bauer/Wikipedia)

Sascha Lobo, a Spiegel columnist, recently published a book with 698 new German words for many unique situations in life*. Unfortunately, most of those creations are based on hackneyed English like Talkoholismus for an illness many politicians in Germany suffer from attending too many talk shows. Sascha proposes other new words that are translations from English, like Einling for single.

*Sascha Lobo, NEON: Wortschatz: 698 neue Worte für alle Lebenslagen, rororo, November 2011 

Here are more of his exciting creations:

Affärmann is the male part in an affair playing on the resemblance with Fährmann (ferryman).

Unterlastung is the contrary to Überlastung (overload or overstrain).

The neologism verversprechen plays on the German double meaning, for versprechen means either a promise or a slip of the tongue. The new word actually means that a politician's promise before the election was just a slip of the tongue.

Dreifel is a superlative of Zweifel, playing on the words zwei for two and drei for three.

Namnesie is an illness progressing with age, not remembering names from the word Amnesie (amnesia).

Schnice is a German brew of schön and nice.

With komplimieren, we may have a new German verb for English to compliment, resembling the pronunciation of komprimieren (to compress).

Ultratasking is the superlative of multitasking.

The German word Eifer for zeal, favor, eagerness now has a new form, iFer. It is the obsession to be the first to acquire the latest Apple gadget.

Many of Sascha's 698 neologisms are either just fun or nuts. On the other hand, he has pointed out the need for creating new and fitting words for all situations. He calls for adding to the classical three educational Rs (Reading, writing, 'rithmatic) the verse:

Rechnen und Lesen,
Schreiben und Zesen,

thus honoring Philipp Zensen's efforts in the 17th century.

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Typical German?

We always end up with a couple of clichés when describing what is typical of a nation. This becomes really dangerous when we start talking about national traits.

When I started my job at CERN 43 years ago, I had a Norwegian boss who spoke German better than English, mainly because the Nazis had deported him to Heidelberg during World War II. At the university, they taught him German Physics, a 'science' that, among other things, rejected Einstein's theory of relativity because Albert was a Jew.

One day good old Johan, as we used to call him, told me: You are not a typical German, a multilayered remark. At that time, I took it as a compliment, for I had in mind all those films running on Swiss and French television showing the dumb and ugly German. I also remembered a scene from a political cabaret where they played desperate Germans deprived of love from other nations ending in a bitter refrain: Nun liebt uns endlich, oder es knallt! (Love us at last, or it will backfire).

A newspaper from Cologne, the Kölner Stadtanzeiger, asked a couple of young journalists what might be typically German. The US correspondent wrote that the question was typical German because Germans always want to know what other countries think about them. In contrast, other nations could not care less how their neighbors regard them. On the other hand, the journalist of the Irish Times took a step further, recommending sending this question into retirement because it will only lead to quarrels.

I do not know whether the question leads to quarrels, but the various answers given by those foreign correspondents were interesting. The American also wrote that Schadenfreude is typical for Germans because they have a particular word for it. He is correct. We even have a proverb about Schadenfreude: Wer den Schaden hat, braucht für den Spott nicht zu sorgen (Those having the damage needn't worry about lack of mockery).

The Dutch guy found that wearing a bike helmet and eating thick slices of Schwarzbrot (coarse rye bread) was typically German. He is utterly mistaken concerning helmets on bikes. The situation is so disastrous that our Minister (State Secretary) of Transportation considers an obligation (a typically German regulation frenzy?) to wear helmets when riding a bike.

As far as Schwarzbrot is concerned, I have it daily for breakfast, although in thin slices. This bread is healthy and tasty. Germans living in foreign countries usually take ample supplies with them before crossing the border and later, when they run out of it, have them sent by air.

I love my Kraftklotz (Power log) for breakfast.

According to the Italian correspondent, Germans constantly think about money, particularly about the coming inflation. Should we show the same relaxed attitude towards the rotten mammon as our southern neighbors? We Germans have lived through inflation twice in the last century, whereas the Italians did not even notice theirs, just adding another zero to their lira as time went by.

Do Germans as pedestrians obey red traffic lights such that the Italian journalist, having lived here for a while, now feels obliged to do the same at home? The guy did not extend his research to cyclists, for then he might have noticed that in Freiburg, they never observe any traffic rules, including red lights.

The Mexican guy discovered that Germans start conversations by complaining about the weather. Could this be an atavistic heritage when more than 90% of Germany's population worked in agriculture, or did you ever meet a farmer not complaining about the weather?

The Frenchman seriously asked: Are the French better than Germans? in comparing how universities are run in both countries. In cool Germania, students lead an anarchistic life compared to high-school-like teaching at French universities. He did not mention that due to the academic freedom in Germany, nowhere in Europe do students spend a longer time with their alma mater. Sitting on selection boards at CERN, I have seen French academics 24 years old competing with Germans aged 29, the first speaking French and the second broken English. Guess what the outcome was.

For the Polish guy, Germans are a strange mixture between good citizens and grumblers. Their deep-rooted obedience toward authorities and love for law and order are paired with a growing self-awareness of their rights. They stand there for their bonds, even taking minor quarrels to the highest court.

Last but not least, the Austrian girl still had yet to overcome the Habsburg inferiority complex towards the Prussians. Yes, in the past, the Prussians and not the Germans beat the Austrians on several occasions. The cliché of the Prussian officer with his switched-off brain and shouting has left its mark for posterity in Karl Kraus's drama Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The last days of mankind). The trauma of dominant Prussia is still rooted in the heads of many Austrians. But then, having lived in Germany for a couple of years, she admitted: It is typical that a typical German trait no longer exists.

Does this mean we will eventually get rid of the typical German wearing his Lederhosen? If this is at all typical, it is Bavarian, not German.

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Wine Tasting Marathon

Last weekend I lived through a wine-tasting Marathon. Freiburg's Adult Education Center (Volkshochschule) had chosen the cultural asset wine as the main topic for their 2011/2012 courses. It happened so that the center of gravity of the events was located on three consecutive days.

On Thursday, we had a presentation on the History of Wine in Freiburg at the beautiful Wentzingerhaus. The city's oldest documented winery was in focus, the Heiliggeist Spital  (Holy Ghost Infirmary) of 1298. In the Middle Ages, its residents had the right to six liters of wine daily. Note that the alcohol content of the then rather bad wine was much lower than today, and above all, it was dangerous to drink the generally polluted water. We tasted four white and two red wines of the Stiftungsweingut Freiburg, starting with the classical local wine of the Markgräfler Land, a 2010 Gutedel, the German name for the Chasselas grape. Next was a 2010 Riesling from the Freiburger Schlossberg.

Entrance to the Schlossberg vineyard of the Heiliggeist Spital

Because of its slopes facing south, the wine growing there is of an exceptional appellation. The following two wines were a 2009 Grauburgunder (Pinot gris) and a 2009 Chardonnay. Due to its abundance in California, some wine drinkers in the States coined the abbreviation ABC (Anything but Chardonnay). The two red wines following were both 2009 Spätburgunder (Pinot noir), with the latter coming from the Schlossberg.

The wines we tasted on Thursday evening.

The Friday evening in the Baroque Hall of the Black Monastery was devoted to the Cultural Asset Wine. Vinissima, or Wine and Women, presented their wines and offered the bread. This organization of female vintners shows a male world that girls are better winemakers than boys. We listened to a few presentations and were subsequently complimented for our attentiveness with six wines, two served after each episode, all coming from wine-growing estates run by female vintners.

Before the tasting session proper started, we were offered half a glass of sparkling wine brut from the Blankenhorn vinery south of Freiburg made from Nobling, a relatively new cross-breeding of Sylvaner and Chasselas grapes. While we were still sipping the opener, the attractive German wine princess of 2009 talked about the history of wine. The origin of winemaking is lost in the darkness of the past, but one is sure about the Romans giving wine to the world by spreading vineyards all over Europe. The princess' presentation was followed by two wines, a 2009 Kloster Heilig Kreuz Weißburgunder (Pinot blanc), a dry, late vintage from Meißen, Saxony, and a 2010 Junge Wilde (Young and Wild) Grauburgunder (Pinot gris), dry, from Tuniberg near Freiburg.

After that, we listened to a medical doctor praising the virtues of wine drinking. Wine savored in moderation, i.e., one-quarter of a liter (Viertele) for men, and one-eighth for women, will lower the risk of stroke and cancer due to its polyphenol content of up to 1000 mg per liter. One Viertele per day corresponds to 20 grams of alcohol. Since she had studied psychology too, she added that drinking in an animated company more than one Viertele would not harm but rather be beneficial. On the other hand, up to 4 million people in Germany are alcoholics turning the health effect of wine to the contrary.

The third wine presented was a 2009 Rüdesheimer Klosterberg Riesling Kabinett, half-dry, Rhinegau. Riesling is the most important grape in Germany, covering 11% of a total of 160 square kilometers of vineyards. The Riesling was followed by a 2009 Bornheimer Hähnchen, Malvasier, the last vintage from Rhine-Hessen. Malvasia is an old grape already known in the Middle Ages when Greece was still an exporting country with wine in quantities from the port city of Monemvasia. Already at that time, the Malvasia wine must have been too sweet like the one we tasted.

The last talk was about flora and fauna in the vineyard and centered on the vine fretter or phylloxera. These sap-sucking insects were brought into Europe from the States in the middle of the 19th century. By 1870 phylloxera had developed into a plague that had destroyed most of France's vines. The remedy eventually consisted in grafting European vine cuttings onto phylloxera-resistant American rootstocks, a practice still used today.

The end of the lecture brought us to the tasting of two red wines, a 2009 Reicholzheimer First Schwarzriesling (Pinot meunier), dry, from Franconia on the Tauber river, and a 2010 Lemberger or Blue Frankish Edition, dry, from Fellbach Württemberg the first one somewhat sweet, the second much too young for consumption.


On Saturday, we were informed about Wine Adulterators and Fortification Grapes. Following a taste of Gutedel at the Alte Wache on Münsterplatz - Home of the Wines from Baden - we started for a tour of the above-mentioned Freiburger Schlossberg. This vineyard was built on the ruins of Vauban's fortifications. Usually, the place is closed to the general public, but our guide had the key. The weather was exceptional, and we felt nearly sorry when we had to return to the Alte Wache for our last wine tasting in three days.

The sunny slopes at the Schlossberg

Again we were offered six different wines. First, a 2009 Tiengener Rebtal, Rivaner (a cross-breed between Riesling and Sylvaner grapes like Müller-Thurgau), dry from the Vintners Association Tiengen, followed by two wines from the Stiftungsweingut Freiburg (see above), a 2009 Freiburger Weißburgunder (Pinot blanc), dry, and a 2008 Freiburger Schlossberg, Grauer Burgunder (Pinot gris), dry. The last white wine, a 2009 Opfinger Sonnenberg Gewürztraminer with 25 grams of sugar per liter, was described as lieblich, which translates into English as sweet. My grandchildren would have called it Limonade. 

The first of the following two wines was a rosé 2010 Tiengener Rebtal Spätburgunder (Pinot noir), dry from the Vintners Association Tiengen. This is not to be confused with the traditional Weißherbst (Vin gris) made from red grapes, where the reddish color results from pressing the grapes with their skins, whereas the skin is left for red wine in the grape juice during fermentation. It is common that if the final product's color does not show the desired saturation, juice of Färbertrauben (Teinturier) is added. The last wine was a 2009 Freiburger Kapellenweg Spätburgunder, dry, from the Vintners Association Munzingen.

The topic discussed between serves was winemaking and adulteration. Here I learned why I no longer experience headaches when drinking German wine. Although I did not consume wine in excess, I remember that as a student and even later, I was never immune to a hangover the following morning. Since the Middle Ages, these hangovers have been attributed to the quantity of sulfur added to stop the complete fermentation of grape juice, keeping some residual sugar. 

As the only tangible result of the Imperial Diet held at Freiburg, a Statute and Order for Wine (satzung unnd ordnung über die weyne) was passed as early as 1498. This Order fixed limits for the quantity of sulfur allowed in winemaking. Violations called for Draconian measures, sometimes ending up in hanging. Minor infringements were punished by knocking the bottom out of the barrel concerned (dem Fass den Boden ausschlagen).

With the advent of modern cooling techniques, there is no reason that people drinking wine should get headaches. Nowadays, before fermentation starts, a small quantity of grape juice is set aside and kept cool. The fermentation of the bulk is no longer stopped by adding sulfur but goes on until most of the sugar has turned into alcohol, and the fermentation stops by itself. The wine is then filtered and left to repose. Before selling, the wine part or all the grape juice that had been set aside is added to achieve the desired residual sugar concentration in the final product. And indeed, following Goethe's dictum: Das Leben ist zu kurz, um schlechten Wein zu trinken (Life is too short to drink bad wine), I don't suffer from headaches anymore.

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