Heidelberg

When I ask my American friends which German cities come to mind first, they usually choose Heidelberg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and Munich in any order or according to their preference for wine or beer.

My readers know that Red Baron likes to travel. Although my balance problems now force me to use a walking stick, I decided to book a short trip to Würzburg.

Heidelberg was one stopover on our journey. The tour company had offered a boat trip on the Neckar, so we had little time to visit the city I know well.

Heidelberg's stone bridge dates from 1788.

Our boat passed below.

The Heidelberg castle greets from afar.

Looking for a café, I passed the two towers protecting the bridgehead.

As we were threatened with a sumptuous dinner at our hotel in Biebelried, Red Baron made do with a typical German Kaffee und Kuchen, i.e., Heidelbeeren* in Heidelberg.

*Coffee and blueberry pie

©Tk/Wikipedia

There was just enough time left to visit the Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit), which has an incredible history.

At the request of Elector Ruprecht III of the Palatinate, Boniface IX elevated the Church of the Holy Spirit to a collegiate church. Its canons were also professors at the young University of Heidelberg. They used the sinecures of the Heiliggeistkirche, initially granted to other churches, to finance their teaching activities.

With the introduction of the Reformation under Ottheinrich in 1541, the Heiliggeistkirche initially became a Lutheran parish church; from the introduction of Calvinism by Frederick III, it served as a place of worship for the reformed congregation. Under Elector Ludwig VI, the church temporarily became Lutheran again, but with the Bavarian and Spanish occupation during the Thirty Years War, the Heiliggeistkirche was once again Catholic.

After this unsteady change, Elector Johann Wilhelm decreed the Palatinate division of churches in 1698, i.e., the Heiliggeistkirche, like all Protestant churches in the Electoral Palatinate, was to be allowed to be used by the Catholics (Simultaneum). However, this practice proved unsuccessful. So, in 1705, the building was separated by a dividing wall in the so-called Declaration of Religion: the Reformed congregation was given the nave, and the Catholic congregation was given the choir.

The wall in place

This separation remained in place for over two centuries, except for a few brief interruptions when the wall was removed and rebuilt.

In 1936, an "irony of history" occurred when the Nazis awarded the Heiliggeistkirche to its Lutheran pastor, Hermann Maas, an opponent of the regime.

The breathtaking church interior

On June 24, 1936, Maas held a solemn service to celebrate the demolition of the wall that had divided the church for over 230 years.

    

Here I stand! Yes, the church is Lutheran.

A sight in the Heiliggeistkirche that was a provocation at the time and is now a demonstration is the physics window of 1984 by Johannes Schreiter in the south aisle.

©Dr. Manfred Schreiber

Some of the congregation felt so offended by the depiction of the Apocalypse that Schreiter was deprived of the commission for the remaining five church windows.

At the top of the physics window is a sentence from 2 Peter 3:10: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night when the heavens will melt with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat, and the works that are in them will be burned up." But Schreiter then takes comfort from Isaiah 54:10: "But my "mercy shall not depart from you, nor shall the covenant of my peace perish, says the Lord, your merciful one."

The swelling mushroom cloud is completed by Einstein's formula and the date of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Pacifist Einstein is twice the father of the atomic bomb. His formula E=mc², derived from the general theory of relativity, was correctly interpreted by contemporary physicists.

Einstein's second paternity for the atomic bomb was his signature in a letter to President Roosevelt. This letter contained the information that the Nazis were already working on the atomic bomb.  Edward Teller, the later father of the hydrogen bomb, presented it to his famous colleague for signature.

An Einstein could not err, so the Americans launched the Manhattan Project. They left nothing to chance and developed a uranium and a plutonium bomb simultaneously. Oppenheimer is the keyword.

When Einstein heard the news that the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, he felt complicit. He suffered for the rest of his life, "If I had known that the Germans would not succeed in constructing the atomic bomb, I would have stayed away from everything." Shortly before his death on April 18, 1955, he called the letter from 1939 the biggest mistake of his life.
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