Philosophical Five

Before the Nazis came to power, five assimilated Jewish philosophers lived in the Wiehre district where Red Baron resides.

In the Framework of the University of Freiburg's Studium generale, I took part in a guided tour: Auf den Spuren von Husserl, Arendt, Stein, Benjamin und Pollock – ein Spaziergang in der Wiehre (In the footsteps of Husserl, Arendt, Stein, Benjamin, and Pollock – a stroll through the Wiehre district).

For the biography of those philosophers, you may consult the Wikipedia articles. I shall, therefore, limit myself to dramatic events or lesser-known details in their lives.

Edmund Husserl (1858-1938)

©Joergens.mi/Wikipedia

The first place visited was the house in Lorettostraße 40, where Edmund Husserl lived from 1916 to 1937.

In 1887, Husserl was baptized and married in the Protestant faith to Malvine Steinschneider. They had three children: Elizabeth, born in 1892, Gerhart in 1893, and Wolfgang in 1894.

In 1916, Husserl accepted a call to the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, where he succeeded Heinrich Rickert as a full professor.  

In October 1914, both of Husserl's sons were drafted and fought on the Western Front in World War I. Son Wolfgang died on March 8, 1916, on the battlefield of Verdun. The following year, Gerhart was also wounded in combat but survived.

Despite these blows, Husserl remained a staunch patriot. The German spring offensive of 1918 thus rekindled his hopes for a victorious end to the war. Malvine confided in her diary, "Papa is beside himself. He is convinced that the final victory is now within reach." 

But in August, Husserl wrote to his favorite student, Martin Heidegger, who was drafted in 1915 and assigned to the postal service and weather observation, "The latest events at the front weigh heavily on our souls. I don't need to tell you that."

To Husserl's regret, his pupil soon stepped out of his master's footsteps. In his infamous Black Notebooks, Nazi Heidegger only had contempt for his teacher, "Of Jewish origin, Husserl was with his empty rationality and calculating behavior (leere Rationalität und Rechenhaftigkeit) incapable of substantial decisions." Not nice.

As a Jew, Husserl went through the Nazi ordeal. His grave is in the suburb of Günterstal.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)

Hannah Arendt's encounter with the handsome Heidegger in 1924 was dramatic, for he taught that thinking and "aliveness" were one and the same. The 35-year-old family man with two young sons was not only a genius but also a romantic.

 
So, the 18-year-old student fell in love and, in February 1925, began a long relationship, undeterred by the fact that she was not Heidegger's first or only love affair during his time at Marburg. Arendt led a secluded life due to her relationship, which she wanted to keep private. Of course, the relationship was unbalanced when Heigegger wrote, “Tornness and despair can never produce anything like your devoted love in my work (Zerrissenheit und Verzweiflung vermag nie so etwas zu zeitigen wie Deine dienende Liebe in meiner Arbeit.)”

At the beginning of 1926, Heidegger apparently got cold feet. So he urged Hannah to change her place of study. She went to Freiburg for one semester to study with Edmund Husserl. She lived on Schwimmbadstraße, but the exact location of her house is unknown. Through Heidegger's mediation, she then became a student of Karl Jaspers and studied philosophy in Heidelberg.

In a radio broadcast in 1969, Hannah recalled the fascination that Heidegger's teaching had exerted at the time: "His fame predates the publication of Being and Time. Lecture notes were passed from hand to hand, and his name spread throughout Germany like the rumor of a secret king." 

"The rumor that there was someone who had truly achieved what Husserl had proclaimed drew [the students] to Freiburg to the private lecturer and later to Marburg."

Edith Stein  (1891-1942)

In April 1913, Edith arrived at the University of Göttingen to study with Edmund Husserl and to pursue her doctoral degree in philosophy. The thesis topic, "Das Einfühlungsproblem in seiner historischen Entwicklung und in phänomenologischer Betrachtung (The Empathy Problem as it Developed Historically and Considered Phenomenologically."

Husserl commented favorably on her dissertation, "The grand style ... deserves the highest praise. I, therefore, request that the author be admitted to the oral examination." 

In 1916, Edith moved with her teacher to the University of Freiburg to complete her doctoral exam with the Rigorosum. Here is her personal account:

The next morning at noon, I was in Freiburg. My friend Suse Mogdan strongly recommended that I stay in Günterstal so that I could enjoy some vacation relaxation. A friendly man took me from the train station to the tram stop for Günterstal. It is a secluded village located in the south of the city, built on the plain that transitions into the Black Forest mountains. At the entrance to the village, slightly elevated at the edge of the forest, stands a large house in the purest Italian style. The unusual sight immediately catches everyone's eye. The tram conductors tell you that it is the Wohlgemutsche Villa. Every time you pass by, you wish you could enter this closed paradise. It would later become dear and familiar to me when it came into the possession of the Lioba sisters.

Here is a blog about the beauties of Günterstal.

This time, I drove past it through the small old gate to the tram terminus. Nearby, in a clean farmhouse, I found a nice little room on the ground floor with a friendly young woman. Her husband was on the battlefield; she had her elderly parents-in-law living with her. Diagonally across the street, in the rural inn Zum Kybfelsen, you could get good, hearty food for little money, and when the weather was nice, you could eat in the large garden.

As soon as I had found my lodgings, I set off for Husserl's house. They lived on Lorettostraße, halfway between Günterstal and the city center, at the foot of the Lorettoberg, not in their own house as in Göttingen, but in a spacious rented apartment.

I usually went out early in the morning with my books from Günterstal to one of the surrounding mountains, lay down in a meadow, and worked there for the exam. During this time, my friend Erica Gothe came from Göttingen. She also wanted to take a vacation, but at the same time, she wanted to be there for me so that I wouldn't be all alone on the day of the exam. I picked her up at the train station. When we sat together in my little room, I laid out my map of the Black Forest and showed her: "Here is the Feldberg. We have to go there sometime." We also need to visit Lake Constance. Erika beamed with joy and hugged me.

The Reinachs had strongly advised her not to come to visit me. He said I would only be working on my exam and wouldn't have time for anything else. Now, she was being rewarded for her loyalty to me. But we had to be clever about our excursions. We couldn't skip any of Husserl's lectures. We had to fit the Feldberg into the time between lectures. We walked all the way from Günterstal via the Schauinsland, spent the night there, and in the afternoon, after the lecture, we were able to proudly tell everyone that we had been up on the Feldberg early in the morning and had seen the Alps while drinking our morning coffee.

*Adolf Reinach, one of Husserl's most remarkable students and private lecturer in Göttingen fell in Flanders on November 16, 1917

We waited until the last few days before the exam to take the trip to Lake Constance. We needed a little more time for that, so we used Saturday and Sunday. We decided not to tell Husserl anything for the time being because it might worry the master that I was treating myself to something before the exam.

As we waited for the Höllentalbahn at the Wiehrebahnhof, we noticed the whole [Husserl] family on the platform. They got on the same train not far from us and traveled with us for a while, I think as far as Hinterzarten. It seemed to us that they wanted to see as little of us as we wanted to see of them. Gerhart was with them; he was only there on furlough for a few days, and we assumed that his parents wanted to be alone with their son.

After Edith was awarded the doctorate in philosophy with the summa cum laude honor, she boldly asked Husserl, on Kaiserbrücke (now Europabrücke), while they were walking back from the university, to become his assistant. He agreed wholeheartedly.

To be near her master, she moved to a room 200 meters away from Husserl's apartment, located at the corner house on Lorettostrasse and Goethestraße. Edith now spent her days in her master's apartment "translating" the mountain of approximately 30,000 notes written by Husserl in Gabelsberger's difficult-to-read shorthand. Many scholars wonder how much of this translation is original Husserl and how much is Stein.

Edith became increasingly frustrated with her work. In February 1918, she wrote, "Basically, it's the idea of being at the disposal of someone I can't stand. ... And if Husserl doesn't get used to treating me as a colleague again ... then we'll just have to part ways."

She left Freiburg and went to Göttingen. There, in 1919, she submitted her Habilitation thesis, Psychische Kausalität (Psychic Causality), which was unsuccessful. She also applied in Breslau and Freiburg with her philosophical treatise Potenz und Akt (Potency and Act). All attempts to be admitted to the Habilitation failed because she was a woman.

For a full account of Edith's Freiburg days and her future, you may wish to consult my blog, written in 2012.

Walter Benjamin (1892-1970)

Walter Benjamin began studying philosophy, the German language, literature, and art history at Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg in the summer semester of 1912. He studied philosophy under the neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert. He had a student dig at Kirchstraße 49.

In Freiburg, he became friends with the Expressionist poets Philipp Keller and Christoph Friedrich Heinle. 

On April 14, 1912, Walter Benjamin wrote a postcard with a picture of the university to his dear friend Herbert Blumenthal:

Dear Herby!

You will receive this card before "write soon." For I have not yet finished my "travel reading." I am carefully avoiding the specter of "overwork," which hangs like a storm cloud over my first semester. Sometimes, however, the gentle breeze of a stroll through the city on a glowing morning carries me to the university beach, whose beauty, towering above Berlin, allows only faint glimmers of light to shine through. The renewed sight of the magnificent picture overwhelms me. No, no, no, it's too beautiful. 

Auf Wiedersöhn

Mein Söhn! 

Walter Benjamöhn.

By "overwork," Walter meant being overwhelmed by his interest in so many things. He often allowed himself to be distracted. 

In the winter semester of 1912/13, Benjamin and Heinle continued their studies in Berlin. But in the summer semester of 1913, Benjamin returned to Freiburg to his poet friend Philipp Keller.

On April 20, 1913, Benjamin wrote a long letter to the same Herbert B:

Dear Herbert, I certainly should write to you. But what? I feel so incapable. The church square in front of my window features a tall poplar tree (the yellow sun shines through its green leaves), an old well in front of it, and sunny house walls. I stare at it for a quarter of an hour. Then – isn't that right? – I lie down on the sofa and pick up a volume of Goethe. When I come across a word like "Breite der Gottheit" (breadth of divinity), I am already beside myself again. You know: in "Groß ist die Diana der Epheser" – perhaps the most beautiful German poem title. Let Franz tell you what I wrote about my room. Keller said very nicely, "Here, one is always a visitor." This sunny spaciousness with solid saints on the walls. I sit in a small armchair and know of no better place for philosophy.

Walter's view.
Time stood still on Kirchplatz. I took the photo on Independence Day 2025.

On August 4, 1913, Benjamin wrote to Carla Seligsohn.

Dear Miss Seligsohn.

The semester is now over. I am here with my parents and siblings for a few days and will then travel with my mother to Tyrol until the beginning of September – perhaps we can visit Venice if the weather is bearable. Saying goodbye to Freiburg – to this semester – has ultimately been difficult for me, which I cannot say about any of the last few years. There was my window, which you know, with the poplar tree and the children playing, a window in front of which one feels mature and experienced when one has not yet achieved anything, dangerous, but so dear that I will live there again if I ever come back to Freiburg ...

He never came back to "his" Freiburg.

Benjamin often allowed himself to be discouraged in the pursuit of his goals, as was the case with his university career, his Habilitation.

Ultimately, he did not want to commit himself and decided to live as a private scholar, which his father only allowed him to do to a limited extent. Later, when his father's financial circumstances were shaken by inflation, Walter was no longer allowed to do it at all.

Benjamin was restless. He would suddenly abandon projects, then take them up again much later and eventually complete them brilliantly.

He was also restless in his love life. His charisma made it easy for him to make friends, including female friends. He came to know the leading intellectual minds of his time.

As a liberal intellectual and secular Jew, he went into exile in Paris in 1933 at the beginning of Nazi rule. With his escape, Benjamin's precarious financial situation deteriorated further. In the city's intellectual scene, he met many émigré German intellectuals, including Hannah Arendt, who soon became one of his financial supporters. He also received allowances from his ex-wife and his sister, as well as a modest monthly salary of US$80 from the Institute for Social Research, which had since relocated to New York and was headed by Max Horkheimer. Not just because of his often dire financial situation, Benjamin had suicidal thoughts throughout his life.

In two essays in 1986, Hannah Arendt recalled the special relationship between Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht: "Their friendship was unique because it brought together the greatest living German poet and the most important critic of the time. Although it was certainly tense, it was a friendship that was stronger than the differences in their backgrounds, working methods, and mentalities."

Benjamin was utterly depressed after his failed attempt to flee from the Nazi henchmen across the Spanish border to Portugal and then to the US. Brecht commented on his friend's tragic suicide on the night of September 26-27, 1940, at the Hotel Francia in Portbou, "This is the first real loss that Hitler has inflicted on German literature."

Friedrich Pollock (1894-1970)

Friedrich Pollock's traces in Freiburg are dim. 

Güntertalstraße 32

Friedrich Pollock was born on May 22, 1894, in Freiburg at Dreikönigstraße 13 as the son of Julius Pollock, an assimilated Jewish leather manufacturer. The "Villa Pollock" no longer exists today. It was not far from there to his grandparents, who lived at Günterstalstraße 32 and whom Friedrich visited frequently.

Four Stolpersteine lie on the pavement in front of the house: 

Dr. Hans Pollok (*1873) was a respected doctor in Freiburg. He, his wife Alice (*1881), and their sons Walter (*1904) and Heinz (*1908) were persecuted between 1934 and 1939 due to Nazi racial policies; the sons fled, and Alice eventually emigrated to the US.

Hans may have been a cousin of Friedrich, but no further details are known.

In 1910, the Julius Pollock family moved to Stuttgart. There, Friedrich received a commercial education. At the beginning of this period, he met Max Horkheimer, also the son of a factory owner from a Jewish family. The two sealed their lifelong friendship in 1911 with a written friendship agreement, the preamble of which stated:

"We consider our friendship to be our greatest asset. The concept of friendship includes its duration until death. Our actions shall be an expression of our friendship, and each of our principles shall take this into consideration first and foremost. Understood as an expression of critical human spirit, it shall serve to create solidarity among all people."

After the two wealthy factory owners' sons had completed commercial internships in several European countries, they went to Munich, where they obtained their high school diplomas as external students in 1919. They then studied from 1919 to 1922. Friedrich studied economics, sociology, and philosophy, while Max studied psychology, philosophy, and economics in Munich, Freiburg, and Frankfurt am Main. In Freiburg, they listened to Edmund Husserl and attended a seminar by Martin Heidegger together. They completed their studies in Frankfurt in 1922 and 1923, respectively, earning their doctorates.

Both married, but their friendship remained paramount.

A significant milestone in their lives was the founding of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt in 1923, with Max Horkheimer as its inaugural director. With the Nazis' rise to power, it was all over. Both emigrated to New York via Geneva and Paris in 1933. 

The institute found a new home in New York, but financial difficulties reduced it to just a few employees within a few years, with Pollock designated as its acting director.

In 1940, Pollock became a US citizen and now saw himself as German-American. He had excellent contacts in politics, co-founding the Research Bureau for Post-War Economics and serving as an advisor to the Boards of Economic Warfare and War Production, which were established by presidential decree. In this capacity, the politically active Eleanor Roosevelt invited him to a President's Dinner.

In 1950, he returned to Frankfurt to work at the Institute for Social Research, which had been reestablished in 1951. His friend Horkheimer had already returned to Frankfurt a year earlier.

In 1957, he moved with Max Horkheimer to Montagnola in Ticino. He died there on December 16, 1970, and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Bern, alongside his friend Max Horkheimer.

I thank our guide Ulrike Pohl for her excellent tour and making available Edith Stein’s and Walter Benjamin’s personal accounts of their stays in Freiburg.

From Paul to Saul

The eye-catching title is not provocative, but programmatic. I took it from Professor Markus Vinzent's new book*. For his lecture, he had chosen the more didactic title:
Paul, as we don't know him yet. 

*to be published on July 14 

  

Like Erasmus earlier, Professor Vinzent attempts to return ad fontes, to peel away all the layers that have grown up around the man from Tarsus. If we cannot reconstruct the historical Paul, let us at least try to read the spiritual Paul in his original texts.

In addition to many written finds (papyri), two significant collections of Paul's letters existed in the 2nd century. The collection in our New Testament comprises fourteen letters. An earlier collection counts only ten, where the concordant letters are substantially expanded in the canonical collection.

Deuteropauline letters are those attributed to Paul, but according to many scholars, were not written directly by him; instead, they were written by disciples or followers who wrote in his name and spirit. 

Pseudopauline letters are written by authors other than Paul.

The subtitle of Prof. Vinzent's lecture set the tone :

New insights into the oldest collection of Paul's letters as the basis for a liberating Christianity in our time.

A liberating Christianity in our time drew a spectacular crowd into the St. Gallus church hall at Kirchzarten, despite the high temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The discussion that followed Prof. Vinzent's lecture was intensive and prolonged.

Where do the older ten letters of Paul come from? The collector was Markion, who lived from about 80 to 160. He was a wealthy entrepreneur from northern Turkey and began teaching others in Rome in the mid-second century, sharing his understanding of what Christianity was. Markion called his collection the "New Testament," which included a first compendium about Jesus and the ten letters of Paul."

What we today call the New Testament was not written until the end of the second century and contains a most distant adaptation of Paul's letters, because Markion's collection is 50 years older and closer to the literary Paul. Logically, the four Gospels do not appear in Paul's "original" letters that may have had precursors.

In this ten-letter collection, Paul faces us as an ascetic with uncomfortable demands such as abstaining from wine or even sex in marriage. His mission is one of a social spirituality that leaves patriarchal, hierarchical, or colonial thinking behind.

Paul's name carried weight, but his positions did not fit into later times. His ten letters were greatly expanded, inflated, and embellished, and four new ones were invented - the pseudopauline forgeries. More importantly, new accents were set.

In the ten letters, women were in no way inferior to men. They preached, prophesied, and held leadership positions. In the fourteen canonical letters, things are exactly the opposite.*
*Corinthians 14: 34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. 35 And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

In Markion's letters, Paul is never homophobic. Homosexuality in Ancient Greece was common.

When Emperor Hadrian's young lover Antinoos drowned in mysterious circumstances in the Nile, Hadrian elevated him to godhood. Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, and Epiphanius considered not only the official deification of Antinoos to be pagan heresy, but also the love affair to be morally reprehensible. Tertullian publicly criticized Hadrian for elevating a "meat pudding" to heaven. Thus, homosexuality found its way into the fourteen letters as ethically repugnant.

There are no appeals for donations in the ten letters, but in the canonical edition.

In the ten letters, Paul does not travel, which seriously compromises his role as spreader of the Good News. Later authors corrected this in the fourteen letters.

Markion saw Christianity as a new movement, a parallel development to Judaism. He did not oppose the Jewish faith, but for Christians, the Torah does not apply. They have a new law. Christ redeems all people. Through his death, he has set all people free; however, in the canonical letters, Jesus is placed in line with the prophets and Moses.

After the Second Jewish War, the Roman emperor banished all Jews from Jerusalem. They were scattered to the four winds. The question arose: Who now owns the empty synagogues and abandoned houses? The Christians came and said, 'The Bible, the art, the houses, the fathers - all belong to us.' Continuing the tradition of Judaism, we are the legal successors of Israel. So Paul's letters had to be amended accordingly, and Markion, who made no claim to the inheritance of Israel, was increasingly ostracized.

The original Paul knew no hierarchy in which one person elevates himself above another. Although slavery was widespread in ancient times, there were no Christians who were slave owners.

But at that time, answers were needed on the subject. Prof. Vinzent said, "In our New Testament, slave service is considered a form of worship. And finally, Paul's concept of inheritance is also distorted, from spiritual to material greatness, from the kingdom of heaven to land ownership."

Prof. Vinzent concluded, "All those who refer to the letters of Paul will gain a much better understanding of what these texts are and how they came into being. And that the image [of Paul] we have is essentially a later construct. But that does not mean that the Church and faith are at an end. "

When Rudolf Bultmann scrutinized the Gospels in 1921 of their original Jesus statements regarding interpretations by the congregations as secondary, there was an outcry in the Protestant Church, as Luther's faith is based on the Word.

Bultmann's view that Paul was not interested in Jesus as a human being, i.e., in his earthly life, but only in the Christ of faith, is consistent with the statements in Paul's ten-letter collection.

Will there be a similar outcry with the publication of Professor Vinzenz's book?

Prof. Vinzent comments, "Today, AI is of immense value in data mining, i.e., the automatic evaluation of large amounts of text. My team and I have millions of texts and text fragments available on our computer, including Christian literature, as well as Greek, Latin, Syrian, and other languages. This enables detailed analysis of when, where, and how something was written and edited. We are in for some exciting times! Even the book about Paul will cause quite a stir in academia."

What remains? 

Red Baron thinks that old laws and regulations belong on the scrap heap of religions. The central message of the Gospel must be reformulated with each generation. This is the task of an enlightened Church in the 21st century.
*

Frederick the Great, a Misogynist?

Red Baron was inspired to write this blog by a television documentary about the great Frederick, in which he was portrayed as a misogynist.

There is no doubt that he was a glory-seeking war criminal, but did he hate women?

In the past, historians whispered that Frederick was probably gay, but today some of them openly say that he lived out his homosexual desires. Whatever.

As the heir to the Prussian throne, Frederick enjoyed a strict upbringing by the Soldier King, who sought to mold his son into a tough guy. Frederick complained, "Every day I am beaten, I am treated like a slave, and have not the slightest rest. I am forbidden to read, listen to music, study science, I am not allowed to talk to anyone, I am surrounded by guards."

One day, the aesthete Frederick could no longer bear his father's harshness and fled the Prussian court. But this was high treason, for which his friend Katte paid with his head in 1730, while the heir to the throne, stripped of all his titles and honors, was sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress.

My German reading friend might enjoy reading the full story here.

When Frederick William demanded that his son marry Elisabeth Christine of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern in 1732, he complied but complained that "every peasant must be happier than I am." He said he would "rather take the greatest whore in Berlin" for his wife.

With Frederick's consent to this dynastically important marriage, the father-son conflict was outwardly settled, and the son was rehabilitated as crown prince, but "I do not love the princess. On the contrary, I dislike her and our marriage will not be a good one."

Lieutenant Colonel Fritz, over whose head the sword had hovered not so long ago, was now once again a beloved son and became head of a regiment in Neuruppin with the name Cronprintz (crown prince).

In 1736, King Frederick William set up Rheinsberg Castle for the young couple. Here, the crown prince flourished, but without his wife: "I will leave her as soon as I am my own master."

Frederick holds his anti-Machiavelli up to the bust of Machiavelli.
Idealized engraving by Adolph Menzel.

In contrast, "My whole mind is focused on philosophy. It serves me well. I am happy because I am much calmer than before." He wrote his anti-Machiavell, "Examen du Prince de Machiavell, "Il principe [is] one of the most dangerous works ... that are spread on earth. Now, I believe that humanity is worth more than all the qualities of a conqueror."

After the death of the Soldier King, Frederick summarized his father's will in an idiosyncratic manner: "The first concern of a prince must be to assert himself, the second to enlarge himself," and quickly invaded Austria's granary, Silesia.

Baron Acton's dictum, "Power tends to corrupt," applies to Frederick in its most extreme form: "and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Maria Theresia

In his memoirs, Frederick writes, "I had quick-witted troops, a well-filled treasury, and a lively temperament: these were the reasons that led me to wage war against Theresa of Austria, Queen of Bohemia and Hungary ... Ambition, my advantage, and the desire to make a name for myself were the deciding factors, and war was declared."

Thus, in December 1740, the 28-year-old Frederick launched the first War of the Austrian Succession, also known as the Silesian War, against the even younger 23-year-old Maria Theresa, sending 28,000 Prussian soldiers to die on the fields of Silesia.

Before setting off, Frederick addressed his officers at the Berlin garrison: "I am embarking on a war, gentlemen, in which I have no allies other than your bravery and your goodwill. My cause is just, and I seek assistance from fortune... Medals and rewards await you to be earned through your brilliant deeds. Set out for your rendezvous with glory," i.e., Frederick's glory.

Tsarina Elisabeth

Actually, he waged the Silesian Wars against a triumfeminate consisting of Maria Theresa, the Tsarina of Russia, Elisabeth, and Madame de Pompadour of France.

Official chief mistress of King Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour

It was unthinkable to Frederick that women had a say at court. Frederick spoke less than gallantly of a "petticoat conspiracy". He referred to his female opponents as "the three arch whores of Europe", which was certainly not true of the young Maria Theresa.

Voltaire and Frederick in front of the Sans Souci Palace

After the Second Silesian War in 1749, Frederick wrote in a letter to Voltaire: "I am a friend of philosophy and verse" and distinguished between the statesman and the philosopher, "Let it be said that one can wage war of pure reason, be a statesman out of duty, and be a philosopher out of inclination.

In keeping with Louis XIV's thinking, he added: "It is the constant ambition of princes to enlarge themselves as far as their power allows."

In 1740, Frederick the Great sent his unloved wife Elisabeth Christine to live in a castle on the outskirts of Berlin, saying, "Settle down here, you can live nicely here."*

*in German, "Hier lass dich nieder, hier kannst du schön hausen" (You can reside well here). The witty Berliners referred to the residence as Schönhausen Palace.

During Frederick's absences during his wars, Elisabeth Christine held the fort in Berlin, hosting diplomatic receptions, balls, and dinners. For these activities, Frederick was grateful to his wife.

Although when Frederick returned to Berlin after years of absence, his only comment was, "Madame has become more corpulent."

It is obvious that Frederick did not love women but only hated them when they were his adversaries.

*

Kirche in Not

i.e., Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) dates back to 1947 when, after the Second World War, Premonstratensian Father Werenfried van Straaten called for reconciliation with the former enemy and organized aid in Belgium and the Netherlands for their German neighbors.

©Christinger/Wikipedia

Fourteen million displaced persons from the former German eastern territories poured into the four zones occupied by the Allied forces. There was too little shelter, food, and clothing, and Father Werenfried (nicknamed "Bacon Priest") and colleagues asked for material to help the Germans.

With his "Chapel Car Campaign," Father Werenfried provided spiritual support to the displaced persons, too. This Ostpriesterhilfe (Aid to Priests in the East) was launched in 1950.

Father Werenfried van Straaten preaching in front of a "chapel wagon." (©Mucci/Wikipedia)

In 1952, the organization began working to help persecuted Christians behind the Iron Curtain. Today, its focus is on pastoral assistance for persecuted, oppressed, and needy Christians around the world.

Every two years, ACN publishes an exhaustive report on the state of religious freedom. The report highlights cases of persecution and examines religious freedom as a whole, rather than limiting its analysis to Christian or Catholic communities.

The most recent report was published in 2023 and found that "persecution has increased since January 2021, while impunity continues to be the rule when it comes to attackers, including oppressive governments."


In 2025, the annual gathering of ACN took place in Rome. When a friend asked me if I wanted to join her, we had no idea that Pope Francis would die. On the morning of May 7, while we were on our flight from Frankfurt to the Holy City, a conclave convened in the Sistine Chapel.

Suddenly, the entire schedule of planned events was disrupted, especially since a visit to the site of the conclave was no longer possible.

When stepping out of our hotel in Rome, we had a magnificent view of St. Peter's Basilica.

As pilgrims, we wore a red scarf.

More than 1,300 people from around the world assembled for the welcome reception in the vast gardens of the Casa Generalizia del Passionisti (Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ) on the morning of May 8  and listened to several welcoming speeches, sermons, and prayers that were translated into another major language.

At the rostrum is a Cardinal, too old to vote in the conclave, flanked by ACN's Executive President, Regina Lynch.

         Was I dozing? (©RA)

These translations took their time, so the penitential procession was shortened.

We were on the grounds of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, so our procession passed Jesus in a grotto praying, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luc 22, 42-44)

©RA

The procession ended in front of tables laden with delicious food. 

Buses took us to the ACN International opening event at the venerable Lateran Basilica, where a celebratory Mass was scheduled for us, the pilgrims.

All spiritual leaders of the pilgrim groups from various countries concelebrated Mass in festive vestments. Among them was our bearded Father Hubka, who looked at Red Baron, the photographer, with some disapproval. 

The Mass ran overtime and was followed by prayers, testimonies, and a one-hour Adoration.

 

My friend and I took a taxi and headed for the famous Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti (Spanish Steps). 

©Caffè Greco

We ended up at the nearby Antico Caffè Greco, a historic café where famous literary figures, including Goethe, Lord Byron, and even Casanova, once enjoyed their coffee.

They want to keep the commonplace tourists out. We paid through the nose for the due espressi and the two miserable cupcakes.

 
On the way back, our taxi driver told us, "Habemus Papam."

 

As we got out in front of our hotel, St. Peter's Basilica seemed to shine with a very special glow.

The following morning, we waited at the Piazza Pia near the Castel Sant'Angelo.

With a pilgrim's staff and scarf. Did I see the heavens open? (Acts 7:56) (©RA).

We were Pilgrims of Hope

Starting the joint procession on the pilgrimage route to St. Peter's Square.

Our group was approaching while other pilgrims were already waiting for their entry.

They handed out to us pilgrims the L'Osservatore Romano, with Leo XIV on the title page. Read my blog about my encounter with the new Pontiff here.

Now it was our turn to pass through the Holy Gate into St. Peter's Basilica.

The view into the dome is breathtaking.

Could we say with Schiller, "Who counts the nations, spells the names, that piously (?) gathered here?" Well, it was sightseeing, and some Germans were there.

©RA

Jesus presents Pope Pius VIII while Peter and Paul watch.

©RA

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:19), but here St. Peter holds the one key to the Basilica.

©RA

The photo is blurred because La Pietà is protected by armoured glass.

On our way out, our group was guided through the basement of St. Peter's Basilica. We passed the tombs of several defunct popes and lingered for a moment at Pope Benedict XVI's gravestone.

 

In the entrance hall, the one who started it all. Constantine the Great is banned from the Basilica's interior. His lifestyle wasn't quite Catholic. Read more about the guy who gave us Christians the Apostolic Creed in German.

Passing again through the Holy Gate? Our attention was instead drawn to the gate's bronze relief.

Stay tuned to a blog on the Vatican Museum.

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A Black Hole Universe?

Somebody had to do it. In an innocently sounding paper, Enrique Gaztañaga and colleagues got rid of the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model, and seiner vermaledeiten Hilfsgrößen (its dammed auxiliary quantities), dark matter and dark energy.

The standard ΛCDM model describes the Big Bang hypothesis.

Remember: Red Baron blogged about two papers that either got rid of dark matter (MOND, MOdified Newtonian Dynamics) or did away with dark energy (Timescape).

In their paper, Enrique Gaztañaga and colleagues from the University of Portsmouth ask, "What if the Big Bang wasn't the beginning? What if our Universe had emerged from something else, something more familiar and yet radically different?"

"Our calculations suggest that the Big Bang was not the beginning of everything, but rather the result of a gravitational collapse that generated a massive black hole followed by a 'bounce' inside, which means that our Universe may have emerged from the interior of a black hole formed within a larger parent universe."

"Rather than the birth of the Universe being from nothing, it is the continuation of a cosmic cycle shaped by gravity, quantum mechanics, and the deep interconnections between them."

 
Professor Gaztañaga explains, "The Big Bang model begins with a point of infinite density where the laws of physics break down. This is a deep theoretical problem that suggests the beginning of the Universe is not fully understood."

"We've questioned that model and tackled questions from a different angle - by looking inward instead of outward. Instead of starting with an expanding Universe and asking how it began, we considered what happens when an overdensity of matter collapses under gravity."

"We've shown that gravitational collapse does not have to end in a singularity (as in the Big Bang) and found that a collapsing cloud of matter can reach a high-density state and then bounce, rebounding outward into a new expanding phase."

So the collapse of an earlier universe leads to the formation of a cloud of matter, but its energy density cannot go to infinity. Why is that so?

©Sabine Hossenfelder

When matter condenses, fermions follow the Pauli exclusion principle, meaning they cannot exist simultaneously in the same quantum state. Consequently, condensed matter resists further compression.

Professor Gaztañaga continues, "Crucially, this bounce occurs entirely within the framework of general relativity, combined with the basic principles of quantum mechanics. What emerges on the other side of the bounce is a Universe remarkably like our own. Even more surprisingly, the rebound naturally produces a phase of accelerated expansion driven not by a hypothetical field but by the physics of the bounce itself."

"We now have a fully worked-out solution that shows the bounce is not only possible - it's inevitable under the right conditions. One of the strengths of this model is that it makes predictions that can be thoroughly tested. And what's more, this new model has also revealed that the Universe is slightly curved, like the surface of the Earth."

This 'Black Hole Universe' presents a radically different view of cosmic origins, grounded entirely in known physics and observations.

The ARRAKIHS* ESA space mission may answer questions and test predictions of the new model.
*Wikipedia knows: The mission is named after a planet, Arrakis, from the science fiction novel Dune. The name is a backronym of "Analysis of Resolved Remnants of Accreted galaxies as a Key Instrument for Halo Surveys.

ARRAKIHS will detect ultra-low surface brightness structures in the outskirts of galaxies, regions where the fossil record of galaxy formation and dark matter assembly is preserved. Studying these faint features will reveal how galaxies grow and evolve. They may also hold clues to the nature of dark matter and the Universe's initial conditions, particularly if they differ from those predicted by the standard ΛCDM model.

Science remains exciting.

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