Ite missa est

Poster at the entrance to Freiburg's Münster Church

The last of the Pope's stops during his official and pastoral visit to Germany was Freiburg, and already now, the opinion about this event is divided, divided as Germany is in its faith. Yet, in the country of Reformation, the main dividing line nowadays runs no longer between Catholics and Lutherans - although still painfully separated - but between Christians and Atheists. Forty years of the communist regime in the East and sixty years of capitalism in the West caused those who still believe in Jesus Christ to be a minority in Germany, ranging from thirty to three percent according to the region.

This is why the Pontiff underlined in his sometimes highly intellectual homilies that all Christians must stand together, for they all share the common belief in Jesus Christ. In this spirit, he recognized Luther as a man who struggled his whole life to seek his personal God. In all logic, the Pope continued: The real crisis of the Church in the Western world is a crisis of belief and not a structural one. However, when the structure collapses due to the lack of priests, who will put out the lambs running astray to the pasture? 

The Pope gave neither a practical hint on how to solve the shortage of priests nor did he allow intercommunion, which is particularly distressing in a country of so many mixed marriages. 

The discordia between Catholics and Protestants about the Eucharist is as old as 1529, when, during the Marburg religious conversations, theologians already discovered that concerning the mystery of the bread and wine > body and blood of Christ, neither the word est nor significat can be found in the New Testament.

©Der Sonntag, Freiburg

The Pope greeted the Freiburgers in front of the Münster Church. In the back: Lord Mayor Dieter Salomon (Green), the Ministerpräsident of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann (Green), the Pope's secretary Peter Gänswein (called the Vatican's George Clooney), and Archbishop Robert Zollitsch. 

After Zollitsch's address welcoming the Pope, the schedule had fallen behind, and Benedict took over right away, depriving Kretschmann and Salomon of their speeches. This morning we read in the newspaper: The two were not amused. 

 "Benedetto," as enthusiastic youngsters shriek when they see him, impresses the people with his high intellect paired with his somewhat unmatched friendly shyness. For him, we must live our faith with courage and humility, as he said: Atheists seeking answers with burning hearts are often nearer to God than Church officials with hearts not touched by faith. Referring to King Solomon (1 King 3.7-3.12)*, the Pope advised non-believers and Christians alike to listen to their hearts more often when making decisions in our modern times.

*1 King 3: 7 "Now, LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father, David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern these great people of yours?" 10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, "Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.

 

In his last homily, he called for a complete separation of State and Church, for only then will the Church be free to proclaim and live its faith. This remark reflects the particular situation in Germany where we pay a Church tax and where Church officials - Catholics and Protestants alike, ex officio, and balanced out - sit in governmental and administrative committees lobbying.

Benedetto's message is clear but not appreciated by many: The Church needs no modernizing reforms, but must return to its roots as a community of people in faith and love.

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Speedy Neutrinos

Did you read about those neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light? If this were true, it would undermine Einstein's special theory of relativity, which posits that the speed of light is a constant. The exact value is 299792458 meters per second, and nothing can travel faster in the universe.

A team of physicists working at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, has now measured that neutrinos created at CERN, shot in the direction of the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy, and detected at a distance of 731.278 km (precision of ±20 cm) in an underground detector, travel faster than light.

The web is a fantastic source of information. I actually spent two hours watching the presentation and discussing the results of those measurements during a seminar at CERN. If you like listening to a strong European accent explaining complicated facts in simple English, tune in to the CERN auditorium. 

As it stands, the experimental results revealed that neutrinos starting from CERN arrive at the detector in Gran Sasso in 2.4382323 milliseconds, i.e., 0.0010485 milliseconds or 0.43 per mille faster than when traveling at the speed of light.

The physicists presenting their results and the audience, including me, were and are still greatly disturbed. The general tendency is to suspect mistakes in those time measurements. A counter-experiment confirming the results is urgently needed before one dares to throw Einstein's theory, solid up to now, overboard. Physicists at Fermilab near Chicago running a similar neutrino experiment are eagerly preparing their detectors for an independent measurement of those speedy neutrinos.

Here are some recent remarks from CERN.

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The Berlin Pirates

No, Berlin has no new baseball team but a new party in the state parliament. Remember my blog about color coding? Last Sunday, a new color enriched Germany's party spectrum. In the Berlin election, the orange-colored Pirates starting from zero won 8.9% of the votes resulting in 15 seats in the state parliament.

Their slogan against the other parties: You have the answers, we have the questions. Apparently, voters also had more questions than they were given answers to these days. All the other parties lost in comparison with their expectations. In particular, the Liberals (yellow) have been marginalized to a mere 1.9% and will no longer be represented in Berlin's state parliament. The Pirates' program is rather scanty except for their precise demands: Free Internet for the people and pot legalization.

The established parties are distraught. The Social Democrats (red) intone that the Pirates are contentless, and Chancellor Merkel (black) dismisses their success as a classical protest. And so it is up to the Greens to moan. Once they were lined up against the establishment, now they are part of it.

Yellow is out, and orange is in. Above all, the revolution looks like vegetarians eating Green.

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Finkenwerder Speckscholle

German cooking has a bad reputation. When you ask around, the answer is unanimous: Sauerkraut, wurst, and potatoes.

Well, sauerkraut is not the best in Germany, but rather a regional specialty in Alsace across the Rhine. Nothing has more cholesterol than a delicious choucroute royale prepared by a chef with all its sausages and bacon on top.

The consumption of potatoes, the staple food in my youth, is steadily declining in Germany. Only my grandchildren's eating tons of pommes frites* with lots of ketchup makes it possible for German potato farmers to stay afloat and Italian tomato growers to help keep their country creditworthy.
*Pommes frites are a Belgian specialty, not to be confused with French fries

Finally, critics of German cooking never say what kind of wurst they mean. Who dares throw a Bavarian Weißwurst and a Frankfurter—we Germans call it a Wiener—into the same kettle and place a Thüringer Bratwurst and a Freiburger Rote on the same grill, not to mention the genuine German invention, the Currywurst?

Cooking and eating in Germany are not national but international or regional. Nowadays, instead of potatoes, Germans eat a lot of Pasta from Italy, Döner from Turkey, Sushi from Japan, Borscht from Russia, Matjes herrings from the Netherlands, Feta cheese from Greece, Rösti from Switzerland, and hamburgers from the United States.

When I travel, I prefer regional cooking. A few weeks ago in Palatinate, I ate Pfälzer Saumagen (stuffed pig's stomach). 

Last weekend, attending my yearly class reunion in Hamburg, I had Labskaus (lobscouse). The highlight, however, was the Finkenwerder Speckscholle. A combination of healthy fish and bad cholesterol, i.e., a European plaice crisply fried in bacon, is just delicious.
*Finkenwerder, once a picturesque fishing village opposite the city of Hamburg on the other side of the Elbe River, is now overgrown by Airbus Industries

A Hamburg potato salad and a draft beer accompany the fish. The dessert that naturally goes with it is another Hamburg specialty: the Rode Grütt (red fruit slightly stewed and thickened) with vanilla sauce.

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9/11

Decided not to leave the task of throwing my old papers away to my children. I was looking the other day through some photos my mother left behind when she died in 1996 at the age of ninety. I came across the postcard below that I sent her from New York in 1986 showing the World Trade Center.

I remember when I had a drink at the bar of the top restaurant Windows of the World. The view from up there was exceptional. My glances drifted from the tip of Manhattan to Miss Liberty and the Verrazano Bridge, wanting to catch the entire sight, not missing the slightest detail. Next time in New York, I intended to impress my wife Elisabeth but bad luck. Following the 1993 bombing of the WTC basement, the Windows of the World were closed.

In 1998 I was feeling lonely and hungry in Manhattan after a long day spent at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) discussing with colleagues. I hate eating alone for sitting at a table, and drinking should be social togetherness. But this time, instead of eating a hot dog out of my hand, I wanted to get the full treat and decided to revisit the WTC. I went up to the Windows of the World restaurant and ordered an American-cut prime steak. Although I took one medium weight, I needed help to finish my dish, as I was unaccustomed to such quantities of meat.

 On September 11, 2001, I was sitting in my garden in Meyrin (Geneva), enjoying my retirement in the mild afternoon autumn sun, when the telephone rang. My son could hardly speak: Papa, switch on your TV. A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. I saw one of the WTC towers emitting smoke, but the correspondent of German television talking from New York could not make out what was going on.

Suddenly a plane appeared on and disappeared from the screen. It had smashed into the second tower. This happened shortly after 3 p.m. As the German voice on my TV started to panic, I switched to CNN. As time went by, I learned that four US heavily fueled long-flight carriers had been hijacked by terrorist commandos early in the morning and used as firebombs. I sat up the whole night listening and watching,  horrified. What I experienced was beyond my imagination. I could and would not believe what I saw. Like in the case of Pearl Harbor, America had again been maliciously attacked.

 Only a few days later, I realized I had witnessed one of those dates that changed the world.

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Missing the Bulb

Europe has decided to kill another of those ingenious inventions Thomas Alva Edison once gave to the world. MP3 made the gramophone obsolete, and now the incandescent lamp, the vulgo light bulb, will disappear in Europe. New technologies are more complicated than a vacuum with a heated filament inside. However, in times of global warming, what counts against the light bulb that once replaced candles and oil lamps is its low light efficiency.

On September 1, following the phasing out of the 100 and 75 watts, the 60 watts bulb must no longer be produced in and imported into Europe. But Germans like their good old light bulbs, and with the 60 watts disappearing many people fear the consequences and are building up stocks of bulbs. Those available on the market can still be sold.

One German firm is now selling 60 watts bulbs as culture reserve.

I could not care less, for I was always using higher power bulbs until I started to replace them with fluorescent lamps as early as the late 80ies. In the beginning, those energy-saving light sources were heavy due to their choking coil and iron core. It took minutes before the coiled-up fluorescent tubes reached their temperature and their full light output humming along at 50 hertz. As time went by electronic circuits replaced the inductive loads. These newer light sources fit into most existing lamps and reach their maximum light output more rapidly.

Nitpicking Germans found out that the energy supply by incandescent lamps will fall flat when people change to energy-saving light sources. To compensate for the missing thermal energy from light bulbs in the case of passive houses, one firm is now selling heatballs instead of meatballs.

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Fission fungus

What in English is sometimes called a seed of contention is known in German as Spaltpilz. A couple of years ago, Freiburg's Green Party was infested by fission fungus when two members decided to leave the mainstream, forming an even greener party, the Green Alternatives Freiburg (GAF).

A green city needs more than one Green party.

Recently the Green Party went to court demanding that the GAF abstains from using the word green in their party name, including the G in their acronym. The Green Alternatives, however, claim that green is a generic word used, e.g., in Grünschnabel (greenhorn), Green City, and greenback.

While waiting for the court ruling, I remind you that fission fungus is a common infection in Germany's party landscape. The most spectacular fission occurred in 1917 when the Independent Socialists (USPD) - because, as pacifists, they refused to vote for the World War One bonds - seceded from the Social Democrats (SPD). After the war, the USPD was one of the germ cells of Germany's Communist Party (KPD).

It is interesting to see that political parties that were formerly separated and then became united are not immune to the fission fungus either. 

Following social unrest during the first years of the new century, some left-leaning party members of the Social Democrats, together with other left-minded people in Germany's West, founded a new party called Work and Social Justice - the Alternative (WASG)  in 2004. 

It would have been a logical move to unite with the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) - the successor of the former SED in the East. Following lots of argy-bargies, the two parties eventually came to grips launching in 2007 a united party Die Linke (The Left). 

Due to the many nostalgic people living in the East, the new party got enough votes to be represented in the Bundestag and a few State Parliaments. However, since the unification of the two left parties, the fission fungus has become quite active in trying to split Die Linke into fundamentalists and realists. Party members are fighting each other openly such that some of the supporters of Die Linke became fed up such that the party kept losing votes in some recent state elections.

It is quite noticeable that the fission fungus made it over the Atlantic, infecting in the US both the Republican and the Democratic Party. Will the inherent healing forces overcome its attack?

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Wagenburgler Blues

Yesterday night the Wagenburglers of Kommando Rhino gave a street party at their former lodging. The entrance to Vauban is now a construction site. Soon after sunset, first, a garbage can was set on fire. Later around 10 p. m. an excavator with a drill was torched, damage that would stop the construction work for a while.

The torched construction machine (Photo: Badische Zeitung)

When the police arrived, they were charged. One officer who had hurt his hand was verbally attacked, "Shitty cop pig! I hope your hand is broken. Next time we'll break you. 

Bille Haag, representing the city officials' round table and the Wagenburglers, said, "This is not acceptable and not helpful; however, the Rhinos are not responsible for the aggression. 

A city official replied, "These actions unmask all announcements of nonviolent protests for a new Wagenburg as noncredible and worthless lip service."

As I already wrote: it's not over yet.

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Unusual Views

This relatively recent photo gives an unusual view of Freiburg's St. Martin church. The shot became possible because, on Kaiser-Joseph-Straße, the Municipal Saving Bank is tearing down one of its buildings to construct a new one. However, before they could start, there was considerable controversy because many citizens thought the old facade was more beautiful than the new one and fitted better with the style of the neighboring buildings. Eventually, the construction plans had to be modified, and construction could start. Now, Freiburgers stand on Kaiser-Joseph-Straße, where you cannot tell whether they are watching the working of the shredding machines or admiring the view of the buildings behind.

On the right, you catch a glimpse of the Haus zum Walfisch (House of the Whale), known for its most famous renter, Erasmus of Rotterdam, who lived there from 1529 to 1531. Some Freiburgers have a dream and petitioned the bank's CEO "not to construct the new building." Keeping the charming view open will be another attraction in Freiburg.

I recently received the second, rather old photo, dated June 15, 1955, by snail mail. A lady who participated in an excursion to Geneva in early summer, including a visit to CERN (my former workplace), seemed so impressed that she wanted to express her thanks. 

She had received this postcard in 1958 from her friend Mrs. Citron, wife of Professor Citron, one of CERN's founding fathers. The black-and-white photo shows an aerial view of the accelerator site under construction, located west of the village of Meyrin at the Swiss-French border. There is virtually no construction underway, but bulldozers are preparing the ground for the 600-meter ring tunnel of the Proton Synchrotron (PS). 

The PS still works as a proton injector for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Nothing is seen of the heap of dirt that later served as a radiation shield for the PS-target area and was called Mont Citron. In the far distance, the Alps are visible. The mountain between the city of Geneva and the Alps is the Salève. Left of the famous Jet d'eau, the Lake of Geneva stretches. The road from CERN to the city is still called Route de Meyrin. It cuts the village of Meyrin in two. The Geneva airport did not change fundamentally except for a longer runway that reaches up to the Route de Meyrin and a completely new reception building.

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Currywurst

My previous blog dealt with the döner, the owner of a fast-food restaurant in Seattle, Wash. markets as Berlin food, although the Turks introduced the döner kebap in Germany. Now, here comes the currywurst, which was indeed invented and first eaten in Berlin.

Let Wikipedia enlighten us: Currywurst (German pronunciation: [ˈkœʁiˌvʊʁst]) is a fast-food dish of German origin consisting of hot pork sausage (German: Wurst) cut into slices and seasoned with curry ketchup, regularly consisting of ketchup or tomato paste blended with generous amounts of curry powder, or a ready-made ketchup-based sauce seasoned with curry and other spices. It is frequently served at German 'Imbissbuden' and from food trucks.

The invention of currywurst is attributed to Herta Heuwer in Berlin in 1949 after she obtained ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and curry powder from British soldiers. She mixed these ingredients with other spices and poured them over grilled pork sausage. Heuwer started selling the cheap but filling snack at a street stand in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, where it became popular with construction workers rebuilding the devastated city.

Today, currywurst ... is famous all over Germany but particularly popular in the metropolitan areas of Berlin, Hamburg, and the Ruhr Area. Considerable variation both in the type of sausage used and the ingredients of the sauce occurs between these areas. Common variations include the addition of paprika or chopped onions. Often, currywurst is sold in food booths, sometimes using a special machine to slice it into pieces, and served on a paper plate with a little wooden or plastic fork.

An estimated 800 million servings are sold in Germany each year (Photo: Wikipedia)

The actual reason why I wrote about the currywurst was an ironic comment in yesterday's Badische Zeitung. In Germany, we have two VAT rates: 19% on most goods and services and a reduced rate of 7% on, e.g., books and, notably, food. So you pay 7% on pet food but 19% on Pampers, the reason - as some people claim, in Germany, we have more dogs than babies. Here comes the question: What is the VAT rate on currywurst served on a paper plate at a sausage stand?

Lastly, our Federal Financial Supreme Court (Bundesfinanzhof) ruled that the rate is 7% for food when the vendor hands you the wurst and you eat it standing up. If the stand offers a bench or chairs for sitting and you actually sit down, this situation is amalgamated with a restaurant, and you pay 19% on services. Crazy, and who is going to check this?

Well, I checked the situation in Freiburg's Münster market. Three of the eight wurst stands now offer currywurst, but there are no places to sit. However, another thing struck me. Despite the market's recent opening, there is still no competition: All vendors charge a uniform price of € 2.50 for currywurst.

Please note the English influence on German orthography: Uhl's use of the Saxon genitive is wrong in German; it must be Uhls, but many shops and eateries find it stylish to use what we call the Deppenapostroph (goof's apostrophe) with the German genitive.

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Döner, a German Food

Today I read an article in the Badische Zeitung about Döner in Seattle sold at a stand called The Berliner. As such, the Turkish dish of (preferably) lamb meat cooked on a vertical spit and sliced off got a German flavor. The Turkish name for this delicious food is döner kebap, i.e., "rotating roast." A döner must not be confused with gyros, which is widely known in the States.

Slicing meat off a döner kebab's grilled surface (Photo taken from Wikipedia)

As background information, we read on Wikipedia: "A döner version developed to suit German tastes by Turkish immigrants in Berlin has become one of Germany's most popular fast-food dishes. Annual sales in Germany amount to 2.5 billion euros. Veal and chicken are widely used instead of lamb, particularly by vendors with large ethnic German customer bases, for whom lamb is traditionally less preferred."

Serving döner in Seattle is not easy, because beef or chicken is stacked on the vertical rotating spit instead of the original lamb. The Turkish bread called pide, which accompanies the meat, is unknown in the State of Washington. Thus, Victor, the owner of the fast-food restaurant, asked for it to be specially baked. Once prepared, American Law requires that meat be consumed within half a day, so Victor uses shorter spits to grill smaller meat quantities. 

The döner varieties he offers with sauce, salad, and pide are called The Mehringdamm or, somewhat spicier, The fiery Kreuzberg, named after places in Berlin's traditional Turkish quarter. Still, Victor's many ardent customers consider döner a typical German food. One enthused girl said, upon learning that there are döner stands on every corner in Berlin, "You Germans must be happy people."

Let me know when the first döner stand opens in Madison.

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We Love Rhino

The site of the Wagenburglers - they call themselves Kommando Rhino (Rhino Command) - was cleared alright on August 2.

What remains visible at the entrance to Vauban is a banner: We ♡ Rhino.

However, the problem with those who prefer to practice their alternative living in Freiburg persists. The city doesn't want to provide them a plot fearing that once they give it to Rhino, other people with more vehicles from outside Freiburg will move in. The Rhino Command, on the other hand, claims: The authorities cannot banish us. We will remain in Freiburg and in our mobile homes.

In fact, some moved to another plot in Vauban, on which they will be tolerated for another month. Four of the vehicles had eventually settled on private ground in the suburb of Zähringen. When at the owner's request, the police arrived, they first tried to confiscate the mobile homes, which was counterproductive, hindering the Rhinos from moving. Before, these Wagenburglers had stayed in individual private places, but the four had moved together again as otherwise, they claim they cannot practice their way of life. 

Although one Freiburg party official said, "Now it is finished," his party will vote against Rhino getting space on public grounds in Freiburg. Other city council members feel that the Wagenburgler question will remain on the agenda for a long time. They were correct; the same day I wrote this blog, the Wagenburglers opened a protest camp in front of the Rathaus (town hall) that the police soon cleared peacefully.

Wagenburglers' protest camp on Townhall Square. All pictures ©Badische Zeitung

Meanwhile, our local newspapers have figured out a lower limit of the costs for the police action on August 2, including the damage caused by the nightly riot as being 371,100 euros. These are peanuts compared to the costs of the not-so-long-ago riots in England.

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Commemorating Boozing Dates

Most beer drinkers know about the German purity decree for their favorite brew. It isn't actually German since it was Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria ordering on April 23, 1516, the Reinheitsgebot that zu kainem pier merer stüchh dan allain gersten, hopfen un wasser genommen werdn (to any beer no more ingredients than barley, hop, and water shall be taken and used). Well, they simply forgot the yeast. Without it, beer cannot be brewed. Nowadays, we celebrate April 23 as the day of German beer.

The decree of 1516 is not the first attempt to keep boozing headache-free. Eighteen years earlier, in 1498, the Imperial Diet met in Freiburg to make peace with the Swiss who hadn't accepted the newly established Imperial court and, above all, had stubbornly refused to pay the Imperial tax, i.e., the common Pfennig. 

The diet was not successful in putting the Confederates back into their place; on the contrary, one year later, when the Emperor wanted to bring the Swiss to their senses, his army suffered a crushing defeat in the battle of Dornach, so Maximilian had to give way. However, the assembled princes did not leave the Freiburg diet empty-handed, for on August 24, 1498, they passed the satzung unnd ordnung über die weyne (rules and ordinance about wine). It limits, in particular, the amount of sulfur to be used in the stabilization of wine, already knowing that it was the concentration of this element causing headaches.

satzung unnd ordnung über die weyne of 1498

Why do I write about all this? The above story came to my mind when I recently visited the city of Nibelungen, Worms. There I noticed yellow-white banners flying in front of the cathedral. Nothing exceptional for these are the colors of the Catholic Church. However, when I came nearer, I read: 500 Jahre Riesling-Urkunde von Pfeddersheim (Documentary evidence of 500 years of Riesling cultivation at Pfeddersheim). In this document dated November 11, 1511, it is mentioned: Item ein halben morgen riesling wingart im Funtdaill (among other things [about] a quarter of an acre Riesling vine-garden in Funtdaill, i.e., a plot of land with a fountain). Today this vineyard still exists as well as the Riesling.

Riesling is one of my favorite grapes, only topped by the Chasselas
known in Baden as Gutedel and in Wallis, Switzerland as Fendant

However, more impressive and human is that people always find a reason for celebrating with and without any pretext like the Weinfest in Emmendingen.

This year at Worms, November 11, is not only Saint Martin's feast with children carrying their lanterns around and adults eating the traditional goose. It is the usual day of the opening of the Carnival season at precisely 11 minutes past 11 a.m. (even in the year 2011). It will also be the 500th anniversary of Riesling cultivation. An additional reason for boozing with ... Riesling.

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How to Recycle Liquids

As you would suppose: Our Green City has a perfect recycling system. In Freiburg, we use a green (?) container for paper, a brown bin for organic compostable stuff, and a yellow plastic bag for used packaging materials. We pay a deposit of 25 euro cents for drinks in plastic bottles that are reimbursed when we return the empty bottles. There are containers all over town accepting glass bottles to be separated in white, brown, and mostly green colors except those bottles with a deposit of 8 euro cents, refundable when we hand them in at the local supermarket.

We place the rest of the garbage that cannot be recycled in a dark-gray bin. For this container, you pay a yearly fee based on the volume you need for your waste. Although the bins come in one size only, plastic inserts reduce the fillable volume. Some people acquire those gray containers equipped with a lock for an extra fee, so your friendly neighbor doesn't deposit his garbage into your bin.

Garbage bin with lock and key

All in all, the recycling and waste business is booming in Freiburg. Only at the end of the year do discussions and letters to the editor become hot when a fee increase for those garbage bins for the coming year is in store.

You may imagine my shock when - during my latest trip to the city of Speyer - the hotel requested an additional way of recycling. Visiting the toilet, I was confronted with individual panels over each urinal demanding that I pee as instructed. In addition to beer, they had urinals for wine and water.

I was so disturbed that I composed a letter to the city councilors complaining about Freiburg's backwardness on my way home. 

Well, I ultimately didn't send the letter since visiting the conveniences in one of my favorite places, the Coucou, I found that they had an even finer separation for liquids exploiting their high number of urinals. A nicely framed cuckoo is watching your efforts. 

I admit my cheating. I emptied my beer into the champagne urinal.

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Wagenburglers’ End

As expected, all the Wagenburglers had not left by August 1. The police were just waiting for an escalation of the situation to move in and them out. About twenty left-autonomous troublemakers offered the opportunity at 1 a.m. last night when they started to erect barricades at the entrance to Vauban and set fire to them.

At 5:40 a.m., forty police persons arrived with heavy clearing gear. They started lifting the sit-in and then moved on, tearing down the remaining unoccupied rotten trailers and rusted buses.

Her first engagement? This girl looks terrified.

The Sambastas were back alright with shiny new drums and made an accompanying noise.

At 7:45 a.m., garbage collectors arrived and started cleaning the place.

Later, barriers were moved in to avoid a return of the Wagenburglers to the lot. One positive note at the end. It seems that nobody was hurt.

All photos were taken from the website of the ©Badische Zeitung.

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A Decisive Date

August 1 will be the target date for Dominique Strauss-Kahn because the outcome of the scheduled court hearing will be decisive for him.

It is also a crucial date until the American government must find a solution for the increase of the ceiling on the national debt as, otherwise, the US won’t be able to meet its financial obligations. This may result in an uncontrolled chain reaction causing more havoc to the world banking system and economy than the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.

Finally, it is also the date when the Wagenburglers must have emptied the occupied lot at the entrance to the Vauban quarter. They had announced a demonstration in Freiburg’s city center for July 23, protesting their eviction.

The photo below shows the peaceful demonstrators and anti-riot police near the Bertoldsbrunnen. There are estimations that the state of Baden-Württemberg had mobilized a police force of 250 men and women, whereas there were only 200 demonstrators. Obviously, the police had feared the participation of many professional rioters from outside. They did not show up, however. Was it because the weather was cold and rainy, or was the issue not worth a trip to Freiburg?

The Wagenburglers have still not counted their cause for lost. They call for participation at an Anti-Eviction Festival for the coming weekend. Will this stay as peaceful as the demonstration last Saturday?

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Göthe

While Dante Alighieri is Italy's national poet and William Shakespeare is England's, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is recognized as such in my country. He was not only a poet but one of the last universally educated geniuses of the German tongue. 

There is not one place in Germany without a street or square named after him. In Freiburg, many regard Goethestraße as the most beautiful alley in town, dating back to the early 20th century. Beautifully decorated houses built in a variety of historical styles line the street.

 This is not true for Munich's Goethestraße, which runs off the central train station, where red-light premises compete with cheap electronics stores. It was there that it happened. Road construction work around the station called for a detour signaled by panels showing Göthestraße instead of Goethestraße, which was an obvious mistake. A mistake? Hey, not so fast.

Our national poet was born in Frankfurt on 28 August 1749 as the son of Johann Caspar Göthe. As a young man, Johann Wolfgang changed his name to Goethe, in his father's eyes a misdeed; his father never pardoned his son. 

The reason for Goethe's change has yet to be discovered. As a young man, did he already think of his international renown? Mind you, umlauts are rarely found in other languages, unless it's Turkish or Hungarian. By the way, the Turks are called Törökök in Hungarian. Those Hungarians not only overdo it concerning the frequency of their "ös." In addition to the short "ö" carrying two dots, they also know the long "ő" taking two strokes.

The American keyboards I used during work and later on the Internet forced me to change my name from Höfert to Hoefert. 

Working in the UK, my brother was so annoyed with the umlaut that he dropped the "tüttels" altogether. Maybe he did the right thing because when changing from "ö" to "oe," I suffered from my Dutch colleagues' pronunciation of my name. In their language, the "oe" stands for the phoneme "u." 

Did Goethe consider this fact when he changed from "ö" to "oe"? Did he want the Dutch to call him de oude Goede, i.e., the old Good one?

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Uta of Naumburg

Two sculptures in two German cathedrals are regarded as being very Teutonic: the Bamberg Horseman and Uta of Naumburg. In my reader, in primary school, their two pictures were shown together and described as the epitome of the German man and the German woman.

After the war, Bamberg was situated in the West, whereas Naumburg was in the East. The two pieces of sculpture were separated, becoming one of the many reminders that Germans were divided politically but not in their hearts.

With Germany's reunification in 1990, the Rider and Uta have united again. I last visited Uta, regarded as one of the most important works of German Gothic art, in 2003. On that occasion, I read a text written in 1928 by Gertrud Bäumer, a well-known German feminist and not considered to display an excessive Germanness: Uta derives from a relationship with the German woods, with long brutal winters full of loneliness and horror in the dark, long waiting and longing, spring tempest over melting snow, hard and harsh but soaked with inner balminess. Don't worry; the German text is as incomprehensible as my English translation.

The other day, I read in the German weekly Die Zeit about an exhibition called The Naumburg Master - Sculptor and Architect in the Europe of Cathedrals. The article showing Uta's picture was headed Très Deutsch, and indeed, I expected the old story that this woman is very German. The French "très" should, however, have warned me, for the article revealed the crushing news that the creator of this German Gothic masterpiece was possibly French!

The whole story I found on the Naumburg Exhibition website: The sculptors and stonemasons associated with the name "Naumburg Master "had an outstanding reputation throughout medieval Europe. From the 1220s on, German masters trained in the sculpture workshops of the Northern French cathedrals situated in Île de France, Champagne, and Picardie. Their journey to Germany took them across the borders of the French kingdom via Mainz to Naumburg and Meissen. Their legacy is a body of work that is of outstanding quality and worldwide importance. The sculptures of the west rood screen in Mainz Cathedral, the relief depicting the sharing of St. Martin's coat in Bassenheim, the tomb slab of the Ritter von Hagen in Merseburg Cathedral, the statues in the choir and the octagon chapel of Meissen Cathedral and above all the unique west choir of Naumburg Cathedral with the Passion reliefs of the rood screen and the statues of the founders (Uta!) are impressive examples of the outstanding quality of workmanship from these medieval masters.

When looking at the Strasburg Cathedral, Goethe once admired the Gothic style as native German, but he was severely mistaken. Gothic architecture was born in France; it spread across the Rhine River and subsequently throughout Europe. In the beginning, German stonemasons educated in the Romanesque style tried to imitate the new French style. The result is still evident at Freiburg's Münster church. Not until they called in the masters from the other side of the Rhine did the construction of the windows get the lightness of style so admired at the Reims cathedral.

The stonemasons at Freiburg's Münster worked from right to left,
starting with heavy German Gothic for their windows.
When the French specialists took over,  the tracery in their windows became more refined.

That Gothic means France is emphasized in the continued text on the exhibition's website: During the first half of the 13th century, Reims Cathedral, which hosted the coronation of many French kings, became the focus of German building work increasingly, until it was eclipsed, in the middle of the century, by architectural activities in generating the metropolis of Paris. The adoption of designs and sculptural ideas from France was certainly not only due to a general fascination with the French cathedral creation, which eclipsed all previous architecture, but also to the high esteem in which the sacrally distinguished French royalty was held.

So eventually, it's European. The Naumburg Exhibition, in fact, is under the joint patronage of our Chancellor and France's President.

©Wikipedia/Berthold Wener

What about the Bamberg Horseman? I am sure that next year some experts will come up with the story that the guy and his horse were sculptured by an Italian.

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Wagenburglers

The name Vauban melts in the mouths of many of my friends in Madison. When they arrive in Freiburg these days on an ICE (LOL) from Frankfurt Airport soaked because the air conditioning on the train is broken* they cannot wait to visit the greenest quarter of our Green City. It is easy to get there. 

*This is the contribution of our Federal Railway to fight climatic change

Just walk south on the platform, avoid taking the escalator to the bridge's deck spanning the central station's track field - since you are already soaked anyway - but rather climb those 40 steps at a temperature of 30 degrees centigrade (86 Fahrenheit). Then mount a red (!), not green (!) marked streetcar named Vauban. It will take you to the entry of Vauban in just 15 minutes.

Stepping off streetcar number 3 at Paula-Modersohn-Platz.

When stepping off the streetcar at Paula-Modersohn-Platz, you may suffer a cultural shock: the gate to Vauban looks like a fort protecting a couple of wagons. This is the home of the Wagenburglers (people living in a wagon fort?). They live in their densely parked or instead packed camping cars and old buses on a lot that eventually will be covered with a multipurpose Green-Business-Center, including a hotel and shops. 

The construction plans date back a few years but often have changed with changing investors. When until May 2009, nothing happened, the empty lot started to attract people looking for a place suited to live their alternative lifestyles.

The Wagenburglers claim their right to a self-determined life
and oppose the Green Party's policy of expulsion

When the construction plans for the Green Business Center were finalized at the beginning of this year, it was clear that the Wagenburglers had to leave the place. A hectic search went on (and still is on) for a site where these people could move. 

The city immediately said that they had already set aside three lots carrying such poetic names as Eselwinkel (donkey's corner), Biohum (bio humus), and Schattenparker (shadow parker). These places, however, are already filled with fellow Wagenburglers. Private people who were asked for some land to lease wearily signaled their refusal.

Although Vauban remains green, the Wagenburglers are mocking the Christian Democrats and the Green Party, accusing them of a zero-tolerance for space to place their wagons.
Their mocking cumulates in the phrase: Gypsies back to Africa

The last deadline for the removal of Fort Wagon is July 31. So the pressure is building up at the Rathaus: They must leave and, if necessary, be forced by law countered by the Wagenburglers: We shall fight to stay. They have already announced a demonstration in the city center for July 23. It is to be feared that more actions will follow, particularly when the Wagenburglers will call in professional demonstrators from all over Germany who like nothing better than bashing the police.

Please stay tuned for any future development.

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The Last Habsburg

When strolling through Freiburg this morning, I noticed a strange flag with a mourning band flying from a bookshop. When I came nearer, I recognized the Austrian Imperial banner and had my light bulb moment (mir ging ein Licht auf): The bookseller wanted to remind the passers-by that the last of the Habsburgs, Otto, grandchild of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, had passed away on the 4th of July at a biblical age of 99.

Polyglot Otto von Habsburg had lived through the last days of the Austrian Empire, survived Nazi rule, nearly became president of Hungary, and was elected as a German (!) deputy to the European Parliament, where he fought against communism and for a strong, united Europe.

    

My friend Jim took both photos,
particularly one of the shop windows displaying Otto von Habsburg's portrait.

Freiburg had been under Habsburg rule for 438 years when, in 1806, Napoleon ordered the Anschluss of the Breisgau to the Duchy of Baden. The Catholic population accustomed to the "mild" Austrian hand (Vienna was far away!) suddenly felt dominated by Protestant Badeners. It is reported that many a man wasn't ashamed of his tears.

One of the means of integrating the Breisgau into the Duchy was the creation of a reading society (Lesegesellschaft) to marry the Protestant North with the Catholic South, as the poet Johann Georg Jacobi then wrote. In those days, the Lesegesellschaft, nowadays named Museumsgesellschaft, united the civil servants from Karlsruhe with the local intellectuals. It still exists and is now Freiburg's oldest civic society.

The Habsburg rule is still felt in Freiburg, with historical buildings sometimes showing the Austrian colors red-white-red, the Vienna cuisine, and the fine bakery.

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