Bellissimo

Bellissimo! Outstanding Italian paintings from the Gothic period to the Renaissance are displayed at Freiburg's Augustinermuseum. On the occasion of the renovation of the Lindenau-Museum Altenburg, the paintings are temporarily parked in Freiburg.

Freiburg's Minster Church, with the most beautiful tower in the world, did not want to be left behind. So the exhibition curator, Dr. Eva Maria Breisig, and the Münsterbaumeisterin (cathedral master builder), Dr. Anne-Christine Brehm, met for a joint lecture, "Bellissimo!" and "The Most Beautiful Tower," in which they compared the pictures in the exhibition to the contemporaneous developments at Freiburg Cathedral.

The "Bellissimo!" exhibition is dedicated to Italian painting from the 13th to the early 16th century. Over 100 paintings and altarpieces provide an overview of the developments of the time. These were style-defining and ground-breaking since, alongside Christian motifs, artists discovered secular motifs and strove for a greater closeness to reality than before. Over three centuries, a new artistic concept of movement, space, and the image of man emerged.

The architecture was also characterized by innovations in the 13th and 14th centuries, with statically bold constructions such as Freiburg's openwork spire, which gave the simple parish church "the most beautiful tower" on earth. The master builders of the Gothic period pushed what was feasible to the extreme and redefined boundaries. In the 16th century, the Minster was one of the few large medieval churches to be completed by closing the choir vault. However, the Renaissance also left its mark on the cathedral with the southern vestibule and a rood screen now folded into the sides of the transept.

I will present some of the highlights in the following, as a complete description of the exhibition would go beyond the scope of this blog. St. Mary and Child were the tenors of the exhibition.

Around 1478. Marco Soppo (Venice 1432-1478)
Madonna and Child

A sad mother holds her child, who is not dressed festively, tightly in her hands. This child looks at the world with big, questioning eyes.

Around 1549. Pellegrino Tibaldi (Milan 1527-1596)
Madonna del Silenzio Holy Family with St. John the Baptist

Thirty years before El Greco, Tibaldi paints clothes with unusual colors. The adolescent son trustingly lays his head in his mother's lap. The somewhat older John the Baptist looks thoughtfully at this scene. Does he already know what will happen to this sleeping youth?

Around 1495. Raffaello Carli, called Raffaellino del Garbo (1466-1524)
Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici receives the child's blessing before the Madonna.

About 50 years later, del Garbo painted the Madonna and Child, blessing a member of the Medici family. This was sorely needed because, during the Renaissance, the Medici family provided many of the mostly rather unholy cardinals and popes.

Around 1500. Sandro Botticelli (Florence 1445-1510)
Adoration of the Child.

This is a depiction of the Holy Family that is still common today. It shows the old man Joseph not yet understanding what has happened to him.  

Around 1370. Giovanni del Biondo (Florence 1356-1398)
St. Jerome.

Church Father St. Jerome presents a book. Without him, Erasmus of Rotterdam could not have produced his new translation of the Bible, the Novum Instrumentum.     

Around 1395. Agnolo Gaddi (Florence 1369-1396)
The Last Supper.

Due to the short length of the painting, the table is depicted here in the shape of a horseshoe. The favorite disciple's head seems to be growing out of the table while Judas has sat down quite provocatively on the other side opposite Jesus.

Around 1440. Pietro di Giovanni d'Ambrogio (Siena 1409-1449)
St. Augustine.

Church Father St. Augustine invented the Original Sin, which means that unbaptized children will go to hell. In the interpretation of the faith, St. Augustine is still regarded by many Catholics as the second St. Paul.

Around 1500. Unknown artist in Naples
Coronation of the Virgin.

God the Father and the Holy Ghost watch Jesus, who graciously puts the crown on his mother's head. Compare this to Hans Baldung Grien's masterpiece in Freiburg's Münster (1520/30). 

©Pogo Engel/Wikipedia

The altarpiece shows Christ in a somewhat leisurely posture, holding the world in one hand while clumsily helping his father coronate his mother as celestial queen. Still, today, some pious viewers are shocked.

*

Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten vs Executive Order

Following the outcome of the United States presidential election, people frequently ask whether the much-vaunted checks and balances will be sufficient to protect American democracy against the undermining measures announced by the newly elected president. Yes, and then the German press draws parallels to the fall of the Weimar Republic. How so?

Well, in 1933 in Germany, it took the Führer only six months to turn a parliamentary democracy into a dictatorship. My German-speaking readers may follow the downfall here.

The certificate of appointment

The course of events in Germany began on January 30, 1933, when Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler to form a center-right government.

Hitler's cabinet: Next to the Chancellor, Hermann Göring (NSDAP)
and Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen (independent, formerly of the Center Party).
Standing, from left: Franz Seldte (DNVP), Dr. Günther Gereke (CNBL),
Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk (independent), Wilhelm Frick (NSDAP),
Werner von Blomberg (independent) and Alfred Hugenberg (DNVP).

Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen sounded, "I have von Hindenburg's confidence. In two months, we've pushed Hitler into a corner so hard that he squeaks. There is no danger at all."

   

The Daily Herald sneered, "Hitler, The Clown Who Wants to Play Statesman."

And Keith Temple in the States sees nice, safe, conservative checks.

Back to the States. Trump said in his victory speech, "And now it's going to reach a new level of importance because we're going to help our country heal. We help our country heal. We have a country that needs help, and it needs help very badly. We're gonna fix our borders. I got to fix everything about our country. We made history for a reason tonight, and the reason is going to be just that ..."

Hitler must have whispered similar words into von Hindenburg's ear, who signed the Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat. Vom 28. Februar 1933.

Von Hindenburg signed the decree one day after Zu Berlin im Jahre neunzehnhundert-
dreiunddreißig stand dann an einem Montagabend des letzten Reichstags Haus in Brand (In Berlin in the year nineteen thirty-three on a Monday evening the last Reichstag was on fire). Bertolt Brecht, 35, wrote these lines, interpreting the sign correctly. A day later, he went into exile with his wife, Helene Weigel, and their children.

The Communists were accused of having set the fire. Intended to combat their threat, the Reichspräsident's decree was soon used against Social Democrats and other undesirables.

Reichspräsident's decree for the Protection of the People and the State of February 28, 1933.

Based on Article 48 Ab. 2 of the Constitution of the German Reich, the following decree is issued to ward off Communist acts of violence that endanger the state:

§ 1 Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich shall be suspended until further notice. Therefore, restrictions on personal freedom, the right to free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, the right of association and assembly, interference with the privacy of correspondence, post, telegraph, and telephone, orders for searches and seizures, as well as restrictions on property, are also permitted outside the statutory limits otherwise specified for this purpose.

Paragraphs 2 to 5 define the penalties for violating this order's implementing provisions, which range from fines to imprisonment to the death penalty.

 § 6 This Order shall come into force on the day of its promulgation. Berlin, February 28, 1933.

The Reichspräsident von Hindenburg, the Reichschancellor Adolf Hitler, the Reichsminister of the Interior Frick, the Reichsminister of Justice Dr. Gürtner

Back to the States: Trump reported about an interview he had with Sean Hannity, "He says, 'You're not going to be a dictator, are you?' I said, 'No, no, no, other than day one. We're closing the border, and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator."

During one day, there is plenty of time to sign an executive order to protect America against "some sick people, radical left lunatics..."

Trump continued on FOX News, "And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, really, necessary by the military, because they can't let that happen."

Reichspräsident's Decree versus Executive Order. Maybe drawing parallels between the situation in the USA in 2024 and the Weimar Republic in 1933 is not too far-fetched?

In his Madison Square Garden rally, Donald Trump glowered and gripped the podium. "On Day One, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history."

Will there be checks and balances after Day One?

In the meantime, US citizens are doom-spending.
**

Hambourg, mon amour

The title perfectly rhymes. And so did my recent trip to Hamburg.

Click to enlarge

The official occasion was the 90th birthday of my classmate and friend Wulf on November 4. During his professional life, he taught Biology and German in High School. He must have been an excellent teacher because, at his birthday party, which took place in the Museum Village at Volksdorf, a Hamburg suburb, many of his former students honored him with musical or literary contributions.

Wulf doesn't like close-ups.
©UF took the photo during this year's class reunion on October 13.

We are still three of our former Abitur class, of which Helmut (in the middle) already celebrated his 90th on August 14, and I (on the right) will celebrate my milestone birthday, God willing, next year in June.

After Wulf retired, he practiced his knowledge of biology and the German language with his former classmates. The biking tours he organized are legendary. I documented them on my website. Thank you, Wulf.

Hamburg had many blissful moments.

On the way to High Mass in Hamburg's St. Mary's Cathedral: Be careful when stepping on a gay crosswalk that does not comply with traffic regulations. Look left and look right before crossing.

In front of the cathedral, we met St. Ansgar, who became archbishop of Hamburg in 831.

Click to enlarge

Our trip to Hamburg continued to revolve around churches. Here is a panorama showing the towers of the Hanseatic city as seen from the Neustadt (new town) in the second half of the 17th century. At that time, the single-towered old St. Mary's Cathedral still stood between St. Peter's and St. Catherine's Churches.

View of the renovated Great Michel.
The new copper cladding will take about 30 years to develop a patina.
No chance. That would make me 106.

We concentrated on Hamburg's Neustadt (new town) and its landmark, the Great Michel (Protestant). The new town was built over a plague cemetery laid out in 1600 to the west outside the city wall behind the large Alsterfleet* towards a fishermen's settlement on the Elbe River. The people of Hamburg considered the settlement all too nah (all too close). Altona is now part of Hamburg.

*The main canal between the Alster and Elbe Rivers

Shortly before the end of the Thirty Years' War, Hamburg's citizens eventually decided to build a parish church for the inhabitants of Neustadt. This church was consecrated as St. Michel's Church in 1661. Before, the people of the new town had to be content with an outside chapel of St. Nikolai.

The "Michel" burned down often, for the first time in 1750, so its original appearance bears no resemblance to today's baroque church.

Note the tower of Great St. Michel in the background (©Flavus Rabanus/Wikimedia)

Today's small St. Michel (Catholic) stands at the place of the former chapel. 

The church was destroyed during the war and rebuilt in 1955 in a sober style. It is dedicated to St. Ansgar and St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

Charlemagne, the founder of Hamburg, faces and watches the church entrance. As a sign of peace, he holds only the pommel of his sword in his right hand. In his left hand, the Great Charles carries a model of the Hammaburg, the initial refuge castle whose name has only been documented since 832.

Martin Luther, who else, watches over Great St. Michel.

Zitronejette, less known than water carrier Hummel, saw us leaving the church complex and insisted that we buy some of her lemons.

One highlight of the trip was attending the extraordinary performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Hamburg State Opera.

Crossing the Elbe River with a ferry to the island of Finkenwerder resulted in a culinary delight. We enjoyed the famous Finkenwerder Scholle. I had mine traditionally with roasted bacon cubes.

We lived through wonderful hours and days in "Hambourg, mon amour."

**

A Nightmare Turned Reality

The anchor of KTLA5 announced on November 6, at 8:33 AM local time, "Mr. Trump made history tonight. He will be the first convicted felon to become president of the United States."

We Europeans are stunned, some are shocked, and Germany is doubly so. No sooner had we realized that Trump had won the election than our coalition government collapsed. But that is a different story.

Back to America. So why this victory? Again, it's the economy, stupid. Many voters' economic situations and concerns about their financial futures tipped the scales. It was high inflation, especially in the year before last, an increase in the price of services, and a rise in rent, especially in medium-sized and large cities.

What about "democracy, constitutional rights, and bedrock freedoms," Kamala Harris had written on her banner? "Abstract truths mattered less, voters said, than tangible issues."

This Brechtian "First comes the food and then the morals (Erst kommt das Fressen und dann die Moral)" weighed heavier than Trump's lies, his contempt for women, his venom, and his agitation against political opponents. Voters set aside Trump's mental confusion, his threats to take revenge on political opponents, to tailor democratic institutions to his authoritarian ideas, or to deport migrants.

Last night's Stammtisch of the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft was dedicated to the US election results. Due to the highly topical subject, it was well attended. In particular, many AYF students found their way to the Greiffenegg-Schlössle. 

On the right, Dietmar Ostermann is highly concentrated
while FMG President Toni Schlegel listens attentively

Dietmar Ostermann, political editor of the local Badische Zeitung and long-time USA correspondent for German-language newspapers, gave a keynote speech followed by a discussion.

He began with a factual introduction that avoided speculating about the consequences of Trump's victory. At the moment, we can only guess what the new administration will bring us. Unlike the first Trump administration, a team of loyal vassals is ready to take up key positions in the new government.

This is my blog, so I will offer some of my own thoughts here, however exaggerated or wrong they may be.

The discussion at the Greiffenegg-Schlössle initially centered on the lack of American military aid to Ukraine. Still, after Trump promised to end the Ukraine war within 48 hours, I moved the discussion to this topic that could shake the world.

With his motto, "America first," Trump has ushered in Monroe Doctrine 2.0, something foreshadowed under previous administrations and culminating in the dramatic withdrawal from Afghanistan: The USA is abandoning its role as the world's sheriff.

This means that more small warlords might raise their heads in the future, as is already happening in South Sudan, with cruel consequences for the civilian population being crushed between the fronts.

Existing conflicts, such as in the Middle East, continue unabated. The state of Israel is waging a bloody struggle for its existence and is not bothered by either the US or international efforts to achieve a ceasefire.

A recession threatens the global economy. Isolating America by introducing tariffs (Trump's favorite word) will make importing foreign products into the USA more difficult.

This means that export-oriented countries such as China and Germany will find it more challenging to export to the USA and, as a result, produce fewer goods. This will exacerbate the existing economic recession in both countries.

Following the possible closure of Volkswagen plants in Germany, social unrest is likely to be limited. Still, it is feared that radical parties on the right and left will gain ground, potentially leaving centrist democratic parties without a majority to form governments. These "Weimar conditions" are currently observed in the federal state of Saxony.

We can only speculate whether there will be social unrest in China, mainly due to rising youth unemployment.

Trump's knowledge of economics is at least as modest as mine. When imported products become more expensive due to high import tariffs, he will be unable to keep his promise to lower prices in the USA. On the contrary, inflation will be fueled, and the American people as a whole will not be better off than now.

Nowadays, the promise of better living conditions for one part of the world can only be fulfilled at the expense of others, as economic growth is ruled out due to the suffering environment. Trade wars are inevitable.

Afterthoughts

On last night's Late Show, Stephen Colbert began his analysis of the election result with the word shit. He was not at all happy about the prospect of having plenty of material for his political jokes over the next four years. Instead, he ended his monologue by introducing his pessimistic sticker:

The Democrats lost, but on the positive side, Trump's election is a victory for democracy. He won not only the majority of electoral votes but also the popular vote. Therefore, on January 20, 2025, we will see a peaceful transfer of power, not a new Storm on the Capitol.

**

Man of Labor, Wake up!

The memory of last year's commemoration of  "175 years of the 1848/49 Revolution" is fading, but Heinz Siebold did it again. 

This time, he presented the Revolution and the Labor Movement.

The Revolution of 1848/49 was primarily a bourgeois revolution. Its ideas were supported by two groups: supporters of a limited monarchy and liberals, who sought a democratic constitution without a crowned ruler at the head of a united Germany.

In 1850, 55% of the German population was rural and peasant, and workers (24%) only played a role in revolutionary events in large cities such as Berlin or Vienna.

Wilhelm Liebknecht was an active participant in the Baden Revolution,
Ferdinand Lassalle founded the General German Workers' Association, and
Georg Herwegh is regarded as the poet of the Revolution of 1846/49.

A workers' movement had already been organized in the 1830s. Ferdinand Lassalle founded the Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein (ADAV) in Leipzig on May 23, 1836, and is considered the father of social democracy in German-speaking countries. Note that Lassalle was far from being a proletarian; he died prematurely, shot in a duel over a woman. Red Baron visited Lassalle's grave in Wroclaw, formerly Breslau, in 2010.

The redecorated Tivoli (©A.Savin/Wikipedia)

From 1869, the ADAV competed with the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) until the two organizations met at the Tivoli in Gotha from May 22-27, 1875, and united at the Fusion Party Congress to form the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, the immediate predecessor of Germany's modern Social Democratic Party (SPD). Red Baron visited Gotha in 2020.

The social question was a crucial topic of the 1848/49 Revolution. As early as September 12, 1847, in Offenburg, the 13 demands of the people in Baden, Article 10 stated: "We demand equalization of the disproportion between labor and capital."  Society is obliged to elevate and protect labor. 

Marx's and Engels's Communist Manifesto did not appear until February 21, 1948.

The question of social justice accompanied the Revolution from the beginning to its bitter end. On July 18, 1849, Ernst Elsenhans wrote in one of the last editions of the Festungs-Bote (fortress messenger) before the besieged revolutionaries entrenched in the Federal Fortress Rastatt - their last retreat - surrendered to the superior Prussian army on July 23: 

What is social democracy, and what does it want?

Democracy will neither give us work nor bread; it will not pay our due interest, and it will not free us from worries and suffering, for in solving its task of bringing the people to power, it always comes up against the disproportion of property and ownership. 

Socialism seeks to abolish this inequality and disproportion by establishing equality. It wants to put an end to the oppression and untruth that prevails everywhere and to the desolate misery that we see in the lower classes, i.e., in the vast majority of the population. It presses for the continuous improvement of the moral, spiritual, and physical existence of the most numerous and poorest class. It strives for the rule of labor, or at least its equality with capital, instead of the rule of capital. 

The distribution of property, according to the desire of the socialists, is to be made dependent on labor, and thus, the greatest possible equality among men is to be obtained; every industrious, orderly, and skillful man is to be given the opportunity of acquiring as much property as is necessary for the reasonable enjoyment of life. 

The equalization of labor with capital, in other words, the organization of labor, and consequently the abolition of the monstrous disproportion between the haves and have-nots, the so-called proletariat, is what socialism is concerned with.

Today, one would write: Men and Women of Labor, Wake up!

The phrase "Alle Räder stehen still, wenn dein starker Arm es will" is taken from the Union Song (Bundeslied) of the General German Workers' Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein). The text is based on a poem written by Georg Herwegh in 1863.

Mann der Arbeit, aufgewacht! Und erkenne deine Macht! Alle Räder stehen still, Wenn dein starker Arm es will. […] Brecht das Doppeljoch entzwei! Brecht die Not der Sklaverei! Brecht die Sklaverei der Not! Brot ist Freiheit, Freiheit Brot!

Man of labor, wake up! And recognize your power! All wheels stand still, When your strong arm wants it. [...] Break the double yoke in two! Break the bondage of slavery! Break the slavery of bondage! Bread is freedom; freedom is bread!

The two protagonists of the evening strike up the Internationale.

We did not sing the Bundeslied, but to round off the evening, we sang the Internationale, the most widely recognized anthem of the socialist labor movement worldwide.

Its original French lyrics date back to 1871 and were written by Eugène Pottier, a poet and active participant in the Paris Commune. This revolutionary city council formed spontaneously during the Franco-Prussian War. The Belgian Pierre De Geyter composed the song's melody in 1888.

**

On the Future of Energy

Coincidence? The other day, Red Baron read an article about a new kind of energy storage.

You know that the critical path for transforming our society to renewable energy is its storage, i.e., bridging the times when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.

The same day, a friend from Madison emailed me an article on Cold Fusion. But first things first.


A new energy-storage facility using carbon dioxide, the arch-culprit of climate change, is on its way toward becoming a reality in Wisconsin. The facility will use CO₂ as the medium to store sustainable power.

The Energy Dome

Energy Dome, as both the company and technology are called, is a large domed storage facility used to house carbon dioxide. Its technology is based on a closed thermodynamic transformation of CO₂ between its gaseous and liquid states. It withdraws carbon dioxide from the Dome, an atmospheric gas holder, and compresses it. The heat generated from the compression is stored in a thermal energy storage system. The withdrawn CO₂ is liquefied and stored in vessels under pressure at ambient temperature with zero atmospheric emission.

When energy is needed, the CO₂ is heated, evaporated, and sent into an expander before it flows back into the Dome. The expander drives a turbine coupled to a generator, feeding climate-neutral electricity into the grid.

A pilot Energy Dome facility, rated at 20 MW, was built in Sardinia, Italy. It will be scaled up to 200 megawatts for the Wisconsin-based facility, called the Columbia Energy Storage Project, which will consist of ten 20-megawatt units. They will boost grid stability and deliver enough electricity to power around 18,000 homes with a single charge.

If regulators approve the application, it will be North America's first zero-pollution Energy Dome facility. Construction should begin in 2026, and it is planned to be online by 2027.

The Energy Dome Company claims that the CO₂ Battery™ should be able to function without degradation of capacity or performance for over 30 years. By comparison, lithium-ion battery storage has a high degradation rate and only lasts around 12 years.

Using carbon dioxide to store energy is a unique solution to the overabundance of this planet-warming gas. It can be used alongside other storage mediums to support a balanced grid powered by sustainable solar and wind energy, further reducing the reliance on fossil fuel sources.

The Energy Dome Company said its patented technology is a zero-pollution storage source operating only on water, steel, and CO₂. Off-the-shelf equipment, standard components, modularity, and scalability make the CO₂ Battery™ more accessible than other typical battery facilities.

Energy storage is good, but a cheap, reliable energy source would be much better.

Since I was an active physicist, colleagues have tried to reproduce the sun's conditions for generating energy on Earth by fusing atomic nuclei using increasingly sophisticated systems.

For example, in 2022, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory issued a press release, which Red Baron reported on. Small advances in nuclear fusion are always celebrated, but it will be decades before a working "hot fusion" reactor is achieved, if ever.

In 2011, Italian inventor Andrea Rossi made a name for himself by presenting a reactor based on Cold Fusion. However, he could not obtain a patent for it, as experts argue that Rossi's cold reactor contradicts the generally accepted laws of physics.

Red Baron wrote a blog at the time. Then, things went quiet for Andreas Rossi.

However, in December 2021, he surprisingly announced his E-Cat SKLep power generator. This generator is designed to supply a constant 100 watts of electricity used to charge batteries and operate motors.

Photo of the E-Cat and the E-Cat control unit from the left-hand side of a Renault Twizy

The practical presentation took place on September 27, 2024. Watch for yourself here.

What should I make of it? Energy generation from the zero-energy field? Rossi's scientific publication is here.

Will industry now pounce on the aggregate and make Rossi a billionaire?

We'll see.

**

Do We Have a Good Constitution?

Last Monday, Prof. Rainer Wahl gave a lecture at the Museumsgesellschaft titled "75 Jahre Bundesrepublik: Haben wir eine gute Verfassung? Sind wir in einer guten Verfassung? (75 years Federal Republic: Do we have a good constitution? Are we in a good constitution?)"

On previous anniversaries of our Basic Law (Grundgesetz, GG), it was described as a success story, a stroke of luck, and the best constitution in Germany. In the meantime, judgments have become more restrained because a successful constitutional practice also determines a good overall assessment.

Professor Wahl began his talk by discussing the unique features of the Basic Law's creation. The founding phase of the Federal Republic is an exceptional case of the transformation of a dictatorship into a democracy.

Our constitution was not created from nothing; the National Assembly in Frankfurt had already defined and written down fundamental rights in 1849. These texts were then adopted by the Weimar Constitution in 1919 and updated in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The years 1947 and 48 saw dramatic changes in the world: the Iron Curtain fell, and the Soviets blocked access routes to Berlin (the Berlin Blockade). Meanwhile, the Western Allies helped their occupation zones develop into constitutional states and democracies under their control. On May 8, 1945, the day of defeat, there were no millions of democrats, nor were there any on May 23, 1949, when the Basic Law was passed.

How can a defeated people, after 12 years of Nazi dictatorship, suddenly vote on a democratic constitution?

The founding fathers and a few mothers were wise and made the newly founded federal states vote on the constitution, with Bavaria being the only state not to agree to the Basic Law.

In the discussion that followed the lecture, I said that this voting method was also a stroke of luck, as was the adoption of the Basic Law when the East German states were integrated into the Federal Republic. It had to happen quickly. A referendum, or, as many thought, a new version of the Basic Law, could have easily closed the window of opportunity for the reunification process.

The new beginning in West Germany after the war was boosted economically by the Marshall Plan and accelerated by the Korean War in 1950. Things were looking up. And suddenly, Germany served in the East-West conflict in the eyes of the Western Allies not only as a buffer zone but also as a source of soldiers.

In the second part of his lecture, Professor Wahl addressed the vitality of the Basic Law. A democracy needs democrats, i.e., citizens who support democracy and are committed to the common good.

The years up to 2022 were the best the Federal Republic of Germany has lived through. There was cheap energy from Russia and free access to the world market; for example, China and we Germans basked in the military protection of the United States at no high cost.

Suddenly, everything came together. There is no longer any cheap energy, but the need for renewable energy due to the climate crisis is associated with enormous, costly investments.

Markets are increasingly closing off. So trade with China, for example, is becoming increasingly difficult. On the other hand, if China does not produce and export enough to fully employ its population, this can lead to social tensions in the giant country, a development whose consequences no one can foresee.

The 2% of gross national product we have painstakingly scraped together for our defense is insufficient. If we must become more independent of the USA in the military sector, 3% is the minimum required to adequately equip the Bundeswehr.

Even now, the number of refugees in Germany is barely manageable. The trend towards further increases in refugee numbers is likely to continue.

Professor Wahl asked, "How can all this be achieved without sacrificing prosperity?"

In the past, under the Kohl administration, many problems in Europe were covered up with German money. The Federal Republic is in dire straits, and so Prof. Wahl quoted from Schiller's Don Carlos: "Die schönen Tage in Aranjuez sind nun zu Ende. (The good days at Aranjuez have now ended."

But which party, which politician, says that more challenging times are coming? If the problems continue to be glossed over, this is just grist to the mill of populist right-wing or left-wing parties that have no solutions to offer.

Professor Wahl ended his lecture by proposing a realistic discussion about the status quo and possible future developments. Germany needs renewed confidence in its ability to perform.

The ensuing discussion escalated into an assessment of the world situation and what-if arguments. I suggested a return to the Basic Law, the original topic of the evening.

Click the table to see clearly (©EU)

I asked why Germany, with around 60% national debt, has a Schuldenbremse (debt brake) in its constitution, while in other countries, such as France and Italy, national debts are well over 100% and rising. The USA also regularly reaches its debt ceiling.

Apart from the fact that we don't want to leave a mountain of debt to our grandchildren, what is the advantage of this debt brake?

The only answer from the audience was, "We get our loans cheaper." Yes, Germany's credit rating. Red Baron wasn't paying much attention; otherwise, he could have responded with the counter question, "If we don't incur debt, why do we need loans?"

Well, it's all more complex than it's being presented here. But aren't we walking like sleepwalkers into a major economic crisis?
**

Carlo 90

On March 31, Carlo Rubbia, Nobel Prize winner and former CERN director general, celebrated his 90th birthday. On this occasion, CERN organized a scientific symposium on October 18, which Red Baron, only 14 months younger than Carlo, attended.

On that day, I took the southbound ICE 271* from Freiburg to Zürich at 8:05, changed trains in Basel, and arrived in Geneva at 11:47.
*Intercity-Express

Some recollections of my encounters with Carlo flooded back during this train journey.

Professor Rubbia was my director general (DG) from 1989 to 1993, but I met him first in the late 1960s when he was already an ambitious physicist. At that time, CERN's high-energy workhorse was the 26 GeV Proton Synchrotron (PS), which spat its secondary particle beams into the East experimental hall.

Carlo was running an experiment in that hall and insisted on access to the area around his beamline. However, measurements of my radiation protection section showed that radiation levels were too high to allow access.

In those times, the radiation protection rules at CERN were as follows:

My section reported to the divisional radiation protection officer (RSO of the PS Division). The PS-RSO, Jack F., was a former British colonial officer with a stiff lip. His yellow fingers stuck out because he was a heavy smoker of unfiltered Navy Cut cigarettes. As a youngster at CERN, I liked and even admired Jack, for he spoke perfect Queen's English. We met over a cup of coffee several times during the week to discuss the radiation situation around the PS accelerator.

Suddenly, we three stood in the East Hall on top of concrete shielding blocks: Carlo requesting access to his beamline; the PS-RSO Jack F., denying it and, in his perfect English, arguing with Carlo; and me, the physicist who had delivered the measured dose levels. They exchanged strong arguments, but Carlo accepted my interjections because I was a physicist.

Eventually, the two men agreed to a compromise I could accept as the radiation-protection guardian. But the whole affair left a bitter aftertaste.

The second time I ran into Carlo was in a hallway in the spring of 1989. He stampeded out of his office and caught me, "Look what Fleischmann and Pons do in the States, and we all are sleeping here," waving the paper of Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in his hands titled "Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium."

In the following days, I provided him and other teams at CERN with neutron detectors so that my RP-Group could hardly fulfill its radiation protection tasks. And, yes, even Cold Fusion, if it works, will produce radiation!

To make the fusion story short, a CERN spokesman eventually said that "essentially all" attempts in Western Europe to reproduce Fleischmann and Pons's results had failed. This means that Cold Fusion did not, and I add that it will not work. Red Baron blogged on cold fusion in 2011.

My third encounter with Carlo was an indirect telephone contact in the early spring of 1990. I was on my way to a scientific meeting on radiation dosimetry at Gaussig near Dresden and had, exceptionally, taken my car. While on my way, following Germany's reunification, I wanted to see as much as possible of the now-accessible parts of my home country, regarded as Germany's heartland.

I was just climbing the Kyffhäuser monument when my mobile telephone rang. The DG's secretary called, "He wants to see you in his office at 2 o'clock."

I answered that I couldn't make it because I was traveling in Germany, but the DG could always contact my deputy at CERN. On my return, the latter told me he had discussed the query with the DG on the phone. Apparently, he had answered to Carlo's satisfaction, so I could finish my travel to Gaussig without further disturbance.

My last physical encounter with Carlo was during a presentation* I gave to the CERN Directorate about the presence of radioactive waste on our premises. CERN's host countries, France and Switzerland, requested a report on the quantity concerned.
*My first PowerPoint presentation

When high-energy particles strike matter, radioactivity is produced by nuclear spallation and neutron interactions. However, unlike radioactive waste produced by nuclear fission in power reactors, radioactivity from accelerator operation has low specific activity and a short half-life.

Nevertheless, the specific and total radioactivity in tons of steel, aluminum, copper, and concrete kept on the CERN premises and awaiting disposal is too high to be released into the environment.

The discharge of CERN's low-level radioactive waste into the national depositories in France and Switzerland is costly, and the Directorate must decide how to allocate the funds.


Back to my trip.

I took the streetcar to CERN and wanted to book a room at the CERN hostel, but my room was not ready. So, at around 1 pm, I left my luggage in a locker and went to the Main Building.

The auditorium was prepared but still empty. I chose my seat in the middle of row four to have a clear view of the projection screen during the lectures and to take photos for this blog.

I left my coat on the seat and went to the cafeteria to get something to bite on. When I returned half an hour later, the lecture hall was already well-filled. Surprisingly, I noticed they had reserved a seat for Carlo in row three just before me.

I took my seat and suddenly found myself surrounded by Italians. I have always admired, and still admire, not only Italian culture and cuisine but also Italian physicists, who at CERN have had the most brilliant ideas, following in the footsteps of Galileo Galilei's legacy. However, when it came to the realization, they needed the help of i tedeschi e i britannici.

Suddenly, the people in the row in front of me stood up. Carlo arrived and did lots of handshaking with his compatriots on his way to his seat, but he didn't catch my eye.

Carlo had headphones on, and I wore my hearing aid.

 I could barely see CERN's present Italian DG, Fabiola Gianotti. As chairwoman, she welcomed the symposium participants in English and opened the session.

Sir Christopher Llewellyn Smith, CERN's DG from 1994 to 1998, started the lecture series.

Carlo greets his successor as CERN's DG by raising his hand.

Chris showed a very selective curriculum vitae of Carlo.

He and Carlo first met in October 1982 as founding members of the SPSC*. Chris recollects, "I was immediately impressed by the enormous breadth of his knowledge of physics, detectors, and accelerators, his quickness - he grasped points before anyone else - and his originality and deployment of English."

*Super Proton Synchrotron Committee

In early 1977, Carlo Rubbia wrote a report on the feasibility of proton-antiproton (p-pbar) collisions in the SPS and, on March 1, invited 30 physicists at CERN and in its Member States to a study week to discuss a possible detector.

Opposition to the project came from a number of people who argued that at a time of economic stringency, CERN should not do something which would otherwise be done by Fermilab (USA) and others ...

(John) Adams countered this by pointing out that in the SPS machine, not only were the magnets more reliable, but the greatly superior vacuum would give a beam lifetime of 18 hours, compared to 150 seconds at Fermilab.

On June 8, 1978, CERN's Executive Board officially decided to proceed with the p-pbar project and UA1 (Carlo's experiment)

At 5 am on July 10, 1981, collisions were observed in UA1.

Meanwhile, on July 1, 1983, the HEPAP* pushed for a 40 TeV Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) in the US to "regain US leadership."

*High Energy Physics Advisory Panel in the US.

CERN countered with the LHC, which has only 14 TeV but a higher luminosity, i.e., the number of possible collisions.

This luminosity/energy trade-off had to be understood, but it was questioned whether a luminosity of 10³³ cm² s^-1 could be used.

 At the BNL* 1983 Summer School, Carlo said of a luminosity as high as 10³³, "It is a matter of learning how to handle it."

*Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, NY.

Today, the LHC's luminosity is up to 2 x 10³⁴ cm² s^-1 and is expected to increase to 5 - 7.5 x 10³⁵ cm² s^-1 in the future.

After Carlo became DG on January 1, 1989, he stressed that compared to the SSC

- the higher luminosity would largely compensate for the lower energy

- LHC would also offer heavy ion collisions at unprecedented energy and ep collisions (the intention then being to leave LEP in place).

Nobel Prize winner Gerard 't Hooft during his video presentation

In 1974, the situation in physics was summarized as scenario zero: there is nothing more than the particles we now have in our models, which we call the Standard Model.

Gerard's Standard Model

What was needed most urgently was a direct observation of the W^± and Z⁰ vector particles.

Some theorists warned that the predicted particles would be too heavy to ever be observed, but Carlo emphasized, "Theorists should not worry. If these particles exist, we experimentalists will find them."

In 1982 and 1983. these particles were observed in p-pbar collision at CERN.

Gerard added, "I wish theoreticians could say, 'Experimentalists should not worry; we'll make a theory that explains what you are finding.'"

But here we are not very successful.

Astronomy - Red Baron would say Astrophysics is doing better.

Before the p-pbar collider became a reality, groundbreaking R&D work had to be done. Lyn Evans, former LHC project leader, centered his talk around the stochastic cooling of proton and antiproton beams. This "cooling" will narrow the transverse momentum distribution within a bunch of charged particles by detecting momentum fluctuations and applying a correction.

Here is a photo of the ICE* installation, the Initial Cooling Experiment at CERN.

* Another and different ICE

Beam cooling allows particle densities to be achieved sufficient to observe a high rate of proton-antiproton collisions. And cooling worked!

It follows a sequence of slides illustrating the discovery of the intermediate vector bosons.

The W bosons are named after the weak force. 

The Z boson is named after its electrical neutrality (zero charge).

Note the handwritten measurement protocol.

Carlo at the overhead projector

On January 20, 1983, Carlo announced the discovery of the W-Boson to the CERN community. The Main Auditorium was packed, and Red Baron was present.

Carlo's finger on the overhead foil points to the theoretically predicted value of the W-Boson.

Carlo said, "That is to be compared with the Weinberg Salam prediction, which is 82.1 ± 2.4 GeV/c², including all the higher corrections … So we would like to quote this number (m_W = 81 ± 5 GeV/c²) to be compared with that number (m_W = 82.1 ± 2.4 GeV/c²), which, by the way, is not so bad." Carlo followed his announcement with a relieved chuckle.

       

One day later.
In the middle, Herwig Schopper. He was my DG from 1981 to 1988.
On the photo on the left are Carlo and Simon van der Meer.
On the right, Erwin Gabathuler and Pierre Darriulat
of the competing UA2 experiment

Prof. Zoccoli garnished his presentation by quoting Rolling Stones' texts.

>

Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer

CERN's former DG, Luciano Maiani (1999 to 2003), expressed what everybody felt.

Prof Zoccoli awards Prof Carlo Rubbia the INFN Medal
for the Anniversary of the Discovery of the W and Z Bosons.

French President François Mitterrand awards Carlo the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur.

Given the many other awards Carlo has received during his academic life, the INFN Medal seems like a trifle.

Ultimately, Carlo's former collaborators came forward to frame the Jubilarian.

A close-up

Carlo's closing remarks ended in rapturous applause.

The crowd surged through the exit door on the way out to the reception in the auditorium's vestibule. Suddenly, he stood in front of me. I stammered, "DG, I was your guardian angel during your aegis. I was responsible for radiation protection."

He looked at me and countered, "I was responsible for radiation protection." He was so right. At CERN, the DG is responsible for everything that happens in the Organization. So, I hastily added, "I was head of the radiation protection group." He briefly smiled at me and then turned to a more familiar face speaking Italian.

I have not forgotten Carlo's ideas on an energy amplifier and superconducting power lines. These topics were discussed at the symposium, but a presentation here would overload the blog. I will perhaps report on this later. Here is a brief foretaste of the Rubbiatron, as presented in a blog in 2011.

**