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APRIL/MAY 2005
Our Lady of Altötting Replica Finding an American Home
by Beth Nightengale
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., will engage in a peaceful, yet monumental ceremony for German-Americans in the spring of 2005. In
April, the National Shrine’s extensive collection of mosaics, sculptures, and other pieces of art from around the world will be joined by a replica of the “Schwarzen Muttergottes von Altötting” – Our Lady of
Altötting – in Bavaria, Germany.
The Our Lady of Altötting is a devotion to Mary, the Mother of God. The replica includes an image of the Christ Child, and is affectionately known as the Madonna of Altötting. Pilgrims
in Altötting seek the warm comforting solace from being in the presence of the Mother of God to pray for their own miracles. An unknown master artist created the miraculous image in about 1300. An abbot brought
the statue to Altötting from France in the early fourteenth century.
The 27-1/2-inch (70cm) linden wood statue replica of the Our Lady of Altötting is adorned in traditional gothic style dress of an ornate pompous gown and a golden encrusted crown.
Due to the resounding efforts by bishops and cardinals from the United States and Germany, the statue will fill the absence of the German-American representation at the National Shrine.
The Altötting pilgrimage rector recently accompanied the replica over the Atlantic Ocean to Washington, D.C.
Renowned church interior decorators from the Rambusch Company designed the niche that will house the replica in the Upper Church. The statue’s niche will be a marbled area with a
stained glass window, a pedestal for the statue, and glass encasement for the statue’s protection. Dr. Rohling, Archivist at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception said the Altöttingers
selected this location in part because it is close to the statue of Brother Conrad von Parzham, the Capuchin who was the doorkeeper at the monastery in Altötting.
Although some people refer to the Our Lady of Altötting statue as the “Black Madonna,” it is not considered to be an ethnic term. The reference is due to the black-like appearance of
the statue, which is believed to be soot from the burning candles at the statue’s base for hundreds of years. The original linden wood is not of a blackened nature. The replica of the statue in the National
Shrine has been antiqued to accurately reflect the original image.
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is the largest Catholic Church in the Western Hemisphere, and the eighth largest religious structure in the world. The
National Shrine was modeled after medieval cathedrals in Europe, without steel structure and concrete pillars – stone, bricks, and mortar form it alone. The Boston architects of Maginnis and Walsh declare that
the National Shrine is a mixture of old and new techniques with a template of the traditional Romanesque-Byzantine structures. According to the architects, the National Shrine building is by no means an
imitation of any other church but rather a truly American structure.
The National Shrine measures a colossal four hundred fifty-nine feet long and covers an area of seventy-seven thousand five hundred square feet. The Knights’ Tower, a gift from the
Knights of Columbus in 1959, stretches three hundred twenty-nine feet from the ground level of the Shrine. The Great Upper Church, where the Our Lady statue will be placed, is three hundred ninety-nine feet long
and can seat over six thousand worshipers at one time. The Crypt Church is two hundred feet long and one hundred sixty feet wide and can seat over four hundred people. Visitors can tour the inside and outside of
the upper and lower sections of the Crypt church and the Great Upper Church.
For centuries, the Miraculous Image Chapel in Bavaria has been one of the most visited shrines within the Central and Eastern Europe boundaries. From the 1330s, the Our Lady of
Altötting statue has sat in state for faithful observers. Many other holy places and statues have suffered from destruction and war, but the Our Lady of Altötting shrine and statue have been saved from any such
catastrophe, including the burning of the town, twice.
Some say that the saving of the statue is the greatest of all the miracles for which the Our Lady of Altötting is famous. However, the beginning of pilgrimages to the baptismal chapel
in 1489 is attributed to two local events that occurred a few months apart. A three-year-old child drowned in the creek that still flows through the town. In her despair, the mother carried the dead child to the
chapel and laid it at the altar, begging the Mother of God for the life of her child. Her prayers were answered and the child was miraculously revived. A few months later, a father’s runaway horses trampled a
six-year-old boy to death. The father carried the boy to the altar and begged the Madonna of Altötting for his son’s life. His prayers were answered and the boy recovered. The non-stopping stream of pilgrims
since the miracles were confirmed has been supported by documentation.
Neither outbreaks of war nor villains have affected this pilgrimage’s attendance. It has been recorded that even during the most trying of times in Germany, the pilgrims came in the
largest of numbers. Pilgrims would stay for days and weeks in the smallest of rooms to worship the Madonna and pray for their own miracles.
To date, some one million people visit the German shrine each year, fifty thousand of which travel by foot. It has been said that had records been kept of the number of travelers who
had visited the shrine over the years, it might be proven that the shrine is one of the most visited in the world.
The Our Lady of Altötting statue in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., will be dedicated on Saturday, April 16, 2005 at 2:00 p.m. The celebrant will
be Cardinal McCarrick. Bishops and cardinals from Germany and the United States will perform the festive ceremony to welcome the statue at the Shrine. Thousands of German-Americans from the United States and
Canada are expected to merge onto the grounds of the National Shrine for the ceremony.
For more information, visit the following websites:
www.altoetting.de
www.nationalshrine.com
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The Mother Road of Germany
Along the Rhine – A Viking River Cruise
by Kay Grant
Follow the meandering Rhine and Main on a leisurely excursion from Amsterdam to Vienna through some of Germany’s most scenic locales.
“Welcome to Route 66,” said Captain Lothar Liedtke, lifting a glass of champagne to welcome us aboard the Viking Spirit’s twelve-night Rhine River cruise. “We call it Route 66
because we go through sixty-six locks on our voyage from Amsterdam to Vienna.”
For centuries, the eight hundred-mile long Rhine River has been the Mother Road of Europe, an important transportation hub for commerce, military and political movements, and recreation.
Viking River Cruises, the largest river cruising company in Europe, operates thirteen different routes in Europe, four of which include the Rhine, and is consistently voted among the
world’s best by publications such as Conde Nast Traveler and Travel & Leisure. The Viking Spirit, one of its twenty-five ships, holds one hundred fifty passengers. In addition to the informality of
a small ship, the leisurely life aboard, and the opportunity to get to know people from around the world, the port stops are trip highlights.
This particular excursion begins (or ends, depending on which direction you go) in Amsterdam, a city of boundless old-world charm. The tall buildings with a variety of attractive
gables, sundry canals that ring the city, narrow streets, picturesque old red brick buildings with cream trim that nudge one another for space, the colorful floating flower market, a plethora of lively outdoor
cafes, and a young, hip populace make it a vibrant city. With a population of around seven hundred thirty thousand, the city has nearly two million bikes and zero bike helmets. The cruise itinerary includes a
canal boat ride and a short guided tour of the famous Riksmuseum, where Rembrandt’s largest canvas, The Night Watch, is displayed. (Arrive a day early to take in some of Amsterdam’s many attractions.)
Our voyage officially began with the Welcome Cocktail Party and dinner with choices that included homemade liver pâté with apple-blackberry chutney and peppered toast, Dutch split pea
soup with sliced sausages, breast of turkey, cheeses, and Grand Marnier fruit and sherbet. Throughout the voyage, local foods were offered as we passed through various regions.
Setting out from Amsterdam, into the flat Dutch countryside, we quickly came up to the first of the sixty-six locks. Most passengers gathered on the top sun deck as we glided through,
watching warily as the boat hovered only a few inches from the side of the lock.
We slipped into Germany sometime during the night and made our first stop in Köln (Cologne), Germany’s oldest city. Seven million visitors a year come to its famous Gothic cathedral,
constructed over a period of six centuries and left mostly intact after the devastating bombings of World War II. Köln extends across the river, where three hundred thousand of its one million population live.
“The best thing about the other side,” said our guide, “is the view of this one.”…
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Germany at High Speed
by Tom Bross
Experience the ease of traveling city-to-city while flying on the ground aboard Germany’s ICE trains.
Geschwindikeit 299 km/h. The ICE 3's electronic speedometer, neatly framed on a vestibule bulkhead, provided that update to anyone who would care to stroll over and look. Riding
smoothly on seamless tracks somewhere between Limburg (with its thirteenth-century cathedral perched on a rocky escarpment above the Lahn River) and Montabaur (birthplace of talented illustrators Joseph C. and
Frank X. Leyendecker, featured in the October/November 2002 issue of German Life), we were heading at an agreeably brisk 186 mph. Certainly fast enough for Taunus hillsides, then
Westerwald forests to flash by in a green blur. Compared to our pace, automobiles and trucks on the adjacent A3 Autobahn seemed to be crawling along in slow motion.
My travel plan had necessitated getting from Frankfurt to Cologne. Flying from home-city Boston for arrival at Frankfurt's Rhein/Main international airport makes the idea of a short-hop
connecting flight feasible.
Taking the train, however, has become an even more practical, more convenient option. Two levels beneath Terminal l, Rhein/Main's Fernbahnhof AirRail station – a glass-enclosed, two
hundred twenty million dollar architectural beauty opened six years ago as a long-distance facility – is right on the nationwide high-speed rail network developed specifically for journeys via Deutsche Bahn's
white ICE (InterCityExpress) trains, introduced as far back as 1991.
During previous Boston-to-Germany trips, I had grown accustomed to hauling myself and luggage aboard a commuter train at the airport, bound for downtown's pivotal Hauptbahnhof,
continuing from there for points beyond. Now, though, AirRail accessibility eases the process and saves time. Comparable facilities expediting ICE journeys are available at Düsseldorf, Berlin/Schönefeld, and
(since last year) Köln/Bonn airports, with construction underway at Flughafen Stuttgart.
Such additions, design changes, and route extensions have been evolving ever since ICE's startup. The ICE 3 whizzing me northward, for instance, features third-generation technology
with more aerodynamic contours than its predecessors. Conceived for hochgeschwindikeit train travel, the line between Frankfurt and Cologne was inaugurated in 2002 – after a decade of laying track and tunneling…
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Rambling in Regensburg
By Leah Larkin
With an unparalleled history and fabulous Wurst, this ancient treasure along the Danube never ceases to amaze visitors.
We were pedaling on the cobblestone surface of an ancient stone bridge over the waters of the Danube. Ahead, a late afternoon sun bathed a row of old, pastel-colored buildings,
including a tall coral clock tower, in its fiery glow. A church steeple towered behind. It was a superb sight, our welcome to Regensburg as we cycled the Donau Radweg (Danube bike route).
Regensburg was an overnight stop for my husband and me on that trip several years ago. We still had time before dark to meander the town’s narrow alleys and curvy streets, to admire
Middle Ages architecture, and to stroll along the famous river. However, we had to pedal on the next morning, sorry to leave this gem of a town behind. We vowed to go back.
I finally made a return visit last spring and had time to see much of what we missed. This time I started my visit just adjacent to that pedestrian stone bridge at a Regensburg
institution, the Wurstküche, an historic sausage kitchen said to be the oldest bratwurst stube in the world, its origins dating back some eight hundred sixty years.
It is a mini kind of place, all dark, woodsy, and cozy with old copper and tin plates and steins filling shelves. There are also lots of old photographs, many taken during floods when
much of the establishment was under water. With a seating capacity for just thirty, customers crowd together on wooden benches to savor the fare, beer, and Wurst. A portion of six tiny grilled Wurst with
sauerkraut is just 5,40 euro. When weather permits, you can sit outdoors at picnic tables along the river and enjoy the food as well as a view of the bridge, a city landmark.
Back in 1135, construction began on the Steinerne Brücke, a Romanesque bridge with sixteen arches. It was made of stone – not wood – as it was meant to last. Left behind at the
construction site was a small stone house, perhaps used as a breakfast hut for the bridge builders. About two hundred years ago, the house started serving Wurst, which became its claim to fame. Today the
sausages are made from high quality pork according to a secret recipe.
The Wurstküche is also noted for its potato soup, made with special herbs. I ordered a bowl, as well as Wurst, sauerkraut, and beer. While enjoying this tasty repast, I read up on
history.
Regensburg is one of Germany’s oldest cities. It was founded by the Romans as a border camp in 179 AD during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and called Castra Regina, named after
the river Regen which flows into the Danube at this point. In the sixth century, Bavaria, a dukedom at the time, chose the Roman camp as its seat and established Regensburg as the first capital of Bavaria, which
it remained until the middle of the thirteenth century. In 1245, Emperor Frederick II issued a decree and permitted the city to elect its own mayor and govern itself. Back then the town had twenty thousand
inhabitants and was Germany’s second largest city, overtaken only by Cologne…
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Baron Munchausen: Really
By Betty Lowry
Tall tales are the stuff of legends when it comes to Germany’s greatest teller of stories.
“As the wolf attacked, my hand went into his wide open mouth and down his throat…seizing hold of his innards, I pulled him neatly inside out – as one would a glove – and left him
quivering in the snow.”
It was not the first time Baron Hieronymus Karl Friederich, Freiherr von Munchausen (1720 to 1797) got the best of a wolf. There was the wolf that attacked his horse and sleigh, for
instance. The Baron struck him so firmly from behind the wolf was thrust into the harness of the horse he was devouring. The wolf-drawn sleigh became a conversation piece and a convenience as well. As the Baron
pointed out, no one ever questioned his right-of-way.
You don’t believe?
Perhaps you should visit the house where he was born in Bodenwerder, Hanover, the eight hundred-year-old village and spa on the banks of the Weser River where the middle son of the
“Black Line” of the noble house of Rinteln-Bodenwerder remains a hero. Self-described, perhaps, but his home is a monument if only to the art of exaggeration.
The truth of the matter is the Baron enjoyed a conventional aristocratic boyhood, then did all the expected things: joined the army; saw some of the world; learned how to tell a good
story.
Consider his trip to the moon three hundred years before space flight officially began. It seems he had thrown his silver hatchet at a bear in the garden of the Sultan of Turkey. After
clobbering the bruin, the weapon ricocheted all the way to the moon. What was the Baron to do but retrieve it?
Then there was the time he was swallowed by a giant fish as he swam in the water off Marseilles? He danced a hornpipe in the monster’s stomach until it emerged and could be harpooned by
a passing Italian trader. He then walked out of its mouth to the amazement of the seamen.
Do you doubt?
The straight-faced tall tale has a long tradition in Germany as Lugendichtungen. It was the fireside entertainment of monks during the Middle Ages, and the jovial Munchausen gave it
an exotic spin just as Europe was entering the Golden Age of travel literature.
Perfect timing or not, the Baron did not intend to become famous, much less infamous.
It all began when Rudolph Erich Raspe (1737 to 1794), a German scholar hiding out in England to escape indictment for grand theft, put together a vulgar version of Munchausen stories
for quick and easy money. The forty-nine page, one-shilling paper issued in 1785 became an overnight best seller (probably because the English relished a chance to snicker at a countryman of their own Hanoverian
ruler). Raspe quickly came up with a second edition enlarged with tales of his own invention. That sold out too…
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Friedrichstadt – The German Town the Dutch Built
by Matias Tugores Martorell
The promise of religious freedom and incentives for settlement drew Germans north to a new trading town along the North Sea.
In 1796, the Duke of Orleans, who was fleeing the French Revolution, found refuge in Friedrichstadt. He who was to ascend the French throne as bourgeois King Louis-Philippe I some
thirty years later, spent a few months in this small town, in the northernmost part of Germany, under the alias of “de Vries.”
He occupied a small wood-paneled room on the ground floor of what is today the Höllandische Stube (or Neber House). The regent worked as a private tutor and taught dance and
violin to the girls of Friedrichstadt’s high society.
Friedrichstadt lies in the land of Schleswig-Holstein which has a border with Denmark. Its western North Sea coast is a natural paradise visited every year by millions of
vacationers. Germans in their majority, stay in the seaside resorts of St-Peter-Ording and Büsum, and between the islands of Sylt and Pelworm. At low tide, you can walk over the North Sea, and particularly
between the isles of Föhr and Amrun. The landscape along the coast is so flat, wild, and remote, and with so much air and space around you, you can understand the saying the islanders have: “An open heart, a
wide horizon, a clear vision of everything in life.”
It was a few kilometers inland, on a marshy and often flooded piece of ground stretching between the Treene and Eider rivers, where, in the early seventeenth century, Friedrich
III, the duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, planned the building of a trading town that would compete with Hamburg and Lübeck.
He appealed to the Dutch, who were then regarded as the best traders on Earth and expert dyke-builders, to construct and live in the town. To attract them, the duke offered not
only land but also a package of non negligible advantages as well: exemption of customs duties and of taxes during a twenty-year period, free building timber, building of a shipyard, and coinage rights, among
other things.
Friedrich III’s offer could not have come at a better time for the Dutch Remonstrant community who had just been banned from their homeland because they disagreed with the
Calvinist tenet of predestination. They were without a home. They sailed en masse to what would soon be Friedrichstadt where they started a new life; later the Mennonites, Quakers, Jews, Polish Brothers, and
Protestants from southern Germany followed in their footsteps, drawn to the place by the religious freedom enjoyed by its residents.
The foundation stone of Friedrichstadt was laid in the south of the town on September 24, 1621. A year later, the duke had ten houses built at his own expense.
Since the brickworks in Friedrichstadt could not meet the demand, most of the building material – red and yellow bricks, brownstone gable ends, corbie stones, chimney posts of the
Patrician houses, green and yellow glazed floor tiles and timber, were imported from The Netherlands…
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Medieval Merriment in Bavaria
by Valerie Mutton
Every four years they rejoice and celebrate the wedding of all weddings – the Landshuter Hochzeit.
I am sipping a beer-and-lemonade concoction called a Radler in a Biergarten on the banks of the Isar River. The river wanders, and so does my mind: How difficult is it to get several
hundred German men to wear tights for three weeks in a row? And: Can horse-droppings be cleaned off floor-length velvet dresses?
No, I have not had too much to drink. I am in Landshut, Bavaria, for the “Landshuter Hochzeit,” a medieval festival that takes place every four years and commemorates the 1475 wedding
of a Polish princess and a Bavarian duke.
Landshut, a town just thirty-nine miles northeast of Munich, was founded by Duke Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1204. It remained strategically important, until the 1500s, as the seat of
government of the Dukedom of Bavaria-Landshut, and even today is still the seat of government for Lower Bavaria. Inside the lavish town hall is a magnificent painting covering four walls, depicting the marriage
of Duke Ludwig’s son Georg “the Rich,” to Hedwig, the daughter of King Kasimir of Poland. That painting gave someone the inspiration to plan the re-enactment of the wedding and all of the accompanying
celebrations, back in 1902.
Judging by the painting on the walls, those medieval folks sure knew how to throw a party, and the planners of this spectacle are dedicated to historical accuracy. Fortunately, accounts
of Princess Hedwig’s grand processional entrance, the wedding ceremony, and the celebrations that followed, were diligently recorded for posterity by a cloister scribe. As a result, the spectacle is a realistic
representation of medieval merriment that goes on and on.
Virtually every Landshut citizen is decked out in fifteenth-century formal wear for three weeks in the summer. On weekend evenings, you can stroll through the reenactment of the wedding
guests’ campground at the edge of the tournament grounds. During weeknights, you can watch actors dressed as wedding guests as they while away the evening on the dance floor to the tune of fifteenth-century
music. They also stage a Mummenschanz, which begins with the story of a nobleman and a saucy country girl, and ends with a boisterous masquerade. There is a salon concert of period music, including both German
and Polish composers…
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Language: Aus Liebe zur Sprache
Zum Werk des Schriftstellers Stuart Friebert
Von Gert Niers
Manchmal schreibt das Leben die besten Geschichten, selbst die Lebensgeschichte eines Schriftstellers. Zumindest trifft dies auf den in Milwaukee geborenen Stuart Friebert zu, dessen
Interesse an der deutschen Sprache von seiner Beschäftigung mit den Naturwissenschaften herrührt und der letztlich zu einem bedeutenden Verfasser sowohl deutsch- als auch englischsprachiger Lyrik wurde, nicht zu
vergessen seine Tätigkeit als Übersetzer, Herausgeber und Literaturwissenschaftler.
Man mag natürlich einwenden, dass nichts Besonderes daran sei, wenn ein Bewohner der unter deutschem Einfluss stehenden Hochburg des Brauereigewerbes im Mittelwesten sein
Interesse an deutscher Sprache und Kultur bekundet. Für den jungen Stuart (von seiner Großmutter manchmal “Schmul” genannt) lagen die Dinge jedoch etwas anders. Er belegte Deutsch vier Jahre lang in der in der
High School (Schulabschluss 1948). Zu jener Zeit, so erklärt er in einem Interview, galt Deutsch – neben Latein – noch als wichtig für das Studium der Naturwissenschaften, auch der Medizin. Sein Interesse an der
deutschen Sprache war nicht erloschen, als er ein Mathematikstudium am Wisconsin State College (heute University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) aufnahm. Er sah jedoch den Gebrauch dieser Sprache nur im Rahmen seines
Studienfachs (schließlich gab es auch Mathematiker aus Deutschland). Eines Tages trugen befreundete Mitglieder einer studentischen Verbindung seinen Namen für einen Wettbewerb ein: es ging um einen
Studienaufenthalt in Deutschland während des akademischen Jahres 1949/50. Hier mag eine kurze Notiz für die lesenden Angehörigen jüngerer Generationen angebracht sein: nur vier Jahre zuvor war der Zweite
Weltkrieg zu Ende gegangen und der größte Teil Deutschlands lag während jenes Studienjahrs noch in Trümmern. Außerdem war es (gelinde gesagt) etwas ungewöhnlich für einen jungen amerikanischen Juden das Land
aufzusuchen, wo vor nicht allzu langer Zeit noch der Holocaust getobt hatte.
Jedenfalls gewann Stuart Friebert den Wettbewerb (durch Disqualifizierung) und besuchte die Technische Hochschule Darmstadt und das Pädagogische Institut in Jugenheim an der Bergstraße.
Sein Interesse, auch Texte auf Deutsch vorzulegen, wurde erst von Karl Langosch, dem berühmten Professor für Studien des europäischen Mittelalters, geweckt. Er förderte den amerikanischen Gaststudenten und
ermutigte ihn, Deutsch auch für literarische Experimente zu benutzen. Das Ergebnis lief darauf hinaus, dass Friebert 1952 sein Grundstudium am Wisconsin State College mit drei Hauptfächern beschloss: Deutsch,
Mathematik und Chemie.
Als er zur University of Wisconsin in Madison überwechselte, hatte er noch fest die Absicht, Oberseminare in Mathematik, Chemie und seiner bevorzugten Fremdsprache zu belegen. Wie
jedoch das Schicksal, das Glück oder der Zufall es wollte, wurde eine Assistentenstelle für Deutsch frei, und Friebert griff zu. Innerhalb eines Jahres legte er seine Magisterprüfung ab (1953) und fasste den
Entschluss, sich ganz auf Deutsch zu stürzen. Sein Studium der Germanistik beendete er 1958 mit dem Doktorat. Zur Vervollständigung der Daten seiner akademischen Laufbahn: Friebert unterrichtete zunächst Deutsch
an der Harvard University (1959-61) und übernahm dann eine Dozentur am Oberlin College in Ohio, wo er 1997 als Leiter eines Schreibkurses für angehende Autoren in den Ruhestand trat. Er ist außerdem Mitbegründer
der literarischen Zeitschrift FIELD und der ihr angeschlossenen Buchreihen für Übersetzungen und für Lyrik. Friebert lebt noch in Oberlin mit seiner Frau Diane, geb. Vreuls, einer ernstzunehmenden Autorin in
verschiedenen literarischen Gattungen. Über seine Frau sagt er, ihr käme in literarischer Hinsicht ein weit höherer Rang zu als ihm.
Stuart Frieberts Aufenthalt in Deutschland und später in der Schweiz fand seinen literarischen Niederschlag in vier Büchern auf Deutsch (drei Lyriksammlungen, ein Prosaband) und in
zahlreichen Übersetzungen, insbesondere von Werken Karl Krolows (On Account of: Selected Poems, 1985, und 1993 in dem Band What’ll We Do with This Life?). Zu den zeitgenössischen Autoren, von denen
Friebert Werke übersetzte, gehören Günter Eich, Ilse Aichinger, Walter Helmut Fritz, Erica Pedretti. Moderne Klassiker wie Rainer Maria Rilke und Stefan George lieferten ebenfalls Anreiz zur Erstellung einer
englischen Version. Frieberts eigene deutsche Gedichtsammlungen lauten Kein Trinkwasser (1969), Die Prokuristen kommen (1972) und Nicht hinauslehnen (1975). Sein deutscher Prosaband erschien unter dem
Titel Der Gast, und sei er noch so schlecht (1973). All diese Werke bezeugen, dass ihr Autor mit der literarischen Produktion Deutschlands durchaus Schritt halten konnte und mit den Formen und Themen jener Zeit vertraut war, und zwar mehr so als zahlreiche deutschamerikanische Schriftsteller. Im Laufe der Jahre veröffentlichte Friebert auch acht Lyriksammlungen auf Englisch, von denen Near Occasions of Sin (2004) die jüngste ist.
Der bedeutendste Aspekt der Liebesaffäre Frieberts mit der deutschen Sprache liegt darin, dass es sich nicht um eine politisch blinde Liebe handelt. In echter humanistischer Tradition
richtet Friebert sein Augenmerk auf die dichterisch und linguistisch faszinierenden Eigenschaften der Sprache und auf die in dieser Sprache verfasste Literatur. In der Tat lagen dem jungen amerikanischen
Studenten (geboren 1931) Augenzeugenberichte über das vor, was in Europa unter der Nazi-Besatzung vor sich ging. Frieberts Familie hatte Anfang der vierziger Jahre die Bürgschaft für die Einreise von zwei
Verwandten, die dem Horror entkommen konnten, geleistet. Während seines ersten Aufenthalts in Darmstadt und Jugenheim erzählten ihm deutsche Kommilitonen, was sie – als Soldaten der Wehrmacht – an verschiedenen
Kriegsfronten gesehen hatten.
Demzufolge ist Frieberts Einstellung gegenüber Deutschland und den Deutschen differenziert. Ohne zu zögern fügt er jedoch hinzu: “Ich genoss den besonderen Vorteil, viele anständige
Deutsche (darunter natürlich auch deutsche Juden) kennen und schätzen zu lernen, außerdem empfinde ich eine große Liebe für die Sprache und Literatur, und das ist es, was mir selbst angesichts der Einwände von
liebsten Familienangehörigen geholfen hat, meine Auffassung zu bewahren.” Der emeritierte Professor bekennt, dass in seinem Familienkreis – zumindest an der Oberfläche – keine feststellbaren Einwände gegen seine
intensive Beschäftigung mit der deutschen Sprache vorlagen. Nur seine Großmutter sagte ihm auf ihrem Sterbebett: “Ich verstehe nicht, warum Du so viel Zeit und Studienaufwand der Sprache des Feindes widmen
kannst”. Friebert fügt hinzu: “Seitdem sie dies gesagt hat und kurz darauf gestorben ist, beschäftigt mich ihre Bemerkung zutiefst.”
Stuart Frieberts zur Zeit noch in Arbeit befindliche Memoiren tragen den Titel Die Sprache des Feindes, doch dank der Bemühungen des Verfassers dieser autobiografischen Retrospektive
ist die einst vom Feind beschlagnahmte Sprache längst eines Freundes Sprache.
Language: For the Love of Language:
The Work of Writer Stuart Friebert
by Gert Niers
Life itself sometimes writes the best stories, and sometimes even the life story of a writer. At least this has been the case with Milwaukee-born Stuart Friebert, whose interest in
German stems from his studies in science, and who wound up as a significant author of both German and English poetry, not to forget his work as a translator, editor, and scholar.
Of course one may object that in the German-influenced brewing capital of the Midwest, an inhabitant’s interest in German language and culture does not come as a surprise. With
young Stuart (sometimes called “Shmuel” by his grandmother) things were slightly different. He took German for four years in high school (graduated in 1948). In those days, he explained in an interview, German
was – next to Latin – considered important for studying sciences, also medicine. He still liked German when he enrolled for math courses at Wisconsin State College (today University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee),
but he only saw the use of that language within the field of his studies (after all, there are also mathematicians from Germany). One day, some fraternity brothers entered his name in a student exchange contest
to go to Germany during the academic year 1949 - 1950. A small footnote for the later generations of readers: World War II had ended just four years earlier, and most of Germany was still in shambles. In
addition, it was somewhat unusual (to say the least) for a young American Jew to visit the country where not too long ago the Holocaust had raged.
Anyway, Stuart Friebert won the contest (by default) and went to the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt and the Pädagogische Institut in Jugenheim an der Bergstraße. His interest in
writing German material was not awakened until he took a course in the humanities, taught by Karl Langosch, the famous German medievalist. He encouraged the American visitor to keep on using German for literary
experiments, and Friebert graduated from Wisconsin State in 1952, with majors in German, mathematics, and chemistry.
When he started graduate school at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he planned to pursue courses in math, chemistry, and his favorite foreign language. As fate, luck, or
coincidence wanted it, an assistantship became available in German, and Friebert went for it. He got his M.A. within a year (in 1953) and then decided to go “full throttle” for German, finishing his studies with
a Ph.D. in 1958. To complete the dates of his academic career: Friebert taught German at Harvard (1959 - 1961) and then took a position at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he retired in 1997 as Director of the
Creative Writing Program. He is co-founder of the literary magazine FIELD and subsequently of the FIELD Translation Series and the FIELD Poetry Series. Friebert still lives in Oberlin with his wife
Diane, née Vreuls, also a serious contributor to various literary genres. He refers to his wife as the “much the better writer of the two of us.”
The creative harvest of Stuart Friebert’s stay in Germany and later on in Switzerland were four books in German (three poetry collections, one prose volume) and numerous
translations, especially of works by Karl Krolow (On Account of: Selected Poems, 1985, and What’ll We Do with This Life? published in 1993). Other contemporary authors translated by Friebert include Günter Eich, Ilse Aichinger, Walter Helmut Fritz, and Erica Pedretti. Modern classics like Rainer Maria Rilke and Stefan George also provided incentive for producing an English rendition. Friebert’s own German poetry books are Kein
Trinkwasser (1969), Die Prokuristen kommen (1972), and Nicht hinauslehnen (1975). His German prose volume was published under the title Der Gast, und sei er noch so schlecht (1973). All of those works show that its author was very much in touch with German literature of the time, its forms and subjects, closer in touch than many German-American authors. In the course of the years, Friebert also produced eight poetry collections in English, of which Near Occasions of Sin is the latest (2004).
The most remarkable aspect of Friebert’s love affair with the German language is that this relationship is not a politically blind love. In the true humanist tradition, Friebert
focuses on the poetic and linguistic beauty of the language and of the literature written in that language. Indeed, the young American student (born in 1931) knew first-hand from survivors what was going on in
Nazi-occupied Europe. At the beginning of the 1940s, Friebert’s family had sponsored two relatives, who had managed to escape from the horrors, for emigration to the United States. During his first stay in
Darmstadt and Jugenheim, it was German fellow students who told him what they – as soldiers of the Wehrmacht – had seen on different fronts of the war.
Consequently, Friebert’s feelings about Germany and the Germans are mixed, but he adds without hesitation: “I’ve been privileged to know and cherish so many honorable Germans
(some German Jews, of course), and I have such great love for the language and the literature, and that’s what sustained me in the face of even my dearest family members.” The retired professor confesses that in
his family there was – at least at the surface – no noticeable objection to his preoccupation with German. Only his grandmother told him on her deathbed: “I don’t understand how you can devote so much time and
study to the language of the enemy.” Friebert adds, “Ever since she said that, dying shortly thereafter, her remark has greatly occupied me.”
Stuart Friebert’s upcoming memoirs will bear the title The Language of the Enemy, but thanks to the author of that autobiographic retrospective, the language that once was seized by the enemy is again the language of a friend.
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8 May 1945
by Robert A. Selig
It was a day of victory and defeat and of celebration and despair. It was truly an end and a new beginning.
In the afternoon of 30 April 1945, Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Grossdeutsche Reich, committed suicide in the ruins of Berlin. In his testament, Hitler appointed Großadmiral Karl Dönitz
as his successor. The military situation was hopeless, but, in a final attempt to divide the Allies, Dönitz strove to negotiate a partial surrender on the Western Front followed by a continuation of the war
against the Red Army in the East. By continuing the fight in the East, he hoped to gain time for as many Germans as possible, civilian and military alike, to escape to the West. When General-Oberst Alfred Jodl
arrived at the Modern Technical School in Reims, which served as the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) on the 3rd of May, he was instructed to either work toward this partial surrender or to at least gain a four-day respite between the signing of the surrender and the complete cessation of all troop movements. However, General Dwight D. Eisenhower insisted on the immediate and unconditional surrender of all German armed forces as agreed upon by the Allies at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943.
Flanked by his aide Major Wilhelm Oxenius and Generaladmiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, Jodl, on 7 May 1945 at 2:41 a.m., as the representative of the German High Command who alone had
been authorized by Dönitz to sign the surrender instrument, put his signature to the five-paragraph document. General Bedell Smith as representative of General Eisenhower, General Ivan Susloparov for the Soviet
Union, and General François Sevez for France signed for the Allies. No British representative was present. The surrender was to take effect at 11:01 p.m. the next day, 8 May 1945. In his order of the day,
Eisenhower wrote: “The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241 local time, May 7, 1945.”
As demanded by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and agreed-upon at Reims, Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen Stumpff, and Friedeburg signed a virtually identical
document in the presence of Marshal Georgi K. Schukow at 12:01 a.m. on 9 May 1945. It was witnessed by Air Vice-Marshal Arthur William Tedder, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander responsible for air operations,
General Lattre de Tassigny for France and General Carl Spaatz of the United States Air Force.
When Jodl and Keitel agreed to the Unconditional Surrender of all Wehrmacht units, German forces in Berlin, Italy, Holland, Denmark, and in northern Germany had already surrendered. The
Allies had planned on designating 9 May 1945 as Victory Europe Day – V-E Day – but journalists broke the news of Germany's surrender prematurely. On 7 May, jubilant crowds already streamed into Piccadilly Square
in London and huge crowds gathered the following day as well. At 3:00 p.m., Churchill made a radio broadcast: “The evil doers are now prostrate before us. Our gratitude to our splendid allies goes forth from all
our hearts in this island and throughout the British Empire.” Similar scenes took place in Times Square in New York City when President Harry Truman announced on the radio at 9:00 a.m. the official end of the
war in Europe and proclaimed the following Sunday, 13 May, a national day of prayer. The Soviet Union kept to the agreed date; here the Great Patriotic War officially came to an end on 9 May…
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At Home: Salad Days
by Sharon Hudgins
Many foreigners think of German cuisine as nothing more than meat-and-potatoes fare – heavy, stodgy, and dull. Not only is that stereotype no longer characteristic of modern
Germany, it also overlooks the fact that Germans love fresh vegetables and salads as much as other people who live in warmer climes.
Admittedly, the German attitude toward salads has evolved considerably since I first started eating my way around Germany in the early 1970s. Back then, salads were more seasonal:
fresh raw vegetables, greens, and herbs in the summer; cooked and pickled vegetables during the rest of the year. However, the boom in commercial hothouse vegetable gardening, along with expanded international
trade, has now made fresh salads readily available in Germany year-round.
Yet old habits die hard – especially culinary ones. Many German home cooks and restaurant chefs still serve salads made from a variety of canned or pickled vegetables during
autumn and winter – colorful concoctions consisting of a mound of ruby-red pickled beets next to a tangle of white sauerkraut, red cabbage, or shredded celeriac, beside piles of grated raw carrots and small
portions of canned white beans, green beans, dark-red kidney beans, green peas, or sweet corn, each with a different dressing (if the cook really cares about salads) and perhaps garnished with slices of
hard-cooked eggs.
During the summer months, these wintry salads are supplanted by those made with fresh leafy lettuce, bell peppers, cucumbers, green onions, red radishes, and tomatoes, often
tossed with fresh green herbs such as parsley, chives, chervil, and watercress. The traditional German Kopfsalat (butterhead lettuce such as Boston or Bibb) now shares the table with dark-green spinach leaves,
romaine and oak-leaf lettuce, Feldsalat (lamb's lettuce) and arugula, bitter red radicchio and sharp-tasting dandelion greens, and even that typical American salad base, crispy iceberg lettuce. According to the
German Agricultural Marketing Board, Germans "are the second largest consumers of lettuce after the U.S."
In earlier times, frugal German cooks chopped up leftover cold fish, meats, sausages, and cheeses to make hearty salads seasoned with mustard vinaigrette or bound with mayonnaise
or sour cream. These salads also served as a way to extend precious foodstuffs during periods of scarcity. Even in today's much more affluent era, German cooks still make these older types of meat and cheese
salads. However, they now also have available an abundance of fresh and preserved ingredients, including exotic herbs and spices, which they often combine in imaginative ways…
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Family Research: Der Schluessel and Compiled Genealogies
By James M. Beidler
Researchers with German roots generally first try to exhaust all American record sources about an immigrant family before trying to make the leap across the Atlantic Ocean to an Old
World village.
And while these New World sources – such as naturalization records, passenger lists, tombstones, church records and so forth – are frequently fruitful for finding the town of
origin, there are still many more immigrants for whom no American record shows the home village.
In this case, finding the birthplace across the water can be a daunting experience – the proverbial “needle in a haystack.” Methodologies for dealing with this situation involve
making the needle bigger or the haystack smaller.
One technique involves using the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints International Genealogical Index (known as the IGI). This database of some six hundred million names
includes abstracts from many German church records and is available at the LDS website www.familysearch.org.
Putting in a relatively uncommon surname – don’t try this with Mueller (German equivalent of Miller) or Schmidt (Smith) – into the IGI will show the researcher specific towns in
Germany in which a particular surname is found. You can make the needle bigger here by sifting through the entries for the surname and looking at ones that match the time period of your ancestor’s immigration.
Another strategy is to find a periodical article on your family. For English-language magazines and journals relating to genealogy, the leading index is the widely know Periodical
Source Index, known as “PERSI.”
But for German-language genealogy and heraldry periodicals, researchers need to use Der Schluessel, which literally means “the key” in German and gives summaries of nearly one
hundred periodicals…
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CALENDAR
Please contact events directly to confirm dates, times, locations, and admission fees.
April
Long Island, NY
April 2: GTV Die Gemuetlichen Enzianer’s Bavarian Bauernball. Polish American Hall in Port Washington, NY. For info, call 516-249-9632 or 516-488-6551.
Philadelphia, PA
April 2: GTV Almrausch 80 Stiftungsfest. Cannstatter Volksfest Verein. Music and dancing. For info, call 215-677-6394 or visit www.gtvalmrausch.org
Cape Coral, FL
April 9: Spring Dance. German American Social Club of Cape Coral. For info, visit www.gasc-capecoral.com
New York, NY
April 15: “The End of Little Germany: The General Slocum Steamboat Disaster of 1904”. Deutches Haus, New York University. For info, call 212-998-8663 or visit www.nyu.edu/deutscheshaus
Tulsa OK
April 17: Jodlerclub “Echo Vom Bodensee” Free concert at German American Society of Tulsa. For info, call 918-743-5310 or visit www.gastulsa.org
San Antonio, TX
April 20-22: Beethoven Männerchor’s Fiesta Gartenfest. Beethoven Halle und Garten. For info, call 210-222-1521.
Fredericksburg, VA
April 23: Spring Meeting – Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society “Viginia and German Research: Tips From the Experts. Registration required. For info, visit www.vgs.org
New Holland, PA
April 23: Spring Meeting – Palatines to America Pennsylvania Chapter. Speaker Trudy Schenk. For info, call 717-507-7237 or write PO Box 280, Strasburg, PA 17579-0280
Towson, MD
April 23-24: Second Annual Baltimore Kickers German-American Springfest. Music, food, dancing. Towson Courthouse Square. For info, call 410-557-8509 or email cwleague@yahoo.com
Tulsa, OK
April 29-May 1: Germanfest. At German American Society of Tulsa. For info, call 918-743-5310 or visit www.gastulsa.org
Baltimore, MD
April 30: Maifest. Zion Church. For info, call 410-727-3939 or visit www.zionbaltimore.org
May
Jessup, MD
May 1: 36th Annual German American Festival. Blob’s Park. For info, call 202-554-2664 or visit www.geocities.com/agas_dc/
Union, NJ
May 1: Schwäbischer Sängerbund and Sängerchor Newark’s Songfest 2005. Celebrate 200 years of German-American choral singing. For info, visit http://cazoo.org/Songfest
Ann Arbor, MI
May 7: GBU #630 May Dance. German food, beverage, and music. For info, call 734-954-0057 or 734-426-4833.
Covington, KY
May 13-15: 26th Annual MainStrasse Village Maifest. For info, call 859-491-0458 or visit www.mainstrasse.org
Leavenworth, WA
May 13-15: Maifest. For info, call 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org
Newark, CA
May 14: BGTEV Almenrausch Schuhplattler Trachtenfest. Food, music, and dance. Tickets required. For info, call 510-265-4532 or visit www.gauverband.com/vereine/almenrausch-sf/index.htm
Cape Coral, FL
May 14: Harbor Fest. German American Social Club of Cape Coral. For info, visit www.gasc-capecoral.com
Poughkeepsie, NY
May 14: Germania Almsrausch SV 35 Stiftungsfest. Dinner and dancing. Limited seating. For info, call 914-788-5009 or email bobbijovb@yahoo.com
San Francisco, CA
May 21: Pacific Sängerbund’s 100th Anniversary Concert/Dinner/Dance ($110 per person, reservations required). Palace Hotel. May 22nd free concert at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. For info, call 510-836-0735 or email junginger@istep.com
Park Slope Brooklyn, NY
May 22: Steuben Founders Day Banquet at Grand Prospect Hall. Dinner and cocktails, $85.00 per person. For info, call 718-381-0900.
Baltimore, MD
May 26: Edelweiss Club Annual Picnic. Patapsco State Park. Reservations required, $17.00 per person. For info, call 410-747-9616.
Danbury, NH
May 27-29: 2nd Annual Best of the Wurst Festival. Food and music (call for prices, reservations required). For info, call 1-866-DANBURY or visit www.innatdanbury.com
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