New Year's Reception

Red Baron got an invitation to Freiburg's New Year's reception this year. Given the importance of the city's 900th anniversary in 2020, there were 1600 invited guests and, in addition, 900 randomly selected citizens.

To accommodate the nearly 3000 people, the city rented the Sick Arena at the exhibition grounds. Instead of the traditional lord mayor's speech, Martin Horn went through Freiburg's past history, the present, and the city's future.

Lord Mayor Martin Horn is small on the right but big on the screen.

Horn welcoming dignitaries sitting in the first row.

Freiburg's past is projected on the screen.

The projection and the lord mayor get color.

Freiburg of today

What will the future be like? Despite all real and imagined changes,
Freiburg's Minster Church will remain the center of the city.

The dancers of the Dance Academy who had performed behind the semi-transparent
projection screen claim their more than rightly deserved applause.

Mayors Martin Horn and Ulrich von Kirchbach thank producers and stage directors
of Action Theater PAN.OPTIKUM, who had joined the crowd on stage.

The final curtain. The audience is projected on the screen in the background.

 Following the impressive presentation, Red Baron met many friends at the party and had some drinks.

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Hamburg 1

Many friends know I spent eight years of secondary education in Hamburg. Therefore, I long to visit the city whenever possible. In fact, my former class holds reunions annually, so I am in Hamburg at least once a year. Since remembering dates becomes challenging with age, those still alive meet on the third weekend in September. Here is the link to picture galleries of those class reunions dating from 2002 to 2019.

In January 2017, I was in Hamburg to listen to a concert at the Elbphilharmonie (Elphi). This new landmark had been inaugurated just the week before. The resulting trilogy of blogs further described some highlights of Hamburg and focused on the famous Miniatur Wunderland.

Last year, I was in Hamburg for my class reunion in September, then in November, and later, I celebrated the turn of the year on a boat on the Elbe River.

My visit in November had a double purpose.

The Fachverband für Strahlenschutz (FFS), the German-Swiss Radiation Protection Society, hosted a two-day seminar on the new German Radiation Protection Act at DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron), the high-energy physics laboratory located in Hamburg. Retired members of the Fachverband paid a well-reduced conference fee, including a guided tour of DESY. That made me curious to learn about new developments in my old trade.

The other reason for my trip was to determine whether the visitors' tour of DESY would be worth an excursion to Hamburg in 2020 as part of the "Museumsreisen." You may know that Red Baron is a member of Freiburg's oldest citizens' society, founded in 1807, called Museumsgesellschaft. Last year, our society visited the city of Schwäbisch Hall and its surroundings. I published some stray observations in a blog as splinters during that trip.

On November 17, Red Baron boarded the ICE train from Freiburg to Hamburg. The ride took six and a half hours, but I like soft traveling, although I no longer enjoy Butterkuchen (with time," the quality of the cake was strained"). I would rather have a pot of coffee served on the train with a slightly salty and crusty Laugen croissant bought at Freiburg's train station.

I stayed at the Hotel Harbor Hamburg near the S-Bahn station Landungsbrücken (jetty facilities).

View of the Landungsbrücken at the waterfront. The display on the tower to the left shows the tide mark.

I had a splendid view of the port and the Elbe River from my hotel.

On the waterfront at Landungsbrücken in the evening, I had one of the best Finkenwerder Speckscholle (a plaice baked in finely diced bacon) in my life, crowned by a Hamburger Rote Grütt (red berry groats with vanilla ice cream instead of the original vanilla custard).

The hotel featured a tower with a bar that offered fantastic views of the city and harbor.

Looking upstream:
In the back, in the middle, the dark silhouette of the Elbphilharmonie

Looking downstream:
The dome of the Elbtunnel in the middle, near the waterfront, and
illuminated dry docks in the background

FFS

What did I learn at the seminar on radiation protection, having been out of business for nineteen years? Twenty years ago, the annual dose limit to the body of persons exposed to ionizing radiation in the course of their profession was lowered from 50 to 20 mSv, and radiation protection abandoned the notion of critical organs that had to be specially protected.

Now, the "lens of the eye" rears its head again as a "critical organ" with an annual dose limit of 20 mSv. In fact, there may be radiation situations where special efforts must be made to protect the lens from beta radiation.

This is not true for flying personnel exposed to high-energy radiation during flights. Their individual doses are not measured but calculated and attributed to the route flown. Nowadays, pilots and cabin crews are among the most exposed people.

DESY

During the introduction to DESY and before the guided tour, I learned that the institute is now part of the Helmholtz Community, a network of German research institutes.

In the interactions of high-energy electrons with high-energy protons,
the electrons explore the structure of protons by deep inelastic scattering.

The HERA tunnel and accelerator (in orange) run deep below the city of Hamburg and cross under the famous Volkspark soccer stadium, home of the frustrating HSV (Hamburger Sportverein).

Inside the HERA tunnel. Dismantling the accelerator is too expensive.
Abandoned and partially cannibalized, it is showcased as a highlight for visitors.

Starting at DESY and heading over 3.4 kilometers
northwest into the neighboring State of Schleswig-Holstein.

DESY's newest tool is the European XFEL (X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Facility)
commissioned in 2017. The machine is constructed such that the electrons produce X-ray light in synchronization, resulting in high-intensity X-ray pulses with the properties of laser light and at intensities much brighter than those produced by conventional synchrotron light sources (Wikipedia).

Showing the basic building blocks of matter.

The Standard Model of particle physics is elegant, but physicists look further. No sign of New Physics exists even with the highest energies at CERN. Frustration becomes more pronounced as the years pass. Here is a glimpse of hope, a possible crack in the Standard Model:

The latest LHCb result is the first test of lepton universality made using the decays of beauty baryons – three-quark particles containing at least one beauty quark. Sifting through proton-proton collision data at energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV, the LHCb researchers identified beauty baryons called Λb0 and counted how often they decayed to a proton, a charged kaon, and either a muon and antimuon or an electron and antielectron.

The team then took the ratio between these two decay rates. If lepton universality holds, this ratio should be close to 1. A deviation from this prediction could, therefore, signal a violation of lepton universality. Such a violation could be caused by the presence in the decay of a never-before-spotted particle not predicted by the Standard Model.

The team obtained a ratio slightly below 1, with statistical significance of approximately 1 standard deviation, well below the 5 standard deviations required to claim a real difference in the decay rates. The researchers say that the result aligns with other findings, which have observed hints that decays to a muon–antimuon pair occur less frequently than those to an electron–antielectron pair. Still, they also stress that much more data is needed to determine whether this oddity in lepton behavior is here to stay.

Read the full article here.

There are many open questions in physics, particularly about dark matter and energy. And here is a "wanted" poster with fancy "names" to illustrate what we still do not know but would like to learn.

DESY can no longer fly on the one wing of high-energy physics. The Federal Republic and the Hamburg Senate will transform the DESY complex into a multidisciplinary Science City, aiming for synergistic effects in the years to come.

The taste of Hamburg or Franzbrötchen is just delicious.

A unique outlet at Hamburg's Central Station.

Finding food in Hamburg to take on the train is straightforward. The underdeveloped culture of the Laugen croissant in northern Germany is quickly forgotten when you opt for Franzbrötchen, a small, sweet pastry baked with butter and cinnamon.

franz & friends offer the standard variety, as well as fancy new creations of Franzbrötchen.

In 1812, the French Empire swallowed up the Habsburg and the Protestant Netherlands.
(Département des bouches du Rhin) as well as northern Germany (Département des bouches de l'Elbe)
including the cities of Hamburg and Lübeck.
They say that Napoleon intended to build a canal on French territory
connecting the Seine River with the Baltic Sea

The pastry's name dates back to the French occupation, when, in 1812, Hamburg was part of France under Napoleon's Grand Empire. Even then, the French occupiers ate better than the Germans. Instead of the petits pains, the former preferred the sugared version that the people from Hamburg reverently called französische Brötchen. The name and recipe stuck.

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The 2019 US/German City-Partnership Award

of the Steuben-Schurz-Gesellschaft (SSG) goes to the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft. We are incredibly honored and will continue to promote and strengthen the ties between Freiburg and our sister city, Madison, WI.

In October 2019, the FMG was invited to participate in a competition for the most outstanding partnership of a German city with one in the United States.

In December, our President, Toni Schlegel, received a letter stating that the FMG had been elected the award winner and that the vote was unanimous.

The objectives of the Steuben-Schurz-Society in Frankfurt are the promotion of German-American relations and international understanding. Its motto is "Providing stability and friendship in a challenging environment." Founded in 1930 and dissolved in 1933 by the Nazis, the SSG was re-founded after the war on August 1, 1948.

The two Germans who lent their names to the SSG achieved high recognition in the United States. Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben fought on George Washington's side in the War of Independence. He was appointed Inspector General of the United States Army.

On the other hand, Carl Schurz fought against slavery alongside Abraham Lincoln. As Secretary of the Interior under President Hayes, he led the fight against corruption and advocated for the rights of Native Americans. Margaret Schurz, the wife of Carl Schurz, founded America's first kindergarten in Wisconsin, now the partner state of Hesse.

Read more about SSG's history on its website. Strangely enough, the SSG does not have a Wikipedia entry.

The award ceremony is scheduled at Frankfurt's Hotel Maritim on January 28, as part of the SSG's New Year's reception. Red Baron will report.

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Freiburg 2020

Last Friday's Badische Zeitung had the obituary of a good friend. R.I.P. He was two years younger than me. This made me very sad, although his death reminded me that I still live in this world. How lucky I am.

The mayor's letterhead, according to former Mayor Otto Winterer's Maxime,
"A village has roofs, but a town sports steeples."

Then I received a letter from Freiburg's mayor. Here is the first paragraph translated:

Dear Dr. Höfert,

Gingerbread, cookies, fir branches, and the colorful hustle and bustle everywhere - Christmas is approaching with great strides. This is an appropriate occasion, too, to say thank you.

Many thanks for the good and trusting cooperation. Together, we have again achieved a great deal in many areas in 2019. I am incredibly grateful for this and would be delighted if, after the well-deserved Christmas break, we could pick up in the New Year with great enthusiasm where we left off.

Well, well, Mr. Martin Horn, I understood your broad hint, and, health permitting, you can count on me for those small achievements throughout the jubilee year.

Freiburg 2020 is ante portas, and I am particularly looking forward to the Partnerschaftsmarkt during the festival week on July 10 and 11. From our sister city, Madison, we expect a strong delegation with whom we would like to celebrate the city's 900th anniversary. My help is guaranteed.

Enjoy the Christmas tree. I took the photo on November 21, when I was in Paris, visiting the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre. Stay tuned for the blog to come.

I wish all my friends and readers a Merry Christmas and a Healthy* New Year.
*At my age, I have no apologies for this obvious Germanism
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A Mystery Nearly Solved

In a previous blog, I presented the following mysterious poster:

Near the end of my deliberations, I wrote: Unfortunately, the poster does not show a historical event. Nevertheless, it makes me dream about some Freiburgers who - following the occupation of their city on July 7, 1849, by Prussian troops - fled and eventually embarked for the States on a ship of the Federal Navy flying the Federal Insignia and Freiburg's flag with St. George's Cross too.

I wrote fake news for, fortunately, the poster shows a historical moment in German-American history.

The poster was printed in 1983 when both countries celebrated the 300th anniversary of the German Mayflower.

The galleon you see on the poster was the Concord that set sail in Rotterdam on July 6, 1683, under the command of Captain William Jeffries, and arrived at Philadelphia happily on October 6. There were 13 families from Krefeld on the Lower Rhine of Quaker and Mennonite faiths onboard. Initially, the families probably moved to Dutch-controlled Krefeld due to religious persecution in Germany. They continued to America, where this first significant group of German settlers founded Germantown.

In 1983 President Reagan proclaimed October 6 as "German-American Day."

Here is an additional text from Wikipedia describing what happened in Germantown a few years later: In 1688, five years after its founding, Germantown became the birthplace of the anti-slavery movement in America. Pastorius, Gerret Hendericks, Derick Updegraeff, and Abraham Updengraef gathered at Thones Kunders's house, wrote a two-page condemnation of slavery, and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church, the Society of Friends. The petition was mainly based upon the Bible's Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Though the Quaker establishment took no immediate action, the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery was a clear and forceful argument against slavery and initiated the process of banning slavery in the Society of Friends (1776) and Pennsylvania (1780).

Francis Daniel Pastorius is also the author of the poem printed on the poster.

In 1983 the American and the German postal services jointly issued commemorative stamps showing the Concord on the high seas. The ship flies two flags on the poster: St.George's Cross indicates that Concord was an English ship. As far as the German flag is concerned, anachronism is obvious.

Original German navy flag around 1850
seen at Dresden's German Army Museum

The flag flown is that of the German navy of 1848, showing black-red-gold and the imperial eagle. Already in 1853, the German navy was dissolved due to financial problems. There was a lack of interest by the mostly inner-German states.

In the meantime, I found an original poster on American eBay and ordered it. However, this does not solve the problem of the copyright we need when the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft would like to use it for its contribution "Auswandererlieder" to the Freiburg 2020 jubilee. Can anyone of my readers locate the poster's author,  F. Dornstaedter?

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Are Schools Too Dumb for Our Kids?

This was the provocative title of a lecture at Freiburg's university in the Education Today series. The speaker was Jürgen Kaube, co-editor of Germany's renowned newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine.

Everybody knows and talks about education because we all went to school and had personal experiences, ideas, proposals, and criticism.

Indeed, people were always dissatisfied with education, like Professor Higgins, when judging Eliza Doolittle's quality of speech,

"This is what the British population,

Calls an elementary education."

Before the musical "My Fair Lady" was even conceived, Red Baron learned about British education. We kids were simply amused when our English teacher told us about the importance of the three "Rs" in the UK, "Reading,' riting,' rithmatic." We thought the alliterated "Rs" were just funny.

Much earlier, Wilhelm Busch wrote in his cartoon Max und Moritz:

Also lautet ein Beschluss: Daß der Mensch was lernen muss. Nicht allein das Abc Bringt den Menschen in die Höh'; Nicht allein in Schreiben, Lesen Übt sich ein vernünftig Wesen; Nicht allein in Rechnungssachen Soll der Mensch sich Mühe machen; Sondern auch der Weisheit Lehren Muß man mit Vergnügen hören.

An old saw runs somewhat so: Man must learn while here below. Not alone the A, B, C, Raises man in dignity; Not alone in reading, writing, Reason finds a work inviting; Not alone in solving the double Rule of Three shall man take the trouble; But must hear with pleasure Sages Teach the wisdom of the ages.

Daß dies mit Verstand geschah, War Herr Lehrer Lämpel da.

Of this wisdom, an example To the world was Master Lämpel.

Dr. Kaube started his lecture with a laconic remark, "Most people forget most of it," referring to knowledge acquired in school.

He continued insisting that nothing had changed concerning priorities. Primary education should concentrate on Kulturtechniken (cultural techniques), i.e., nothing else than the three fundamental "Rs."

He warned, "Do not try treating kids as adults conveying sciences to them but rather strengthen their abilities. What is the use of asking children to write about the African elephant when they don't even know how to spell elephant? Don't teach 'early English' in the third grade when children do not master their German mother tongue."

The second aim of schooling is to make children think. One of my teachers used to say when a classmate started his answer with, "I think*...", "You should not think. Leave the thinking to the horses. They have bigger brains than you. Reflect!"
*Frequently understood in German and deliberately interpreted here in the sense of, "I think I'll have another beer."

Although the art of reflection requires some knowledge, it needs, above all, fundamental understanding, e.g., that of cause and effect.

There is a dilemma. While today's parents propose a whole catalog of skills schools should convey to their children, the latter demand that schooling must not disturb.

Two weeks before, in his lecture, "What is good education today?" the president of the German Teachers Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, showed the above slide, "What one still should and could teach in school."

 I will spare you the translation into English because you may have your own wish list. I only ask, "What is the role of the Elternhaus (parental care) in all this?"

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Freiburg Archaeology

Next year's anniversary is already casting its shadow. On November 23, the exhibition "900 Years of Life in the City" opened at Freiburg's Augustinermuseum.

Red Baron participated in a special guided tour led by one of the exhibition's curators, Dr. Bertram Jenisch, the man who dug up many of the exposed objects.

Medieval Freiburg, as seen from the duke's castle on Schlossberg.
The river Dreisam on the left is in the south, and
the still-existing industrial channel runs near the city wall.

Here is more than an artist's view of Freiburg around 1150. Given that Freiburg is the best archaeologically explored city in Baden-Württemberg, the picture is based on actual findings. The Romanesque parish church is in the middle of the fortified place.

A closer look at the original parish church surrounded by the municipal graveyard in winter. When the construction of the Minster church started around 1200, the old building was removed in stages as the new construction progressed. So worship in the remains of the original parish church was always assured.

Building the city wall was a Herculean task. In August 2018, Dr. Jenisch gave a talk at the Museumsgesellschaft.

Coming back to the long shot, the still-existing Salzstraße is seen on the left, starting at the Schwabentor, the gate to Swabia, from where salt, one of the most important trading goods of the Middle Ages, was imported, and passing along Salt Street.

Starting at St. Martin's gate, the Große Gass running south to north and west of the parish church crosses Salzstraße at the Fischbrunnen - today Bertoldsbrunnen. Broad Street was Freiburg's marketplace, so the fish basin at the fountain where live fish were kept for sale came in handy. In the Middle Ages, markets were the most important outlets for food and other goods, such as clothing and tools.

Double drinking cup made of rock crystal, gold-plated silver,
and enamel produced in Freiburg or Basel, 1487.

Already early, the water of the fast-flowing Dreisam was not only used to feed Freiburg's Bächle (brooklets, see below) but channeled for the operation of mills, gem-cutting, and polishing facilities located between the city wall and the river.

The rosary was made in Freiburg in the 15th to 17th centuries.
The beads consist of cut and polished Bohnerzjaspis, i.e.,
silicified beechwood mined, e.g., at Auggen near Freiburg.

The picture illustrates some activities extra muros along the industrial channel. In the background are the city wall and the church of the Augustinian Monastery.


This brings us to the mystery and controversy surrounding a re-leveling of Freiburg that remains unsolved.

Note the double window of the third house from the right on the second floor.

Here is a picture of Salzstraße around 1150. Two-story buildings, partly timber-framed and with nearly flat shingle roofs, border the south side of the street. These houses had basements dug into a gravel layer.

Embrasure of narrow group windows.
They were beveled towards the outside
to improve the incidence of daylight.

Already, Freiburg's precursor, an initial settlement of merchants and craftsmen below the Schlossberg, was built on a gravel cone running downhill into the plain. The natural gradient of the deposits made it easy to construct artificial watercourses diverted upstream from the Dreisam River. The talus of gravel on which the city stands is up to 18 meters thick.

Around 1170, some street levels in the city were filled with layers of gravel and raised by up to three meters. Some experts assume that this elaborate construction project was aimed at increasing the overall level of the Bächle system, creating a sufficient gradient so that the emerging western suburbs could be supplied with surface water as well. Other experts bitterly contest this assumption, but do not offer a plausible alternative explanation.

On Salzstraße, around 1200 houses show saddle roofs.
Buildings one and two from the right have merged,
 while the double window of the third building is now on the ground floor.
Note the Bächle running in the street.

Houses from the first half of the 12th century, aligned to a low street level on Salzstrasse, suddenly had their entrance doors on the second floor for the benefit of two superimposed basements.

New houses after 1175 were aligned to the higher street level. In fact, the number of new buildings at that time exceeded expectations due to the city's natural growth, presumably also because the elevation was used to replace wooden buildings with stone ones that feature saddle roofs.

The interior of the Augustiner church is now a part of Freiburg's Augustinermuseum.
The Bächle is still running in the street.

In 1278, Count Egino II allocated a narrow plot of land between the salt road and the city wall to the ordo Sancti Augustini, the Augustinian hermits. At least eight houses and courtyards were demolished for the monastery and church. The foundations of the old buildings were uncovered during the 2004 renovation of the Augustinermuseum. This is the basis of the above picture.

Magnificent fountain column with lion chapter of the von Andlau family 

Because in Freiburg the groundwater is about 18 meters deep, and the water from the Bächle is not suitable for human consumption, the drinking water supply was channeled from the nearby mountains via wooden pipes. Drinking water was available at public wells, although wealthy people had their own outlets.

Archaeology in Freiburg is not limited to the Middle Ages. On November 27, 1944, the air raid destroying most of the old city left a heap of ruins behind.

The contents of the basement were dug up when a new building was constructed on the site of a destroyed house.

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