Win-Win-Win

©Andreas Schwarzkopf/Wikipedia

The famous summer hole is approaching, so it is only natural that our mayor pulls a rabbit out of his hat that he calls Win-win-win.

The center pillar of the win-win-win situation is a historical and listed building named Lycée Turenne. My faithful readers know the name Turenne well.

This impressive building was constructed in the Neo-Renaissance style at the beginning of the 20th century and served as a teachers' seminar until 1933. In the Nazi area, various organizations of the Third Reich used the complex.

In 1954, the French occupation force made the building into a lycée, a high school for their children naming it Turenne. In 1992, after the withdrawal of the French troops, the building passed into the possession of Freiburg. Following a renovation, the city uses part of it for school purposes. However, the southwest wing comprising the historic gymnasium and a festival hall with around 4,000 square meters of usable space, has not been renovated. It can, therefore, not be used despite the urgent need for classrooms in Freiburg. Nevertheless, the city spends 24,000 Euros in upkeep costs yearly to keep the southwest wing alive.

 

An impressive building
overlooking the Oberwiehre quarter (©Ingo Schneider/BZ)

At the start of his press conference, Lord Mayor Martin Horn explained the three wins, "We are planning something big. We are filling the Lycée Turenne with life again, creating an attractive school campus - and saving an expansion building for the Bertold Gymnasium (high school)."

What Mayor Horn calls a castling goes like this: Following a renovation of the southwest wing of the Lycée Turenne, the present German-French Gymnasium (DFG) with its approximately 800 students would move from its current premises, i.e., could return to the historic site. The charm of the solution is evident.

In return, part of the Bertold Gymnasium would occupy the classrooms of the then-former DFG. Freiburg's Mayor for Building, Martin Haag, said, "Every new building consumes a lot of energy (they now call it gray energy) and pollutes the environment. If we can refrain from building on the sports field of the Berthold Gymnasium and instead renovate the listed Lycée Turenne, we will protect the climate and preserve a green area and the old building. This green solution will be cheaper too."

An inscription above the entrance to the old gymnasium
of the Lycée Turenne in the spirit of the Second Reich:
Obeying the body wears down the marrow,
taming the body makes you strong and resilient
(©Andreas Schwarzkopf/Wikipedia).

The city will throw in a new sports hall for the "new" DFG. Refurbishing the historical gym (sports hall) - unused for decades - would result in a cafeteria for the entire school campus, i.e., the neighboring Emil-Thoma-Schulen (elementary and secondary schools) and the Richard-Mittermeier-Schule (special-needs school).

Imperial eagle and crown (©P. Seeger)

In the end, Freiburg's School Mayor Christine Buchheit indeed must have had the inscription above the main entrance in mind "First probe, then praise. First weigh, then dare" when she cautioned, "The planning is still at the very beginning."

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The Erasmus Gulli

Those of my readers who have strolled Freiburg certainly noticed the city's manhole covers (Gullideckel) showing the Freiburg seal, its version dating back to 1245. The meaning of the depiction has been the subject of many speculations, such as whether it symbolizes freedom (the city gates are open), security (the fortified town), or justice (wind players blow the horn, calling for the day of judgment).

©Matthias Deutschmann

For the city's 900th anniversary, the cabaret artist Matthias Deutschmann designed the Freiburg Gulli. It is not a new bitcoin but simply a medal showing the Freiburg seal surrounded by a Latin text: Civitas Friburgenensis non omnino suo nomini respondet. EROS AD CDXXVI.

The prince of all humanists, Erasmus of Rotterdam, wrote this Latin statement in 1526 in Basel while remembering a visit to Freiburg in  March 1523, where he met his friend Huldrichus Zasius. He finds the 68-year-old worthy of praise, "I have yet to see anything in Germany that I admired as much as the character of Ulrich Zasius."

Erasmus's great respect for Zasius probably goes back to the Freiburg Lenten controversy of 1523. During his visit, Erasmus stayed at the Gasthaus zum Schiff, where he was served only Lenten food following the ecclesiastical season. 

Like many of his contemporaries, Erasmus suffered from gout and kidney stones. He also had a weak stomach as a hypochondriac, so he had to keep a diet and, therefore, had a dispensation from the Pope. The innkeeper did not know this.

One evening, Zasius invited his honored friend to his house, "Zum Wolfseck," on Herrenstraße and had something substantial cooked for his guest. A few overzealous people in the city, which had already been trimmed to a radically anti-reformatory course by their sovereign Ferdinand I, discovered this and denounced Zasius to the city council. Eventually, Zasius received an official reprimand and a fine.

Erasmus's remark, "Freiburg doesn't quite live up to its name," refers to the above incident. "I have not been allowed to eat fish for a long time, and although I have a dispensation from the Pope, it would be considered a crime at Freiburg if I did not keep the fast strictly."

Later, in 1529, fleeing the events of a radical reformation (iconoclasm) in his hometown of Basel, Erasmus found refuge and resided in Freiburg until 1537.

But he did not like the climate; the constant fog was annoying, and it rained too much. Compared to Basel, Freiburg is too provincial for the man of letters; the market offers too little choice, the wine is terrible, and the goods are too expensive. He also finds the constant ringing of the Franciscan church opposite his residence on Franziskanergasse and his neighbors annoying.

To his Dominican friend Gasperi Scheto, her wrote, "There is enormous impurity here. Through all the streets of this city runs an artificially guided stream. It takes in the bloody juices of butchers, the stench of all kitchens, the filth of all houses, the vomit and urine of all [passersby], even the feces of those with no latrine at home."

"With this water, the linen cloths are washed, wine glasses are cleaned, even the cooking pots. This could be endured if there was something proper to eat: I live on chicken all year round. There are no lavish feasts here; if there are, they are denounced to the authorities ..."

Erasmus' appreciation of Freiburg continues to gripe, "The city is pretty, but not populated enough [like metropolitan Basel], the town is small, and the inhabitants are superstitious.

Erasmus' rejection of the city culminated in the remark, "I would rather live among the Turks." Finally, in 1535, he secretly left Freiburg for Basel, where he died a year later.

My German-speaking readers may like to read the full story here.

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A Fourth Wave?

During the last 18 months, the world has learned about and to live with Covid-19. Having worked with exponential functions, it still impresses me that when a new wave of infections has started, how fast the number of cases increases.

Currently, there is a great deal of vaccination fatigue everywhere. The current Covid-19 outbreaks in countries with high vaccination rates, such as the United Kingdom (54% fully vaccinated) and Israel (61% fully vaccinated), are mainly due to unvaccinated younger adults who had resumed intense social activities as protective measures were lifted.

©ntv

The delta variant of the virus (90% in Germany) drives the current incidence rates. They are soaring in the UK and Israel, with 496 and 227 daily cases per 100,000 people, respectively. In Germany (48% fully vaccinated), the incidence rate has increased too,  but at present, it is still only 13 cases per 100,000.

It is essential to convince younger adults of the benefits of vaccination to break the new Covid spread. Who has the guts to tell all voluntarily unvaccinated people that they will be infected in all self-determination, regardless of age?

Will Germany run in another Corona shutdown coming fall? No, say the experts. Even at a high infection rate, Germany's health system will not approach borderline conditions this time.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) published graphs showing the development of a fourth wave, the delta wave, in Germany. The new Covid-19 wave depends on the number of people vaccinated, considering that vulnerable people are now fully vaccinated, and unvaccinated younger healthy people show milder cases of Corona.

 

©phoenix/RKI

If the vaccination rate among 12- to 59-year-olds does not exceed 65% by April 2022, up to 12,000 people could end up in intensive care. According to the model, at 75%, the number drops below 7,500, at 85% below 5,000, and at 95% below 3,000. Consequently, the RKI is working on a new parameter focusing on the strain on intensive care rather than on the obsolete Covid incidence rate.

The real problem, however, is the children, who have not yet received a vaccination offer. It was shown that the delta variants significantly more frequently affected children. If they are infected by the dozen, the threat of long-covid illnesses may accompany them for life. The nasty consequences of a Covid infection haunt an entire generation.

How to balance the extent of long-covid, the importance of collateral damage from school closures, and the side effects from Corona vaccinations in children?

Long-covid invalidates the argument that the coronavirus is not dangerous for young people or people with no previous illness. Note: Only those who avoid infection do not risk long-term consequences.

The future spread of Covid depends on the percentage of vaccinated people. Here are two worked-out paragraphs from an article by Ullrich Fichtner in Der Spiegel about the situation in Germany titled, "Die große Impflücke (The vast vaccination gap.)."

"Vaccine skeptics form an extremely colorful coalition. They have doctorates or not much schooling; they are wealthy or penniless. They are at home in the urban, alternative, or green milieus, but you find them in peasant, traditional, and rural areas too. Their doubts derive from Christian or pagan sources, from homeopathic, anthroposophic teachings, from esoteric misunderstandings, sometimes also from 'völkisch' ideas, and above all from a lot of 'gut feeling.'"

"Luckily, this small but shrilly group often dismissed as cranks is not decisive. The doubters, the fearful or the overcautious, the undecided, and the overinformed are what is decisive. There are all those who have university degrees and still believe in false alternatives, all those who are too lazy to stand in line at a vaccination center, those who underestimate the disease, or those who speculate - mistakenly - that they will soon be protected, even without their vaccination because the herd will be sufficiently immune."

Sorry folks. Your only choice is between vaccination and infection; the no-vax attitude will cost lives. 

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A Monumental Failure of the System?

©NYT

You have all seen those unbelievable pictures of the Jahrhundertflut (flood of the century), which has stricken Germany and its neighboring countries.

Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading and co-developer of the European Flood Awareness System EFAS, has leveled serious accusations against the German government and its disaster management. She said, "Warnings had already been sent to the German and Belgian governments on July 10. Since people had nevertheless not been evacuated or had not received warnings, one must speak of a monumental system failure."

 
Part of the accusation is true, but even in those communities where flood warnings were received and distributed, the people living in areas accustomed to flooding did not imagine such masses of water coming within minutes. They were taken by a deadly surprise triggered by a month's worth of rain that fell within a couple of hours.

The Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) confirmed that the problem in the flood disaster was not a weakness in the state warning system but how sensitively local authorities and the population reacted to the warnings.

And it is true. Germany has been very fortunate to have experienced relatively few natural disasters over the decades. That means disaster prevention measures have not been sufficiently expanded even though experts have warned of extreme local weather events due to climate change for years. Well, afterward, one is always wiser.

It is also true that extreme weather events due to climate change have the earth firmly in their grasp. We can only mitigate the consequences of such natural disasters but cannot avoid them.

When our chancellor visited the stricken areas in Rhineland-Palatinate, she said, "The German language hardly knows words for the devastation wrought here. "

©dpa

"We stand by your side, "Angela Merkel (Christian Democrat) promised to the mayors present and Rhineland-Palatinate's Governor Malu Dreyer (Social Democrat) and supported Malu suffering from MS with her hand and arm.

©t-online

What a contrast to another scene - live on TV. While our Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier made a serious and sympathetic statement to the victims in the flood zone, chancellor hopeful and governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet, smirked in the background. 

©Marius Becker/dpa

A giggling Laschet made the social media.

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Günterstal

Last weekend saw the apotheosis of Freiburg's festivities to celebrate its 900th anniversary. As you know, they were scheduled for 2020 but had to be canceled due to the pandemic.

Only some events were rescheduled for 2021; new ones were scarce. On Saturday, July 10, citizens could visit "Freiburg's center and its four cardinal points": In the center Haslach with a juice reception, in the north Hochdorf's picnic mile, in the west Munzingen and a wine fountain, in the east Ebnet offering games and riddles, and in the south guided walks in Günterstal.

Red Baron took the last option. 

On Monday, the Badische Zeitung reported about the Günterstal walking tours, "Who knows, for example, that the philosopher Edmund Husserl, ex-prime minister of Baden-Württemberg Hans Filbinger, and the mathematician Ernst Zermelo are buried in the local cemetery? Two participants came at 9 a.m., and 15 came for the three other tours."

I was there in the not-so-early morning hour together with a lady. Our competent guide was the vice president of the local civic association.

Edmund Husserl	Hans Filbinger

Indeed, we three started at the cemetery. Here are the tombs of Husserl and Filbinger. 

The first documented reference to Günterstal Abbey dates back to September 15, 1224, when the Bishop of Constance inaugurated a new altar in an as-yet unfinished nunnery chapel. A nobleman of the nearby Burg Kybfelsen ought to have founded the abbey for his daughters Adelheid and Berta, who were joined by other women seeking to live in a monastic community, i.e., a Cistercian monastery.

Line 2 leaves Germany's southernmost streetcar terminus for downtown Freiburg. To the right is Günterstal's traditional restaurant, Kybfelsen, with the buildings of the former Cistercian monastery in the background.

Our charming guide showed us a plaque commemorating Edith Stein. Here is the link to my extended blog about Edith's life and stay at Günterstal.

In memory of Edith Stein, canonized in 1998 as co-patroness of Europe.
The philosopher stayed here when living at 4 Village Street,
 preparing for her doctorate in July 1916.

    

Then we walked along the historical village wall that once had surrounded Günterstal.

We passed a house where Herbert Marcuse had lived from 1928 until 1933, when he had to flee Nazi Germany.

In Freiburg, Marcuse was part of Martin Heidegger's inner circle of students. On the one hand, he admired Heidegger's "concrete philosophy" and demanded, like him, a "destruction "of the previous history. On the other hand, he criticized Heidegger's individualism and his lack of concern for the material constitution of history. 

Consequently, Heidegger rejected Marcuse's critical habilitation thesis, "Hegel's Ontology and the Foundation of a Theory of Historicity." Nevertheless, Heidegger had Marcuse's paper published in 1932. In 1984, five years after Marcuse's death, a colleague, Jürgen Habermas, referred to Marcuse as the "first Heidegger Marxist."

Slowly, our "group" approached the Benedictine Monastery of St. Lioba.

 
Between 1905 and 1913, Oberamtsrichter (senior judge) August Wohlgemuth had his mansion built in the Tuscan style above the village of Günterstal on land that had formerly belonged to the Cistercian monastery.

Subtropic vegetation

Indeed, Freiburg's southern suburb, Günterstal, is the ideal environment for such a building.

In the aftermath of the lost First World War, some Catholic women in Freiburg founded a charitable congregation dedicated to alleviating the misery in the town. In 1922, they requested recognition as a Benedictine order from the pope. Was history repeating?

The traditional entrance to the monastery

In the same year, Wohlgemuth had to sell his estate. The ladies bought the premises and moved in. They chose St. Lioba as their patroness, manifesting that their congregation was not introspective and devoted to ora et labora alone, but an order facing the world. In 1927, the pope gave his placet.

Abbess St. Lioba with her shepherd's crook

St. Benedict with his shepherd's crook

Don't neglect love.
The congregation's motto is below its coat of arms.

Oratory with light effects

Today, 37 Benedictines (Ordo Sancti Benedicti) live in St. Lioba, but the population is aging fast. When the number becomes too low, monasteries can no longer manage the costs and are forced to close. This happened to the Franciscan monastery in my Wiehre district in 2013.

It happened again at the Dominican (Ordo Praedicatorum) nuns' monastery in Neusatzeck, near Bühl in the Black Forest. They were 16, with two of them needing care. They had to sell their premises and found a warm welcome at St. Lioba's in the spring of this year.

 

           ©Ingo Schneider/BZ

Here are the prioresses, Magdalena Löffler, OSB, and Birgitta Dorn, OP. For Sister Magdalena, the rules of life of St. Benedict count. They include moderation, order, and freedom, i.e., everything that helps one navigate life well. "The Dominican nuns," explains Sister Birgitta,  "preach the gospel, spread the Christian message." Nevertheless, the ladies get along well, for their lifestyles have much in common.

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The Jurist Mansion

Red Baron likes guided tours with a historical flair. From time to time, the local newspaper Badische Zeitung offers those to its readers.

I participated in the last guided tour on Mach 11, 2020, before all social activities stopped due to the pandemic. I attended the first one last week on July 8, 2021, following easing steps in Germany, given the presently low corona incidence rates.

I had not far to walk. The tour, guided by Detlev Fischer, a Professor emeritus and specialist in the history of law, took place in Freiburg's suburb Wiehre, where I live.

The photo shows the guide and the participants keeping distances.
Instead of my cane, I had an umbrella on me (©Michael Bamberger/BZ)

We stood in front of several buildings where Freiburg law professors had lived. These names do not mean much to a physicist, so I concentrated on the historical context Professor Fischer deployed.

A central theme of the tour was the persecution of Jewish jurists under National Socialism. The Nazis did not even stop at respected professorial families.

Otto Lenel, a world-renowned expert on Roman law at Freiburg's University and honorary citizen, lived on 3 Holbeinstrasse. In 1933, he was already over 80 years old and emeritus, but his daughter, a nurse, lost her job due to her Jewish descent. Embittered, Lenel died in 1935. In 1940 the Nazis deported his widow Luise at the age of 80, to the camp in Gurs. She died while still in transit.

The antitrust lawyer and professor Robert Liefmann lost his chair in 1933, remained in Freiburg, and was deported to Gurs in 1940 too, where he died six months later. The Gestapo, the Nazi Secret State Police, confiscated Liefmann's house on 33 Goethestraße and perfidiously used it for their purposes.

Then we stood in front of the Juristenvilla (jurist mansion) on Lugostraße, where Fischer explained that four professors had lived there, some supporters, others opponents of the Nazi regime.

When the name Maunz fell, I suddenly was wide awake. Maunz, that name hit a buried bell.

Our guide told us that Theodor Maunz specialized in administrative law and had been a keen adherent of the Nazi regime throughout his career. When I remarked that the Nazi government had eliminated existing federal and local organizational structures from the beginning, Fischer nodded. The new rulers replaced these structures by Gaue (districts) forced into line centrally. So it came as a sort of surprise that in 1957 at the end of his academic career, Maunz became the Bavarian Minister of Culture.

Suddenly the bell started to ring. Yes, I remember the name when I was busy with my doctoral thesis in Munich at the beginning of the sixties.

How could a man entangled in Germany's darkest past become a minister in the State of Bavaria after the war? I was perturbed and had a closer look at Maunz's biography.

Theodor Maunz was born in Dachau (!) near Munich in 1901. Following his law studies at Munich University, he habilitated in 1932 and became a private lecturer at the law faculty for German imperial, state, and local administrative law. After the National Socialists' "seizure of power," he joined the NSDAP and the SA in 1933.

Maunz immediately chummed up with the new rulers when he wrote, "The idea that the purpose of administrative justice is to protect the sphere of freedom of the individual against measures of the state administration may have justification in the liberal state. In the National Socialist state, this must be eliminated."

Consequently, Maunz was appointed full professor of law in Freiburg in 1937. He wrote in his work Administration, "The idea of separation of powers is a weakening of the Volksgemeinschaft (national community). It seemed to be the best guarantor of the idea of civil liberty. With the advent of a single bearer of the Volksordnungs (people's order's) will and action, the separation and inhibition of the powers are overcome ... Within the people's order, the powers are united in the person of the leader; they have thus become a true total power, the Führer's power."

Whoever thought that after the Second World War, Maunz, as an old Nazi, would no longer be able to set foot in his trade was mistaken. He took part in the constitutional assembly to draft the new German constitution, the Basic Law, at Herrenchiemsee. Not only that, but he also wrote the fundamental commentary on the Basic Law, together with, among others, his student, the later Federal President Roman Herzog.

When Maunz's Nazi past gradually came to light, he resigned as Bavarian minister in 1966.

Only after he died in 1993 it came to light that Maunz, under a pseudonym, had still been writing articles for the right-wing extremist Nationalzeitung.

In the same year, his former student Herzog stated, "Maunz was certainly one of the dominant constitutional lawyers of the Federal Republic of Germany after 1948/49; one can also say that he helped shape the democratic constitutional law of the Federal Republic."

How can a person having rejected the separation of powers as a teaching professor suddenly become an advocate of one of the bases of our constitution?

*

Afghanistan Abgesang

Members of the Taliban in Laghman Province in eastern Afghanistan last March
 (©NYT/Jim Huylebroek)

Red Baron blogged about Afghanistan before. This time it is an abgesang (farewell).

 
The US-forces forces left Afghanistan, and Jerry Coyne wrote, “But the signs that the Taliban have not reformed are increasingly clear: An assassination campaign against government workers, civil society leaders, and security forces continues on pace. There is little effort to proceed with peace talks with the Afghan government, despite commitments made to the United States. And in areas the insurgents have seized, women are being forced out of public-facing roles, and girls out of schools, undoing many of the gains from the past 20 years of Western presence.“

Kowsar, 13, and her sister, Madina, 15, sitting in a tent for internally displaced people
in Jowzjan Province in May. They have not been able
to continue their education because the Taliban took over their home
 and banned girls from going to school (©NYT/Kiana Hayeri)

„In places they now rule, the Taliban have imposed their old hard-line Islamist rules, such as forbidding women from working or even going outside their homes unaccompanied, according to residents in recently captured districts. Music is banned. Men are told to stop shaving their beards. Residents are also supposed to provide food for Taliban fighters.“

It was clear to me from the beginning: The semi-democratic Afghan government stands on feet of clay. Once the alliance of 36 western nations leaves the country to the present rulers, the Taliban will take over in no time. Now it is just a question for a few weeks until they have the full command.

German soldiers marching in the dust (©dpa)

Germany sent its first soldiers to Afghanistan on January 1, 2015, and the last troops left
Masar-i-Scharif on July 1, 2021.

That's it: soldiers in Mazar-i-Sharif shortly before their departure for Germany (©dpa)

It was a bitter withdrawal from the operation Resolute Support, with 59 comrades dead and the democratization efforts in shambles. Indeed, Germany has participated in the building-up of the Afghan armed forces, but our main assistance centered around creating the necessary infrastructure for girls' education.

Back home. Arrival at military base Wunstorf (©dpa)

To sum up the failure: The Afghan army of an impressive 300,000 men and women will and cannot resist the Taliban fighters, and all educational efforts will soon be nullified.

Mission not accomplished or Resolute Support‘s labors‘ lost.

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Sister Cities Spoke

Actually, the two mayors spoke, Satya Rhodes-Conway and Martin Horn, representing the people of Madison and Freiburg.

The director of the Carl-Schurz-Haus, Friederike Schulte, had organized the Zoom Conference in the framework of the ongoing series Transatlantic Tuesdays, inviting top-level contemporaries to hold the Zoom floor.

Charming Friederike moderated the conversation with aplomb. Following the usual introduction, the pandemic was the first topic - what else? 

Martin Horn was the first mayor of a major city in Germany, courageously decreeing a complete lockdown for Freiburg. Other towns followed one day later.

Satja Rhodes-Conway said it had not been all bad with Corona in Madison. People closed ranks and helped each other. There was a push for solidarity. Her staff worked beyond the call of duty and crossed department borders in good collaboration.

Martin Horn said that during the pandemic, the slogan #freiburg900jahrejung (#freiburg900yearsyoung) was replaced by the better-fitting #freiburghaeltzusammen (#freiburgstickstogether). "We closed the ranks not only here at Freiburg. Neighboring hospitals created a functioning network."

Both mayors agreed that wearing a mask is not a political but a health issue. Science has to work more closely with politics. Concerning the presently low incidence rates, Satja said, "Don't go back to the old normal; get back to better! "

Vaccine fatigue is an issue on both sides of the Atlantic. Easier traveling is a good incentive.

Satja spoke about her Green Power Team. The aim is to generate 75% of electrical energy in Madison by solar panels. There are green programs, e.g., in forestry and parks. 

Martin mentioned Freiburg's new Townhall as a zero-energy building. The city is planning to create the new Dietenbach as a green suburb.

While Satja mentioned Madison's electrical fire truck, Martin alluded to Freiburg's hydrogen-driven garbage truck. 

Martin invited Satja to a match of FC Freiburg in Freiburg's new soccer stadium, where the most extensive solar roof in Germany covers the spectators.

She would like to welcome Martin to watch a football game with the Wisconsin Badgers.

Both mayors seemed keen to discover the highlights in their sister cities personally. 

At this point, Friederike did not forget to mention that the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft got the US/German City Partnership Award for the most active German-American city partnership.

There remained only one big difference. While Satja is through with social media - very mean and painful - Martin has used them successfully in his election campaign. He continues on Facebook and Instagram, in particular, to bring young people in contact with politics.

Around 50 people watched the Zoom meeting, with participation from Madison somewhat higher than that from Freiburg.
*

Feierabend

In a blog dated September 9, 2010, I wrote, "The English translation of Feierabend is "quitting time," but this does not transmit the sentimental German meaning: Imagine a farmer or a blacksmith sitting on a bench under the linden tree in his village. After a hard day's work, he has folded his brawny hands in his lap, watching the sunset. A German Feierabend!"

On the other hand, Feierabend stands for a bunch of people of the older generation interested in computer activities that generally meet on the second Saturday of each month for a coffee morning in Freiburg. Some members are even more active in arranging excursions, bicycle tours, and visits to museums or exhibitions. 

Red Baron took part in a few excursions and blogged about three.

On September 9, 2010, some Feierabend members hiked to a nearby chapel St. Odile.

On Juli 4, 2014, a couple of Feierabend members took a bus to Constance to visit the anniversary exhibition of a World Event of the Middle Ages.

Red Baron was in his element and gave a debriefing talk. My German-speaking readers may like to read the full story about the Council of Constance here.

On October 9, 2014, I participated in a "Feierabend" visit to another place steeped in history, the Hartmannsweilerkopf in the Vosges Mountains.

This is all in the past tense because we didn't meet anymore due to the pandemic. The last entry on Feierabend's website dates back to last fall.

Will the Feierabend activities start following the pandemic? How many of its members remain and come back? Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Last Tuesday, I saw some of the still familiar faces at the obsequies of one of the Freiburg regional Feierabend group founders. Now there is hope for a meeting next week.

Indeed, some hard-core addicts meet weekly for a coffee downtown at the cafeteria of the Karstadt department store on Wednesdays.

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Peter Rembold R.I.P.

His full name is Peter Viktor Franz Rembold. He was born in Danzig on November 11, 1925, two years earlier than Günter Grass, his co-citizen. As a boy, Peter must have lived through the German shelling of the Westerplatte that started the Second World War.

Following his Abitur, he was drafted and came home from the Russian front wounded. He studied and graduated as an engineer.

In his funeral oration, Peter's son described what was so fascinating about this man, "My father was granted 95 years of life, and he made good use of the time. Peter Rembold's personality developed from one stage of his life to the next, for he was a man who remained curious throughout his life, ready to learn new things and to prove himself in areas previously unknown to him."

Peter was a cosmopolitan. He worked and lived in Spain and the States, where already in the 1950s, he became a computer nerd. Then he made Freiburg his family base. His following stations were Switzerland and England before he retired.

He did not call it a day (Feierabend) but became the co-founder of the Freiburg Feierabend group*. I first met Peter at one of the group's monthly coffee mornings, and it sparked between us immediately.
*Feierabend exists all over Germany, organized in regional groups intending to make older people familiar with the Internet. I will devote a future blog to it.

He was ten years older than me and was the computer specialist of the Freiburg regional group. I know a bit of software, but his profound knowledge of soft- and hardware made him equip a whole room where we met with PCs and peripherals.

He also helped the members of Feierabend and beyond in his "free" time to solve their personal computer problems. So, in the end, he had no free time left.

In addition, I admired Peter for his physical form. I still remember him six or seven years ago downtown, driving in the snow on his beloved bicycle. It was already dark, and he was heading for his home in Merzhausen, a Freiburg suburb.

Peter died on June 15, 2021. He was a remarkable man. We all miss him.

*

The Pension Taradiddle

The German national old age statuary pension (Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung) is in the news from time to time. Germany's tabloid Bild titled "Horrible Ruin of the Pension System."

The statuary pension dates back to the Second Reich and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. During the industrial revolution, workers streamed into the big cities, lived in cramped rental housing, led a hand-to-mouth existence, and, suffering their social standing, massively joined the Social Democrats. In 1878 Bismarck's Law against efforts of the Social Democrats that are dangerous to the public outlawed the party. However, workers continued their agitation and successfully stood for elections as private candidates.

Bismarck, the Realpolitiker (political realist), saw that social improvements for the working proletariat were necessary to take the wind out of the socialists' sails. He convinced Kaiser Wilhelm to send an Imperial Message to the Reichstag (parliament) on November 17, 1881: The legislature shall pass laws covering the workers financially in medical treatment cases, workplace accidents, invalidity, and old age.

The system financed by contributions from employers and employees during their working life, i.e., up to 65 years (nowadays 67), survived two world wars, two inflations, and numerous financial crises.

Nobi gluing posters (©dpa)

When in the 1980s, economists cast doubts about the future of the Rentenversicherung, the then-popular Minister for Social Affairs Norbert Blüm (Nobi) himself put up posters: Eins ist sicher: Die Rente (One thing is safe: the pension.)

In the article Die wahre Rentenlüge (The absolute lie about the pension), Sven Böll takes on doomsday scenarios mainly spread by the Bild-Zeitung.

Naturally, a system that pays out more than 300 billion euros per year to more than 20 million pensioners has its faults. And the problems of the scheme will not become smaller given the foreseeable demographic development.

But what is true, too, is that the statutory pension has proven astonishingly robust over the past decades. The rate of contribution has remained remarkedly stable.

A lot has happened since Blüm's promise, e.g., following German reunification, many people in the former German Democratic Republic received, and some still receive, benefits from the Federal Republic's statutory pension insurance system, into which they never paid directly or only relatively briefly.

Pensions were paid out - regardless of whether unemployment rose (which was the case for a long time) or stock market prices fell (which happened several times).

The doomsday messages spread are always the same. We will all have to work much longer and pay much more into the statuary pension, yet that's nothing like enough. Everything is very, very, very terrible. This is the absolute pension lie.

Forecasts are known to be particularly difficult when they concern the future. Sometimes it helps to look back: Which part of the way have we already traveled? And what was predicted in the past for the present?

At the beginning of the 1960s, every pensioner still had six working contributors. That there are now only about two means that the system has already adapted to an enormous demographic development.

Will the contributions to finance the statuary pensions rise? Here too, pessimistic predictions from the early days of Angela Merkel's chancellorship brightened. Every year, the government publishes a pension insurance report. Not to frighten the voter, the data are always tuned positively than too negatively. In 2006, the government predicted a contribution rate of up to 20.7% for 2020. Even in their optimistic scenario, it should be 19.6%. It is actually at 18.6%.

The best way to avoid the depletion of the national pension fund is the acquisition of fresh contributions. The most important lesson learned from the surprisingly positive development is a booming labor market and a sound economic policy.

The number of workers subject to statuary contributions increased,
while the number of those privately insured
 for their pension, and thus exempt declined.
Note the dip in the Corona year 2020.

No expert foresaw the boom that Germany experienced until the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. The number of people subject to social security contributions rose to ever-new record levels. Through their compulsory contributions, they keep the country running. Their number increased from a good 26 million in 2005 to around 33.5 million in 2019.

The most promising way to stabilize pensions is to slow down the foreseeable decline in the number of working people, e.g., through higher labor force participation of women and more qualified immigration. The more consistently this policy is pursued, the less it will be necessary to tighten the other screws of the system, i.e., later pension start date, lower pension level, higher contribution rate, and more money from the federal budget.

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Loretta

Loretta – von Keuschheit und Begehren (©Thomas Kunz/BZ)

The talk of the town is a sculpture by Freiburg artist Thomas Rees* that he called: "Loretta - of chastity and desire."
*Thomas likes to transform trunks into sculptures.

©Thomas Rees

The motif of a four-meter-high carving erected at the entrance of Freiburg's Loretto bath is a naked nymph with long, blond hair, an exposed right breast, and a wasp waist. A discontented shepherd god Pan crouches at her feet.

Rees refers to a Greek myth in which love-crazed Pan corners Nymph Syrinx. Not at all willing, she transforms into a reed. Pan, however, keeps the upper hand, cuts down the reed into seven pieces, and carves his famous flute out of her.

Critics accuse Rees of sexism and a clichéd, sexualized depiction of the female body, while the artist sees "Loretta" as a symbol of self-determined women.

Remember my blog about the Damenbad Lollo, as visitors call Freiburg's unique bath reserved for women only? Its female visitors appreciate the Loretto bath as a male-free retreat where they are among themselves, showing themselves as they are protected from unwanted glances.

Under the impression of the continuing discussions, the association's executive committee of the friends of the bath offered its resignation last Wednesday.

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Annalena and the Ten Bans

We don't need any state religion (©INSM)

Annalena und die zehn Verbote is the latest attack by Germany's economic lobby against the Green chancellor hopeful Annalena Baerbock. But this attack wasn't necessary because the lady had already put her neck on the line beforehand.

The polls saw the Greens soaring in the past few weeks, two points ahead of the Christian Democrats. The state-carrying conservatives panicked. But then, Annalena started her self-destruction by not declaring to parliament the financial benefits she had previously received from her party. Finally, and on top of it, she had embellished her CV.

When on the political front, Annalena eventually dared a little honesty and clearly stated that the price of petrol would have to rise by 16 cents per liter to meet Germany's climate goals, indignation broke out. 

Higher petrol prices!

There are three holy cows in Germany you better not touch: a general speed limit on the autobahns, the Reinheitsgebot (purity law) for beer, and the gas(oline) price.

What a crash!

At the moment, the Greens are trying to pick up the pieces (of the Mosaic tablets, too?) at their party conference and glue them together.

Green bans won't lead us to the promised land (©INSM)

But the poster of the INSM (Initiative New Social Market Economy) drew wider circles. The Jewish community called the presentation of Annalena carrying the Mosaic tablets antisemitic.

The former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, tweeted, "The INSM would be well advised to leave the topic of religion, of which it obviously knows nothing, to others."

©INSM

So it was only a minor blow when the INSM caricatured the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, candidate for chancellor and present minister of finance, as "debt king" because of Germany's record debt resulting from the Corona crisis.

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