University Ranking

Last week already, the annual results of the World University Ranking 2016/2017 were published, and Freiburg's university is among the top one hundred. Before you break into joy, note that last year Freiburg ranked 84 and has lost eleven places since then. Concerning the national ranking, the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität dropped too, i.e., from 7th to 9th place. Times Higher Education assessed 980 universities worldwide regarding teaching, research, citations, technology transfer, and internationalization. The Badische Zeitung criticized that the recent study did not consider Freiburg's new university library yet.

Red Baron studied at the universities of Tübingen, Göttingen, and Munich. Well, Tübingen, 89, now ranks in front of Freiburg, 95. Göttingen, the stronghold of physics in the twenties of the last century, is only in 112th place while Munich's university climbed to rank 30.

When I passed Göttingen train station last weekend on my way to my annual class reunion, I read below the station panel: Stadt, die Wissen schafft (A play on words: Göttingen, not a city of science but a city generating knowledge). Do they really need that advertising, and will the claim help push my former alma mater's ranking next year?

©Wikipedia/Medoim 90

By the way, the University of Wisconsin Madison's ranking in Freiburg's sister city is 45, an excellent position worldwide.

©Times Higher Education

Note that in the ranking from one to ten, all universities are "English-speaking" except for the ETH Zürich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. But remember, languages are never a problem in polyglot Switzerland. The only surprise of this year's ranking is that venerable Oxford reached first place pushing Caltech into second place, while all those famous American heavyweights like Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and Princeton are following up, whereas in the usual competition between Oxford and Cambridge (UK) the latter remains in fourth place.

Here on the lighter side, I present graffiti on a wall of Freiburg's university. I know about sexists but are there Sexistinnen, i.e., female sexists? The fact is that at Freiburg's university, the number of female students, 52.6%, has surpassed the number of male students. In addition, female students generally are more diligent and achieve better marks. Does this mean that they now show off to their male colleagues? Was one of the latter frustrated when he demanded that female sexists should go home?

©BZ

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Ceci n'est pas une arme

Last week Red Baron changed languages. Instead of practicing his English, he went to the French Summer University at the Frankreich Zentrum of Freiburg University. This year's topic? Cartoons or rather caricatures before and after Charlie Hebdo. There were courses, conferences, and discussions on the history, meaning, and importance of caricatures.

I was particularly interested in political cartoons and will show you a collection starting with graffiti found in Rome's catacombs. Many Roman citizens disliked the infiltration of the Christian faith into their society and were opposed to the new religion. 

The following drawing shows Christ on the cross with a donkey's head and a caption written in clumsy Greek letters. Here is the translation from Greek, the lingua franca of the ancient world, into today's lingua franca: Alexancenos praying to God. Was it a classmate of Alexancenos who pulled his friend's leg?

The time of the Reformation saw the breakthrough of political caricatures that mainly aimed against the Church or were simply anti-Semitic. Wood engravings were easily reproduced, and copies were widely distributed. Messages expressed in pictures even reached the mostly illiterate population.

The caricature of 1545 is titled: The pope awards a concilium to Germany. Emperor Ferdinand had planned a council dealing with the complaints of the Protestant movement against the Roman Church to be held on German territory. Instead, Pope Paul III summoned his Catholic peers to Trient to discuss reforms within the Church, excluding the Protestants. The cartoon shows the pope riding a pig and carrying a pile of stinking shit in place of a monstrance. Luther wrote the explanatory text: Pig, you must let yourself be ridden with spurs on both sides. Do you want to have a concilium? Well, take my poopilium instead.

A caricature dated 1305 of a Jewish Rabbi at the Marktkirche in Wittenberg sucks even more. In his essay Vom Schem Hamphoras (1543), Luther commented on this Judensau sculpture echoing the anti-Semitism of his time; he located the Talmud in the sow's bowels: Here on our church in Wittenberg, a sow is sculpted in stone. Young pigs and Jews lie suckling under her. Behind the animal, a rabbi is bent over the sow, lifting up her right leg, holding her tail high, and looking intensely under her tail and into her Talmud as though he were reading something acute or extraordinary, which is undoubtedly where they get their Shemhamphoras*.
*The word describes the hidden name of God in the Kabbalah

I took the photo in 2004 during a bicycle tour to Lutherland

In 1988 Wittenberg's city council tried to mitigate the gross offense by placing a sculpture down below, recognizing that during the Holocaust, six million Jews were murdered "under the sign of the cross." Recently people have started a petition that on the occasion of next year's 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the Judensau sculpture be removed.

©Wikipedia/Torsten Schleese

France has a rich tradition of political caricature that started much earlier than Honoré Daumier, the uncontested master. One of the sensations in modern history was the Renversement des Alliances when, in 1756, Austria allied with the archenemy of the Reich against Prussia's Frederick the Great. In good Austrian tradition (Tu felix Austria nube), Maria-Theresia sealed the new alliance by marrying her youngest daughter to the French Dauphin. In the caricature, the Austrian ambassador presents a Pandora's Box containing Marie-Antoinette to a delighted Louis XV.

The reversal of the alliances was highly unpopular in France, and the "citoyens" directed their displeasure against the Austrian/ostrich chicken: I easily digest gold and money, but I cannot swallow the constitution [of 1791].

Pigs remain popular in caricature with Miss Piggy and Pigs in Space, but more than two centuries earlier, in 1791, King Louis XVI and his family of pigs were returned to their stables. They tried to escape the French Revolution and reach the northern border, where domestic and foreign reactionary forces were stationed. But in vain, the Royal Family was recognized halfway in the city of Varennes and triumphantly brought back to Paris by revolutionary troops.

Napoleon was a welcome target of caricatures. The famous James Gillray drew The Plum-pudding in danger: _or_State Epicures taking un Petit Souper. The cartoon shows William Pitt, wearing a regimental uniform and hat, sitting at a table with the petit caporal Napoleon who tries to make himself taller by wearing an enormous hat. Both are carving a large plum pudding representing the world. While Napoleon is all eager to cut out Europe, Pitt is cutting much broader, with his slice being considerably more extensive than that of Napoleon.

Later at the Vienna Congress, the Big Four sit around a table eager to eat a pâté being described as indigestible. The cartoon refers to 1815, when Napoleon escaped from his custody at Elba and had a short hundred-day comeback in France. Hidden in the pâté, he comments: They will not have an upset stomach. From left to right, Prussia declares: I am hungry as a devil. Russia remarks: I think the pâté is rather stale, while Britain will generously procure the wine?! Finally, Austria says: Let us attack together. Under the table, we see Louis XVIII, the restored French king, complaining: I shall have the crumbs.

Let me finish with today's cartoon in the Badische Zeitung, where a German(?) physician checks presidential candidates' health.

©Haitzinger/BZ

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Expansion on Behalf of God

Expansion im Auftrag Gottes was the title of an article in Freiburg's Sunday paper Der Sonntag. The text describes the extraordinary success of a private evangelical school in South Baden. The Freie Evangelische Schule (FES) at Lörrach started in 1989 with 23 pupils and now counts 2100.

Public schooling is still standard in Germany, and the quality of teaching is high. Nevertheless, due to our pluralistic society where kids of university graduates sit in class together with refugee children, it is becoming more and more difficult for teachers to progress uniformly with all their pupils. In addition, young people have problems with bullying, internet addiction, and sometimes drugs, although not only in public schools.

Parents try to avoid this modern scourge by sending their children to private schools. This explains the success of schools like the FES, although tuition fees are as high as 330 euros per month. Parents who enroll their children look for the behütetes Umfeld (caring environment) of private schooling.

In the article, the parent representative stresses the nature of Lörrach's evangelical faith-based school, where pupils are treated with dignity as God's creatures. Before children are accepted to attend the FES, their parents must sign a paper declaring that they support the Christian profession of faith. All looks so well but will kids brought up in such a protected environment master their future in a world of turmoil?

Regarding teaching, the FES approaches evangelical education in the States by preferring the Genesis of the Old Testament to the Theory of Evolution. The director of the FES, however, states: We have nothing against science; on the contrary. We teach Evolution Theory as only a hypothesis with some basic assumptions and fragmentary elements. We point this out to our students. They should draw their own conclusions. Will they?
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Our Daily Bread

 Over centuries our daily bread was sacred until its importance dwindled with other foodstuffs taking over. Not so much in Germany, where visiting foreigners are always surprised by the wide variety of bread available.

My most convenient place to buy Laugencroissants (crusty croissants baked with a touch of salt) for breakfast on Sundays is a chain called K&U. This is not an original bakery, for they get most of their stuff delivered pre-baked and bake it in situ in automatic ovens. Since they bake on demand, the advantage is that you always get your baked goods fresh. Whenever I see a baking tray just coming out of the oven, I always insist on getting my croissants from there.

Note that on Sunday mornings, the selection of bread is limited compared to the choice on weekdays.
Trays with fresh croissants and real Berliners (donuts) are on the right.

Yesterday morning when I entered the shop to buy our croissants for breakfast, K&U had a flyer advertising a new loaf of bread named Urkulturkorn, meaning "originally cultivated cereals."  In addition, they guarantee to observe a "baking culture purity law"; the Reinheitsgebot for beer sends its best regards. While craft breweries originate in the States, are we in Germany entering an era of craft bakeries, or has K&U overdone its BackK&Ultur?

K&U's bread, baked based on Urkulturkorn, is advertised as having a moist, robust, full-bodied taste. It is fine-grained and has a nice bite. Ingredients of the newly created bread are whole grain flours of spelt (60%), Secale multicaule (22%), wild emmer (17%), and quinoa (1%). Secale multicaule, in German called Waldstaudenroggen, is also known as Urroggen or Urkorn, i.e., original rye or cereal. According to K&U, the taste of Secale multicaule is slightly sweet and has more fiber than modern rye.

Next time I will buy a loaf of Urkulturkorn and have a bite.

Photo added in proof: This morning's choice.

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Waste-Swallowing Sharks

In any city, downtown waste bins are a pain in the neck. People will throw anything into them while frequently missing the opening.

Pennants were thrown into the thrash following Germany's defeat
against France's soccer team in this year's European Championship.

Others place their still-glowing cigarettes into waste containers transforming them into hot grills. Then there are those penny-pinchers who carry their household waste for miles filling all public bins that were just emptied. Finally, waste containers are constantly vandalized, defaced with graffiti, and misused for advertising.

In Freiburg, starting in 2011, an action group fighting the abuse of public waste bins promoted the alliterated Tolle Tonne (fantastic waste bin) by inviting the pupils of the School for Young Artists to decorate Freiburg's waste bins practicing an - again alliterated - Kunst am Kübel (art on the bucket). The action led to spectacular results but, in the end, did not really help keep the surfaces of the containers free of glued papers.

Da lachen ja die Zebras (LOL) (©zFriburg i de Stadt)

Painted bees pasted over with advertising posters (©BZ/Thomas Kunz)

Therefore in 2016, the city bought 90 new waste bins from Switzerland - known for the quality and expensiveness of its goods - as a replacement for the actual containers paying 140 keuros. The new ones are made from stainless steel, their shiny metal surfaces are easy to clean, and they were dubbed Abfallhaie (waste-swallowing sharks).

Note the Bächle. Apparently, the garbage collectors are still learning,
 for the blue plastic trash bag is poorly placed inside the Abfallhai.

Red Baron happened to be in town when one of the new waste bins was being installed. Two men were there, one working and one being the boss. When I took a photo of the latter, he told me I was not allowed to take a picture. My argument that he is a person of public interest he did not accept. Anyway, here is the guy with his unwelcoming hand and his eyes covered by sunglasses; in other words, he is disguised.

The man of public interest.

The old waste bins will not end up in the waste but will be sandblasted, losing all their paintings, and reused in Freiburg's parks and greens.

Here is the so-called ultimate American waste container I found on Facebook. What is so spectacular about it?

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Halle

Albrecht von Brandenburg by Albrecht Dürer

It was not Martin Luther who triggered the Reformation but Albrecht, brother of Joachim, the elector of Brandenburg. In 1513 Albrecht von Brandenburg was elected archbishop of Magdeburg at the tender age of 23, but he preferred to reside in his beloved Halle. The name Halle is of Celtic origin, meaning salt. The river Saale flowing through the town recalls the Germanic word salt too.

In the Middle Ages, the Pfänner of Halle operated evaporating pans to extract precious salt from brine, thereby becoming the town's rich people. They proudly called themselves Halloren, while the other inhabitants were known as Hallenser. Today the Hallorentorte, rich in calories, reminds the visitor of those ruling pan holders.

Billions of calories in Hallorentorte

During that period, the center of Halle changed considerably. Following the construction of the enormous Red Tower, home of the town's archive and treasury, the marketplace had become too small. So the Halloren convinced their archbishop Albrecht possibly with lots of money, that St. Mary's Church should be demolished to make room for more market stands.

In 1500 from left to right: Gertraudenkirche, Marienkirche, and Roter Turm

Ultimately they kept the two church towers of St. Mary's Church, so today's Market Church has four steeples.

Present view of Halle's center looking on Marktkirche and
on the Red Tower lacking its original color.

Luther's relief at Marktkirche

Here is a view of the Red Tower as seen by my iPhone and Lyonel Feininger in the 1920s.

Let us return to Reformation history and Albrecht's story, who ambitiously wanted to surpass his older brother. When 1514, the bishopric of Mainz became vacant, Albrecht applied for the job. Although the members of the cathedral chapter were not averse to the noble candidate, they refused to collect the pallia money to be paid to the pope for a new bishop in their diocese. To ensure his election, Albrecht himself procured the required 14,000 guilders and sent them to Rome.

As Archbishop of Mainz, Albrecht was one of the three clerical electors and had as primo inter pares the position of Archicancellarius per Germaniam, i.e., chancellor of the German-speaking parts of the Reich. In contrast, his brother Joachim only held the symbolic function of Archicamerarius (Erzkämmerer, i.e., arch-chamberlain).

All had worked out fine for Albrecht except for the problem of simony. In fact, the Church Councils of Chalcedon in 451 and Nicaea in 787 had forbidden the purchase of clerical posts and positions. However, money will buy anything almost. So after having paid another 10,000 guilders to Pope Leo X, Albrecht got a dispensation from the pontiff.

Where did Albrecht's money come from? The sums involved in 1514 were peanuts for the Fuggers in Augsburg compared to the 851,918 guilders* they would shell out 1519 to Charles V, who would bribe his electors. Jacob the Rich lent relatively moderate sums to Albrecht against interest, making it hard for the archbishop to pay his debts. Eventually, Pope Leo had a brilliant idea. For the new construction of St. Peter in Rome, he needed lots of money and had therefore issued an indulgence. Why shouldn't Albrecht sell these indulgence papers in his bishoprics? Thanks to Gutenberg's invention, these papers were printed en masse in the basements of the Vatican. By selling indulgences in his dioceses, Albrecht would get part of the money he could use to pay the Fuggers.
*equivalent to 120 million US$

When Martin Luther noticed that poor people hurried to buy these indulgence papers with what little money they had he blew up and wrote to Albrecht: Ablaß ist lauter Büberei und Trügerei, die die armen, einfältigen Christen um Geld und Seele bringet. Darum sei E.K.F.G.* endlich und schriftlich angesagt: wo nicht der Abgott wird abgetan, muß ich ... E.K.F.G. wie den Papst öffentlich an[zu]tasten ... allen vorigen Greuel des Tetzel* auf den Bischof von Mainz treiben und aller Welt anzeigen den Unterschied zwischen einem Bischof und einem Wolfe (Indulgence is nothing else than knavery and cheating that tricks poor, simple-minded Christians out of their money and souls. Therefore E.K.F.G. be finally told and here in writing: If the idol is not abjured, I must publicly finger ... E.K.F.G. as well as the Pope ... and attribute all previous horrors by Tetzel to the bishop of Mainz showing all the world the difference between a bishop and a wolf).
*Euer kurfürstliche Gnaden (Your Grace the Electoral Prince). Tetzel was the most (in)famous indulgence preacher of his time.

When His Grace Archbishop Albrecht failed to react to the letter of an Augustinian monk, he was mistaken for Luther did not hesitate to make his famous 95 theses public, the act that started the Reformation.

Luther posts his 95 theses as it is imagined in the States.

Albrecht also spent indulgence and borrowed money to construct his New Residence in Halle.

The New Residence was started in 1531

He also had himself portrayed between saints on the altarpiece in Marktkirche.

View toward the altar.

Albrecht among saints from left to right:
Mary Magdalene, John the Apostle, Archbishop Albrecht, and Catherine of Alexandria

Here is the monument of Halle's greatest son, Georg Friedrich Händel, at the Marketplace.

This was nearly the end of my trip to Lutherland. On our way back to Freiburg, we passed the Völkerschlachtdenkmal ...

Epitaph at the Orthodox church St. Andrej commemorating
the many Russians killed in the Battle of Nations.
Note that the Prussians had the highest death toll, with 22%.

...and made a stop at Jena to have a look at Luther's epitaph.

Entrance to St. Michael, home of Luther's epitaph

Following the Battle of Mühldorf, Friedrich der Großmütige lost Wittenberg and its university to his cousin Maurice in 1547. At Jena's marketplace, we saw that grateful students had decorated the statue of the founder of the local university.

Elector John Frederick, the Magnanimous of Saxony, Founder of Jena's University

Before I close my report about my trip to Lutherland, I would like to share another of those weird drinks they serve in Germany. You see below Bananenweizen, a white beer mixed with banana juice.

Are those people living on the territory of the former GDR still obsessed with bananas? Rumors have it that - following the opening of the wall in 1989 - the first thing people visiting the West were looking for was:

A beautiful bunch o' ripe banana

Daylight come, and me wan' go home

Hide the deadly black tarantula

Daylight come, and me wan' go home.

I also wanted to go home because I feared the tarantula, and was full of indigestible Bananenweizen.
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On Weird Drinks

My friend Kendall made me aware of a weird beverage, a greenish shandy. Shandies are known in southern Germany as Radler*, in northern Germany as Alsterwasser, i.e., water from the Alster River that forms a lake in Hamburg before it flows into the Elbe River.
*Appreciated by cyclists as an isotonic drink replenishing minerals lost in transpiration. These days shandies containing up to 3% alcohol are being replaced more and more by alcohol-free wheat beers containing less sugar and alcohol than shandies.

The weird shandy in question is a mixture of beer and cucumber juice. It is made in Lübbenau, a town south of Berlin in the Spreewald. The region is famous for producing all sorts of cucumbers -- fresh, sour, or salty. Here people speak Sorbian, a Slavic language. While mixing its beer with cucumber juice, the Kirchner brewery reduces the alcohol content of the shandy to a mere 2.1%. Mind you, the creators did refrain from calling their mix Spreewasser.

When I saw Kendall's photo of the green bottle showing a cucumber on a bicycle, it was a must-have, so I ordered a couple of bottles together with another beer mix with cucumber and rhubarb juice. To make a long story short: the Gurken Radler tastes like eingeschlafene Füße (old feet, literally feet that went to sleep). On the other hand, rhubarb juice adds a refined touch to the rose-colored Gurken Radler Rhabarber, and I like it. Prosit.

Next on my list of weird drinks is a non-alcoholic soft drink made from fir shoots. For generations, farmers in the Black Forest have harvested the young shoots. They cooked them in the water while adding sugar to the brew. The result is a syrup called Schösslihonig (fir shoot honey), usually eaten on bread.

A private brewery created a soft drink dubbed Tannenliebe (love for fir trees) based on fir shoots. The mix is prepared with essence from fir shoots, water, sugar, Black Forest honey, and citric acid. Red Baron went downtown and bought two bottles of  Tannenliebe,  which was more expensive than beer. The taste? Disappointing since I had expected more flavor. On the other hand, the soft drink contains only a tiny amount of sugar, and the Abgang (finish or aftertaste) of fir shoots lasts for a couple of hours.

The last liquid I want to make you aware of is called BIRNOH and is, as its name suggests, based on Birnen (pears). Here they mix selected pear brandy with freshly pressed pear juice diluting the schnapps to a mere 18% alcohol. The mixture is filled into wooden barrels and matures into an aromatic and soft drinking experience. You should enjoy BIRNOH on the rocks. That makes it tasty.

Prosit again.
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Eisleben

This is the next-to-last blog about my trip to Lutherland, covering Eisleben, the town where Martin Luther was born in 1483 and died in 1546.

Entrance to the Lutherhaus, where Martin was born

The boy was born in the town of Eisleben on November 10, 1483, to the Luder family and was baptized Martin in accordance with the Saint of the following day.

At that time, the word Luder* meant bait for hawks and falcons in hunters' jargon. So it is likely that Martin did not quite like his surname. In fact, as a student following his educated contemporaries who preferred Greek or Latin to German names, Martin started signing his letters with the Greek Eleutherios, meaning "free." According to some historians, Luther understood himself to be a liberated man following the publication of his 95 theses. Shortly after 1517, Martin adopted the German name Luther.
*Today's meaning is a hussy

Luther's father wanted his son to become a lawyer, but Luther junior became a monk, priest, doctor of theology, and professor at the University of Wittenberg after young Martin had his experience of faith not on the road to Damascus but on the road between Eisleben and Wittenberg.

Here are some pictures Red Baron took inside and outside Luther's birthplace.

Critical issues of the Reformation were the Catholic sacraments, of which Luther only retained two: infant baptism and communion, albeit in both kinds.

The baptist shall breathe three times below the eyes of the child and say:
Leave you, impure spirit, and make room for the Holy Ghost.

Somehow possessed by baptism, Lutherans imagined Christ
being baptized in the Pegnitz River. Consequently, the city of Nürnberg,
a stronghold of the Lutheran Church, is depicted in the background.

Luther is often pictured with a swan, thus preceding the swan of Stratford-on-Avon.

In adopting the swan, Luther was referring to Jan Hus, the reformer burned as a heretic in 1415 during the Church Council at Constance: In Constance, they roasted a goose, but one hundred years from now, they will listen to a swan, singing, where Brother Martin clearly meant himself.

*Hus means goose in Czech

A Luther rose in the courtyard of Luther's birthplace.

Luther himself wrote about the meaning of the rose he had started to use as a seal for his letters in 1530: The first should be a black cross in a heart, which retains its natural color so that I would be reminded that faith in the Crucified saves us. "For one who believes from the heart will be justified" (Romans 10:10). Although it is indeed a black cross that mortifies and should also cause pain, it leaves the heart in its natural color. It does not corrupt nature; it does not kill but keeps alive. "The just shall live by faith" (Romans 1:17) but by faith in the Crucified. Such a heart should stand in the middle of a white rose to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace. In other words, it places the believer into a white, joyous rose, for this faith does not give peace and joy like the world gives (John 14:27). That is why the rose should be white and not red, for white is the color of the spirits and the angels (cf. Matthew 28:3; John 20:12). Such a rose should stand in a sky-blue field, symbolizing that such joy in spirit and faith is a beginning of the heavenly future joy, which begins already, but is grasped in hope, not yet revealed. And around this field is a golden ring, symbolizing that such blessedness in Heaven lasts forever and has no end. Such blessedness is exquisite, beyond all joy and goods, just as gold is the most valuable, most precious, and best metal. This is my compendium theologiae [summary of theology]. I have wanted to show it to you in good friendship, hoping for your appreciation. May Christ, our beloved Lord, be with your spirit until the life hereafter. Amen.

It was only a short walk from Luther's birthplace to where he died. Actually, the building now sold as his last residence is different from where the reformer closed his eyes.

More Bächle

Why did Luther die at his birthplace? In 1546 the noble family von Mansfeld called on him as a known authority to serve as a mediator in a family quarrel. Luther suffered from obesity, but despite being rather ill, he hit the road to Eisleben. In a letter to his beloved wife Käthe (Katharina von Bora) he wrote: Wenn ich wieder heim gen Wittenberg komm, so will ich mich alsdann in den Sarg legen und den Maden einen feisten Doktor zu fressen geben (When I come home to Wittenberg, I will lie down in a coffin and give the maggots a fat doctor to eat). However, his last letter home is full of joie de vivre, as you may read on the left.

What follows is Luther's last prayer on his deathbed:

The Reformer died with an imminent eschatological expectation, i.e., Christ's return when murmuring his last Latin words: Mundus ... mox mutandus, Amen (Truly the world will soon perish).

May Martin rest in peace.

 

Following Luther's death, his wife Käthe stuck to Christ like a burr to cloth. She died from a road accident near Torgau six years later than her husband and was buried in Torgau's Saint Mary's Church. I saw a reproduction of her epitaph in Luther's "last residence."

In God blissfully deceased at Torgau: Dr. Martinus Lutherus' wife

Outside the building, we were reminded that Luther, like most of his contemporaries, was an anti-Semite ...

Luther's view of the Jews and his long shadow in Central Germany.

... but we also saw young Lutherans singing and dancing in front of the Andreaskirche during a Regional Protestant Church Congress: Und du mein Schatz (And you my darling or rather you my treasure). An interesting question: Did King David live like a rogue?

Und du mein Schatz

In the aftermath of the Schmalkaldic War (1546/7), the two ruling branches of the House of Wettin, the Ernestines and the Albertines, were quarreling over electoral dignity. In fact, Albertine Maurice, although a Protestant, had supported the Catholic Emperor Charles V against his cousin, Ernestine Frederick the Magnanimous. 

When the Schmalkaldic League lost in the Battle of Mühlberg against the emperor, Charles withdrew the electorship from Frederick and bestowed it upon Maurice. 

Although the following text refers to Ernestine Wittenberg, Luther's newly cast bronze epitaph never made it to the Reformer's burial place in the Schlosskirche. The Albertines kept the bronze in Jena's Michaeliskirche.

Note Luther's rose.

Although Luther propagated the German language, his obituary is written in Latin. Before you try your Latin, here comes the English translation: On February 18, 1546, the nobleman Martin Luther, Doctor of Theology, was recalled from this mortal life at the age of 63. At the moment of his death, he who had consumed his soul for God in his faith, for our Lord Jesus Christ, had firmly witnessed that for the Church, the teaching he had lived is true and necessary. His corpse is buried here after he built the congregation faithfully and fearing God in this city for more than 30 years. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger of good tidings that announceth peace (Isaiah 52:7).

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