Euros and Non-Cents

Freiburg has an efficient streetcar system that operates until late at night. After 1 a.m. hourly buses bearing names of planets starting from Bertoldsbrunnen take over carrying night owls home into the suburbs.

Stopping point Bertoldsbrunnen. During the night instead of streetcars 3 and 5
the Merkur and Pluto busses are operating (Photo BZ)

The following story somewhat late for the Sommerloch (silly season) is presently exciting the Freiburgers. The other night a girl of seventeen partying downtown was late for the last streetcar. When she mounted the 1.11 a.m. Merkur bus she handed the driver a two euro piece, three ten cents, and ten two cent coins to make up for the total fare of 2.50 euros. The driver simply refused to take the money saying: His service regulations only allow him to take five copper coins for one ticket. He started the engine, shut the door, and left the girl behind who called home for transport. Her father was not amused and in making the story public set off an avalanche.

Euro copper coins are only copper-plated iron coins.
This likely is a German invention when in the 1960ies the value of the copper
of the pfennigs became higher than the value of the coin. So all copper coins
were little by little replaced with coins made out of a copper-iron sandwich (Photo BZ).

Since then there has not been one day with more details in the Badische Zeitung (BZ). The spokesman of the local transport company (VAG) read from the conditions of carriage: The personnel is not obliged to change bills of more than 10 euros or to accept one and two-cent coins adding up to more than 10 cents. I admire how in my country even the slightest details are regulated.

Today a law professor said: In principle, a handful of euro coins is legal tender in Germany like euro bills although article 11 of the minting law stipulates that nobody is obliged to take more than 50 coins in one financial transaction. However, the VAG has a conveyance obligation and thus cannot choose its clients. Therefore the VAG is not allowed to apply stricter rules in their conditions of carriage than in the minting law. Hence, the girl was refused transport contrary to the law.

Une querelle d’Allemand is on again. With interest, I am already looking forward to the letters to the editor in my favorite newspaper.

*

Altersarmut

Ein Gespenst geht um in Deutschland, das Gespenst der Altersarmut (A specter haunts Germany, the specter of old-age poverty). Marx may not pardon me, but I could not find a better introduction to another chapter of German angst: Altersarmut. Admire the efficiency of the German language, which expresses all that misery in just one word, possibly best translated into poverty among the elderly in English. I am sure Altersarmut will be elected Germany's Unwort 2012, the ugliest word of the year.

Germany's age pyramid in 1911

It is obvious and well known that fewer young earners will have to support more older pensioners in the future. Just look at Germany's age pyramid. What 1911 looked like, the top of a fur tree, now resembles a mushroom.

Germany's age pyramid in 2011

Bismarck pushed for a social security system in Germany in the late 1880s, not because he pitied the misery of the working class, but tried to cut the ground from under the socialists' feet. Germany's old-age pension is based on the so-called generation treaty, i.e., the young pay into the system, financing the pensions of the retired. This works fine if the age structure shows a natural evolution, but who envisaged that people now live longer than in the past (increasing the cost for Medicare, by the way) and that young couples have fewer children than our grandparents. 

I still remember discussions in Germany during my adolescent years about how to finance future social security benefits because the people lost during the last war did not contribute to the system. Looking at today's age pyramid, you will still notice a dent for the period in question, but that is nothing compared with the distorted age structure of today.

To better balance the social security system, our government introduced two palliative measures a few years ago: lowering the level of pensions from 50% of the average income to 43% until 2030, and increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67 years during the same period. Like everybody else, my organization forced me to retire at age 65. 

I still remember my American friends shaking their heads when learning that. One of them even said that he could not afford retirement, for his institute had invested its pension fund in stocks that had lost money, so his pension had.

In Germany, in recent years, people were urged to set aside part of their earnings for private old-age insurance. Like Switzerland, our system is based on three pillars (as they call it): legally bound, occupational, and private insurance. However, with currently low interest rates, people see their financial efforts to secure decent pensions melting away due to inflation. On the other hand, many people had low earnings at times or were even unemployed during their working life. They will face mini pensions or even Altersarmut.

A few weeks ago, our Christian Democrat federal minister for social affairs forwarded an old idea to break the rule that pensions in Germany mirror your financial contributions. She proposed topping up all mini allowances so people can survive on their pensions based on the social security system. It is true that the system currently has a surplus, but what will happen (and what has happened in the past) if the social security fund runs into the red? Taxpayers' money will then fill the deficit, meaning that the working young people will again support the old. 

The head of the opposition Social Democratic Party said, "Let us not take the hidden detour proposed by the minister but use taxpayers' money right away to guarantee everybody a pension on which he/she can survive." Since the differences between the government and the opposition were only marginal, an agreement could have been found, but the trade unions did not agree. They requested to increase the level of pensions to the original 50% of the average income in combination with the retirement age being lowered again to 65. Returning to square minus one (!), they did not specify how to finance their proposal.

You can turn it around as you wish: the battle of generations over the share of wealth will become more challenging. Our grandchildren will have to work longer to make ends meet, some until they kick the bucket. Already now, more people who have retired continue to work or take up new occupations in Germany than our government is willing to admit. Why don't they just tell us the truth? Again, it is the usual Volksverdummung (brainwashing) of the voters.

**

Basler Hof

The Basler Hof today viewed from Kaiser-Joseph-Straße.

Last week, the second guided tour organized by the Badische Zeitung concerned the Basler Hof. More than 140 people wanted to listen to the explanations of a former resident, Dr. Sven von Ungern-Sternberg, who had been the district president of southern Baden from 1998 to 2007.

Dr. Sven von Ungern-Sternberg welcomed the crowd (Photo BZ).

The Basler Hof is one of Freiburg's historical landmarks. From 1480 on, Kaiser Maximilian's chancellor Konrad Stürtzel bought seven plots of land at the Große Gaß (today's Kaiser-Joseph-Straße) and had his city residence built there in the years 1494 to 1496. These plots had the original size of 100 times 50 feet as defined by the Dukes of Zähringen and were issued to the first settlers in Freiburg against a yearly rent of 12 Pfennig due at St. Martin's (November 11). Stürzel could afford to build the palace, for he was a rich man lending money to the Habsburgs like the Fuggers in Augsburg.

Emperor Maximilian, always in quest of money, is watching the visitors.

At the end of the 16th century, the building became the home of the chapter of the Basel Cathedral. Already in 1529, the capitulars had fled the Reformation in Basel into Catholic Freiburg, but they only acquired the Basler Hof in 1587. When Louis XVI's troops occupied Freiburg in 1677 and made it a French city, they deprived the chapter of its financial resources, so the capitulars moved to Switzerland (Arlesheim). The Austrian administration used the building after Freiburg's restitution to the Habsburgs in 1697.

German double eagle with Austrian Bindenschild red-white-red
and Order of the Golden Fleece.
Stucco at the ceiling of the district president's office.

Later, when Habsburg's most western territories became the province of Further Austria (Vorderösterreich), the Vienna governors resided in the Basler Hof until 1806, when Napoleon gave the Breisgau to the Grand Duke of Baden.

Dr. Sven von Ungern-Sternberg tells the building's history (Photo BZ).

Since then, the Basler Hof has always been used by administration and services mirroring the trials and tribulations of German history:

1806 - 1918: Grand Duchy of Baden (Court House, Post Office)
March 20, 1849: Grand jury trying Gustav Struve and Karl Blind for their participation in the uprising against  the government of the Grand Duchy in September 1848
June/July 1849: During the Baden Revolution, the seat of the revolutionary Government of Baden
1919 - 1933: Weimar Republic (Tax Administration, Police Station)
1933 - 1944: Third Reich officials
From 1933 to 1941, the Gestapo had their headquarters in the Basler Hof
November 27, 1944: Air raid Operation Tigerfish destroying the building

Kaiser-Joseph-Straße and Basler Hof in 1946.

1948 - 1950: Reconstruction of the building
1950 - 1952: Departement of Interior of the State of South Baden (More details)
1953 to today: Seat of the district president (Regierungspräsident) for southern Baden of the State of Baden-Württemberg

*

Freiburg's Central Art Depot

It is a Freiburg tradition that the BZ and Germany's two big parties, the CDU and the SPD, organize free-of-charge tours of exciting places and institutions for citizens during the summer holidays*. I had visited many a site in previous years, but this week I participated in three guided tours, two of which our local newspaper, the Badische Zeitung, had organized.

*School vacations started relatively late this year in Baden-Württemberg and will come to an end next week 

In my first blog, I would like to report on Freiburg's new Central Art Depot, built and finished in an industrial zone outside the city at the beginning of this year for a little less than 7 million euros.

I still remember the museums with waxed floors, poor lighting, and packed full glass cabinets in those olden days. In addition, these places had the same moldy smell. For modern museums, less is more; they bridge the gap by focusing on their highlights and adding a few additional items. But where did and does the rest go?

The ultimate highlight: Nofretete (Nefertiti) in the Neues Museum Berlin.
I took the photo in 2009.

Well, storing objets d'art requires space. In the past, Freiburg's museums had stored their collections in various places, even in Frankfurt, and, in most cases, not under acceptable conditions. During the visit to the new central storage place, I learned that it is not the temperature that counts but the humidity. Temperatures may range from 10 to 25 degrees centigrade, but the relative humidity must be kept constant at about 50% to preserve the stored items.

For more than 30 years, a dehumidifier has been running in my three basements to keep the relative humidity between 50 and 60%. Not that I store objets d'art, but to keep paper readable, the relative humidity must be at most 60% where it is stored.

58% relative humidity in my basement

Based on the principle of an inverted fridge, my dehumidifier is still the same old machine and working as it did on the day of its delivery, except for the indicator light, a neon bulb. There were no light diodes at the end of the 1970s.

The working horse in my basement. Note: the water collector below is filled to one-third.

Freiburg's Central Art Depot is a two-story building with a storage area of 5,500 square meters. The relative humidity inside is set to 50% to minimize energy consumption. Thick walls and insulation materials keep temperature variations minimal, while only a small amount of filtered and conditioned air is added to replace what is necessary.

Storage of ethnographic items.
Standing behind Tilmann von Stockhausen, I am listening to his explanations (©BZ).

Three groups of 25 people each were led through the building separately, and I was lucky with my guide. It was the director of Freiburg's museums, Tilmann von Stockhausen. He said that up to now, more than 100 lorries had collected and delivered the items for storage, but most were still in their boxes.

Our group is advancing in one of those big galleries
that house all the necessary tubing (©BZ).

It is more important for the people responsible to unite all items until the end of the year than to put them in order. Still, they started unpacking, and Dr. von Stockhausen proudly presented the first oil paintings in the correct order on their shifting rollers.

Tillmann von Stockhausen shows some of his treasures (©BZ).

With such well-organized storage, it will become easier to change items for exhibition in Freiburg's museums, in addition to the objets d'art permanently on display.

**

License plates

License plates in the US follow the States, whereas towns and districts issue those in Germany. The first letters (up to three) printed on a German license plate designate the vehicle's origin.

It is easy with single letters, e.g., B stands for Berlin, M for Munich and H for Hamburg. Well, that is wrong. Although Hamburg is bigger than Hannover, the Hanseatic citizens left the H for the smaller town, preferring HH standing for Hansestadt Hamburg. 

Even though the Hanse has since long disappeared, the people of Hamburg are so proud that entering the city by car, you will read: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg (The Free and the Hanseatic City of Hamburg). I really miss that road sign. During the last 30 years, I crossed the city's boundary, where I spent all my high school days only by train or plane.

In fact, three big German cities are federal states: Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen (HB for Hansestadt Bremen). Smaller cities get two letters, and my friends in Madison know that FR stands for Freiburg. Like in the States, the administrations issuing license plates let you choose the following letter-number combination (here for an extra fee of 20 euros). Below is my Freiburg license plate:

Guess what MH and 635 stand for.

When driving along the German autobahn, you will notice that the variety of license plates is great. People like to play games with those letter combinations, So you may read BA for the city of Bamberg interpreted as blutiger Anfänger (bloody learner), GS for Goslar: genüsslich schlafend (sleeping pleasurably), WW for the district Westerwald: Wilder Westen (wild west). Three letter combinations for smaller towns are even funnier, like FFB for Fürstenfeldbruck: Fahrer fährt blöd (conductor drives stupidly), OAL for the district Ostallgäu: Ochse am Lenkrad (ox behind the wheel), and SAD for Schwandorf: sieht alles doppelt (meaning the driver is drunk).

Many letter combinations in Germany have disappeared over the last twenty years in combining small towns and districts to form larger entities. Some people are unhappy, having lost their identity like the inhabitants of Merseburg (formerly MER) now driving with new license plates QM (district of Querfurt-Merseburg). 

Two weeks ago, a German professor (doesn't he have anything else to do?) opened the theater to fill the famous journalistic summer hole, proposing reactivating those lost license plates. In addition, he advocated the introduction of new ones keeping people attached to their hometown happy. Forget about the Euro crisis and the war in Syria. Instead, think about new letter combinations like LOL?

Well, there is still one benefit to all this. In the future, guessing license plates on long car drives will keep grouching kids quiet, hopefully for extended periods.

*

Edith Stein

Poster with Edith Stein. I took the photo in her cell in the St. Placidus guest house.
Note the mirror image, which shows a photo gallery and the entrance door.

Seventy years ago, on August 9, 1942, the Nazis murdered Edith Stein in Auschwitz. 

Yesterday, Elisabeth and I participated in a guided tour of Edith Stein's traces in Freiburg.

The stained-glass window in the choir ambulatory of the Freiburger Münster.
Note in the back the Carmel mountains, in front the cross, the seven-branched candelabrum,
and the evergreen Mediterranean cypress as a symbol of eternal life.

I won't go through the biography of that extraordinary woman; you may want to read it on Wikipedia. Born as a Jew, she became an atheist during her studies. While working as an assistant for the philosopher Edmund Husserl at Freiburg University during the First World War, she experienced her Damascene conversion.

Here on Goethestraße 63, Edith Stein lived as Husserl's assistant from 1916 to 1917
about 200 meters from the professor's house on Lorettostraße 40.

When visiting the widow of one of her colleagues who had just fallen on the Western Front, she did not meet a desperate woman but a lady comforted and fortified by her Christian faith. Deeply disturbed, Edith looked further. 

After reading the autobiography of the mystic St. Teresa of Ávila, who, on her deathbed, ought to have said "sin amor, todo es nada," Edith asked to be baptized Catholic. When she wanted to enter Teresa's Order of the Carmelites immediately, the prior of the Abbey of Beuron convinced her not to hide her light in a Carmel but rather to serve the Catholic cause, e.g., as a teacher.

Edith, being a woman, had tried vainly to become a full professor during her years with Husserl. In 1918, she relinquished her assistantship with him to teach at the Dominican nuns' school in Speyer, where she continued her philosophical studies to reconcile Husserl's phenomenology with Thomism.

An altarpiece in the cathedral of Speyer names Edith Stein
a Jew, an atheist, a Christian, a Carmelite, and a martyr.
I took the photo in August 2011 when visiting the exhibition:
The Saliens.

In the fall of 1931, she left Speyer and returned to Freiburg to resume work on her habilitation treatise at the philosophical faculty. Now she lived in a small room under the roof of the guesthouse St. Placidus of the monastery St. Lioba in Günterstal, participating as closely as possible in the nuns' daily lives.

Commemorative plate at the entrance to St. Placidus guest house at Günterstal

Sister Placida, her mentor, remembered: When I visited her in her cell in the early evening hours, I was always astonished to find not too many books. It was the crucifix above her desk that taught her ultimate knowledge. One evening, she looked up at the crucified King of the Jews and sighed: How much will my people have to suffer. I was stunned, but considering the mounting hate against the Jews, a thought flashed through my mind: Edith will make herself a sin offering for her people.

Edith Stein's desk in her cell at the St. Placidus guest house.

In 1932 Edith took up an appointment as a lecturer at the Institute for Pedagogy in Münster, Westphalia, but following anti-Semitic legislation passed by the Nazi government in 1933, she, being a Jew, resigned not to damage the reputation of her institute. When a letter she had sent to the pope deploring the inhuman Nazi regime in Germany remained unanswered, Edith considered that she was of no use anymore in this world and entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery St. Maria vom Frieden (Our Lady of Peace) at Cologne in October 1933. She took the name Teresia Benedicta a Cruce (Teresia Benedicta of the Cross).

Following her arrest in a Dutch Carmel on October 2, 1942, a Gestapo henchman asked her about her confession. She answered Catholic, but he retorted: You are just a Jew. When a train took her to her final destiny five days later, Edith confessed: I shall die for my people.

Commemorative stone in Freiburg's university church.

**

Odd Potsdam

With 160,000 inhabitants, Potsdam is smaller than Freiburg, which has a population of 220,000. Houses in the city's old quarters are mainly two stories high, with rooms built into the roof for housing soldiers, as Potsdam was a garrison town. At the time of the Prussian kings, cuddling up was encouraged, and many a man ended up in a rapid marriage with the landlord's daughter. The king needed soldiers.

Although these houses resemble brick buildings today, is it sufficient to remove the plaster to reveal their timber frame construction? What you see in the gateway is not smoke but a droplet of water on the lens of my camera, for we had April weather in July.

The Steuben monument, too, defied the rain.

Once donated by the American Congress, the statue was lost during the war and recast.

The numerous parks, situated amid lakes and along the Havel River, make Potsdam a pleasant place to live. Here, you look along with one of Potsdam's famous sightlines (Sichtachsen) from the Neuer Garten over the Heiliger See to the dome of St. Nikolaikirche.

Map of historical Potsdam

The Stadtschloss is the big building on the left-hand side, with the bridge pointing to it. Located above, on the other side of the square called Alter Markt, is St. Nikolaikirche.

Rebuilding of the exterior of the Potsdam Stadtschloss in its original splendor is underway. The interior, however, will fulfill present needs. The Brandenburg state parliament, now housed outside the city, will move in.

The distribution of deputies according to their parties in the Brandenburg State Parliament

In this peculiar case, the color code of the German parties I presented earlier does not hold. Only the Green Party and the Free Democrats retain their colors, while the seats of the Christian Democrats, with no visible black light, are depicted in a somewhat fitting clerical violet. A red-red coalition governs the state of Brandenburg; however, it is challenging to distinguish between Social Democrats and the post-communist Die Linke by their color. Typically, in graphical presentations, Social Democrats are depicted in red, with Die Linke shown in amber. Here, Die Linke is emerging somewhat pink, while the Social Democrats have lost some of their traditional red, incorporating some liberal colors to create an unusual orange.

Under the communist regime in the GDR, Christianity declined to the extent that nowadays, the federal states in Germany's east are missionary territories. There is a Kircheneintrittsstelle (a long word for mission point) at St. Nikolaikirche. In the background is the building site of the Stadtschloss. 

A unique Brandenburg vocabulary at the entrance door of the Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte that I tried to order historically: Fehrbellin, Hugenotten, Toleranz, Kartoffel, Wanderungen (durch die Mark Brandenburg), Pfifferlinge, Pickelhaube, Sommerferien, Automobil, Neubauern, Pionier, Mauer, Wende, Punk.

By the way, fried Pfifferlinge (my first chanterelles in 2012!) is one of my favorite dishes. I downed them, you guessed it, with Köstritzer Schwarzbier. 

At the hotel bar, I ordered a top-fermented wheat beer (Weizen), which is strangely made from rye (Roggen). The brewery calls the beer Roggen-Weizen, which I found disturbing, although the beer was excellent in its crooked glass.

Many regard Klaus Störtebeker as the German Robin Hood. He and his companions, the Victual Brothers (Viktualienbrüder), practiced piracy on the Baltic Sea and the estuary mouth of the Elbe River. Whether he really was the Likedeeler (lower German for dealing with everybody alike), always taking from the rich and giving it to the poor, is challenging to say, for he and his staff were beheaded in Hamburg back in 1401.

A modern castle called Cecilienhof, built in 1917 for Crown Prince Wilhelm and his wife, Cecilie, and located in the park Neuer Garten (New Garden), served as the venue where, in 1945, the Big Three decided about Europe's future after World War II.

Stalin, honored by a red star in the courtyard of the building, decided that Eastern Europe was to be dominated by communism, extending the Soviet Union virtually over the Balkan states, Poland, and the eastern part of Germany. Factually, the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states.

Here, you may try your language skills.

The other two leaders in Potsdam were weak: Harry Truman, who had replaced the recently deceased Franklin D. Roosevelt, was not yet at ease on the international stage. At the same time, bulldog Winston Churchill had to make way for Labour's Clement Attlee in the decisive phase of the Conference when his Conservatives lost the general election.

East German nostalgia. I counted three Trabis, officially called Trabant, in front of our hotel. The parked cars reminded me of a defeatist story in the former GDR. Asking the question: What are one, two, or three Trabants? The answer was: One Trabant is a socialist achievement, two Trabants are the solution to the problem of finding spare parts, three Trabants are the weekly car production of the Zwickau auto works.

Here is a sign of a hairdresser advertising his no-waiting services. I discovered it in Neuruppin, a garrison town where King Frederick Wilhelm had once banned young Frederick following his aborted escape from his father. 

The writing on the sign is, as we say in German, and fitting the circumstance, drawn by the hair, i.e., far-fetched. You just use "Kamm* in ohne Termin" to get your hair cut, whereas Kamm in German, unfunnily, means comb.

*pronounced "come" in German

**

Friederisiko

The greeting of the Potsdam visitor

In my first blog in 2012, I not only mentioned the 300th birthday of Frederick the Great, commemorated in Germany, but also reflected on the character of this Prussian king, joining Schiller in his remark: "I cannot get fond of that guy."

Presently at Frederick's residence in Potsdam, an exhibition in the New Palace, named Friederisiko, attempts to retrace the Prussian king's life, the title alluding to his frequent playing of vabanque during war. Frederick moaned through his early life: I must fight three women, Maria-Theresa of Austria, Madame de Pompadour of France, and Elisabeth of Russia. It is a historical fact that the sudden death of one of Frederick's archenemies, the Tsarina, averted Prussia's total military defeat. Her son and successor, Peter, the king's great admirer, agreed to an armistice. This unexpected turn became known as the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.

Following the Peace Treaty of Hubertusburg, Frederick began rebuilding his country and completing the Park of Sanssouci. In constructing the New Palace, he wanted to show the world that Prussia was still not on her knees and even had the financial resources to build such a useless building. In fact, Frederick preferred living at the Sans Souci Palace and used the New Palace only for official receptions and to host his guests. His successors chose to stay in Berlin, Prussia's capital, and when in Potsdam, resided in the cozier Charlottenhof.

Plan of the Sans Souci Park with important buildings marked in red.
To the right is the vineyard terrace that leads up to the Sans Souci Palace.
The circular building in the lower middle is the tea pavilion, and to the left is the New Palace.
Far in the south, the tiny red dot is Charlottenhof.

At the entrance to Sans, Souci Fredrick's revenant playing traverse flute asks for an obol.
In the back, the famous historic windmill.

Sans, Souci under thunderclouds

The comma behind Sans -- does it allude to Frederick's missing virile member?
It had been amputated in his young years following an infection of gonorrhea.
Historians are still discussing the issue, including Frederick's sexual preferences.

Our guide, as other tourists had before, honored Frederick's tomb with a potato.
Frederick introduced the potato into Brandenburg, a crop well-suited to the sandy ground.
The story is that Prussian soldiers fed on potatoes fought better
than soldiers of enemy armies, who still depended on cereals.

View of Sans, Souci from below. Today, the grapes grown on the wine terrace are Scheurebe.
At the time of Fredrick, gardeners tried out wide varieties to deliver grapes
to the king, who was crazy about fresh fruit of all kinds.
Frederick was willing to pay a fortune for a handful of cherries in February.

The tea pavilion in the park is constructed in a style that people thought was Chinese.
It was à la mode at Frederick's time.
The nuns had come all the way from Poland to honor a guy who did not care about religion:
Every man should go to heaven in his own way.

Apparently, the Chinese not only invented papel, gun powdel, and porcelain.
But also the saxophone?

Frederick is everywhere and in all forms.
Here, with a hat made from porcelain, inviting tourists to buy chinaware
 made in the Royal Prussian Porcelain Manufactory

Even in the hotel, a plastic sculpture bid us Good Morning on our way to breakfast.

While the guided tour concentrated on Frederick's Potsdam, we also visited Rheinsberg. As a young man far from his father's knout, the Prince felt happy writing poetry, making music, and partying with friends. Frederick wrote: My entire mind is turned to philosophy. It does me good service. I am happy, as I am much calmer than I was before.

Rheinsberg Castle, seen from the lakeside, with our group in the foreground.

Young Frederick. His statue in Rheinsberg.

**