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February/March 1998
Emissaries of Good Will --
Young Germans Participate in a Unique Project
By Ruth Rovner
Tilman Ganzhorn paused at the door of Regina Penner's room then smiled and greeted her warmly. Her face lit up when she saw him. He sat down on the edge of her bed, and they were
quickly absorbed in conversation. As they spoke, he held her hand in his and several times patted her shoulder gently.
They might easily be mistaken for grandmother and grandson: she a 79- year-old woman with a deeply lined face and intense blue eyes; he a tall, 21-year-old athletic man. But in fact,
they are not related and even their friendship might seem unlikely.
Regina Penner is a resident of the Philadelphia Geriatric Center, a large nursing home for elderly Jews. A survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, she lost almost all of her family
members during the Holocaust. Tilman Ganzhorn grew up in the town of Tübingen in southwestern Germany. Until two years ago he had never met a single Jewish person.
This past summer Ganzhorn completed his participation in Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP), an organization that sends young Germans to most countries affected by World War
II to work with people who suffered under the Nazi regime and with a variety of other social service projects. Throughout Western and Eastern Europe, Israel, and the United States, young Germans under ARSP
auspices aid the elderly, the homeless, disadvantaged minorities, and the Holocaust survivors. The organization's work is based on the desire to atone for the crimes committed by Germans during World War II and
build a positive future by fighting racism and militarism.
"I'm not guilty for what my ancestors did, but I do feel a responsibility to make sure this won't happen again, and I also to try to learn from what's happened," says
Ganzhorn. "And part of the learning is to get to know and interact with a group of people who were despised by the Nazis."
For 18 months he was immersed in a Jewish environment. He escorted the elderly residents of Philadelphia Geriatric Center (PGC) to their weekly Sabbath services, assisted the rabbi in
preparing for services, and took a course in Judaism.
He also created an exercise program for the PGC residents, helped them celebrate birthdays, visited them in their rooms, and most important, offered them his friendship.
Regina Penner has grown close enough to the young German to open up and talk about her painful past for the first time. "I tell him so many stories," she says as Ganzhorn sits
by her side, still holding her hand in his. "I finally found the first German who was kind to me. I never could have imagined that this would happen to me."
Also moved by the experience, Ganzhorn reflects, "The warmth and friendliness the PGC residents have shown is very special. I didn't realize that I would be accepted this way. I've
heard some residents say, 'I always thought that Germans hated Jews.' But now that they personally know a German, maybe they can feel there are some good young Germans out there."
ARSP volunteers—who range in age from 19 to 25—are met with similar reactions wherever they work. Currently 160 volunteers are abroad in ARSP service. After a careful screening process,
the chosen applicants spend three weeks in orientation, two weeks in Berlin and one at a former concentration camp site—either at the youth encounter center at Auschwitz or at Stutthoff or Majdanek—where they
discuss Nazi history and how it relates to ARSP's purpose.
Sühnezeichen, or atonement, is fundamental to the organization. It is known in German as Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste (literally, Action Signs of Atonement Peace Services).
Marking its 40th anniversary this year, ARSP was founded by Lothar Kreyssig, a German minister and lawyer who had been an outspoken opponent of the Nazis. After the war Kreyssig continued to feel that Christians
had failed to accept their share of responsibility for the Holocaust.
In 1958 he brought a Call for Peace to the synod of the German Protestant Church. "We Germans began World War II and by this alone, more than others, we are guilty of bringing
immeasurable suffering to humankind," it read. "We ask the peoples who suffered violence at our hands to allow us to perform a good deed in their countries with our hands and resources...as a sign of
atonement."
At the time of ARSP's inception, Eastern Europe and Israel—those areas originally envisioned in Kreyssig's Call for Peace—remained hesitant to welcome even well-meaning Germans, and the
Cold War also intervened. In 1959 the Netherlands was the first country to invite volunteers, who helped build a recreational center for workers from Rotterdam in Oudrop. Over the next several years Norway,
Greece, England, and France followed suit, and ARSP volunteers rebuilt churches, synagogues, and community centers that had been destroyed by the Nazis. In 1961, following the Eichmann trial and after long
negotiations, Israel permitted the first volunteers to work in Kibbutz Urim. After ten years of discussion, in 1967, Poland allowed volunteers to work at the memorial sites of Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Stutthoff
concentration camps. And by 1990 it was possible for ARSP to place its first volunteer in a Moscow hospital.
By the mid-1960s the physical reconstruction of areas affected by World War II had been largely completed. ARSP thus shifted focus to work with Holocaust survivors and with groups
marginalized by society. Volunteers currently serve in 11 countries. Young volunteers help elderly Jews in Prague and Great Britain. In Paris they assist former refugees from Nazi Germany. In Amsterdam they care
for AIDS victims. In St. Petersburg they help the elderly and the physically disabled, and in Minsk (Belarus) they aid children suffering from Chernobyl radiation.
Other volunteers work at memorial centers of the former concentration camps in Poland, the Jewish Document Center in Paris, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the London Museum of
Jewish Life, and others. In Jerusalem ARSP runs an international center, the Ben Yehuda House, and conducts seminars on Jewish-Christian and Israeli- German relations. The organization is now well recognized. In
1993 ARSP was awarded the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal from the German Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation.
"The volunteers are highly motivated to begin with, and this is a very special time in their lives. It's often their first full-time working experience," says Andrea Koch, a
former volunteer and now ARSP coordinator who is based in the Berlin headquarters. "They're looking for direction. And this helps to shape them." It also shapes what they choose to do after their
service. Often they return to Germany and become politically and socially active, working with organizations like Amnesty International or studying to become teachers and social workers.
While Koch and other coordinators supervise ARSP projects from the Berlin headquarters, other staffers work on location abroad. One of them is Renate Woessner, another former ARSP
volunteer, who came to Virginia in 1981 to work at a shelter for battered women. Since 1990 she has been director of the U.S. program based in Philadelphia.
The United States is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel, including many who escaped Nazi terror and still more who are Holocaust survivors. From its start in the
United States, ARSP sought to reach out to the Jewish community. "But because the wounds are deep, it took almost a decade to build a relationship of trust," says Woessner.
The first ARSP volunteers came to the United States in 1968 at the invitation of the pacifist churches (Quaker, Mennonite, and Brethren) and the United Church of Christ. Volunteers
initially worked at camps for children from indigent families, community centers in urban ghettos, halfway houses, camps of migrant workers, and on Indian reservations. It wasn't until the spring of 1979 that
the first volunteer was invited to work with a Jewish agency, the Anti- Defamation League of B'nai B'rith in New York City.
Since then ARSP has increased its presence in the American Jewish community. Volunteers now work in cooperation with a number of Jewish agencies. Not only do the volunteers give
concrete assistance, they also make other, less tangible, contributions. As Woessner puts it, when young Germans befriend Holocaust survivors, "They provide a bridge between two cultures and help heal the
wounds of the past. This is a very special opportunity, especially now that the survivors are getting older."
Healing wounds and building bridges present difficult challenges, and Jewish administrators who work with the volunteers praise them highly for their efforts. Misha Avramoff,
co-director of Project EZRA in New York City, an agency that helps elderly Jews on the Lower East Side, recalls the obstacles faced by the first ARSP volunteer who started his service in 1984.
"Some of our elders told us they would refuse to see a German," he relates. Nevertheless, the young volunteer set out purposefully, going to tenements and housing projects to
give solace to the very old. "And within a few months, barriers began to fall."
Project EZRA has had nine volunteers since then. "We had the privilege of working with the most sensitive and committed of the young generation of Germany today," says
Avramoff.
The response to ARSP in the United States has been so positive that in 1996 the American Friends of ARSP was founded as a network of supporters that includes host families, workshop
leaders, former volunteers, and even Holocaust survivors and refugees.
As for the volunteers themselves, they find that the ARSP experience has a profound impact on their lives. "They give a lot to those they work with," says Woessner. "Yet
at the end of their service they often say, 'I gained much more than I could ever give.'"
That is surely true of the eight young people who gathered in Philadelphia this past August. They had begun as ARSP volunteers in March of 1996 and were assigned to projects in Boston,
Washington, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. With their 18-months stints about to end, they convened at the ARSP U.S. headquarters for a week of wrap-up and reflection.
Their collective experience runs like an honor roll of good deeds: Maren-Anneke van Drimmelen gave comfort to people with AIDS in a hospice in Chicago, living side by side with them in
the hospice; Rainer Reichel did grass-roots community organizing in a low-income neighborhood in Chicago; Matthias Reiter worked with disadvantaged youths in New York; and Christoph Hillmann worked at a Brooklyn
health center caring for patients with Alzheimer's disease; Kristin Teichert helped elderly Jews who are clients of Selfhelp Community Services in Manhattan; Tilman Ganzhorn assisted the residents of
Philadelphia Geriatric Center; Salif Nimaga worked as an intern at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where he helped with the Survivors Registry and also did a special research project; and Arne Lietz, serving
with the Boston-based educational organization Facing History and Ourselves, helped teachers develop Holocaust curriculum materials and visited many classrooms to talk about Germany's past and present.
At the reception in their honor, attended by host families and other ARSP supporters, each volunteer spoke briefly—and gratefully—about their experiences. "I'd seen in East Germany
how education could be used to build an undemocratic society," said Arne Lietz, a native of Gustrow. "This experience was totally different. I was able to see how important education is in building a
democratic society."
When Lietz went into classrooms he often talked about growing up in East Germany where his father, a minister, was imprisoned in the 1970s for being a conscientious objector. "I
spoke about Germany being divided, about the Communist propaganda in East Germany," he related. "I also talked about the neo-Nazi movement in East Germany and the need to stand up as a young person in
society.
Rainer Reichel, from the city of Constance, chose grass-roots organizing for a reason. "I was very interested in community organizing as a way to solve problems that doesn't exist
in Germany," he said. In Chicago he helped neighborhood groups unite and even organized several successful protest demonstrations.
"If this kind of organizing had existed in Germany when the Nazis were coming to power, there would have been much more resistance," Reichel observed. "I wanted to learn
how to form groups from scratch because it can help in fighting fascism in the future."
Salif Nimaga, from the town of Giessen, who worked at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum conducted a special research project about the S.S. St. Louis, the vessel filled with German
Jewish refugees that came to the United States and Cuba but was forced to turn back. Nimaga's project involved trying to track the fate of each passenger.
He also worked on the Survivors' Registry, an information network created by the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, which is used by survivors and their descendants or
those who wish to contact survivors.
"This is a way for them to find out about their history, especially if their grandparents or parents didn't talk about it," said Nimaga.
For this 20-year-old, meeting a survivor was an entirely new experience. During his research he often worked side by side with those who had been in concentration camps. "In the
beginning it was very difficult. You don't know what to expect when you actually meet survivors," he admitted. "And it's hard to listen to their experiences because they're so painful. But it's also
very enriching. They went through so much, yet many of them still find joy in life."
Kristin Teichert was also moved by her experiences in helping elderly Holocaust survivors in New York City. "With some people, as soon as I entered their apartment, they showed me
photos of lost family members," she said. "They knew I was German, and they needed to release something from their hearts." Others needed more time. First they would talk about impersonal things.
Gradually, they would become more trusting. "And then they'd open their hearts and much would spill out," related Teichert. "It was very important that they express this pain and injustice to
someone who is German," she emphasized.
Like Nimaga and other volunteers, 24-year-old Teichert had also never met a Holocaust survivor until she came to New York. Because her own family history troubled her—one grandfather
owned a factory which made tools for the war effort—she felt a particular need to extend herself to the survivors.
"I got to know them so well and to understand their pain they had lived through," she reflected. "And let them know I was sorry for what had happened to them. They needed
to hear that from a German. And for me, it was a small way of giving something back to them."
And so last fall Teichert, like many other ARSP volunteers, returned to Germany filled with deep gratitude and a new sense of commitment. "It was a remarkable learning
experience," she summed up. "It made me really understand why it's important to stand up against injustice today."
Ruth Rovner writes from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
For information about joining American Friends of ARSP, contact the Philadelphia ARSP office:
Action Reconciliation Service for Peace
P.O. Box 44151
Philadelphia, PA 19144
Tel.: (215) 844-8404
The German Revolutions of 1848
By Robert A. Selig
In the early 19th century mothers in the German southwest were singing their children to sleep with a song still familiar to many Germans today. It begins: Schlaf, Kindlein schlaf, der
Vater hut' die Schaf. (Sleep, little child, sleep; your father tends the sheep.) But after 1849 the words changed abruptly and remained so for many years thereafter: Schlaf, mein Kind, schlaf leis. Dort draussen
geht der Preuss! In translation, it read:
Sleep, my child, sleep quietly,
Out there the Prussian prowls!
He murdered your father,
He impoverished your mother,
And whoever does not sleep in quiet slumber,
Will have his eyes closed by the Prussian.
Sleep, my child, sleep quietly,
Out there the Prussian prowls!
What horrors had befallen these parents to cause them to sing their children to sleep with such words?
In the spring of 1848 a wave of revolutions swept across Europe. In Italy, France, Austria, Hungary, and in the states of the German Confederation thrones shook and ministries fell. The
order that had been set up at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars had collapsed. Caught off guard, the noble ruling elites put up little or no resistance, much to the surprise of the
middle-class revolutionaries and their supporters in the peasantry and among the artisans and journeymen. When the first freely elected German parliament met in the Paulskirche (St. Paul's church) in Frankfurt
in May 1848, a nation-state under a constitutional monarch seemed within reach.
But the unlikely alliance between bourgeoisie, peasantry, and tradesmen disintegrated almost as soon as the common enemy seemed defeated. By the early summer of 1849 the old rulers were
back in the saddle again. The attempt to create a German nation-state in Freiheit und Einheit (freedom and unity) from below had failed. What went wrong? The causes for this failure lie primarily in the
divergent goals and ideologies of the groups allied against the established order.
The decades before and after 1850 form a watershed between the old and the new Europe. As industrialization picked up speed, it brought great opportunities for daring entrepreneurs.
Millions of others saw their standard of living decline, though in 1848 Karl Marx's industrial proletariat formed but a small segment of the German poor. Poverty was largely rural, caused not by too much, but by
too little industry, which could not provide employment for an ever faster growing population. Urbanization and slums, obsolete modes of production and mechanization, demographic growth, and pauperization tore
up the social fabric of the static society of pre-industrial Germany. These developments affected all segments of society, creating tensions among the different socioeconomic groups trying to cope with the
changes around them. Between 1815 and 1848, a time historians have since designated as Vormärz (pre-March), the frontlines for the unrest of March 1848 were drawn.
In 1834 the Zollverein (Customs Union) created a large economic zone in Central Europe under Prussian leadership. But many members of the emerging Prussian, and German, bourgeoisie
considered this just the first step to a united Germany under a Hohenzollern king. Berlin was their only hope. For as long as Metternich remained chief minister in Vienna, Austria would never embrace liberal and
nation-state ideas. During the 1840s this group of self-made men and their allies among the Besitz- und Bildungsbürgertum, the propertied and educated elite, became ever more vocal in their demands:
laissez-faire economic legislation; individual rights, guaranteed by a constitution; and a nation-state under Prussian leadership, of course, with the stipulation that Prussia would first have to conform to
liberal ideas.
This was easier said than done because the royal house and the ruling Junker class in Prussia, the very state envisioned by many to lead a united Germany, was also a determined opponent
of any such plans. The Prussian nobility, whose claim to power derived from birth- right and landed wealth, detested the money-bags from the bourgeoisie and rejected the idea of a constitution as an infringement
upon their role as the traditional leaders of society. As Prussian nationalists they looked with equal misgivings on the idea of a German nation- state, which for many was identical with the end of Prussia. But
here, too, the death of King Frederick William III in 1840 brought hope to many liberals that the promise of a constitution, made in 1815, might finally be fulfilled. When Frederick William IV assembled the
United Diet in February 1847 to provide funds for railroad construction many liberals thought that in exchange for their cooperation the king would make constitutional concessions. But their hopes were once gain
dashed, and by late 1847, many liberals had concluded that the system was impervious to reform and might have to be changed by force, even if as men of property and education they abhorred the idea of a
revolution.
Prussian liberals found strong support in Württemburg and in Baden, where opposition to the existing order had developed into a diverse political movement: Moderate liberals gathered
around men like Heinrich von Gagern and Gustav von Droysen in favor of a constitutional monarchy, radical democrats and republicans around Gustav von Struwe and Friedrich Hecker, and the far left with its
social-revolutionary program was beginning to organize around Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Together they formed a heterogeneous movement with potentially conflicting social, political, and economic goals,
united by a desire for change and a nation-state.
If the upper classes were determined to preserve their position against a bourgeoisie desiring a transfer of political power to themselves, or at least a share in the political
decision-making process, the problems of the lower classes with the established order were much more fundamental. Here the issue was survival. Unable to compete with cheap, mostly British, competition (near
Erlangen the weavers used such out-dated equipment that the British Museum bought one of their looms as an antique), master craftsmen trying to maintain their independence found themselves working longer hours
for less money, while journeymen could nurture little hope of ever setting up shop for themselves. They saw the way out of their misery not through more machinery and free trade, but in a return to the guild
system. At the same time, quite a few seemed to think that the so-called good old days would only return to a republic with a ministry of labor and social legislation. After a commercial crisis in 1847 brought
mass lay-offs and reduction in wages, they were ready to revolt—though uncertain who the enemy was: governments, employers, or unskilled labor pushing down wages.
The peasantry, too, was restless, though their grievances were different. Personal servitude had been abolished in the 1810s, but the amortization of obligations arising from the
ownership of land threatened to displace many peasants when food prices fell sharply after 1815. Equally burdensome were nobility-controlled courts of law, where justice was dispensed, not always impartially, by
an employee of the lord. Unpaid labor services continued, as well as noble hunting and grazing rights on peasant grounds, while the tithe was still often collected in kind. These remnants of the feudal system
topped the list of peasant grievances more than did issues of free trade or working conditions in the sweatshops of struggling craftsmen or in the factories along the Ruhr.
In 1846/47 poor potato harvests, by now the staple crop of the poor, led to unrest. In Upper Silesia, where impoverished weavers had already revolted in 1844, hunger-induced spotted
fever afflicted 80, 000 people, killing some 16,000. Hunger revolts in cities like Berlin, Nuremberg, and Stuttgart, and in Saxony, had to be suppressed by the military, further aggravating the situation. A
potentially revolutionary situation had developed and was ready to erupt. Peasants and the urban poor were willing to provide the soldiers for the revolution. Would the bourgeoisie provide the officers? At first
it seemed as if they might.
The spark that ignited the revolution was the news of unrest in Paris, where Louis Philippe was forced to abdicate on February 24. In Mannheim the first demonstrations occurred on the
27th. From there they spread to Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, and Cologne, where one-third of the populace was on public relief, and to Frankfurt and Munich on March 4. That same day peasant unrest broke out in the
Black Forest and spread along the Rhine into the Odenwald and the Taubergrund, into Franconia and the sandy plains around Nuremberg—all hot-beds of the Peasant War of 1525. There peasants put the torch to some
castles, administrative buildings, and tax rolls during violent unrest that lasted into the fall of 1848.
As the old order collapsed, März-Ministerien (March ministries) were formed all across Germany: first in Hesse-Darmstadt on March 5, then in Baden, and in Württemberg. Metternich was
chased out of Vienna on the night of the 13th. In Munich the reputation of the monarchy was so badly shaken by the Lola Montez affair that 61-year-old King Ludwig I was forced to abdicate. On March 18 Berlin
became restless too: That night street-fighting broke out in the capital of Prussia. Not until more than 200 people had been killed, did the king order the withdrawal of the 15,000 troops positioned around the
city. In his proclamation "To my dear Berliners" the next day, the king apologized for the dead and placed himself under the protection of the citizen's militia. Prince William, the king's brother and
future emperor of 1871—dubbed Kartätschenprinz (for ordering canister shots to be fired at the demonstrators)—joined Metternich in exile in England. On the 23rd Prussia had its March Ministry under the rule of
Rhenish b nkers and businessmen Ludolf Camphausen and David Hansemann.
The black-red-golden flags flying from the rooftops signified the advent of a new Germany. But what would it look like? On March 30 a Vor-Parlament (pre-parliament) met in
Frankfurt-am-Main to organize elections to a National Assembly. The Deutsche National-Versammlung (German National Assembly) that met on May 18 in the Paulskirche set itself three tasks: to write a constitution,
create a German nation-state, and establish a central authority for that state. Those were eminently middle-class, liberal positions, and the men assembled in the Paulskirche were by education and training more
than qualified for the job: the 529 lawyers, bureaucrats, university professors, and judges that sat in the assembly far outnumbered the 68 landowners, 75 businessmen, and 121 clergymen, journalists, and army
officers, not to mention the four journeymen and the lone peasant from Silesia. Revolutionaries they were not. Though it did include some prominent radicals, the assembly which elected Heinrich von Gagern as its
presi ent on May 19 was dominated by law-and-order moderates committed to liberal reform, prepared to accept compromise, and to come to agreements with the ruling houses of Germany.
Liberal reform, however, was not what the people wanted. As the assembly spent most of the summer and early fall compiling a list of Grundrechte, individual rights modeled after the
Bill of Rights, the situation outside the Paulskirche turned against the revolution. Human rights do not feed children or create jobs, and the hungry people wanted relief: By mid-summer master craftsmen,
journeymen, and workers had organized themselves outside the National Assembly and were pushing their own agenda.
Here, too, differences were quickly revealed. The German Artisan and Trade Congress in Frankfurt (July 15 to August 18) was united in its opposition to free trade, cherished by the
liberal bourgeoisie, but broke apart on July 20 when masters refused journeymen equal voting rights. The journeymen then constituted their own congress, which ended in confusion in September. Workers also began
to organize, though not necessarily under Marxist auspices. In early April Stefan Born assembled a Central Committee of Workers in Berlin, which held a national meeting from August 23 until late September. Their
demands, such as universal suffrage, 10-hour work days, and a minimum wage, frightened the bourgeoisie and master craftsmen alike. By September 7 the situation had become so tense that Hans Victor von Unruh, a
liberal Prussian delegate, thought that "At this moment we are between a counter-revolution and a second revolution." Within weeks both revolutions had arrived, crushing the moderate center in their
violent lash.
As internal tensions were breaking up the oppositional front, the old powers used the summer to regroup. When in the first week of September a crisis broke out over the Armistice of
Malmö (concluded by Prussia in the war with Denmark over Schleswig and Holstein on behalf of the Frankfurt Assembly without consulting that body), it became painfully obvious that Archduke Johann von Habsburg,
the Central Authority elected on June 29, and the National Assembly with him, lacked all power to enforce its decisions. Without a bureaucracy, army, or police force of its own, or the authority to raise taxes,
the assembly was dependent upon the cooperation of the ruling houses, primarily those in Berlin and Vienna.
On September 8 the assembly rejected the armistice, but in an about- face reversed this decision on the 16th. When an armed uprising broke out in Frankfurt on the 18th, the National
Assembly had to ask Austrian and Prussian troops to suppress the revolt. Caught between radicals and reactionaries, "property and education" cast its lot with the old order: A second, social,
revolution must not happen. When Struwe proclaimed the German Republic in Lörrach on the 21st in open defiance of the National Assembly, Badenese government troops quickly put an end to the experiment.
In mid-October work on the constitution finally began in Frankfurt. But while the assembly addressed the thorny issue of choosing a Greater Germany under Habsburg rule (the ruling house
of Austria) or a Little Germany under Hohenzollern rule, the counter-revolution struck. While Prince Windischgrätz led the bloody re-conquest of Vienna, the assembly decided upon a Greater Germany on October 27.
Windischgrätz's response was to order the execution of Robert Blum, a member of the Frankfurt Assembly who had fought in Vienna.
This was the signal for the counter-revolution in Germany as well. On November 10 General von Wrangel entered Berlin at the head of 40, 000 troops and sent the Landtag, the Prussian
state parliament, packing. Little did it matter that the Frankfurt Assembly now decided on a Little Germany under a Prussian king and finally passed a constitution on March 27, 1849: The King of Prussia, elected
Emperor of the Germans the following day, rejected the constitution, and the crown with it, in late April. What was left of the National Assembly went home. For the bourgeoisie, the noble experiment was over,
but not so for the lower classes. Feeling betrayed by their betters, thousands took up arms in an attempt to force the constitution on their rulers and drive the revolution into a radical phase. In Saxony,
Baden, Württemberg, and along the Rhine River the Campaign for the Constitution turned into a civil war with strong social-revolutionary undertones. Red flags were beginning to replace the black-red-gold of the
re olution. Friedrich Hecker, who had fled to the United States after a failed uprising in April 1848, returned to lead the revolt. The Heckerlied, the battle-hymn of the insurgents, sent the propertied classes
scurrying into the counter-revolutionary camp:
Fürstenblut muss fliessen,
Fliessen stiefeldick,
Und daraus erspriessen,
Die rote Republik!
The blood of Princes must flow,
Flow as thick as my boots,
And out of it must grow,
The red Republic!
(author's translation)
Even with the Badenese military, which had mutinied in support of the constitution in May, on their side, the rebels stood no chance of success. Leaderless and
divided among themselves, without either a clearly defined goal or strong support from the peasantry, mostly Polish-speaking Prussian troops under the Kartätschenprinz swooped down from the pacified Rhine
provinces and suppressed the uprising with great bloodshed. Rastatt, the rebels' last hold-out, surrendered on July 23. The next day 27 rebels shared the fate of dozens of others summarily executed along the way
by the victorious Prussians. In a wave of repression thousands more lost their jobs and/or were sentenced to long prison terms. Some 10,000 escaped into Switzerland and from there immigrated (mainly) to the
United States; in addition, some 80,000 Badenese alone, one in 18 of the population, emigrated during the next few years.
What had gone wrong? In retrospect it is easy to ridicule the assembly, as did Benjamin Disreali by saying that those "fifty mad professors" had lost touch with reality. The
liberals in Frankfurt had ideals they tried to turn into reality; their dreams of what the new Germany should look like were as valid as those of the journeymen and workers in the streets and as those of the
peasants in their fields. So were, for that matter, the concepts of the nobility as to the best way to organize and run Germany. Where the liberals failed was in their assessment of the political situation.
In the spring of 1848 the old order was badly shaken, but it was not destroyed. To think, as the liberals did, that either the Junkers would accept the results of the revolution or that
the lower classes would not present a bill for having manned the barricades in March, was bound to have severe consequences. Anxious to end the revolution lest it get out of hand—the memory of the Jacobean
terreur in France in 1792 was never far from their minds—the assembly failed both to mobilize the masses for the coming counter-revolution and to create an institutional framework for an independent policy of
its own. Afraid of the spirits they had conjured up, the assembled bourgeoisie never led the revolution into a radical phase. When counter- revolution and social revolution clashed, the men of property and
education threw in their lot with the established order. In the streets they heard cries for social justice that endangered their property rights as well as their tenuous hold on power. If the counter-revolution
won at least their property would be safe. This has led some historians to claim that the men of the Paulskirche betrayed the revolution. But they had nothing to betray. Historian and member of the assembly
Friedrich Dahlmann would later write that they "wanted national and liberal reform" without "revolution, which would endanger property and education."
The long-term consequences of the failed revolution lasted well into this century. The 1848 revolution represented a great opportunity to adapt the political power structure to the
changed economic realities. But it was not to be. The Prussian bourgeoisie put up one more challenge to the Junker rule in the Constitutional Conflict from 1862­66. But it was defeated once again, this
time by Otto von Bismarck, chief minister in Prussia since 1862. And when this same man, whom even King Frederick William IV had rejected as too bloodthirsty in 1848, proclaimed William I, the former
Kartätschenprinz and King of Prussia since 1861, German Emperor on January 18, 1871, the path was set for Prussia-Germany to develop economically into the most advanced country in Europe with a bourgeoisie now
striving for noble titles and reserve officer commissions, which was governed by a pre-industrial, agrarian, and noble elite that was painfully aware that time was not on its side.
Contributing editor and historian Robert A. Selig writes from Holland, Michigan.
The Saarland -- A Mighty Dwarf
By Robert Thornhill Photos by David Peevers
In area the Saarland is a scant 992 square miles—smaller than Rhode Island, smaller even than neighboring Luxembourg. The population numbers just over one million. It is a flyspeck on
the map of Germany and a mere drop in the world's overflowing bucket of humanity.
Yet for almost two millennia the Saarland has made news and history, triggered wars, been fought over bitterly and been invaded numerous times.
Today it is again making news. Until recently it was one of Germany's most economically depressed states—left in the lurch by changing technologies and demands, a prize once hotly
contested and then sadly tarnished as the need for its riches, coal and steel, vanished. But now it is on the rebound, and of all things, as a vacation land with attractions not only of history, culture, and
nature but as a culinary paradise where German and French cuisine blend delectably.
The history goes back to Celtic, Roman, and medieval times. When Charlemagne's three grandsons divided his empire, the Saarland, along with Luxembourg, Alsace, and Lorraine, constituted
the "Middle Kingdom" of post-Carolingian Europe—a wedge between Germany and France and a nugget coveted by both. After the victory over Napoleon in 1815, the Saarland was divided and awarded half to
Bavaria and half to Prussia. An old border marker near Blieskastel is a curiosity from that time: It shows the Bavarian lion and the Prussian eagle back-to-back.
By then, because of its riches in coal, it was already a treasure. The subsequent buildup of its iron and steel industry contributed significantly to Germany's 19th-century industrial
revolution and rise as a major European power.
Germany lost the Saarland by terms of the Versailles Treaty in 1919. The state became an autonomous League of Nations territory under French administration. But the Saarlanders wanted
to be neither independent nor French, and in a 1935 plebiscite more than 90 percent of them voted to become part of Hitler's Third Reich.
In 1945 the Saarland was once more separated from Germany. Although French demands for outright annexation were rejected by the other Western Allies, it again became autonomous with
French economic and fiscal administration. A 1955 plebiscite, this time with only a 67 percent majority, once more restored the territory to Germany as one of the Federal Republic's states.
Today one wonders what all the struggles, the wars, the bloodshed, and suffering were about, for the Saar's erstwhile boon became its bane. The coal crisis started in the 1960s, the
steel slump in the 1970s. The Saarland's outmoded collieries and plants were among the hardest
hit.
Unemployment rocketed to the highest rate in Germany, and the state became an intensive-care patient, dependent on transfusions of subsidies from Bonn. But Saarlanders have a saying:
"We survived Napoleon, the Bavarians, the Prussians, the French, and Hitler, so we'll survive the coal and steel crisis too."
Since the mid-1980s they have—by turning to high-tech and service industries and by tapping a resource they didn't even know they had: the region's natural beauties, cultural heritage,
and cuisine, for the Saarland was always more than a rustbelt land.
In fact, it abounds with verdant valleys, rolling hills, sparkling lakes, silvery streams, picturesque villages, and dense forests. Indeed, 40 percent of its area is covered by
woodlands.
Though Saarbrücken, population 190,000, the capital, offers little to the traveler, it is a departure point for a rewarding journey along the Saar. The first attraction is just seven
miles downstream at Völklingen, site of the Alte Völklinger Hütte, once one of Europe's biggest steel mills, shut down in 1986. In 1994 it became the world's first industrial plant to be put on UNESCO's cultural
heritage list. All of it has been preserved as on the day the last shift left and turned into a museum of industrial history and an arts and music center, with studios for painters and sculptors and a stage for
concerts between the old blast furnaces. "Many people wanted it torn down because it was a symbol of lost jobs—dirty, sweaty, back- breaking jobs," says Manfred Scheib, one of the former steelworkers
who now is a guide through the maze-like complex. "Fortunately we didn't. The first year alone we had 20,000 visitors, and the numbers have increased steadily."
Saarlouis, 10 miles on, was built in 1680 as a fortress by Sebastien de Vauban, the French military architect, for "Sun King" Louis XIV, and the outlines of its battlements in
the form of a six-pointed star remain. Nowadays they have more peaceful purposes: The 100,000-square- foot former parade ground is the market square; bistros, cafes, and restaurants have moved into the old
casemates. Saarlouis is called the Saarland's "secret capital" because of its cultural and culinary life. It abounds with Michelin- and Gault-Millau-rated eateries, of which the best are "Villa
Fayence" in the suburb of Wallerfangen and "Altes Pfarrhaus Beaumarais" in Beaumarais. Merzig, 13 miles from Saarlouis, is best known for its Collegiate Church of
St. Peter, a perfect example of 12th-century late- Romanesque design.
As the Saar meanders northward, it makes a scenically breathtaking hairpin bend just west of Mettlach. This great bend, the Grosse Saarschleife, is one of Europe's most photogenic river
landscapes. Mettlach is the home of Villeroy & Boch, the ceramics, porcelain, and glassware company, which still headquarters in a former 8th-century abbey. Its ceramics museum in Ziegelberg Castle shows a
stunning collection of historic dishes.
The Romans left their mark all over the Saarland, but at Perl-Nennig on the Moselle, about 11 miles west of Mettlach and right at the Luxembourg border, you can see how lavishly they
lived. The Roman Villa there, a 3rd-century country estate, has been reconstructed. Its greatest treasure is a 33-by-52-foot floor mosaic, the largest north of the Alps, depicting scenes from an amphitheater
performance. It was discovered by a local farmer, digging in his garden, in 1852.
Driving east from the river through the lush woods of the Saar- Hunsrück Nature Park will take you to the Bostal Stausee, a 300-acre artificial lake created by damming up one of the
Saarland's many mountain streams. It is a paradise for wind-surfers, water-skiers, and kayak buffs. "You can do anything here as long as you don't pollute, cause a smell, or make noise," says Peter
Klein, the local tourist-board manager.
Nonnweiler-Otzenhausen, northwest of the lake, is the site of the Hunnenring, a vast fortification with a ring-like wall of quartz- stone 100 feet thick, 30 feet high and 1.5 miles
long, so named because of a legend that Atilla the Hun was buried there. Actually Atilla never got that far northwest, and the 1.8 million-square-foot structure predates him by at least 500 years. It was Celtic
and the stronghold of Prince Indutiomarus of the Treveri tribe, killed by Julius Caesar in 54 B.C. Tholey, 10 miles south of Bostal Lake, is a travel-poster hamlet with an active
Benedictine monastery that dates back to 6th-century Merovingian times. Though it's pricey, lunch or dinner at the Michelin-starred "Hostellerie Hubertus," right in the center of town, is a memorable
experience.
The eight-mile drive east from Tholey to St. Wendel will take you along the Saarländische Skulpturenstrasse, a unique open-air gallery of 37 sculptures carved and erected during the
past 25 years by leading contemporary German sculptors. In St. Wendel itself be sure to see the 14th- to 15th-century parish and pilgrimage Church of St. Wendelinus, one of the best repositories of Gothic art in
southwestern Germany. Many of its treasures were commissioned by Nicholas of Cusa, the scientist, statesman, and philosopher, who was its pastor from 1442 to 1444.
For another glimpse of Roman life in the Saarland, head 20 miles southeast to Homburg and the outdoor Roman Museum in the suburb of Schwarzenacker. Some of the houses and streets of
this market town, destroyed by Germanic invaders in the 3rd century, have been excavated and reconstructed, including an inn and the lavishly decorated practice of a Roman eye doctor.
Neunkirchen, just west of Homburg, is another of those steel towns whose mill and blast furnaces have been preserved as a landmark-rated industrial monument. It is also home to the
Saarland's most highly- rated eatery, the "Hostellerie Bacher." Proprietress-chef Margarethe Bacher gets a star in the Michelin guide and three toques in the Gault-Millau.
To appreciate how old the Saarland is, be sure to look at the Gollenstein on a hill above Blieskastel, east of Saarbrücken. It is the largest menhir in Europe, erected some 4,000 years
ago—well before the 4th century B.C. Celtic princess's tomb at nearby Rheinheim, where archaeologists excavated a treasure of armlets, necklaces, rings, clasps, and utensils made of gold, bronze, coral, amber,
jasper, and quartzite. They can be seen at the Saarland Museum in Saarbrücken.
Celts and Romans, Franks, and Normans, the prince-bishops of Trier and the dukes of Lorraine fought over the Saarland, as did the Spaniards, Swedes, and French during the Thirty Years
War. Probably no other piece of real estate so small was the object of so much greed by so many rulers. It is a Lilliputian but complex land where memories of the past mingle with hopes for the future, whose
people know how to enjoy life.
A Munich-based writer, Robert Thornhill travels frequently.
For more information, contact
Saarland Tourism
Postfach 101031
66010 Saarbrücken
Germany Tel.: 011.49.681.35376
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