Donkeys' Corner

Some of my readers will remember Freiburg's Wagenburgler Story. Over the last few years, it has become quiet around the groups who like to live in caravans. They were roaming Freiburg from 2011 to 2014 for a site to park their vehicles in the shadow (Schattenparker is the name of one "tribe"). Another group called itself Sand im Getriebe (sand in the transmission), and the quarrel with the city went "vicious" until most Wagenburgler had found their rest at a site near Freiburg's airport called Eselswinkel.

Wagenburglers behind the bushes in the background (©BZ/Rita Eggstein)

During this summer, the quiet idyll was suddenly disturbed by noise. People were sleepless in Mooswald, a district of Freiburg on the other side of the airport. On August 5, techno music originating from the donkeys' corner continued into the following morning hours so that a lady at Mooswald stated: Ich stand senkrecht im Bett (I stood in my bed vertically).

©BZ

The office for public order told the Wagenburglers to keep a curfew between 10 a.m. to 6 a.m., but they opposed the ruling and announced more techno parties. A spokeswoman said, "There are no longer any sites at Freiburg where one can party somewhat louder beyond midnight. We would like to make such parties possible for young people. Therefore we invite youth groups interested in our culture and way of life." Na dann prost Mahlzeit! (Well, that's just great!)

They are planning their yearly Diesel'n'Dust-Fest for September 15 into September 16. Mind you, #Dieselskandal is not such a dragging name presently.

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Walking the Bundschuh Trail

Bundschuh, a shoe with bootstraps
worn by ordinary people in the Middle Ages

Last Wednesday, Red Baron walked the Bundschuhpfad (Bundschuh trail). The Christian Democrats (CDU) sponsored this treat as all parties are presently offering vote-catching goodies to Freiburgers since the general federal election of the Bundestag (House of Representatives) is scheduled for September 24.

Four years ago, I blogged about the Bundschuh movement, a peasants' revolt in the village of Lehen, now a district of Freiburg. I also participated in the festivities on the 500th anniversary of the aborted uprising. 

Now, I have walked the commemorative Bundschuh trail created since then. My German readers may like to consult this link for a complete story of the farmers' revolt in 1513.

The Bundschuh trail is conceived like a pilgrimage path with 14 stations. It starts at the Bundschuhhalle (1), where the Leheners hold festivities and special events. This place had nothing to do with the peasants' revolt in 1513. Since this historical event and Lehen's Bergle (hill) are the village's only important attributes, they are marketed in combination. So you walk on the trail up and down the Bergle (11) with its vineyards and apple orchards.

In September 1513, the conspirers first met at the Hartmatte (2), a meadow outside the village, to take the Bundschuh vow. Today, the famous Hartmatte is buried beneath a motorway and the tracks of Freiburg's streetcar.

Our guide at Jos-Fritz-Straße

Many of Lehen's streets are named after participants in the revolt. Naturally, there is Jos Fritz (3), the leader, his wife Els Schmidin* (6), and Pastor Johannes Schwartz (4), who spiritually supported the movement calling the Bundschuh ein göttlich Ding (a divine thing).
*In the Middle Ages, women kept their family name, just adding the suffix "in" when married

Els-Schmidin-Weg

Information panel (10)

At the village church, St. Cyriak, an information panel tells about the history of the building. Johannes Schwartz was parish priest at Lehen from 1497 to 1513, when following the betrayal of the conspiracy, he fled to Alsace.

A 20th-century Longinus- und Armakreuz in the churchyard was worth a detour. These crosses are named after the Roman legionnaire Longinus, who pierced Jesus in his side with a lance. In addition, it shows the arms, the Arma Christi, i.e., the weapons of Christ. The cross was created by Friedbert Andernach in 1987.

The last station of the trail is the Bundschuh oak (14), carved out of an upside-down oak trunk. The work of art by Thomas Rees commemorates the peasants' uprising and presents the signs of the times 500 years ago. The head of the crucified Christ is bent by the weight of two oppressors. To the right sits a clergyman pointing with one hand to heaven and opening the other hand for a euro. To the left sits a drinking nobleman squeezing out a peasant.

It was an afternoon well spent.

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Alternative for Germany?

A disturbing video frame (©Der Spiegel)

In Germany, we have recently heard much about the Alt-right movement - sometimes called neo-Nazis - in the States. 

The Alt stands for alternative, and the word is also part of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland ). This right-wing party will undoubtedly make it into the next Bundestag (Germany's House of Representatives) following our federal election on September 24.

Unsatisfied with the work of the existing parties, quite some voters are looking for an "alternative," not realizing that the AfD, above all, is a "Germany first" party. Its members are right-wing populists and Eurosceptics. Founded in 2012, the AfD is now represented in 13 of Germany's 16 state parliaments.

It is comforting to see that up to now, the AfD has been self-absorbed in fights for sure seats in state parliaments and for the party's presidency. For me, it is more important that so far, no AfD member has shown the charisma of a Führer, although some of the party faithfuls may think otherwise.

The AfD chairpersons are Frauke Petry and Jörg Meuthen. Frauke has a doctorate in chemistry, but it may be unfair to quote the 18th-century German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: Wer nichts als die Chemie versteht, versteht auch die nicht recht (Anyone who understands nothing but chemistry does not even understand chemistry properly). 

Nevertheless, this week the Saxon state parliament waived Dr. Petry's immunity so the prosecutor may continue his investigation into her having allegedly committed perjury in an AfD matter. Divorced from her husband, a Lutheran pastor, leaving four children in mental turmoil, Frauke now lives with a party colleague and gave birth to a common child in May 2017.

Even tactless campaigning is welcome:
Dr. Petry is presenting her love child on an election poster.

Another ambitious lady is Beatrix von Storch, AfD deputy chairwoman and member of the European parliament. Lambasting Angela Merkel as the biggest liar in Germany, von Storch stated in a debate about incoming refugees: Und wenn die das HALT an der Grenze nicht akzeptieren, können die Vollzugsbeamten im Grenzdienst Schusswaffen auch gegen Personen einsetzen (And if they don't obey the HALT command at the border, the border officials may use firearms against persons too), a situation we frequently had with East German border guards at the inner-German border before 1989.

Red Baron wrote this blog while digesting a small note in the Badische Zeitung: No bed for Gauland.

Alexander Gauland, a former Christian Democrat, is a co-founder of the AfD and a deputy chairman. Following a planned party rally at Bad Mergentheim, old Alexander (76) wanted to rest his weary head on the pillow of a hotel bed. When the local AfD branch tried to make a reservation, the hotel owner barred Mr. Gauland from his premises.

Immediately the party made the story public calling the ban a reminiscence of the darkest period in German history: Deutsche! Kauft nicht bei Juden (Germans! Do not buy from Jews). Imagine such an argument made by the AfD.
The hotel owner said he has the domiciliary right to decide whom he would like to see as his guest. It goes without saying that the Central Council of Jews in Germany did not dig the historical comparison brought forward by the AfD.

Gauland is among the two AfD lead candidates in the upcoming federal elections. The other is Alice Weidel, a management consultant, and an avowed lesbian. Although the AfD stands for the traditional German family and is strictly against eingetragene Lebensgemeinschaften (registered partnerships), Alice lives happily with her Swiss partner, who brought two sons into the "marriage."

When Weidel was nominated as one of the lead candidates at a party convention in the spring, she formulated the memorable statement: Politische Korrektheit gehört auf den Müllhaufen der Geschichte (Political correctness belongs on the garbage heap of history). Although Red Baron thinks that political correctness is sometimes far-fetched, Alice overshot fully.

A strong reaction to her remark followed promptly. As translated on Wikipedia, the host of extra 3, one of Germany's popular TV satire programs, said, "Sure, put an end to political correctness. Let's all be politically incorrect. That Nazi bitch must be right. Was that politically incorrect enough? I hope so." Weidel sued, seeking to forbid the re-airing of the program, and on May 17, the Hamburg District Court ruled against her, stating that a public figure must stand against exaggerated criticism. Weidel disagreed with the decision and promised to bring it to the Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court).

AfD, an alternative for Germany? Doesn't a fish rot from the head down?

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Braukollektiv

Kollektiv sounds ugly to many Germans, reminding them of the "collectives" in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Diskussion im Neuererkollektiv (Discussions at the innovators' collective)
 (©Wikipedia/Nightflyer)

Or should I instead write that the word Kollektiv has a bitter aftertaste? However, the meaning of words changes with time, and it is the Freiburg Braukollektiv who is actively working on changing the meaning of Kollektiv rather than signifying the bitter taste of their various beers.

Beer sommelière Andrea Seeger and master brewer James Tutor
presenting a collection of Braukollektiv beers (©BZ/Rita Eggstein)

Today the Badische Zeitung started a new series about Freiburger Bierbrauer (brewers), and guess who is first? It was the Braukollektiv that brought craft beer to Freiburg.

Mind you, we are still deep in the Sommerloch (summer slump) despite reports on presidential press conferences on infrastructure missing the point; it is hot, and we need a beer. So why not forget about the German Einheitsplörre or Lorke (dishwater) and opt for a craft beer brewed by the Braukollektiv, i.e., by James, Chris, Bernard, and Gil.

It all started in 2014 when I participated in a beer-tasting workshop at the Carl-Schurz-Haus. There I met James Tutor, spiritus rector of the Braukollektiv and enthusiastic teacher, presenting us together with Frank Geeraers among nine other beers as the highlight of the evening Black Sheep IPA, an Indian pale ale.

Later I asked James whether the Braukollektiv would like to brew a craft beer for the 2015 International Meeting of Freiburg's Sister Cities? Well, it was too short notice, but the Black Sheep IPA presented at the Meeting turned out to be a great success, with Freiburg's Bürgermeister and the American Consul General both tasting it.

For this year's 9th International Meeting of Freiburg's Sister Cities, I repeated my wish but the Braukollektiv - in the meantime busy in many "beer places" - initially had difficulties even sending a person to the Meeting at Rathausplatz. To my great surprise, a few weeks before the event, James sent me an e-mail with the message that for the occasion, they had brewed 400 bottles of a friendship ale called Fox & Friends.

I admit that the deeper meaning of the label came relatively late to me. This friendship ale was another success, as photos taken at the Freiburg-Madison booth during the Meeting testify.

I still keep five bottles of Fox & Friends in my cellar, with one reserved for a special friend.

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Hard Luck

or instead, shit happens? Although not suitable as a title for a blog, the latter words perfectly fit the following story.

Last Saturday morning, around 10:30, an alarm went off at the signal box of Karlsruhe's central station: Track distortion at the Rhine valley railway between Rastatt and Baden-Baden. Such a warning may occur when extremely high temperatures extend the welded tracks laid without joints, but last Saturday, the thermometer only showed 20° C (68°F).

©BZ/Stefan Jehle

All signals immediately went red, so if a train had passed the distortion at 110 km/h (68 miles/h)*, it would have definitely derailed with all the resulting consequences.

*The 11 signifies that the maximum speed in the following section is limited to 110 km/h

©BZ

What had happened? The German Railway is upgrading the Rhine valley line from two to four tracks to meet the increasing demand for transport capacity from the North Sea ports via Switzerland to Italy. The two supplementary tracks in the region of Rastatt will run in a twin-tube tunnel of 4.3 km (2.7 miles), saving the landscape and protecting the town from noise. South of Rastatt, the tunnel-boring machine crosses the existing line leaving an overburden of only five meters. So engineers used the proven technology of icing the ground around the boring machine to cool the soil to - 35 °C (- 31 °F). Did the freezing technique not work as it should have?

The Swiss are angry, and rightly so. Although they have kept their mouths shut for years, they now insist on fulfilling the 1996 treaty in which Switzerland, Italy, and Germany agreed to finish the Neat (new Alp transversal by rail) by the year 2016. While Switzerland completed the basic train tunnels at the Lötschberg and the Gotthardt in 2007 and 2016, the feeder lines' construction in Germany and Italy is far behind schedule. Following the Rastatt disaster, Swiss newspapers mockingly asked whether German quality needed some Swiss engineering development aid.

Passengers lost at Freiburg's central station (©dpa)

Suddenly, passengers were stranded at Karlsruhe going south or at Freiburg traveling north, but the transport of goods between Rotterdam and Genoa was interrupted entirely. Cargo trains were blocked at various stations along the Rhine valley line. Alternative routes do not exist for important rail work blocks the direct link between Horb and Stuttgart. In addition, most bypasses are not electrified, and diesel engines have become a rare species in Germany.

©BZ

Presently, transport firms are trying hard to trans-ship the stranded containers onto trucks, so the autobahn running more or less in parallel with the Rhine valley line is becoming congested. This is a bad situation during the holiday season when thousands of Dutch caravaners are heading for sunny Italy or are returning home.

Meanwhile, southbound passenger trains end at Rastatt and northbound trains at Baden-Baden, with shuttle buses running between the two stations. Railway officials ask passengers to count an additional hour while people who have already traveled the distance experienced at least two hours of extra travel time.

In an earlier statement, the German Railway said that the line should have been repaired by August 27. More news is coming in sparsely, but at the time of writing, it seems that the end of August date cannot be met. To stabilize the ground, officials say that the tunnel under the existing track has to be filled with a concrete plug of 50 meters in length, giving up the expensive tunnel boring machine simultaneously. How long this operation will take - inshallah.

The now-lost tunnel boring machine (©BZ/Ralf Burgmaier)

A bird's-eye photo of the disaster site taken on August 18 shows the progress of the repair work.
The white surfaces are not ice left over from the freezing technique
but concrete slowly filling the hole (©dpa).

Red Baron must pass the blocked section four times in September, going to Cologne for a family fest and Hamburg for his annual class reunion. I keep my fingers crossed for a fast repair, but as experience shows: Existing shit will attract more shit.

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A Fruitbearing Society

On August 10, the German Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, an association promoting the German language. The founding of the Fruitbearing Society took place in the run-up to the Thirty Years' War on August 24, 1617. 

Another stamp of 2017: The Wartburg
where in 1521, Luther translated the New Testament into German

Following Luther's translation of the New Testament into everyday language in 1521 one hundred years later the society for cultivating the German language was another important step jm Gantzen Reich, ein einträchtige Sprach, ein einträchtige Regierung, vnd Endlich Auch ein einträchtige Religion, bequemlich ein zuführen, und friedlich zuerhalten sey (to introduce conveniently a common language, a common government and finally a common religion in all the German Reich and to keep it peaceful).

The English Wikipedia translates Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft into Fruitbearing Society, and indeed the Society engendered many new German words for Latin or Greek expressions common at that time. Many of the new words stuck and are still employed today. Most of those creations make use of the possibility in German to bind two single words together to form a new one, e.g.,

Anschrift (writing to) for address
Augenblick (a blink of the eyes) for a moment
Briefwechsel (exchange of letters) for correspondence
Bücherei (books stall) for library
Kreislauf (running in a circle) for circulation
Mundart (kind of mouth) for dialect
Rechtschreibung (correct writing) for orthography
Rückblick (looking back) for retrospect
Sinngedicht (poem with a meaning) for epigram
Sprachlehre (teaching of a language) for grammar
Tagebuch (book of days) for diary
Vollmacht (full power) for procuration
Wörterbuch (word book) for dictionary
Zeitwort (the word expressing the tense) for the verb

In particular, Philipp von Zeesen was very active creating German neologisms, although his newly created word Gesichtserker (face oriel) for nose did not become popular, possibly for being longer than Nase (nose). Nowadays, Gesichtserker is sometimes used in funny situations.

This "forced" Germanization was in contrast to the many foreign influences on the German language in particular during the Thirty Years' War. The society strived daß man die Hochdeutsche Sprache in jhren rechten wesen und standt ohne einmischung frembder außländischer wort auffs möglichste und thunlichste erhalte unn sich so wohl der beste außsprache im reden alß der reinesten art im schreiben unn Reimen-dichten befleißige (that one must keep the High German language in its right nature and standing when feasible and possible without interference from alien foreign words and one must cultivate the best pronunciation when talking and the purest way when writing and rhyming).

The list of members of the Fruitbearing Society during the Thirty Years' War surprises with an impressive collection of foreign military men: General Franz von Mercy from Lorraine, Italian-born Army Commander Octavio Piccolomini, and Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna. It is almost a miracle that despite this military presence, the Society survived the chaos of the war, or is it instead because of?

In 1636 the poet and member of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft Andreas Gryphius wrote his devastating Sonett Threnen des Vatterlandes describing the atrocities of the ongoing war. Here is an English translation:

 Tears of the Fatherland 

Full now—yea, more than full--behold our devastation:
The frantic drum beat and the brazen horde,
The thundering siege gun and the blood-slick sword
Devour all diligence, and sweat, and careful preparation.

The church is overthrown; our mighty men are slain;
The town hall lies in dust; our towers burn;
Virgins are raped, and everywhere we turn
Are fire, plague, and death to pierce us—heart and brain.

Down walls and through the town always runs fresh-spilled blood.
For eighteen summers now, our river's yearly flood
Near-choked with corpses, has pushed slowly, slowly on 

But nothing will I say of one thing—worse, I know
Than death, grimmer than plague, or fire, or hunger's woe:
Those pillaged souls from whom even hope of heaven is gone.

Near the end of the war in 1642 the Alsatian Baroque poet Johann Michael Moscherosch, member of the Fruitbearing Society, was appalled about Germans preferring foreign languages to their mother tongue and wrote a satirical poem Der deutsche Michel: Wider alle Sprachverderber, Cortisanen, Concipisten vnd Concellisten, welche die alte teutsche Muttersprach mit allerley frembden, Lateinischen, Welschen, Spannischen vnd Frantzösischen Wörtern so vielfältig vermischen, verkehren vnd zerstehren, daß Sie ihr selber nicht mehr gleich sihet, vnd kaum halber kan erkant werden (The Honest Fritz: Against all spoilers of the language, courtesans, concipients, and concellists who mix, distort, and destroy the old German mother tongue with all kinds of alien, Latin, South European, Spanish, and French words so that it does no longer resemble itself and even is hardly recognized).

Günter Grass refers to Moscherosch's dismay in his novella Das Treffen in Telgte (The Meeting at Telgte): Das entsprach dem allgemeinen Ärger über die Verhunzung der deutschen Sprache, deren gefühligem Grund die welschen und schwedischen Feldzüge ihre Huf- und Radspuren gekerbt hatten (This complied with the general anger about the mucking-up of the German language. Hoof prints and wheel tracks of French and Swedish military campaigns had carved the tongue's sensitive ground).

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Bison Futé

Indian Chief Bison Futé in France and ...

Smart Buffalo is known in France as the clever Indian who guides frustrated drivers around jams proposing non-congested roads in times of heavy traffic.

... grazing buffalos at Freiburg's Mundenhof (©BZ/Thomas Kunz)

In contrast, here at Freiburg's vivarium Mundenhof a herd of four buffalo cows and one bull - called bison in German - happily and quietly lives on local grass and herbs.

Two years ago, Freiburg's Sister Committee in Madison, Wisconsin, together with garden experts at Mundenhof, proposed to present some home fodder to those local buffalos by sowing prairie grass on the site of Freiburg's vivarium. In spring, Red Baron had drafted a text about the Madison-Freiburg partnership project and sent it to the Badische Zeitung. He was then contacted by Claudia Förster, who took over the task of reporting. In the meantime, the Prairie Project was the topic at a Stammtisch of the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft on June 7.

Today the Badische Zeitung published Claudia Förster's long-awaited article titled Heimatgefühle für die Bisons (A Sense of Home for the Buffalos). Although the famous Sommerloch (summer slump) in the news is presently filled with verbal escalations between North Korea and President Trump, we are so happy to read about innocent buffalos and prairies.

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Greiffenegg

The word rings a bell with many of my American readers. For them, the Schlössle, Toni's place, is known for its hospitality combined with a fantastic view of Freiburg.

A weird view from the Greiffenegg-Schlössle on to Freiburg in 1830.
The Münster church is in the wrong position.

There is no entry for Greiffenegg in the English Wikipedia, but there are three articles in the German version, two of them initiated by Red Baron. In addition to the Schlössle, you will find an entry for Hermann von Greiffenegg, who had the Schlössle built, and for his son Hermann Gottlob, who lived in the building following his retirement from Austrian service.

Recently an exhibition opened in Freiburg's Augustinermuseum titled Greiffenegg and Ramberg dedicated to the friendship between Hermann Gottlob and Johann Heinrich. The two men met in 1819 when Greiffenegg junior was the Austrian ambassador to the Kingdom of Hanover.

Catalog of the exhibition at the Augustinermuseum

Let us start from the beginning. Here is a painting of Hermann Greiffenegg, the last Austrian governor in Breisgau, before the region was annexed by Baden on Napoleon's order.

Hermann von Greiffenegg in 1822

The next painting shows Hermann Gottlob von Greiffenegg-Wolffurt, the governor's son, at age 47. He had inherited his father's love for Austria and hated Napoleon.

Hermann Gottlob von Greiffenegg-Wolffurt in 1822

When in 1809, he fought the usurper with a band of guerrillas, he was severely wounded.

KK Oesterreichischer Oberst Greiffenegg-Wolffurt (1832).
Here the scar on his front due to his wound is clearly visible.

Later Hermann Gottlob served the Austrian government as charge d'affaires in Hanover. There the Royal Court Painter Rambach sketched him as a drunkard. The two friends lived through many other bold and illustrated adventures.

Ramberg and Greiffenegg pub crawling.

Slowly the Austrian government became fed up with Hermann Gottlob, and he was fed up with the cold climate in Germany's north. So they sent him to the south to some lost outposts of the Habsburg empire. In 1823 he became fortress governor in Osoppo near Friaul, nowadays Italy.

Der Commandant Greiffenegg Wolffurt Oberst
hunting scorpions on Osoppo in 1824 (with Greiffenegg's hand-written notes)

Although married, Hermann Gottlob started, as people spread, a ménage-à-trois with stepsisters ...

Agathe Mauch and ...

... Josephine Lang

The two ladies had all the money, and Greiffenegg lived on them. The three traveled a lot.

Agathe, Josephine und Hermann v. Greiffenegg Wolffurt
Strange memories of Venice 1826 (hand-written notes by Hermann Gottlieb).

In 1827 the Austrian government sent Hermann Gottlob to Zengg, a fortress at the Adriatic Sea in Croatia near the Turkish border.

KK Militaire Commando Zenng Comdt. Greiffenegg Wolffurt KK Oberst
an der Bosznischen Gränze (at the Bosnian border)

He did not feel well and, in 1831, raking with pain, finally was retired. Filled with bitterness against the Austrian administration, he moved with his two "wives" to Freiburg, where he lived at the Greiffenegg-Schlössle until 1840.

Hand-written sales offer of the Greiffenegg-Schlössle 1838

Due to the lack of money, he had to sell the Schlössle for 9750 guilders and lived until his death in 1847 with Agathe and Josephine in a rented apartment at Kaiserstraße, nowadays Kaiser-Josef-Straße.

Hermann Gottlob in 1840

Back to painter Johann Heinrich Ramberg. He was an early cartoonist illustrating everyday mishaps ...

Reise Unglück (travel accident) 1821

... and human, i.e., male weaknesses.

Die Kirschenleserin (cherry-picking girl) 1800
The innkeeper's naked daughter is picking cherries off the ground
with leering old men watching.

Here is some more:

1. Toni's art criticism of the cover drawing on the exhibition catalog shown above.
2. Schauen und Schlemmen (Looking and Feasting). Red Baron will eat K&K cuisine, e.g., Marillenknödel (apricot dumplings), on October 1.

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Freiburgs neue Mitte

In the back, the black diamond of the new university library,
on the left Henri Moore's Reclining Figure: External Form 1953–54,
in front of one of those specially installed rubbish chutes to an underground container.

The Square of the Old Synagogue (Platz der Alten Synagoge) is Freiburg's new center, as the Badische Zeitung announced. Red Baron reported the quarrels concerning the square redesign, where the city literally dropped some bricks.

The good news is that the transformation of the Platz der Alten Synagoge was finished this week, two months earlier than planned. With the official opening scheduled for the coming Saturday, the city continues dropping more bricks by not "knowing" that Jewish communities are excluded from any celebration on Shabbat. The city dropped another brick, saying that the festivities continue beyond 10:30 p.m. and Jewish fellow citizens could join later.

Following a senior citizen's proposal, many favor renaming the newly configured square into Platz der zerstörten Synagoge (Square of the Destroyed Synagogue). Red Baron supports this idea, for many old synagogues, nowadays profaned, still exist in Germany while new Jewish worship places have been built. So it is in Freiburg, except that the old synagogue no longer exists. In 1938, it was razed to the ground. Although the renaming of the square was extensively discussed in the press, the Jewish communities said they were not officially informed, so another brick dropped.

While some citizens feared that the city's new center may not be popular, Freiburg's kids immediately embraced the water basin modeled to the Old Synagogue layout at current temperatures of 31 °C (88 °F).

Not only kids but adults, too, wade the basin.

Why is the original memorial plaque (now underwater) so attractive?

With all the troubled water,
the text of the memorial plaque becomes challenging to read:
Hier stand die Synagoge der israelitischen Gemeinde Freiburgs, erbaut 1870, sie wurde
 am 10. November 1938 unter einer Herrschaft der Gewalt und des Unrechts zerstört
(Here stood the synagogue of Freiburg's Israelite community, built in 1870
and destroyed on November 10, 1938, under a rule of violence and injustice).

Soon, worriers raised their voices that the memorial was no wading pool, although some representatives of the Jewish communities even appreciated the kids' activities as a refreshing sort of Erinnerungskultur (remembrance culture).

Are adults and dogs allowed? (©Markus Wolter/Wikipedia)

Will this tolerance hold when students of the university nearby will cool their beer bottles in those waters and flip their cigarette butts into the basin? Does the city eventually has to employ guards to protect the site?

Freiburg's municipal theatre is in the background.
Men are still at work.

Some kids prefer water fountains on the opposite side of the square to
the memorial basin while their mothers are texting. 

Henri Moore's Reclining Figure: External Form 1953–54.

When I tried to take a photo of Henry Moore's Reclining Figure: External Form 1953–54, two older gentlemen were in the picture. I warned them, "If you do not move, you will be in my photo." 

They told me that they were alumni of Freiburg's university and that in 1961, when the ornamentale Abortbrille (ornamental toilet seat) was installed, big controversies resulted. "There were possibly too many holes," I remarked, and they laughed. Indeed, one of the nicknames given to the Reclining Figure at its inauguration was Emmental Venus.

Red Baron will not attend the inauguration festivities tomorrow. He shall be at a funeral.

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