Little Rose

9

Ursula in a jeans suit seeing off Germany's first relief flight to Iran
in support of the people suffering the IS invasion (©AP)

When I saw the photo above in yesterday's press, I decided to write a blog about Röschen (little rose), not to be confused with Goethe's Röslein, that Little Rose on the Heath. Röschen is the nickname of our Minister of Defense, Ursula von der Leyen. 

She measures only 161 cm (5' 3''), ist klein aber oho (is small, but what a performance)! Ursula is the daughter of Ernst Albrecht, former governor of the state of Lower Saxony. She was raised in a family of seven siblings in Brussels and Lehrte near Hannover, and she decided not to opt for less. She is a mother of seven children, too. 

From the grandstand in the Bundestag (House of Parliament):
Seven children and a husband observing Ursula taking the oath of office as Minister of Defense (©dpa)

She became a medical doctor and spent four years at Stanford University, where her husband, a physician too, was a faculty member from 1992 to 1996. No wonder she speaks English and French fluently in addition to German.

She only joined the Christian Democrats (CDU) in 1990 and, in 2003, became Minister of Social Affairs, Women, Family, and Health in the state of Lower Saxony.

In 2005, Chancellor Angela Merkel made Ursula Federal Minister of Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth. Elected into the Bundestag (Federal Parliament) in 2009, she became Labor and Social Affairs Minister. Following Ursula's re-election in 2013, Merkel made her Minister of Defense. What a career!

Ursula on a visit to the German ISAF troops in Afghanistan.
Feeling well among her boys and sometimes girls (©Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

When Ursula took over her new function, many a soldier feared that he/she had to style his/her hair as the boss, vokuhila (vorne kurz, hinten lang = short in front, long in the back). In the meantime, she did a good job. Today, rumors have it that some soldiers even pinned up Ursula's photo.

©Found on Twitter

Is she interested in becoming Angela's successor? Here is a quick comparison:

	Angela Merkel	Ursula von der Leyen
Age	60	54
Religion	Protestant	Catholic
Education	Doctor in Physics	Doctor in Medicine
Family Status	Divorced and remarried	Married
Husband	Professor of Physics	Professor of Medicine
Children	0	7
Languages	German, Russian, English	German, French, English

**

The First Georgians

Entrance to the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace

Before serious work started at Wikimania 2014, I visited two special exhibitions in London. One at the Queen's Gallery was titled:

commemorating the 300th anniversary of the accession of George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, to the English throne, establishing the House of Hanover. 

George's position as Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire made the situation politically delicate. When, in 1692, Emperor Leopold I conferred the dignity of a ninth elector on the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg, it included the honorary title of Archbannerbearer of the Holy Roman Empire. Imagine the English King voting for the German Kaiser.

The exhibition had nice pictures but was short on historical facts. Here are some details:

Queen Ann

When Queen Ann died in 1714, her more direct heir to the throne was the Catholic James Stuart. Already on his father's death in 1701, James had declared himself king, as King James III of England and VIII of Scotland, and had been recognized as such by France, Spain, the Papal States, and Modena*.
*Texts in italic are from Wikipedia

Sophia of Hanover, presumptive heiress to the English crown

In the same year, the English Parliament, fed up with the Catholics, laid down rules of succession in the Act of Settlement: No Catholic should access the English throne. The crowns were to settle upon the nearest relation of Queen Ann, "the most excellent princess Sophia, electress and duchess-dowager of Hanover," and "the heirs of her body, being Protestant."

George I

James, deprived of his titles, tried to invade the British Isles in 1708, but the admiral of the French fleet, fearing a battle with the British, refused to let James go ashore. The fight between the Stuarts and the Hanoverians continued when, in 1710, Sophia's son George announced that he would succeed in Britain by hereditary right, as the right had only been removed from the Catholic Stuarts. He retained it in 1714, when Queen Ann and his mother, Sophia, died that same year.

Two major Jacobite Risings launched in 1715 and 1745 failed to remove the House of Hanover from the British throne. Therefore, the next room showed boring sketches and drawings of the battles the Georges fought against the Scots.

George II as Prince of Wales

Other Georges followed the first, resulting in Parliament acquiring more rights throughout the 18th century, moving England toward becoming the motherland of democracy.

Showing the Georgian Dynasty:
 This Plate is Dedicated to all true Britons, Lovers of Liberty, and the present Succession.

Another room was devoted to engravings by William Hogarth, the 18th-century English moralist. My favorite physics colleague, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, frequently traveled from Göttingen (in the Kingdom of Hanover) to London. 

Being devoted to his one king, George III, Lichtenberg admired the cosmopolitan English way of Life. As an Anglophile, he also admired Hogarth's genius and described his engravings to his German compatriots not only as detailed but, as my former boss used to say, he rubbed the message in.

Here are two of Hogarth's engravings describing the virtue of beer and the devastating effects of gin (The engravings are found in Wikipedia):

Beer Street

Beer, happy Produce of our Isle

Can sinewy Strength impart,

And wearied with Fatigue and Toil

Can cheer each manly Heart.

Labour and Art upheld by Thee

Successfully advance,

We quaff Thy balmy Juice with Glee

And Water leave to France.

Genius of Health, thy grateful Taste

Rivals the Cup of Jove,

And warms each English generous Breast

With Liberty and Love!

Gin Lane

Gin, cursed Fiend, with Fury fraught,
Makes human Race a Prey.
It enters by a deadly Draught
And steals our Life away.

Virtue and Truth, driv'n to Despair
Its Rage compells to fly,
But cherishes with hellish Care
Theft, Murder, Perjury.

Damned Cup! that on the Vitals preys
That liquid Fire contains,
Which Madness to the heart conveys,
And rolls it thro' the Veins.

**

What a Wonderful Crowd

Announcing Jimmy Wales, the man who started it all (©Wikipedia)

As I announced last week in March, Red Baron attended Wikimania 2014, the 10th world meeting of the Wikipedia Community in London. My readers know I am an active author and editor in Wikipedia Deutschland, although the number of my "edits" has decreased with time. 

The main reason is our relatively active local scene - we meet monthly for a Stammtisch - so over the recent years, my peers and I have written and thoroughly edited many missing articles about Freiburg's people, buildings, and history.

The decline in the number of active contributors to Wikipedia is felt worldwide. Therefore, the Wikipedia Foundation is making significant efforts to "recruit" new authors. Before I dig into this topic further, let me briefly mention other subjects discussed in London.

Free Access to Information

Jimmy presenting the state of the Wiki (©Wikipedia)

In his opening speech, Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, congratulated the Community, i.e., us, the contributors, for building the most excellent encyclopedia the world has ever seen. Everybody should have free access to all knowledge everywhere.

More than 2000 crammed into the Barbican Auditorium.
Red Baron knows where he sits (A hint: Look for ample legroom) (©Wikipedia)

Thus, by providing substantial human and financial resources, the Wikipedia Foundation is helping developing countries write their online encyclopedias. Here, Wikipedia's idea of making all information available to everyone is seen in the context of education.

Education, yes, but not like this (©Wikipedia)

In South Africa, pupils and students can now access Wikipedia on their cell phones (everyone seems to own one) for free. The project, called Wikipedia Zero, will be extended to other developing countries.

Copyright

(©Wikipedia)

(©Wikipedia?)

Wikipedia's call for open access to all information is permanent. One of the biggest problems is copyright, e.g., with pictures.

As an "illustration, " an ape's by-now-famous selfie was the running gag at the conference. A curious female macaque had snatched the camera of a wildlife photographer. The camera found later was loaded with several weird photos the ape had shot. One of the pictures was a selfie that a Wikipedia author later used to illustrate an article, prompting the photographer to request royalties for "his?" picture. Even the Badische Zeitung ran a column about the story.

Wikidata

A big topic discussed at the conference was Wikidata. The system of storing and, particularly, finding pictures in Wikipedia could be more convenient. The photos are stored in a Commons database, organized into categories (or sometimes not), from which they can be drawn to illustrate articles. 

When I need a picture, I upload a photo I took myself to Commons (hopefully into the correct category) and then place it in my article. Some community members prefer to shoot perfect photos rather than write articles. However, finding excellent photos in Commons can be difficult for me and others, particularly if they are labeled only in a language like Danish or Greek, or uploaded without a description.

Here, Wikidata should help by focusing on structured data called items, which can be abstract concepts like love and hate or concrete objects like a kitchen or a broom. Each item has a unique identifier across all Wikipedias and a page where all item data is collected.

For a demonstration of Wikidata, you can go to https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page.
Search for the item Edison by typing the name into the search field. A list will open. There, you chose Thomas Alva Edison (identifier Q8743), and his page of collected data will open. When you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see all the Wikipedias that have an article about the inventor.

You may be disappointed. Wikidata is a database, not an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Data extraction from existing sources is mainly handled by bots. These robots are small computer programs that search for specific information about items across various sources. Although they will not err in their search, the information they find may be inconsistent, wrong, or incomplete. 

Here is where human intelligence must come in. The Community is asked to correct and complete the data. You see fields on the page for this, and you may be tempted to use them. But didn't you read somewhere that Thomas Alva Edison was a Freemason?

Red Baron in a red polo shirt (what else?) in the back, trying to keep his mouth shut
 in a discussion on Commons and Wikidata (©Sebastian)

As one speaker said, "Wikidata is only at its beginning; it is fascinating, unpredictable, and full of unexplored potential."

New Authors

You will encounter a couple of hurdles when you want to join the Community and contribute to the open encyclopedia. Creating or editing articles on Wikipedia is not straightforward. Presently, you will compose your article in Wikitext, a typing platform that contains elements of HTML. As a beginner, you sometimes learn the hard way, but hopefully you will learn by doing, as Red Baron did.

One way to overcome the entrance hurdle is to introduce a Wikipedia Visual Editor. Although this looks promising, its implementation could be improved because people use different platforms. Experienced Wikipedia writers use only Wikitext; others even hate the Visual Editor because, in their opinion, it compromises the fine-tuning of articles.

Another way to attract new people into the Community is to address their gaming instinct. Newbies should consider creating articles as a game and editing as fun. Over time, they encounter experienced colleagues and receive medals for their participation in Wikipedia.

Give 'em medals (©Wikipedia)

For me, the most promising approach to attracting new authors is the automated creation of stub articles containing minimal information, using bots. Let me explain: a bot will go through lists of all villages, including the smallest hamlets, and place formatted stub articles on Wikipedia for those uncovered places. People frustrated that their place of living does not yet have an article on Wikipedia can now sit down and add the missing information to the existing stub article.

Conclusions

In closing Wikimania 2014, Jim Wales honored some people, especially the organizers, for a job well done.

Wikipedian of the year is Ihor Kostenko, a Ukrainian student who was shot in the head at Maidan Square in Kyiv. He has written 280 articles for Ukrainian Wikipedia.

(©Wikipedia)

Red Baron, swimming in a sea of Wiki freaks, learned fascinating new things at Wikimania 2014. I had a good life in London with the Community. What a wonderful crowd!

... and my morning delight

**

Saltz's Donut Philosophy

Two weeks ago, Jerry Saltz, an art critic from New York, posted his donut philosophy on Facebook. By chance, I came across the photo of his whiteboard:

©Jerry Saltz

Once he had published the photo on Facebook, a storm of comments and new definitions broke loose. Here is an incomplete list of the additional definitions, in the order they came in. I only made minor edits to standardize the contributions.

Generally, I do not like to write blogs using others' work exclusively; however, most of the attributions are just too hilarious not to share. Nevertheless, two of them I contributed to myself. Enjoy!

Martin Heidegger: The donut leaves crumbs.

Martin Heidegger: Future donuts cannot maintain their utility in our minds and are therefore the sum of their holes.

Erwin Schrödinger: Until the box is opened, the donuts inside are simultaneously glazed and plain.

Karl Marx: The donut is a device to extract labor out of workers (value) for the possibility of extracting profit for the owner (class)

Basho (Zen philosopher) topped this: A flute with no holes, is not a flute with: A donut with no hole, is a Danish.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Ich bin ein Berliner, not a donut.

René Magritte: This is not a donut.

Adam Smith: The market decides what the donut is.

Hamlet: To eat the donut, or not eat — that is the question.

Andy Warhol: I'm afraid that if you look at a donut long enough, it loses all of its meaning.

Immanuel Kant: Kant eat a donut. (missing comma?)

Richard III: My kingdom for a donut!!!

Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Plein glazed is natural.

René Descartes: I think, therefore, I am...eating donuts!

Machiavelli: Donuts justify coffee.

Lao Tzu: The hole makes the donut.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Donuts are a superfood for the overman.

Bill Clinton: I did not eat that donut.

Jesus: Forgive these donuts; they donut know what they are doing.

Stephen Hawking: A donut with a black hole will eat itself.

Socrates: The unexamined donut is not worth eating.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Whereof one donut speak, one must be silent.

Marie-Antoinette: Ils veulent du pain? Qu'ils mangent des donuts.

Plutarch: Which came first, the donut or the hole?

Karl Marx: On the Jewish Donut/Bagel Question.

Ferdinand Lassalle criticizing the Gotha Program: Donuts from each according to their ability; donuts to each according to their need.

Samuel Beckett: I must eat the donut... I can't eat the donut... (pause) I'll eat the donut.

William Shakespeare: The quality of donuts is not strained.

Seneca: I don't need donuts.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The world donut is gradually becoming self-aware.

Martin Heidegger: The donuting donut.

Michel Foucault: The donut is a source of power.

Sigmund Freud: You will never fill the hole.

Carl Gustav Jung: Every body is born understanding donuts.

Milton Friedman: Without trust, it's worth donut.

Levi-Strauss: The donut brings fatness to the community. 

**

Germanization of the US?

The guy is named ET, sorry, Eric T. Hansen, and writes for the German weekly Die Zeit. According to Eric, the T. stands for Terrific; this is how he feels and writes. 

From March 2009 to July 2013, you only found an article about Terrific Eric in German Wikipedia, but not in the English version. You learn that he has studied in Germany and written several books in German. Both books and articles are based on solid research but are characterized by satire and absurdities. He is exceptionally provocative when he holds up the mirror to the Germans.

Presently the European Union and the States are working on a trade agreement called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). There is a lot of fear in Germany that we will become Americanized by eating chicken imported from the States treated with chlorine instead of European bio (organic) poultry full of salmonella.

Eric, however, fears that TTIP will result in just the opposite: he advocates the Germanization of the States when he writes in German: We Americans buy any shit of European origin, whereas Germany is the most challenging market in the world for foreign products. 

Let me ask here what Eric would call the goods the Americans import from China. Even a baseball cap I bought in the States the other day was labeled Made in China.

Eric keeps on moaning that there are less than 2000 hamburger restaurants in Germany (McDonald's and Burger King combined), but there are 3500 China restaurants and 12,000 döner places. KFC only has 120 chain stores. Following massive investments in the 1980ies, Wendy's even withdrew from the German market.

In Freiburg, the downtown Burger King restaurant threw in the towel on November 30, 2013. Will the Döner now invade the States?

No Whoppers anymore but lots of döner shops
 in Freiburg's Bermuda Triangle near the university(©BZ)

Well, fast food may not be the best parameter to use when describing mutual commercial interactions. Eric notes with some bitterness that America's most prominent publisher Radom House now belongs to the Bertelsmann Group. 

Is this so terrible, considering that the German Gutenberg invented movable type printing? Does Eric remember the 1970ies when the Japanese bought real estate and firms in the States with their accumulated dollars? And why does he not criticize the Chinese who use their surplus dollars to invest them in the States rather than selling all their greenbacks on the money market, thus devaluating the anchor currency?

At the end of his article, Eric states that America is a domestic market with only ten percent of its national output based on export. In contrast, Germany, with a small domestic market, necessarily is an exporting country where the relevant figure is thirty percent.

I just read an article that ice sandwiches made in Berlin according to an old US recipe are the latest hit in our capital:

©Die Zeit

*

Brassica oleracea var. sabellica L.

Summer is not the right season to write about Brassica oleracea var. sabellica L., vulgo kale or borecole in English, and Grünkohl (green cabbage) or sometimes Braunkohl in German. We call Grünkohl Wintergemüse (winter vegetable), so on my last two visits to the States, I was astonished to find kale in restaurants as a preferred salad ingredient.

Boerenkool by ©Rasbak (Wikipedia)

Why do I mention it? Today, Alexander Hofmann wrote in the Badische Zeitung about Grünkohl down under. Kale, as a superfood, has now conquered the younger generation in Australia. There are kale smoothies, kale chips, and kale in pancakes. There is intense competition for kale leaves between the young people down under and those Australian rabbits, so prices are soaring.

Why is this kind of cabbage so popular? We read on Wikipedia that Kale is very high in beta-carotene, vitamin K, and vitamin C, and is rich in calcium. Kale is a source of two carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin. As with broccoli and other brassicas, kale contains sulforaphane (particularly when chopped or minced), a chemical with potent anti-cancer properties.

The origins of the two English words kale and borecole are quite interesting. Kale comes from the Scandinavian kål and the German Kohl (cabbage), whereas borecole originates from the Dutch boerenkool and the Lower German Burenkohl (farmer's cabbage).

Kale is most prevalent in north-western Germany around Bremen, Oldenburg, and Hannover. Following the first night of freezing temperatures* the kale leaves are harvested, cooked, and stewed. The stew is served with Bratkartoffeln (roasted potatoes), Kassler (smoked pork chop), Mettwurst (sausage), or Pinkel (groats sausage).
*It is said that kale needs some frost to "sweeten" its somewhat bitter taste

Red Baron loves kale, which, unfortunately, is not widely known in southern Germany. I am tempted to take the train north for an authentic, hearty meal of stewed kale every winter.

Not enough kale but too much meat ©Wittkowsky (Wikipedia)

The picture was taken from Wikipedia, although it gives a wrong impression: Red Baron prefers his dish with lots of kale, a few roasted potatoes, and just one sausage.

Is there some hope that, following the example of the Australians, my country fellows living below the Weißwurstäquator (the Main river) will eventually discover the virtues of kale?

**

Wagenburgler News

Wagenburglers are people who have decided to live in caravans, old buses, and trailers. It is the characteristic of the Freiburg scene that they do not move around but instead like to permanently occupy sites within the city boundary parking their "wheel estates." From July until September 2011, Red Baron wrote five blogs about Freiburg's Wagenburglers introducing those who occupied the entrance to Freiburg's green suburb Vauban at that time. I described their protests against an ultimatum the city had set to clear the site, the dramatic cleaning operation by the police, the sequels of their eviction, and their last gasps.

Although one of my blogs was titled Wagenburglers' End, when the police had eventually cleaned an illegally occupied site, it was clear that those who had been driven out would be looking for other plots of land to place their mobile homes.

Freiburg presently has three sites for Wagenburlers, which are called Biohum, Eselwinkel, and Schattenparkerplatz, totaling 96 positions. They are all occupied. Private and official efforts to find additional permanent space for a group of 14 Wagenburglers called Sand im Getriebe (sand in the transmission) were unsuccessful. Between July 2013 and the beginning of April 2014, their vehicles had been tolerated on a plot belonging to the Pädagogische Hochschule (PH or university for forming school teachers).

March 2014: Sand im Getriebe at the PH premises

However, with spring approaching, the agreement with the director of the PH came to terms. So the Wagenburglers found themselves not on the road but on the city streets again. Although they moved around quite a bit, occasionally, they illegally occupied parking spaces along public streets for more than 24 hours. Eventually, on April 14, the police sent towing services and confiscated the Sand im Getriebe vehicles. The city authorities may withhold them for periods of up to six months.

April 14: Confiscating Sand im Getriebe's vehicles

On July 24, Mayor Dieter Salomon offered Sand im Getriebe a plot of land near the Schattenparkerplatz, but they considered 400 square meters too small for their gear. Red Baron also regards a plot of 20 meters times 20 meters as marginal to squeeze in a good dozen vehicles. Did Sand im Getriebe feel aggressed by the Mayor's offer?

It still came as a surprise when, on the morning of July 26, and without any warning, 150 persons occupied the site in Freiburg's suburb Hochdorf where the city had stored eleven of the confiscated vehicles belonging to Sand im Getriebe. The occupants declared their solidarity with their brothers in wheels and protested against, what they called,  the illegal confiscation of April 14. The city considered the occupation of the Hochdorf site as trespassing and compulsion and called in the police. They cleared the place in the late evening. Ninety people involved in the occupation will face court action.

July 26: Occupation of the Hochdorf site and banners with mixed language:
Living in trailers is not a crime; stealing our vehicles is.

July 26: Asking for more space for vehicles everywhere.

Yesterday on July 27, a couple of Wagenburglers went downtown, occupying the Rathaus square with their vehicles for a few hours, accusing the Freiburg authorities of a gezielte Hetze (incited propaganda) against alternative forms of living.

July 27: In front of the Rathaus: We are asking for a dialogue on equal terms.
Space for Wagenburglers is congenial to Freiburg.
All photos are ©Badische Zeitung

Freiburg is back to square one with its Wagenburglers.

*

Federalism and Trans-boundary Regions

For Europe, the 19th and early 20th centuries were a period of defining national identities. Nationalism was particularly virulent in the Balkans, called Europe's gunpowder barrel, leading on June 28, 1914, to the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne in Sarajevo. This spark not only ignited the Balkans but also led to Europe's Urkatastrophe (seminal catastrophe).

Europe eventually learned the lesson after the Second World War. Alcide De Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer, and Robert Schuman were the architects of a European Community based on a common cultural and economic heritage. A good symbol is the Karlspreis, a medal named after Europe's founder, Charlemagne, and awarded in Aachen to individuals for their efforts in support of European unification. Over the years, the European Union has incorporated more and more countries, which are represented in the European Parliament. Today, the old borders still exist, but border checks are performed only at the so-called external frontiers with the European Union.

As European unification progresses, people nevertheless want to retain their identities. They love their village, their town, their region, and their local dialect. Take the case of Bavaria, a mature historical region* that is a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. Hamburg has a rich history and is proud to be a state in Germany, too. Baden-Württemberg, by contrast, initially had some difficulty finding its identity.
*This is true if one only considers the time after the Westphalian Peace Treaty that resettled the territorial map of Europe. Catholic Old Bavaria acquired the two Protestant Palatinates, the upper part of which is also called Franconia. A movement would like to create a new federal state of the same name.

Germany is lucky to have a naturally evolved federal structure reflected in its state boundaries. Other European countries have historical regions, too, such as Scotland and Wales in the UK, Alsace and Brittany in France, Catalonia and the Basque region in Spain, but these countries have strong centralized governments. 

In the European Union, there is a tendency to build regions that sometimes cross old national borders, as in the case of the Basque people.

Following the Hundred Years' War, the French kings stripped the local dukes of their power and centralized government in Paris. The city remains the hub of all activity in France. The other day, Red Baron probed the train connection from Karlsruhe to Lille in case he had missed the bus at Karlsruhe station. The classical solution offered by the Deutsche Bahn Navigator was to take the Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV Est) from Karlsruhe to Paris and then the TGV Nord from Paris to Lille. When I forced the application to show the more direct connection, Karlsruhe - Luxembourg - Lille, I only saved money, not travel time.

France had begun decentralizing its administration as early as 1955, creating 22 regions on the mainland, but regional parliaments were not formed until 1982, with limited competence.

The "classical" 22 regions in France (©Plavius, Wikipedia)

However, it turned out that even with these 22 regions, administrative expenses were still too high. Recently, the National Assembly passed a law reducing the number of regions from 22 to 14. The fact that the culturally homogeneous Alsace was put together with Lorraine already met with strong resistance among the Alsatians. Still, in the latest proposal, the new region should incorporate Champagne as well. Will the beer- and wine-drinking Alsace welcome Champagne?

In the meantime, the European Union patronizes transboundary cooperation based on historical structures. A typical example is the Trinational Metropolitan Region on the Upper Rhine.

The people on both sides of the river have never regarded the Rhine as a boundary but a waterway used conjointly. For centuries, speaking the same Alemannic dialect, they had been related by a common economic and cultural heritage until, starting in the 17th century, governments thought otherwise.

Matthaeus Merian's map of the upper Rhine region, dated 1658

Map of the Trinational Metropolitan Region on the Upper Rhine
turned by ninety degrees for easy comparison with the historical map above.

May the French eventually create their regional structure. At present, European ambitions are greater.

**

Schiller's Genius

My readers know that Red Baron is a member of Freiburg's Museumsgesellschaft. Once a year, the society organizes the Museumsreise, a three-day excursion. My blog about our trip to southern Burgundy in 2012 still ranks second among my blogs by all-time visits.

Thirty members traveled to Interlaken, Switzerland, this year to attend the local Tellspiele. The play is based on Friedrich Schiller's drama Wilhelm Tell (William Tell) and is performed outdoors. Schiller, the poet of freedom, wrote the ultimate play about the formation of the Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft (Swiss Confederation) born out of the fight for independence against the Habsburg rule: Wir wollen frei sein, wie die Väter waren (We want to be free as our fathers were).

Wilhelm Tell, initially uninterested in the struggle for freedom, became the symbol of Swiss resistance once Governor Gessler threatened his family's physical integrity by forcing him to shoot an apple from his son's head with his crossbow. Tell even assassinated Gessler, thus liberating his countrymen/women from the Habsburg yoke.

In the beginning: Rural idyll.

Forced labor: Building the stronghold for Governor Gessler.

Oath on the Rütli: We want to be a single folk of brothers.

Tell's arrest: He had refused to greet Gessler's hat, which is visible on the pole.
Governor Gessler, with a yellow cape, on horseback.

On the left: The apple on Walter's head.
On the right: Usher is watching Tell, taking aim
further on the right at a distance of 80 steps.

The French Revolution greatly influenced Schiller's ideas about freedom and even more so the American Declaration of Independence. While in France, the third estate had settled the score with nobility and clergy, guillotining them by the hundreds. Schiller deliberately, but somewhat artificially, included the clergy in the struggle for freedom. In Schiller's idealist view, all the Swiss eventually stand united.

Our group was lucky to have an expert in our ranks, who, in a lecture, carved out Schiller's genius as Germany's poet and a playwright of freedom. In fact, in the 19th century, Schiller was more popular than Goethe among Germany's Bildungsbürgern (educated citizens). No wonder that in the 20th century, right and left-wing governments tried to embrace Schiller's genius.

Corrupted in the Third Reich: Schiller as Hitler's comrade in arms.
Not for long. Hitler ordered a ban on William Tell on June 3, 1941,
when he sensed the spectators' reactions to
the tyrannicide during a performance at Vienna's Burgtheater.

Abused in the GDR: He belongs to us: Schiller, the poet of freedom.

Schiller was so famous that many a proverb in today's language is a citation from Schiller's ballads and plays. Here are just a few:

Karl Mohr in Die Räuber (The Robbers) V,2: Dem Mann kann geholfen werden (This man can be helped).

Questenberg in Die Piccolomini (The Piccolomini) I,2: Was ist der langen Rede kurzer Sinn? (Is there any sense in this long sermon?)

Wrangel in Wallensteins Tod (Wallenstein's Death), I, 5: Ich hab' hier bloß ein Amt und keine Meinung (Here I have only a task and no opinion).

Pappenheim in Wallensteins Tod (Wallenstein's Death) III,15: Daran erkenn' ich meine Pappenheimer (By this, I recognize my Pappenheimers [his soldiers]).

Talbot in Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans) III,6: Mit Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens (With stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain).

Most of the most popular quotations are, however, taken from Wilhelm Tell:

Gertrud in I,2: Der kluge Mann baut vor (A wise man plans ahead).

Tell in I,3: Der Starke ist am mächtigsten allein (A strong man is most powerful alone).

Attinghausen in II,1: Ans Vaterland, ans teure, schließ dich an (Attach yourself to your dear fatherland).

Tell in III,1: Die Axt im Haus erspart den Zimmermann (An ax in the house saves the carpenter).

Tell in IV, 3: Auf diese Bank von Stein will ich mich setzen (I want to sit down on this bench of stone).

Tell in IV, 3: Mach deine Rechnung mit dem Himmel, Vogt (Settle your account with heaven, governor).

Red Baron, in particular, admires Schiller for his work as a historian. Today, students still profit from reading his book, The History of the Thirty Years' War. Schiller's thorough research on this first of Europe's many tragedies enabled him to write his epic drama trilogy, Wallenstein.

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Council of Constance

In 2010 I told you about Feierabend, a grouping of elderly people interested in computer activities that generally meets on the second Saturday of each month for a coffee morning. Some members are even more active in arranging excursions, bicycle tours, and museum or exhibition visits.

Last Friday, I joined eighteen members of Feierabend to go by bus from Freiburg to Constance. We were scheduled to visit the exhibition commemorating the Church Council of Constance that opened six hundred years ago on November 4 in the small city on the Lake* and closed four years later, ending the Western Schism.
*sometimes affectionately called the Swabian Sea

Since the authorization of scheduled long-distance bus services in Germany, many companies offer connections between cities, particularly those poorly served by train service. To travel by train from Freiburg to Munich will take - in going to Mannheim first and changing trains - 4 hours and 30 minutes for a minimum of 75 euros in second class. The long-distance bus (several companies are operating from Freiburg) will take you to Munich in 4 hours and 45 minutes for just 14 euros.

In Constance's case, bus transport is way ahead in all respects. It will take two and a half hours from Freiburg to Constance, with two train changes, and the fare is 47 euros. The direct bus with one stop at Singen covers the distance between the two cities in a mere one hour and 45 minutes and will cost between 8 and 11 euros.

In the present gold rush mood, there is fierce competition among bus companies serving Freiburg. Actually, experts are waiting for the first carrier to throw the towel due to the low fares.

The bus ride to Constance was on schedule and smooth. Our group arrived in a small but beautiful city compared to other German cities. It is nicely situated, as Dietrich von Nieheim, attending the Church Council, wrote in 1414.

Artist's impression: Constance 1414:  The warehouse at the bottom left was used for the conclave in 1417 when the cardinals elected Pope Martin V. The building now is wrongly called Konzilshaus and located one hundred meters inland. The negotiations took place in the Münster church (in the center), other churches, and the Dominican monastery (building on the island, right). 

The Council of Constance was a world conference. It is still a mystery how a city of 6000 inhabitants could house the 50,000 participants and furnish enough flaisch, visch, höw und haber (meat, fish, hay, and oats) to satisfy the needs of men and horses. And for further needs there were offene Frauen in den Frauenhäusern und sonst Frauen, die Häuser gemiethet hatten, und in den Ställen lagen oder sonst wo Platz fanden, seien gegen 700 da gewesen, ohne die heimlichen ("open" women in brothels and other women who had rented houses and lay in the stables or found space elsewhere, there were about 700 not counting the illegally present).

The Council under the spell of Imperia
(Statue at the entrance of Constance harbor)(©Fn78 Wikipedia)

The Council had to solve three enormous tasks. Get rid of three popes, thus regaining the unity of the Church (causa unionis), undertake necessary internal root-and-branch reforms (causa reformationis) urgently, and deal with fundamental questions of faith (causa fidei).

Three popes at a Constance fountain. Who carries the best-polished tiara?
(©Anmargi Feierabend)

The Council solved the first task of dethroning three popes and electing Martin V. as their one and only pope. Although the German King Sigismund was pressing the assembly for reforms, the causa reformationis was not even touched upon, which led Luther to break with the Church one hundred years later.

Burning Hus alive at the stake on July 6, 1415

Johann Hus, who had come from Prague to discuss the causa fidei, was not even listened to but burned alive at the stake as a heretic, a fact that caused political unrest in Bohemia and led to the Hussite Wars. You may like to read more about the Council of Constance in German or English.

As the outcome of the Council, the exhibition in Constance was unsatisfying. The first part was just a collection of 15th-century church treasures from across Europe, with explanations too small to read. The second part was better at guiding the visitor through the Council's timeline, with columns representing milestones that displayed dates and documents.

A Luther citation closes the exhibition: In Constance, they roasted a goose (Hus means goose in Czech), but one hundred years from now, they will listen to a swan singing, where Brother Martin clearly meant himself.

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