January 27

Yesterday evening, Red Baron commemorated January 27, when 70 years ago, the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp. Every year on this day, memorial events are organized in Freiburg and elsewhere in Germany. As usual, the commemoration took place in Freiburg's fully occupied Kaisersaal, with the first rows of chairs reserved for dignitaries and organizers. I arrived early to find a seat not too far from the speakers' table, old age oblige.

This year's commemoration focused on the fate of gay people under Nazi rule. Already in the 2nd Reich and the Weimar Republic, homosexuality had been punishable as an "unnatural vice" according to §175 of the criminal code. Nevertheless, same-gender contacts were tolerated as long as it did not offend public decency. An active gay scene had developed in Berlin and elsewhere during the Roaring Twenties.

Kaisersaal: Projected Röhm, taken from my seat

All this changed when the Nazis came to power, although their members were not free of, as they called it, sodomy practices either. The best-known example was Ernst Röhm, chief of the SA. Following Hitler's Machtergreifung on January 30, 1933, Röhm's Sturm-Abteilung tried to push through their somewhat proletarian demands, displeasing the dictator. During the Night of the Long Knives on June 30 to July 1, 1934, the "loyal" SS (Schutzstaffel) murdered the rest of any remaining opposition to Hitler, including Röhm.

With the prominent homosexual liquidated, a storm broke loose. On October 20, 1934, the police cracked down on the gay scene all over the Reich. Even uninvolved men who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time were arrested. The following court actions applied the heightened provisions of §175a that the Nazis had added. 

Most prisoners who served their prison sentences were not liberated but were directly sent to the Dachau or Buchenwald concentration camps wearing the pink triangle. As inferior human beings, some men served in medical experiments, others were castrated, and many were just beaten to death.

Never again ...

©Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

**

Retrospect and Prospect

Here, I will pause my blog activity for a minute to assess. 300 posts written from 2010 to today have received 90,000 page views. I previously presented statistics on his blogs and commented on the results.

All-time page views January 2015

Comparing the previous statistics with the current results shows that the five most-visited posts have retained their positions. The only change is that the post-Nuclear Power to Save the World made it into the top ten, pushing Waldsterben out. Does this mean that the German woods are no longer doomed? We shall see.

For me, there is one mystery. What do my readers find so fascinating about a silly quarrel over the "real" golden color of the German flag presented in January 2013? I tried to find out what became of the dispute and failed. Nevertheless, Red Baron identified the man as the retired publisher Christof Müller-Wirth. He complained and wrote a letter to our federal president stating that "yellow" is a form of historical amnesia and unconstitutional.

On May 5, 2014, the city of Homburg awarded the Christof Müller-Wirth Medal for his work on the history of the German Revolution in 1848/49. The medal is named after his great-great-great-grandfather Johann Georg August Wirth, who organized the Hambach Festival with Philipp Jakob Siebenpfeiffer in 1832.

Lord Mayor Karlheinz Schöner (left) awards Homburg's Wirth-Medal
to Dr. Christof  Müller-Wirth (right). The painting in the back shows
his ancestor Johann Georg August Wirth (©City of Homburg)

Still yellow! In February 2014, the Chinese interpreted the "yellow" in the German flag as a synonym for pornography or the sex industry. Their government used all three colors for its propaganda: Black = fight corruption, red = sing revolutionary songs, yellow = abolish sex work.

©dpa

Dissidents started to interpret the three colors their way: Black means the top is corrupt, red means the middle class bleeds to death, and yellow represents that the lower class is suitable for sex work. To avoid any future abuse of the German colors, it would indeed be better if the "yellow" were "golden."

Where do I go from here? Be assured, I am not running out of topics. As you know, history is always on my mind, but I still have to finish the 1,000 pages of The Dreamwalkers before I can write about my appreciation of the book.

In the meantime, enjoy two more pictures from my old book of fairy tales.

Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty)

Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood)

*

L'Islam est Charlie

In the aftermath of the Paris massacre, many a person will again ask how human beings are capable of such atrocities in the name of God. In a previous blog, Red Baron had already described that fanaticism and religious intolerance are not the privileges of Islam.

Patriotic French Muslim (©AFP)

Muslims in western countries somehow helplessly call the Paris killers devils who pervert Islam. In the same breath, they assure their Christian neighbors that they observe the constitution and consider freedom of the press a fundamental asset.

Je suis Charlie in Arabic (©AFP)

Red Baron was curious about what the Imams had to say in their Friday prayers last week. The well-known Imam of the Drancy mosque in Saint-Denis, a Paris suburb, Hassan Chalghoumi made some rather general statements: These are criminals, barbarians. They have sold their soul to hell. This is not freedom. This is not Islam.

The tenor was the same in the mosques of all major cities: The assassins are brainless. They are no Muslims. They damaged Islam more than the Mohamed cartoons.

We Muslims are strictly against any abuse of religious feelings and are disgusted by the action of immature youths who brought death and grief to Paris. These murders are an attack on our religion, like the Mohammed cartoons. We strictly condemn both.

Many Imams cited Qur'an Sura 5,32: If anyone slays a person, it would be as if he slew the whole people. However, the text reads slightly differently from the original. It originally refers to Cain having slain his brother Abel: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone slew a person - unless it is in retaliation for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew all mankind.

Taking the original text, who will interpret the exceptions correctly?

L'Islam est Charlie.
The proof: Charlie Hebdo of January 14, 2015.

*

Leg-Gate

Germany's liberal party, the Free Democrats (FDP), had their annual party congress as usual at Epiphany (Dreikönigstreffen) in Stuttgart. The congress opened in a somewhat depressed mood because the party got less than 5% of the votes in all recent state elections. That means the FDP is no longer presented in those parliaments.

©FDP

When posters with Keine Sau braucht die FDP (No hog needs the FDP) appeared last fall during the electoral campaign in the State of Brandenburg, party officials pasted these words over with magenta-colored stickers: Jeder Brandenburger braucht die FDP. It did not help. On the evening of the elections on September 14, 2014, the Free Democrats earned a meager 1.5% of the votes.


The following state elections will take place in Hamburg on February 15. At the Dreikönigstreffen young party chairman Christian Lindner (38) aligned the delegates to the liberal core values of the FDP, impressing them with a one-hour free speech. At the same time, Lindner officially introduced a new color for the party: magenta.

New FDP logo (©FDP)

Among the party delegates present in Stuttgart was Katja Suding. She is chairwoman of the parliamentary group of the Free Democrats in the Hamburg state parliament and FDP hopeful for the February elections.

Chairwoman Katja Suding (©ARD)

Will Our Man for Hamburg turn the tide and harvest more for the FDP than the necessary 5% of the votes?

Our Man for Hamburg (©FDP)

Some readers of my blogs will remember FDP Brüderle's dirndl-gate. The follow-up in Stuttgart was a leg-gate when German television made a pan shot of Katja's legs.

Leg-gate (©ARD)

In a first reaction, Katja called the cut sexist. The director of the news department sent his excuses and even went a step further, calling the cut an Altherren-Schwenk (Dirty old men pan). He continued: This is the proof that we need more camera-women than cameramen. Katja accepted the excuses, well recognizing the odd publicity for herself and her party.

*

Fribourg est Charlie

©BZ/Ingo Schneider

By chance Red Baron was in town yesterday at 11:30 - the time of the Paris massacre the day before - and assisted at a solidarity demonstration: Nous sommes Charlie.

All streetcars stopped at Bertoldsbrunnen (©BZ/Ingo Schneider)

Freiburg raises its pencils as a sign of protest (©Thomas Muffler)

When I returned home, I reread my blog yesterday and became more uneasy about my quotation of the law of retaliation. Looking for some consolation on the Internet, I came across the paradox of freedom by Karl Popper. He wrote in 1945 under the experience of the Second World War in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies:

  Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them ... We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

It is an irony of fate that the last edition of Charlie Hebdo on January 7, showed the following cartoon:

Still no assassination in France ...
wait, we still have time until the end of January
 to convey our wishes (©Charlie Hebdo)

*

I am Charlie

France is in shock, and so is Red Baron. Yesterday morning three terrorists shouting Allahu Akbar stormed the Paris editorial office of the fortnightly published satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. They opened fire using submachine guns, killing twelve people, including the editor-in-chief and some well-known cartoonist. Two terrorists are still on the run. Meanwhile, the youngest - 18 years old! - turned himself over to the police.

Charlie Hebdo of January 7 (©Charlie Hebdo)

Charlie Hebdo is critical of politicians, actors, and the Catholic church. So far, the latter has lost all court cases on denigration against the magazine. The latest edition pictures Michel Houellebecq who had just published his new novel Soumission. The words on Charlie Hebdo's title page refer to Houellebecq's prediction that in 2022 a Muslim will become France's president with the consequence that the author will "submit" to Ramadan, the Islamic fasting month. That should be no difficulty, for in 2015, Houellebecq will lose all his teeth, i.e., his "bite."

In the past, Charlie Hebdo had published cartoons about Mohamed that had caused some turmoil in the Arabic world. This, however, does not justify any killing of people. Intolerance in the name of religion that does not shrink back from murder makes Red Baron furious. I am tempted to advocate the law of retaliation from the Old Testament (Lev. 24,19-20): An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but ...

©Large via Facebook

Moses and Mohamed agree with Jesus when he says: And yet we three delivered the same message of peace and love to them.

*

A Successful Start-up in Brooklyn

On December 31, 2013, the Badische Zeitung (BZ) published an article about a young couple from the Freiburg region who opened a restaurant named Black Forest Brooklyn on December 6 at 733 Fulton Street in Brooklyn. On January 2, 2015, our local newspaper returned to the story, reporting that the Black Forest joint is regularly crammed full.

The Black Forest Brooklyn on 733 Fulton Street (©Holler)

The Hollers, Ayana from Sulzburg and Tobias from Pfaffenhofen, had met in the Big Apple and fell in love. Although he is an architect and she is a documentary filmmaker, they decided to open a restaurant in Brooklyn with specialties from native Baden. They called their start-up an Authentic German Indoor Biergarten and Kaffeehaus, Black Forest Brooklyn (BFB). Every hour on the hour, an original Black Forest cuckoo calls the customers to taste schnitzel, Käsespätzle (cheese noodles), and Freiburg's Lange Rote (long red bratwurst). Original decorative elements like pictures of the Black Forest and a heart with Freiburg written on them create a home-away-from-home feeling.

The Holler family and a giant Black Forest cake (©BZ)

A year ago, the BZ showed a small family photo behind a big Black Forest cake, but in the lower right corner, you notice a glass of beer from Cologne, the Gaffel Kölsch. Although the BFB has 14 German beers on tap, a Black Forest brand was still missing.

To honor the first keg of Rothaus Pils on US soil.
Chairman Christian Rasch had made the trip from Rothaus to Brooklyn (©Holler)

Eventually, on October 17, 2014, the Hollers celebrated the entry of Black Forest Rothaus beer into the US market with an official keg-tapping ceremony and a Rothaus happy hour at Black Forest Brooklyn. Getting a license for import was difficult since U.S. Homeland Security considers all non-pasteurized beer a potential biochemical weapon.

When, on December 6, 2014, the Hollers celebrated the first anniversary of their restaurant, they were overwhelmed and thanked their customers: You made our first year terrific!

Schiller once wrote in his poem Der Spaziergang (The Walk): Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta, verkündige dorten ... a phrase I would like to translate: Madisonian, when you come to New York, get the Freiburg feeling by visiting the Black Forest Brooklyn.

**

Ecclesia sanctissimi Salvatoris in portu sacro

Glienicke Bridge around 1912

When you take the Bundesstraße 1 (Federal Highway 1) from Potsdam to Berlin, you will cross the Havel River at Glienicker Brücke and possibly stop for a photo.

Photo shooting in November 2011. The sign reads:
Germany and Europe were divided here until November 10, 1989, at 6 p.m.

©Wikipedia/Mariluna

During the Cold War, the bridge was the border between the East German Democratic Republic (GDR) and West Berlin, frequently serving as an exchange point for spies. The most famous swap occurred on February 10, 1962, when the Soviets handed over U-2 pilot Gary Powers and American student Frederic Pryor in exchange for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher, aka Rudolf Ivanovich Abel. The USSR honored its spy with a stamp in the year the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceased to exist, splitting into autonomous republics.


When you stand on Glienicke Bridge and look north over the waters, you notice a building with a spire in the far distance, the Heilandskirche of Sacrow.

Ecclesia sanctissimi Salvatoris in portu sacro (©dpda)

The Ecclesia sanctissimi Salvatoris in portu sacro (Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in the Sacred Port) is located on the waterfront of Jungfernsee (Virgins' Lake). In the Latin title, the Slavic name of the place Sacrow (za krowje, meaning 'behind the bushes') was changed to sacro, the ablative case of the Latin adjective sacer (holy). The Heilandskirche was conceived by the romantic king on the Prussian throne, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, and built by court architect Ludwig Persius in the Italian style, with a detached campanile (clock tower), and was completed in 1844.

When the GDR closed its borders to the West on August 13, 1961, the barrier ran across the church property such that the campanile, serving as an observation tower for the East German border guards, eventually became part of the concrete wall. The church nave stood inside the Todesstreifen (death strip) between the wall and the border. Later, the East German authorities sealed off the building completely to prevent any escape of people from East to West.

Looking from the campanile down to the death strip.
The concrete wall is to the left (©Pfingstkirchengemeinde)

Just before Christmas, I found the following heartwarming German-German story in Der Spiegel online:

When the wall eventually fell on November 9, 1989, the Heilandskirche, nearly in ruins, became accessible again.

The interior of the Heilandskirche in November 1989 (©Pfingstkirchengemeinde)

On Christmas Eve 1989, Pastor Joachim Strauss, at the age of 77 and after more than twenty-eight years of absence from his church, held the midnight service.

The parish people were already seated when Pastor Strauss entered the dilapidated church
around midnight to celebrate the Christmas Eve service on December 24, 1989
(©Birgit Regotzki/Der Spiegel)

Today, the Heilandskirche has resuscitated, in all its splendor, a symbol of freedom and peace; amen.

Auferstanden aus Ruinen (Risen from ruins)
is the first line of the national anthem of the former GDR (©dpda)

**

True Religion?

Before Christmas, my son sent me a link to a blog: What is "true" religion?

While most comments on the blog dealt with the question of whether ISIS is "true Islam," I, after a first reading, retained the following sentence: "Everybody who is religious picks and chooses their morals from scripture."

I comment: That is most true, but beware of those "leaders" who guide you through the process of picking not what you believe but what they believe.

©dpa

After reading the blog a second time, I must admit that there is more to true religion. I often meet people claiming that Christianity is a true religion, and even the true religion, because it is based on neighborly love, according to Matthew 22: 37-40: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

It is a pity that people no longer read the Old Testament, for love of the neighbor is already laid down in Leviticus 19: 18: Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. Christ, speaking as a rabbi, was referring to this Jewish text.

What about Islam? In Qur'an 42:23, we read: It is that of which Allah gives good tidings to His servants who believe and do righteous deeds. Say, [O Muhammad], "I do not ask you for this message any payment [but] only good will through kinship." And whoever commits a good deed - We will increase for him good therein. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Appreciative. As for the interpretation, I found the following text: Islam advocates brotherly love in faith. Human beings can live in blessing and kindness so long as they love each other, show trustworthiness, and behave according to truth and fairness. This brotherly love in faith also establishes good relations in society when it is done with sincerity and affection. In short, heartfelt love is simply sharing Islam: I love you for the sake of Allah.

If Muslims love each other for the sake of Allah, are we Christians doing better? Do we consider people of other religions as our neighbors? And what about nonbelievers? Do they not show love for their neighbors, too, like Dr. Rieux in Albert Camus' novel The Plague? In caring for the plague sufferers, the atheistic doctor develops a personal humanism out of solidarity with the victims.


Maybe it is tolerance that makes out a true religion? Religion is the belief in God, but they are intolerant by definition, as there are many religions. The God of the Old Testament is downright jealous, and the Bible stories describe in detail the atrocities committed against people of other beliefs.

Christianity is not better when you think about Charlemagne slaughtering the Saxons when they refused to accept "the" true faith. Wait a minute; was the Father of the Christian West not just waging a war of aggression to enlarge his realm?

Remember the crusaders killing Islamic women and children in the name of God. The Spaniards spreading the Christian faith with fire and swords in South America were just looking for the Inca gold. During the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, Catholics killed their Huguenot neighbors.

At the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, the Hussite Bohemians declared that this was a religious war, while the Catholic Habsburgs retorted that it was nothing but a power struggle. In a later phase of the war, France, the eldest daughter of the Roman Church, supported the Protestants against the Catholic Habsburgs. I will stop here and only just mention the religious struggle in Northern Ireland that degenerated into a political showdown in the past.

Most historians claim that Prussia's Frederick the Great, the enlightened philosophical king, was tolerant when he stated alle Religionen [seindt] gleich und guth, wan nuhr die leüte, so sie professieren, ehrliche leüte seindt (All religions are the same and good if only the people who confess them are sincere). He used money from his privy purse to build a Catholic cathedral in Protestant Berlin, not because of love for a "true" faith but because of politisches Kalkül (motivated by political necessity). Saint Hedwig's Cathedral was essential to calm down Prussian Neubürger (new citizens) from Silesia, who lived as devout Catholics under Austrian rule.

Saint Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin

The monarch continues his digression in religion: Wenn Türken und Heiden kähmen und Wolten das Landt pöplieren, so wollen Wir sie Mosqeen und Kirchen baun, Fr (If Turks and pagans came to dwell in this country, We would build mosques and churches for them, Frederick).

What a difference to the current protests of the PEGIDA* movement in Germany. These European patriots against the Islamization of the Christian occident, a melting pot of people marching in the street full of German angst, are partly driven by the fear that our "Christian" society will be unable to counter the influx of fertile Islamic fundamentalists.
*Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes

Christian occident in danger? Islamic crescent over Dresden's Frauenkirche (©dpa)

It is a positive sign that tolerant citizens manifest their support for the refugees from war-stricken Iran and Iraq by organizing counter-demonstrations. On the other hand, is the tolerance that most Christians nowadays silently show against other religions not just indifference?

Coming back to the original article, the author states at the end: All religious movements are based on faith, and faith, which is belief in the absence of convincing evidence, isn't true or false but simply irrational. 

**

The Birth of God

They did it again for Christmas: the editors of Der Spiegel, Germany's TIME Magazine, chose a religious topic for their feature article. Here are the links for the years 2012 and 2013.

Title page of  Der Spiegel: God in the eruption of volcano Hala al-Badr

Red Baron's battered copy of the first edition
of Jesus Menschensohn from 1972

Rudolf Augstein, the founder and long-time owner of Der Spiegel, started it all, culminating in his bestseller Jesus Menschensohn (Jesus, Son of Man) in 1972. In the book, Augstein presented rather old results of exegetes who questioned the New Testament content around 1900. Augstein presented their findings comprehensibly, spiced with his usually sarcastic remarks.

This year's topic in Der Spiegel is not the birth of Christ as the title suggests, but the origin of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. According to the article, the wrathful, punishing God of the Old Testament emerged from the fire. 

Remember the burning bush? Behold, the bush burned with fire and was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob [Exodus 2:3-6].

I read in the article that archaeologists now locate "Mount Sinai" not in the Peninsula of the same name but further east in the Arabian Peninsula. Biblical evidence identifies an eruption of the now-extinct volcano Hala al-Badr, as Mount Sinai was covered with smoke when the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently [Exodus 19:18].

I further read that the Old Testament is full of euphemisms. Saul and David were no kings but miserable warlords frequently beaten by the Philistines.

Red Baron prefers the merciful, loving God born 2000 years ago in a stable: While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because no guest room was available for them [Luke 2:6-7].

Rather early.

Today, Elisabeth and I visited the local church in nearby Staufen, where I took a photo of the crèche already set up. The scene is not yet illuminated. The people approaching the manger barely resemble shepherds, but the donkey and ox are there, and Mary with the child is already present. The crèches in churches in neighboring France are ready before Christmas, too, but the child is always missing. The figurine will be added on Christmas Night.

Somewhat early, as the crèche in Staufen, I wish you all a

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

**

Freiburg's German-American Stammtisch

The Freiburg-Madison Gesellschaft (FMG) is a local society maintaining and strengthening its ties with Freiburg's sister city Madison, WI, in the US. Our Spiegelgremium (counterpart) in the States is the Madison-Freiburg Sister City Committee. The FMG works in close cooperation with the Carl-Schurz-Haus and the Academic Year in Freiburg (AYF). About forty American students come to Freiburg each year, spending a full Academic Year at the University.

The other day Freiburg's newspaper, the Badische Zeitung (BZ), paid us a visit where we presented the FMG and its activities. Subsequently, an article and the following photo appeared in the BZ showing the members of FMG's executive committee and two students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the Greiffenegg-Schlössle, our usual meeting place.

©Thomas Kunz/BZ

You will find FMG's draft program for 2015 on our website. While many of our activities center around the AYF students, we also meet for a monthly Stammtisch (regulars' table) to discuss German-American topics. 

Organized jointly with the Carl-Schurz-Haus, the Stammtisch is open to all citizens interested in American literature, economy, politics, and customs and to all Americans living in Freiburg and its surroundings to get acquainted with their German neighbors. We hope for a good level of attendance in 2015.

*

The Popes' Publisher

The afternoon before yesterday, Red Baron joined the Museumsgesellschaft to visit the Herder Verlag (publishing house). Bartholomä Herder founded the Verlag in Freiburg in 1810 and was also one of the founders of the Lesegesellschaft, the precursor of the Museumsgesellschaft. Therefore, I wrote a short biography of Bartholomä, which served as the basis for an article on German Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, the publishing house is in its sixth generation, with Manuel Herder at the helm.

The Man and his realm. Manuel Herder shows us his "palace."

The following cartoon shows Manuel's ancestors hovering over the Herder headquarters. The founder, Bartholomä, is shown with a halo. You can read over the entrance to the building: Geist schafft Leben taken from John 6,63: The Spirit Gives Life.

©Herder

The Herders have, above all, published religious literature from the start. So Manuel had a good hand when he made a contract with Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to publish his books. Later, when Josef was Pope Benedict XVI, he came to Freiburg and visited Manuel Herder and the Verlag.

Ad multos libros (To(o) many books?).
Writer maniac Ratzinger? (©Herder)

Presently, the Herder Verlag is publishing a scholarly edition of Joseph Ratzinger's complete works in 16 volumes. The photo in the Badische Zeitung shows Manuel handing over volume 4 of Einführung in das Christentum (Introduction to Christianity) to the former pope.

Manuel Herder, with former Pope Benedict XVI, presented the book (©Herder/BZ)

On this occasion, Manuel also met Pope Francis. He presented him with the printed edition of the pontiff's speeches in Strasbourg at the European Institutions on November 25, 2014, entitled: Europa, wach auf! (Europe, wake up!). Francis was greatly astonished and asked, "Already ready?"

Manuel Herder with Pope Francis presenting the Strasbourg book.
On the left: Vatican's Georges Clooney Cardinal Gänswein (©Herder/BZ)

Yes, like the pope, we were impressed. The family-owned Herder Verlag is definitely technologically state-of-the-art. Needless to say, most of its books are simultaneously published as e-books.

A Herder masterpiece from the 19th century, the Rheingräntz-Carte

**

Happy Easter!

No, Red Baron is not completely gaga yet, but today he read an article in the Badische Zeitung titled: Winter ist Osterhasenzeit (Winter is the time for Easter bunnies).

©dpa

While Santa Clauses made from chocolate wait to be bought at Christmas markets and elsewhere, chocolate factories in Germany already produce Easter eggs and bunnies. Next summer, they will cast chocolate into hollow Santas and Christmas decorations and fill Advent calendars for the 2015 season.

In reading the article, a scene from March 1990 came to my mind when I revisited a place where I had lived as a boy: Entering the house located in the former GDR where I had spent a couple of weeks of my early youth everything including the room where I once slept seemed so small, but nothing had really changed. Even the water faucet halfway up the narrow staircase where I had my morning wash was still in place. I knocked at a door, and from the inside, somebody said: Herein! I opened the door. There the whole family was sitting around a table manufacturing Easter decorations. I knew that in the West, people were already working on decorations for Christmas.

Winter is not incumen in in Germany yet. Therefore the first wave of shopping Lebkuchen (gingerbread) in September passed unnoticed. An expert said that if people buy Lebkuchen in cold September weather, the shelves are empty and ready to take Chocolate Santa Clauses and filled Advent calendars. We hope temperatures will soon drop, helping with the Christmas chocolate sale.

For Red Baron, any season is good to eat chocolate; in summer always out of the fridge.

*

Speak German! You Immigrants

Most western democracies are characterized by the antagonism between right and left, e.g., Conservatives and Labour in the UK. In France, the two camps are bitterly opposed, while in Germany, they live through a grand coalition. Whereas in the US, there is a two-party system in other countries, the spectrum is usually enriched with right and left-wing parties. German history has shown that if the extreme parties become too strong, a nation becomes ungovernable (Weimar Republic).

Germany's party spectrum is quite colored, as I explained in a previous blog. It started with the success of the Green Party (11%), taking away quite a number of votes from the Social Democrats (SPD). The left-wing party Die Linke (at 9%) meant another drain such that the historically grand SPD now stagnates at about 24% of the votes while the other major party, Chancellor Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), is going strong with 41% having absorbed a good part of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP presently at 2%).

Recently a new party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD at 6%), was formed. In poaching votes at the right wing of the CDU, the AfD made it into several state parliaments. This populist party would like, among other things quit the euro. They advocate a national instead of a European foreign policy, ignore climatic change, and demand compulsory German lessons for immigrants. So far, nobody has chosen brown as the color code for the AfD; they are presented in charts with a light blue instead.

The CDU, particularly its Bavarian wing, the Christian Social Union (CSU), does not like to have the ground cut under its feet. In moving their party platform to the right, the CSU hopes to stop the drain of votes to the AfD, avoiding the depletion the SPD had suffered from Die Linke.

CSU party leaders, old and new:
Edmund Stoiber and Horst Seehofer with their wives (©dpa)

With so many people fleeing their war stricken countries and looking for a safe harbor in Germany their integration into our society has become a big issue. Recently the CSU forwarded the following idea: Wer dauerhaft hier leben will, soll dazu angehalten werden, im öffentlichen Raum und in der Familie deutsch zu sprechen (Those who want to stay in Germany permanently shall be urged to speak German in public places and in their families). That sounds in Bavarian dialect that zuagroaste Hansln, die wo fia immer in Deitschland bleim wolla, dahoam gfälligst Deitsch ren. Strangely the CSU means a saubers Deitsch and not the Bavarian dialect. There are exception to the demand as a political stand-up comedian stated: Selbstgespräche sowie unter der Dusche gesungene Lieder bleiben auch weiterhin in einer anderen Sprache als Deutsch erlaubt (Talking to oneself as well as singing songs in the shower are still allowed in another language than German).

The CSU demand started a shitstorm. Even the secretary general of their sister party CDU wrote on Twitter: Ich finde ja, es geht die Politik nichts an, ob ich zu Hause lateinisch, klingonisch oder hessisch red (I think it is not the business of policy whether I talk Latin, Klingon, or Hessian dialect at home).

Other parties used stronger wording: Nicht auszudenken, hätten die Amerikaner einem Thomas Mann verboten, daheim deutsch zu reden (That the Americans had put a ban on Thomas Mann to speak German at home is unthinkable). A Green Party member used a hefty German expression defying translation: Was ich zu Hause spreche geht die CSU einen feuchten Kehricht an (It is none of CSU's business what I speak at home). and he continued referring to Germany's past: Welcher Blockwart soll denn das kontrollieren? (Where is the "block leader" to check this?).

Crazy.

P.S.: Today (December 9, 2014), the CSU modified their demand in changing the phrasing: shall be urged to speak German in public places, and in their families to shall be motivated to speak German in public places and in their families.

*

Back to the Roots?

In an earlier blog, I wrote that most beer drinkers know about the German purity decree. This decree is not German since Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria ordered the Reinheitsgebot on April 23, 1516. Since 1994, the Tag des deutschen Bieres (Day of the German Beer) has been celebrated on April 23.

The other day in Munich, Red Baron was shocked about his ignorance when he read on a sign at a Maibaum on Viktualienmarkt (Munich's touristic food market) that the Munich Reinheitsgebot already dates from anno Domini 1487. In that year Duke Albert IV the Wise of Bavaria-Munich cast an order of the Munich magistrate of 1453 into law, dass Bier und Greußing* nu füran auch aus nichts anderem dann Hopfen, Gersten und Wasser gesotten werden (that from now on and forever beer and mild beer shall be seethed using nothing else than hops, barley and water).
*a beer with less hops



Yeast is not mentioned here because, in those days, mash fermentation started spontaneously by bacteria from the surrounding air. This is similar to my mother's method of leaving milk in an open receptacle in the kitchen for two or three days until it became set.

Six years later, on February 16, 1493, Duke George the Rich of Bavaria-Landshut issued another purity decree for his territory: Item die Bierbräuer und andere sollen auch nichts zum Bier gebrauchen denn allein Malz, Hopfen und Wasser, noch dieselben Bräuer auch die Bierschenken und andere nichts anderes in das Bier thun, bey Vermeidung von Strafe an Leib und Gut (Also the beer brewers shall use nothing else for making beer than malt, hops, and water and shall as the beer-houses not put anything else into the beer thus avoiding punishment for body and property).

Following the reunification of the various parts of Bavaria Duke Wilhelm IV proclaimed on April 23, 1516, the above mentioned common purity decree for the whole of Bavaria: Wir wollen auch sonderlichhen dass füran allenthalben in unsern stetten märckthen un auf dem lannde zu kainem pier merer stüchh dan allain gersten, hopfen un wasser genommen un gepraucht solle werdn (We want in particular that everywhere in our towns, markets, and in the countryside to any beer no more than barley, hops, and water shall be taken and used). Later, this Bavarian purity decree formed part of the Reichsbiersteuergesetz (Imperial taxation law for beer) and was called Vorläufiges Biergesetz (Preliminary Beer Law) in the Federal Republic. Preliminary because its articles now are part of the Lebensmittel- und Futtermittelgesetzbuch (Legal code for food and fodder) of September 1, 2005.

Back to the roots? We Germans should not be too proud as in 1438, Duke Philip III the Good of Burgundy had already issued a Pflichtenheft (functional specification document) demanding that for the production of bierre, only water, Burgundian hops, and barley must be used. Purists claim that Duke Philip was not concerned with the purity of the beer but instead wanted to protect the monopoly of Burgundian hops.

*