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June/July 2010
Wiesbaden – Bathed in Beauty
by Alevtina Altenhof
Roman history, warm spa waters, and beautiful views await visitors to the Hessian capital.
Wiesbaden (old German “Wisibada”) translates to meadow baths; however, the city is made up of more than just the spas and hot springs that were discovered here
two thousand years ago by the Romans. It is one of the oldest and most elegant cities on the banks of the river Rhine, famous for its history, cultural events, and vineyards. And the city is adorned with
architecture from the glorious Renaissance as well as the epoch of Classicism.
Nevertheless, when it comes to traveling along the legendary Rhine, many visitors often whiz past Wiesbaden, steering their way to such famous metropolises as Cologne, Mainz, or
Bonn, which tend to overshadow Wiesbaden. Those who prefer to venture off the beaten track, though, will soon discover that the Hessian capital is another delightful place to make a city break, for it is a
bastion of many interesting things to see and do.
Eager to see the silhouette of the city at a glance, I reach the summit of the Nero mountain – a local hill and one of the most beloved tourist sites in Wiesbaden. The
trip to the summit with the Neroberg Mountain Railway was the most extraordinary, yet romantic ride I have ever experienced. Sitting relaxed in a yellow carriage, speeding up with a tempo of only eight
kilometers per hour and driven solely by water power along the four hundred fifty-two meter long steel cable up and down the hill (an invention from 1888), was like a journey into the past. The nostalgic railway
operates between April and October and is a real pleasure that any passionate traveler should not miss.
On a clear day, it is really worth walking around the entire summit, as the view from the top of the Neroberg leaves one truly awestruck. You can look far across the city,
comfortably nestled on the banks of the Rhine, and submerged in a green cloak of shaded avenues, which extend into enormous spa gardens.
From here you can also enjoy a magnificent view of Wiesbaden’s vineyards, which spread out right beneath your feet on the slopes of the Neroberg hill. The cultivation of
wine in Wiesbaden is a tradition dating back to the sixteenth century, when the first grapevines were planted here. One of the reasons for this was the location of the hill, which has steep, sunny southern
slopes with mineral-rich soil. Later, a better water supply – added as a result of the Neroberg Railway carriages – turned out to be another advantage that supported the growth of the region's
most tasty wines.
Another reason to ascend the famous hill is the chance to visit the Greek Chapel. As you walk along a narrow path towards the woods, you soon approach a slender silhouette of
the chapel. Marvelously embellished with five gold-plated cupolas, it is guaranteed to capture your attention.
Interestingly, this religious monument has nothing to do with the Greeks and is commonly known as a Russian Orthodox Church – a name that has yet to be accepted by the
local population. Erected between 1847 and 1855 by Philipp Hoffmann in Russian Byzantine style, the church was meant to serve as a burial site for Duke Adolf’s first wife, Elisabeth Michailowna, from
Russia. Upon her death in 1845 at the age of only 19, the duke ordered the chapel's construction to provide a final resting-place with a true Russian touch for his wife.
Back at the bottom of Neroberg, I set out to explore Wiesbaden's old town center. As you might notice later, this part of the city is quite easy to navigate, since it is
encircled by five main avenues – Wilhelmsstrasse, Friedrichststrasse, Schwalbacher Strasse, Röderstrasse and Taunustrasse. This construction concept is also known as a historical pentagon and goes back to
the local architect Christian Zais (1770 to 1820), who became responsible for the transformation of this once small agrarian-orientated bathing resort into a respectable spa town…
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The Battle of Tannenberg, 15 July 1410, The Teutonic Knights, and Six Hundred Years of German-Polish History
by Robert A. Selig
Their white capes adorned with a black cross have appeared
throughout history, yet few are familiar with the long history of the Teutonic Knights.
The history of Europe, and indeed the world over, is filled with the names of battles won and lost, with blood first shed and then revenged, sometimes sooner, sometimes later,
sometimes as many as five hundred years later. A very few of them – Thermopylae, Issos, Cannae, Teutoburger Forest, Tours, Breitenfeld, Rossbach, Saratoga, Valmy, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Verdun – have
entered into our collective memory, be that because of their long-term impact on world history in general or on the history of the winning –- or losing – side in particular. One of those hostile
encounters is the Battle of Tannenberg in East Prussia (today's Stębark in Poland), known as the Battle of Grunwald to the
Poles and as the Battle of Žalgiris to the Lithuanians. Fought on 15 July 1410, between the knights of the Ordo domus Sanctae Mariae Teutonicorum Ierosolimitanorum, the Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen
Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem, better known as the Deutschherrenorden or Deutschritterorden that is, the Teutonic Knights and Polish forces under King Władysław II Jagiełło, his Lithuanian allies led by Vytautas the Great and banners from Smolensk under Lengvenis, it achieved almost
mythic dimensions in the history of Eastern Europe. By the early nineteenth century, Poland, Lithuania, and Novgorod as well as the Teutonic Knights had all ceased to exist, yet in a profoundly a-historical
manner, the battle grew in importance in the Age of Nationalism as a rallying point for competing territorial claims and has remained a source of national pride to Poles and Lithuanians alike. For its part, the
German Empire was so determined to wipe off that stain on her past that General Paul von Hindenburg named the crushing victory over the Tsarist armies in 1914, the Battle of Tannenberg, even though the site of
the decisive engagement in August 1914 lay more than twenty miles to the west of the site of the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in 1410.
Who were the Teutonic Knights, those men in shining armor and white capes adorned with a large black cross? The order's origins date to the High Middle Ages and the year
1190, when it was founded as an organization to provide medical and spiritual care for German-speaking Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. Its motto was Helfen, Wehren, Heilen – Help, Defend, Heal.
Military aspects quickly moved to the fore, however, and upon the application of Grand Master Heinrich Walpot von Bassenheim (1198 to 1200), Pope Innocent III, in 1199, granted its conversion into a military
order with rules based upon those of the Knights Templar. Pope Honorius III confirmed the change in a bull of 1216, and decreed that the leadership of the order would always remain a privilege of the Knight
Brothers, though the dualism of Knight Brothers and Priest Brothers expressed in the order's motto was maintained throughout its existence.
For most of the thirteenth century, the order had its headquarters in Jerusalem, but after the fall of Acre in 1291, the knights transferred their headquarters to Venice, from
where they hoped to re-conquer Palestine. This re-conquest never occurred, in part because by then a new field of operations had opened and the Knights were well on their way to becoming the strongest power
along the eastern shores of the Baltic. As early as 1211, the order was fighting in Transylvania against the Turks, but its attempt to place itself under Papal authority to gain independence from the King of
Hungary brought them expulsion in 1225 by Andras II, King of Hungary (from 1205 to 1235). Even that potential disaster turned to good fortune when Duke Conrad I of Masovia called them to Prussia in 1226 to help conquer and convert the pagan Prussians. Armed with the Golden Bull of Rimini of 1226, a papal authorization which granted the Knights the Chełmno
or Culmer Land and any future conquests solely under the authority of the Emperor and the Holy See, Grand Master Hermann von Salza (1209 to 1239) in 1230 launched the Prussian Crusade, the
first of dozens of almost annual military forays or Heerfahrten into the lands of the Prussian tribes. In 1234, Pope Gregory IX confirmed the stipulations of 1226 in the Golden Bull of Rieti. By 1277, the
Prussians had been conquered; their uprisings in 1286 and 1295 were short-lived. By 1280, the Knights had completed the Marienburg (Polish: Malbork) at the mouth of the Nogat River, which became the seat of
the Hochmeister in 1309…
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A Bit of Germany in Ohio
by Kay Grant
From early settlements, Germans still have great influence in Eastern Ohio.
Eastern Ohio, an area rich in German heritage, is the locale of early religious German settlements in America. Immigrants from several religious sects left their homelands in
the 1700s, largely because they could not practice religion the way they wanted. Some of their settlements in eastern Ohio have been preserved and are open for visitors to experience life of several centuries
ago.
Schoenbrunn (“beautiful spring”) Village, near New Philadelphia, founded by Moravians as the first of six missions in the area, is Ohio’s oldest village. The
Moravian faith reaches back to fourteenth-century Moravia and Bohemia (now the site of the Czech Republic). A prominent missionary, David Zeisberger, born in Moravia, moved to Saxony, Germany, with his family. A
decade later he immigrated to the United States.
In 1772, Zeisberger, Schoenbrunn Village founder, came to Ohio’s Tuscarawas River Valley. He had around three hundred converts (almost all were Christianized Indians). The
Moravian influence exceeded the small number of converts and even some Indian chiefs became Christians. The Indians, forced by the missionaries to discard their established beliefs and ceremonies, faced the same
religious discrimination from which the missionaries had fled. Taking on Christian names, the Indians attended school and worked in the gardens and fields.
The Ohio Historical Society has restored Schoenbrunn Village to the period of the first Christian settlers. Set in 1772, the village has seventeen log cabins, the original
cemetery, and costumed interpreters to tell the story. The cemetery contains forty-four graves, mostly Christianized Indians, who were buried in the order in which they died, without any family connection
between graves. A small museum and visitors center shows a video of reconstruction and contains artifacts dug up during that time, as well as tools, Moravian stars, and ample written explanation of the
settlement. The gift shop has period-related memorabilia.
About twelve miles away, the second of Zeisberger’s missions, Gnadenhutten (“huts of grace”), was founded about five months after Schoenbrunn. Around one
hundred fifty Indians lived here. For America’s western frontier, the standard of living was high. Livestock, gardens, and field crops proliferated.
Alas, the era of quiet, hard-working, prosperous settlements came to an end with the American Revolutionary War when the British attempted to persuade the Indians to oppose the
Americans. Moravian neutrality and their influence with the Indians kept that from happening. However, in late winter of 1782, in revenge for an Indian-led raid on a Pennsylvania white family, an unsanctioned
group of Pennsylvania militiamen took over the settlements, slaughtered the inhabitants, and burned Schoenbrunn to the ground. Two boys managed to escape and tell of the atrocity. Those Indians who were murdered
may not have been the ones who had staged the raid, but that did not matter to the militiamen…
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It’s a Swiss Thing – The Traditions of Switzerland
by Leah Larkin
Every country has certain activities that are particularly their own and add much to their cultural
uniqueness. For the Swiss it boils down to cowbells, wrestling, and accordion music.
For those who travel internationally, much of the joy found in the experience is rooted in those things which make the people of a specific culture unique – their dances,
music, food, and pastimes. Experiencing a culture’s traditions enables you to see the soul of those who are often the next branch on a family tree deeply rooted in a past that flows back often hundreds of
years. With its amazing scenery and topography as a delightful backdrop, a few Swiss traditions take on a special quaintness when experienced in their native setting.
Bells for Bovine
Some American friends of ours who lived in Germany became collectors of bells. Not just any bells. These were big, beautiful cowbells – most purchased in Switzerland. They
were lined up hanging across their barn – an impressive collection.
On a recent trip to the Alpine country, I had a chance to learn more about Swiss cowbells during a visit with Eligius Schelbert, a Glockenschmiede (bell smith) in central
Switzerland’s Muotathal. He makes three different kinds of bells, each type in fifteen different sizes, from tiny bells worn by sheep to giant bells usually used for decoration.
Anyone who has visited Switzerland knows the mountains are alive with the sound of cowbells. Ringing, clinging, clanging. Big bells. Small bells. Bronze bells. Steel bells. Cows
wear the bells (usually in the mid-size range) when they are in the mountain fields. If an animal strays away for a tasty nibble on far-off grass, a farmer can track it down by the ring of the bell. The bigger
the bell, the louder the ring. Wander through mountain pastures and you will hear a cacophonous symphony of bells.
Bell maker Schelbert is following a family tradition that started in 1870. He is the fourth generation in his family to carry on the bell trade. These days he makes most of his
bells using steel, which he orders in different degrees of thickness. He cuts it down, and then hammers the pieces to the required size, which are then welded together. He follows twenty-six steps to produce
each bell.
His workshop is a noisy place from the constant pounding of his huge hammer. Wearing a heavy industrial apron and earplugs, he demonstrated how he could change the sound of the
bell with more hammering.
“It’s beautiful work but hard,” he says of the trade he started to learn at the age of fourteen. He is especially proud of his giant bells weighing about
thirty-eight pounds and selling for sixteen hundred Swiss francs. The decorative bells are a frequent prize in competitions of wrestling, a Swiss Alpine sport. The oversize bells are attached to leather straps
made by a saddler and decorated with fringes of hair from Canadian badgers. Schelbert says he is one of just two or three in Switzerland making these huge bells…
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The Trolls of Rock City
by Regina Cole
A childhood filled with fairy tales led one woman to transform her husband’s investment property into an enchanting part of Georgia’s
history.
When she was a little girl in Jackson, Tennessee, Frieda May Untermoehlen was delighted, horrified, and entranced by the ancient fairy tales told by her German immigrant father. When
she grew up, her memories of those stories became the raison-d’être for one of America’s first great media phenomenon.
Frieda’s father was a gifted violin player who left Oldenburg, Germany, in 1867 to teach music at Jackson’s Landis College. His near-contemporaries and fellow academics,
the Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, had recently made a name for themselves with several published volumes of traditional folk tales. Hugely popular, the collections of stories were essentially a by-product;
the Grimm Brothers' primary goal was Germanic linguistic research, not the entertainment of children.
Little Frieda Untermoehlen cared not a whit about the history of the Germanic languages, but she responded deeply to these stories in which animals talked and magical things happened,
and she never forgot them. In 1905, she married Garnet Carter, a fellow Tennessee native and born promoter. In 1924, the couple, joined by O.B. Andrews, optioned hundreds of acres atop Lookout Mountain for a
residential development that would be called Fairyland, in honor of Frieda Carter’s beloved folk tales.
Lookout Mountain’s dramatic cliff face hovers over a bend in the Tennessee River and the city of Chattanooga. Native Americans had long told of a rock city at its summit when,
in 1823, one of two missionaries sent to minister to them made an entry in his diary. He described “a citadel of rocks” atop the mountain, noting the immense size of the boulders and stating that
they were arranged in such a way “as to afford streets and lanes.”
One of the features of Fairyland was to be a golf course, but construction took far longer than planned. To appease clamoring would-be golfers, Garnet Carter created a golf course in
miniature. It became a sensation; Carter franchised his miniature golf concept all over the United States and gave birth to Tom Thumb Golf.
When the Depression hit, however, Tom Thumb Golf fell to the rough and Garnet turned to the project his wife had begun while he was “putting” around.
The seven hundred acres of Fairyland encompassed the legendary Rock City, where Frieda decided to make a rock garden to end all rock gardens. She used string to mark a trail that
wound its way around the giant rock formations, ending at the outcropping known as Lover’s Leap. A gifted and passionate gardener, she collected wildflowers and other plants and had them transplanted along
her trail. Frieda’s gardening was supplemented by imported German statues of gnomes and fairy tale characters stationed at points along the trail…
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Sylt – Queen of the North Sea
by Martina Sprague
Frisian pride, a strong seafaring history, and beautiful beaches make Germany’s North Sea island a popular destination for
mainlanders and tourists alike.
Formed by periodic subsidence, storms, and flooding approximately eight thousand years ago, the major North Frisian Islands of Sylt, Föhr, and Amrum are separated from the
northern European mainland by a narrow belt of shallow waters and tidal mud flats. Sylt, the largest of these islands, is Germany’s most northern point. However, it is not merely its age and size that have
earned it the name, die Königin der Nordsee (the Queen of the North Sea).
Located in Nordfriesland in the Schleswig-Holstein area just to the south of the German-Danish border, Sylt is a popular travel destination with a culture rich in history and
folklore. Prehistoric churches, ring walls, and grave piles provide evidence of early settlements on the island. Although most graves date to the Scandinavian Bronze Age, circa 1800 to 600 BC, Denghoog (thing
pile) near the town of Wenningstedt is approximately four thousand years old. Untouched and covered with dirt for most of history, it was excavated in 1868 and is now a popular sight for the thousands of
tourists who visit the grave yearly. According to legend, when sea captains and war heroes died in distant lands, only their heads were sent home and buried in these graves.
Spotted with small forests, heath land, marshes, and natural sand dunes covering vast areas along the western shoreline, Sylt is roughly twenty-four miles long in the
north-south direction, a nearly perfect distance for the Sylter Marathon which runs in March each year. At the narrowest place between the villages of Hörnum and Rantum on the island’s southern half, Sylt
is less than a mile wide and the people of Sylt fear that the island will soon split in half.
The protection of Sylt’s seaward coasts is a constant struggle. Although sand dunes form a natural barrier against the destructive powers of the waves, the German
government spends large sums of money to bring sand to Sylt from the bottom of the sea in an effort to restore the coastline after each major storm. In 1999, the winter storm Anatol produced sustained wind
speeds of ninety miles per hour with gusts as high as one hundred fifteen miles per hour. Many Frisian legends and folk songs tell of drowned villages. Rüm Hart, Klaar Kimming (generous heart, clear horizon),
say the Frisians, understanding that disaster is never far away. Wanderdünen, drifting sand dunes, constitute yet a threat to the villages and arable land on Sylt, and the island’s southern tip has
seen constant erosion during the last several decades.
The Friesen were traditionally a seafaring people. Approximately one-third of Sylt’s surface area is comprised of sand dunes with the remainder consisting of
marshlands. The bare terrain made farming difficult, forcing men to leave their homes and find support elsewhere. From the fifteenth century, the inhabitants of Sylt engaged increasingly in herring fishery, with
the herring becoming Sylt’s heraldic animal in 1668. The name Sylt may in fact stem from the Danish “sild” (herring), although others believe it has roots in the Latin “silentium”
(silence or stillness)…
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It’s a Small(er) World After All – Swissminiatur
By Don Heimburger
Visit the incredible sights and architecture of Switzerland captured in a 1:25 scale world.
Tucked away on the picturesque shores of Switzerland's Lake Lugano at Melide is a sight so mesmerizing that even people who have seen it many times keep asking, “How
do they do that?”
The sight is Swissminiatur, located on a dozen acres of beautiful coastal land with the nearly three thousand-foot Mount San Salvatore looming behind it like a giant life-size
backdrop. Swissminiatur is the re-creation of more than one hundred twenty buildings in Switzerland representing some of the most historical and fascinating towns, villages, monuments, and structures throughout
the country's twenty-six cantons.
“They look so real that when I took a photograph of some of them and showed my friends, they thought I had been to visit the actual buildings,” said one
Swissminiatur guest.
The creation of the buildings is in 1:25 scale, which means that forty feet of building is reduced to one and six-tenths feet long, and a one hundred-foot-tall church spire is
now just four feet tall. That makes some of the largest buildings more negotiable not only for adults, but especially for children. It is a miniature world, set in the midst of a lush green garden, with two and
two-tenths miles of electrically-controlled Swiss Railway models and other railroad miniatures interspersed throughout the site.
The builder of the model structures is Michel Dubois, who works in the Loire, France, region. Dubois takes his own measurements and photographs of the full-scale buildings that
are to go in Swissminiatur. He then transfers the measurements to paper, and creates the models from those plans. It may take six weeks or six months to complete a model, but the model is never changed in
appearance. “The model must be as faithful as possible to the original,” says spokeswoman Martina Di Ponziano. “Some take six months to complete and others – like the new Heidi Village
– took six weeks.”
The model is then delivered to the park, where it is refined, decorated, and painted by Marilena Buratti-Pedroni. “With her talented hands and her know-how, she creates
miniatures that would be worthy for the Land of Lilliput,” says Dominique Vuigner, who runs the park. Using photographs, the model is painted exactly like the original. “Spatulas, paint brushes, and
colors are her world,” he says.
When something needs to be cleaned or replaced, especially larger structures such as the main square of the medieval Stein am Rhein with its town hall flanked by Gothic-style
houses, they are divided into several parts and taken to the workshop. Sometimes it is possible to have a model in the shop in its worn condition, a section in the first phase of cleaning and repair, and another
section in the final painting stage.
Most of the cleaning, repair, and painting takes place under “the Alps,” that portion of the park that resembles a large snow-covered mountain over which, in real
life at least, three aerial cable cars travel through many changes of scenery, from a green valley to the ten thousand-foot-high alpine glacier region, in a period of forty-five minutes. At the top of the
miniature mountain is a replica of Engelberg-Titlis, the largest ski resort in central Switzerland.
It is under here – and unbeknown to most visitors – that the busy Swissminiatur workers keep pace with maintenance of the village's structures, waterways, cable
systems, and rail lines. They also build all the miniature railway cars and locomotives here.
Renato Bernasconi, who began working at Swissminiatur in 1976 at age eighteen after industrial technician's school, oversees the many technical aspects of the village. His
brother, Gianni, also is a model maker at the park…
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From Nuremberg to North Texas: Brewing Beer the German Way
by Sharon Hudgins
Aficionados of a good authentic German brew need look no further than the suburbs of Dallas, Texas.
A real German brewery in North Texas? I couldn't believe my ears.
When a German acquaintance in Texas mentioned that a professional brewer from Nuremberg, Germany, had opened up shop practically in my own backyard (by a Texan's reckoning
of distance), I thought something must have been lost in translation.
However, I'd heard right: Dennis Wehrmann, a brewmaster from the Franken (Franconia) region of Germany, has indeed begun making authentic German-style beers in the town of
McKinney, Texas. Not only does he brew his beers according to Germany's famous "purity law," but he also produces them in an environmentally friendly "green" building.
Transplanted to Texas seven years ago, brewmaster Dennis Wehrmann has family roots in the German beer business reaching all the way back to 1800.
"That's my great-grandfather's picture on our logo," said Wehrmann, as he also proudly showed me one of his ancestor's wooden beer barrels that's over
two hundred years old. "My great-grandfather was a brewer in Franconia. My grandfather owned the Franken Bräu brewery in Tanna, Germany. My mother has a degree as a brewery lab technician, and three of my
uncles worked in the brewing industry. So it runs in the family."
Born in Nuremberg, the regional capital of Franconia, Wehrmann began working for local breweries there at the age of twelve. After finishing high school, he apprenticed at the
Lammsbräu Brewery in Neumarkt, not far from Nuremberg, while attending a brewing school in another town. A family-owned business established in 1628, Neumarkter Lammsbräu in the 1980s was a pioneer in organic
brewing and sustainable production in the contemporary German beer industry.
Wehrmann then worked for three years as a brewer and maltster in Nuremberg at the Hausbrauerei Altstadthof, Germany's first post-war organic brewery, which had been established in
1984. He later earned a degree at the venerable Doemans Institute in Gräfelfing, near Munich, to qualify as a master brewer. "After I got my degree in 1999, I worked for a year as a consultant to the
brewing industry," he added, "and then worked for other breweries in Franconia."
Long before that, he had met his future wife, Joline, who was born in Germany to a German mother and American father. Joline had lived in both countries, including a stint in
North Texas, during her childhood. She and Dennis were married in Germany in 2001 and moved to Texas in 2003 when he was hired by a brewpub chain in the Dallas area…
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AT HOME: Hamburgers Really Eat Fish
by Sharon Hudgins
"What should I eat in Hamburg?" I asked the German fellow sitting next to me as we sipped champagne and nibbled on smoked salmon during a Lufthansa flight from Dallas
to Frankfurt.
"Fish, fish, fish," he replied instantly, adding that he lived in Hamburg himself, so he knew what he was talking about. "I eat fish there every day."
I took his advice when I arrived in Hamburg a few days later, on my first visit to that North German city. Early on Sunday morning, I headed for Hamburg's famous Fischmarkt
(Fish Market), a bustling open-air market in the Altona district on the right bank of the Elbe River. The market's history dates back to 1703, to the days before modern refrigeration, when Hamburg's
fishermen objected to a city ordinance, promoted by the church, that no commercial transactions could take place on Sunday. The fishermen complained that they were being unfairly penalized, since their Saturday
catch would spoil if they had to wait until Monday to sell it. So the city officials relented, allowing a special fish market to be held on the quay on Sunday mornings, from sunrise until 10:00 a.m., before
church services started.
Up too early for my own internal clock, I wandered sleepily through the market amid throngs of locals and tourists. Shouts from vendors hawking their wares mingled with the
aromas of french fries and the salty smells of the sea. Fat fishmongers wiggled snaky eels at the onlookers, while bawdy fishwives offered their own risqué comments couched in double entendres. Nearby, the
historic red-brick Markthalle (Market Hall) pulsed with the sounds of 1960s rock music, played by a talented band of late-middle-aged Germans belting out the classic melodies of their youth.
Revved up by all this early-morning revelry, I returned by taxi to my hotel for a leisurely breakfast buffet featuring – you guessed it – fish. Beautifully displayed
on a granite-top bar in the hotel's chic breakfast room was a selection of cold fish that would tempt the palate of any feline: thin slices of smoked salmon and halibut, chunks of smoked eel, filets of
poached fresh turbot, bowls of boiled shrimp seasoned with chopped chives, shimmering servings of peppered mackerel, and plenty of whipped cream spiked with horseradish, a favorite North German garnish for fish.
After my "fully fish" breakfast that Sunday morning, I met a group of friends for brunch back at the harbor. We rendezvoused at the shiny-red Feuerschiff, a
combination café, bar, restaurant, and cabaret in a restored nineteenth-century British "floating lighthouse." Brunch at the Feuerschiff's buffet included fish again – smoked salmon, peppered
and smoked mackerel, and kippered herring – along with cold cuts, cheeses, fresh buns, hot coffee, and chilled Sekt (sparkling white wine)…
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LANGUAGE:
Deutsche Kultur der Ränder
von Peter Pabisch
Als Herta Müller kürzlich den Nobelpreis für Literatur gewann, wurde sie in Presse und Medien oft als Rumänin vorgestellt; nicht alle Zeitungen merkten an, dass sie von der
meistens im Westen des Landes angesiedelten deutschen Minderheit stammt. Im Allgemeinen denkt man an den deutschen Raum, wenn man die drei „deutschen“ Länder Deutschland, Österreich und die Schweiz nennt.
Jedoch im Zuge der Zeit haben selbst diese Bereiche ihr Image verändert. In der Zeitschrift Time konnte man unlängst Deutschland als Land mit zwei Hauptsprachen finden – selbstverständlich Deutsch
– und Türkisch, weil Deutschland eine große türkische Minderheit aufweist. Österreich wurde seit Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs als 98% deutsch sprechend geführt. Doch seit dem Fall des Eisernen Vorhangs im
Jahre 1989 und der Öffnung der Grenzen hat es eine starke Internationalisierung erfahren. Besonders Österreichs Hauptstadt Wien ist wieder zum Schmelztiegel für mittel- und osteuropäische Länder geworden, was es
schon über Jahrhunderte bis zur österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie war. Es zerfiel 1918 in seine nationalen Bestandteile, wurde aber durch die Europäische Union gewissermaßen wieder hergestellt, weil die
Mitgliedstaaten die meisten Länder in diesem einst großen multikulturellen Staat mit etwa zwanzig Nationen vorstellen. Jetzt leben aber auch Asiaten und Afrikaner in dieser Stadt, die dazu noch die dritte
UN-City nach Genf und New York seit 1979 geworden ist. So kann es heutzutage passieren, dass man Deutsch sehr selten in manchen Bezirken der Stadt hört. Die Schweiz andrerseits wehrt sich gegen die Bezeichnung
„deutsch“ für ihr Land, weil es seine drei anderen Kulturen gleichberechtigt berücksichtigen muss – die französische, die italienische und die rätoromanische.
In vielen anderen Ländern leben die Deutschen auch in Minderheiten. Während die deutsche Sprache ein geringer Teil im Volksgewebe dieser Länder bleibt, hat die
deutsche Kultur wichtige Beiträge für diese Länder und Regionen der Welt geliefert, wird jedoch dort oft gar nicht erwähnt. Wer würde sich in den Vereinigten Staaten vordrängen, die deutsche Minderheit als
die größte zu nennen, wo 15% aller Amerikaner bei der Volkszählung des Jahres 2000 ihre volle oder teilweise deutsche Abstammung hervorhoben? Zugegeben nur etwa eine Million der 45 bis 50 Millionen
deutschstämmigen Amerikaner können überhaupt noch deutsch sprechen, aber viele „deutsche“ Wesenszüge sind noch in der amerikanischen Tradition enthalten, besonders in Verbindung mit dem lutheranischen
Protestantismus. In Lateinamerika kann man den deutschen Einfluss im Erziehungswesen, in der Kultur und in der Industrie bemerken, obwohl Deutschstämmige nicht mehr als ein bis vier Prozent der Bevölkerung
ausmachen – von Mexiko nach Brasilien und Chile. Wichtige deutsche Namen wurden ins Spanische transponiert. Ein solches Beispiel ist der Jesuitenmissionär Padre Kino, der große Teile Nordmexikos
und einen Teil des Südwestens der heutigen Vereinigten Staaten in und um Arizona zwischen 1683 und 1711 christianisierte. Sein eigentlicher Name war Franz Joseph Kühn und er stammte von einem deutschen
Teilgebiet nahe dem heutigen Südtirol. Doch ehren ihn die Mexikaner bis heute - allerdings als einen der Ihren...
German Culture of the Fringes
by Peter Pabisch
When Herta Müller won the Nobel Prize in Literature recently, she was often introduced by the press and media as Romanian; not all news papers mentioned that she was from the
German minority of the mainly Western part of this country. Generally, one refers to the German realm by naming the three “German” countries: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Yet, as time goes on,
even they have changed their image. In a recent reference in Time magazine, Germany was listed as a country with two major languages – German, of course, and Turkish, because of its growing Turkish
minority. Austria was listed as 98% German speaking since the end of World War I. Yet, since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and the opening of the borders, it has again experienced a strong
internationalization. Particularly Austria’s capital Vienna has, once again, become the melting pot of Central and East European countries which it was during the centuries leading up to the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy. It broke apart into its national entities in 1918, but has been restored, in a sense, through the European Union, whose member states include most of the former countries of this once
large multi-cultural state of around twenty nations. Now, even Asians and Africans live in this city, which has also been the third UN-City after Geneva and New York since 1979. Thus it can happen nowadays, that
German is heard very rarely in certain districts of Vienna. Switzerland, on the other hand, has been fighting the label of being a “German” country, because it has to consider equally its other three
cultures – French, Italian, and Raeto-Romansh.
Germans also live as minorities in many other countries. Whereas the German language remains a minor part of the ethnic web of these countries, German culture has made major
contributions to countries and regions of the world, but is mentioned rarely or not at all. Who in the United States would hasten to point out that the Germans are the largest minority, with 15% of all Americans
stressing in the census of the year 2000 their total or partial German roots? It is true, only about one million of the 45 to 50 million German-Americans can speak German anymore, but many “German”
features are still inherent in the American tradition, particularly in connection with Lutheran Protestantism. In Latin America, German influence in education, culture, and industry can be noticed, although
citizens with German roots do not amount to more than 1 to 4% of the population – from Mexico to Brazil to Chile. German names of importance were transposed there into Spanish. One such example is the
Jesuit missionary Padre Kino who Christianized most of northern Mexico and a large part of today’s Southwest of the USA in and around Arizona from 1683 to 1711. Actually he came from a German enclave near
what is now Italy’s South Tyrol and was called Franz Josef Kuehn. Yet the Mexicans honor his memory to this day, but as one of their own…
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FAMILY RESEARCH: So Many Naming Legends, So Little Time
By James M. Beidler
German Life reader Peter Kent has been a faithful correspondent of this columnist for a number of years,
and what typically happens is that one of his musings strikes a chord with me and turns into a column.
A few months ago, Kent wrote to me about changes in surnames, complete with a number of what I will call “naming legends” … most of which I am fearful of
repeating for the chance that people will remember the “funny story” and forget the part about it being a legend!
I’ll settle for a single humorous story before giving the real skinny on name changes:
A German-speaking immigrant was asked a question by the immigration official, probably about his name but with the immigrant not understanding the question, and he answered in
German: “Ich habe es vergessen.” (“I have forgotten it.”) That is why a German has the name “Ferguson.”
While an individual story such as that is hard to disprove as far as “never” having happened, it is unlikely for a variety of reasons.
In part, it is because of a misunderstanding of officials’ roles at Ellis Island and other ports of entry. It is an unproven assertion that immigration officials changed anyone’s
names at Ellis Island, as they had translators of just about every language, and were just verifying the names used by the immigrants themselves on the passenger manifests.
What historians believe happened in most cases of the nineteenth and early twentieth century name changes was that the immigrants themselves changed the names “to fit in.”
However, when they were asked about the name changes by grandchildren late in life, the story became that of a dipstick bureaucrat making the change rather than an immigrant out
of shame – and since that story “played better,” it is the one that so many people have adopted, contrary to the facts.
And when you dial the clock back to the eighteenth, century, there are several additional things to take into account:
First and foremost is the fact that spelling – of surnames and everything else – is a much more modern concept than we realize, coming along principally with Noah
Webster and his dictionary in the 1800s. So there would have been no “one spelling” and therefore “name changes” in a linear progression becomes a wrong-headed concept.
It is all vital to understand that for many documents, it was not a case of how our ancestors were spelling their names, but rather how they were being spelled for them – wills, deeds, and censuses being recorded by English speaking clerks with little or no idea of German spelling … and just half an idea about German phonetics.
CALENDAR
Please contact events directly to confirm dates, locations, and admission fees.
JUNE
Frederick, MD
First Friday of the month: Der Stammtisch at Brewer’s Alley, 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127.
Indianapolis, IN
First Wednesday and first Saturday of the month: Docent-led tours of the Athenaeum at 401 East Michigan Street. Call 317-630-4569, ext. 1, or email
athfound@sbcglobal.net .
Harmony, PA
June 1: Harmony Museum’s Annual “Quilt in a Day” Program. Stewart Hall, 218 Mercer Street. Call 724-452-7341, email hmuseum@zoominternet.net , or visit www.harmonymuseum.org
.
Cincinnati, OH
June 5-6: German Day Weekend: For information on the 115th German Day in the Greater Cincinnati area, visit: www.gacl.org
North Judson, IN
June 5 – 6: Illiana Historical Association WWII Reenactment and Living History Camp. Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum, 507 Mulberry Street. Call
847-722-2335.
Harmony, PA
June 12: Harmony Museum’s Annual Herb & Garden Fair. 303 Mercer Road. Call 724-452-7341, email
hmuseum@zoominternet.net , or visit www.harmonymuseum.org .
Fishkill, NY
June 17 – 19: National Conference of Palatines to America. Contact Joe Lieby at jlieby522@gmail.com
.
Leavenworth, WA
June 17 – 20: International Accordion Festival. Call 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org.
Covington, KY
June 18 – 20: 10th Annual MainStrasse Village “Original” Goettafest. Call 859-491-0458 or visit www.mainstrasse.org .
Golden, CO
June 26 – 27: German Heritage Festival. Colorado Railroad Museum, 17155 West 44th Avenue. Call 800-365-6263 or visit www.coloradorailroadmuseum.org .
JULY
Frederick, MD
First Friday of the month: Der Stammtisch at Brewer’s Alley, 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127.
Indianapolis, IN
First Wednesday and first Saturday of the month: Docent-led tours of the Athenaeum at 401 East Michigan Street. Call 317-630-4569, ext. 1, or email
athfound@sbcglobal.net .
Kutztown, PA
July 3 – 11: 61st Kutztown Folk Festival. Kutztown Fairgrounds. Call 888-674-6136 or visit www.kutztownfestival.com.
Fredericksburg, TX
July 3-4: July 4th in Fredericksburg. Main Street and Marktplatz. Call 1-888-997-3600 or visit www.fredtexflavors.com .
Leavenworth, WA
July 4: Kinderfest. Call 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org.
Morrison, CO
July 10: 14th Annual GACC of Colorado Biergarten Party. TEV Edelweiss Pavilion. Call 303-8371146 or visit www.gaccco.org .
Fredericksburg, TX
July 16 – 17: Night in Old Fredericksburg. Marktplatz, corner of North Adams and West Main Streets. Visit www.tex-fest.com.
St. Joseph, MI
July 16: Summerfest. St. Joe Kickers Sports Club. Call 269-429-1057.
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