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April/May 2006
GALLERY:
Gerhard Richter: Beyond Genres
By Kim Carpenter
He is one of the most influential, most significant and most sought after artists in the world. He is also one of the most controversial and most enigmatic. For over four decades,
Gerhard Richter has been exploring and experimenting with the parameters of painting, creating a highly diverse body of work that ranges from bucolic landscapes and photo-realist portraits to abstract
configurations and blurry montages. For that reason, his art remains impossible to categorize and every bit as intriguing to view.
Born in Dresden in 1932, Richter grew up under National Socialism and spent the majority of his formative years under East German Communism before escaping to West Berlin with his first
wife in 1961, just months before the Berlin Wall was built. Ironically, his initial application in 1950 to the Dresden Art Academy was rejected, although one year later he was admitted and eventually received an
atelier at the academy as a master student. While visiting West Germany during a state-sponsored trip, the young painter discovered art movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dadaism, Art Informel and
Capital Realism, an offshoot of Pop Art. After leaving behind his life and professional security in the east, Richter rebuilt his career as an artist. He joined the ranks of upcoming German artists such as
Konrad Lueg, Sigmar Polke and Blinky Palermo. This background, combined with his own insistent intellectual curiosity, remains crucial when considering Richter’s approach as an artist. He came of age – both as a
German and as a painter – during a time of tremendous political, social, and cultural change, and his worldview has been profoundly influenced by the events taking place around him as well as those occurring in
his private life. Indeed, his complicated personal history as a German who lived in three distinct political states – two of which were totalitarian – infuses his work in sometimes quite overt and other times
very subtle ways.
Although Richter did not receive widespread public recognition until the mid-1980s, his career flourished over the decades as he created genre-busting paintings that ran the gamut of
the stylistic spectrum. He adamantly eschews being categorized in any one artistic movement or school, often creating widely divergent works parallel to one another, so that he simultaneously explores different
techniques and subject matter. At the beginning of the blockbuster retrospective organized by New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2002, MOMA director Glenn D. Lowry commented: "No other artist has placed
more intriguing and rigorous demands upon specialists, interpreters, followers, and average viewers alike --- nor upon himself. Richter is the painter of pictures so different from one another that at first
glance they seem to be by different hands. He has defined a vast pictorial and conceptual territory for himself, and has given it specific dimensions in canvases that vary from Photo-Realist figuration to total
abstraction, from snapshot and postcard banality to transcendence, and from serene or pyrotechnic beauty to brooding austerity.”…
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Ilmenau and the Goethe Road
By Zac Steger
Follow the historic trails around this small university town that has been ravaged by fires and was loved by Goethe.
Ilmenau is a small university town resting in a valley at the edge of the Thuringian Forest, taking its name from the River Ilm. The town has long been known for its mining, glass and
porcelain industries, however it is the association with poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that brings many visitors to this quiet town. The natural beauty of the area can be enjoyed along the Goethe Trail, which
takes the more active tourists along the scenic pathways that Goethe himself once walked.
The history of Ilmenau was first recorded in 1341 under the first ruling landgraves, the Käfernburger family, who sold it to the Henneberg family in 1343.
When the family line of the Counts of Henneberg ended, the town fell to the House of Saxony. It was then granted to what would become the Grand Duchy of Sachse-Weimar-Eisenach in 1661. This lasted until the end of World War I in 1918 and the founding of the Land of Thuringia.
It is believed that silver and copper mining were already taking place here as early as the thirteenth century. Ilmenau’s earliest glassworks date back to 1675 and the manufacturing of
porcelain began in the eighteenth century. The town benefited from its position along the trade route from Erfurt to Nürnberg . In 1838 Ilmenau set cold-water treatment centers and began a period as a spa, which
did not last long into the twentieth century.
University life in Ilmenau began in 1894 when the “Thüringisches Technikum” was founded as a private training institute for mechanical and electrical engineers. The quality of
education at the university was known throughout Germany and eventually lead to the establishment of a “Technische Hochschule” and, in 1992, it became the Technische Universität Ilmenau.
Many of the buildings from the town’s early years were destroyed by fires, which seemed to have plagued the city, the greatest of these occurred of 1752. It was rebuilt in the years
that followed under the plans of Gottfried Heinrich Krohne, whose influence is seen in much of the Baroque redevelopment in Thuringia.
One building that was not rebuilt following the great fire of 1752 was the rococo castle built by Duke Herzog Ernst August von Sachse-Weimar. This summer residence was destroyed
only a few years after its completion, having stood on the current site of the old post office.
Today, all that remains is the wing known as the “Alte Försterei” (Old Forestry), which houses a civic art gallery.
Walking from the “Alte Försterei” at Wetzlaerplatz into the town center, one passes the curious looking Weather Column. Funded by the “Thüringische Glasinstrumentenfabrik”, local
glass manufacturers, this landmark uses animals to depict the time of day around the top of the column. Topped by a weathervane, it displays a rooster for morning, a swarm of bees for noon, a bat for evening,
and an owl for night…
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Osterbrunnen – Germany’s Easter Fountains
by Anna Cramer
An annual ritual celebrating water and the coming of spring becomes colorful, competitive, and commercial as it spreads across Germany.
It is Easter time in northern Europe. Another long and often wet, foggy, and chilly, winter draws to a close. The days are still cold, but the sun comes out more often and winter
depressions diminish. Easter, the highlight of the liturgical year, means a great deal even to agnostics and non-Christians. It is the long-awaited opportunity to exchange dark, heavy winter clothes for a more
colorful and lighter outfit and to prepare for the first long weekend or vacation time of the year after Christmas. While the century old tradition of coloring and dyeing Easter eggs is still alive in most
European countries and regions and dominates the commercial aspects of the season in virtually every shop window, a small area in the south of Germany has created a most unusual and unique custom which most
Germans living outside this area have never even heard of – the Osterbrunnen or Easter fountain.
In about two hundred towns and villages in the Fränkische Schweiz, the triangle between Bayreuth, Bamberg, and Nuremberg, people gather to decorate the fountains, wells and springs
with green garlands of pine or boxwood and often with hundreds of hand-decorated egg shells. Village people, often organized in local clubs, have spent months during cold winter evenings decorating the eggs
in the family circle at home or at group meetings in the local meeting place. During Holy Week they meet to wind the garlands around the wells and fasten the eggs to the garlands, often adding colorful flower
arrangements and, in recent times, even throwing in some Easter bunnies for good measure. Traditionally, the garlands are often shaped in the form of a crown which covers the entire well, and in some cases the
crown is so enormous that it takes heavy machinery to erect and iron support to sustain it.
In the course of the years, villages and towns have come to compete among each other, each town vying for the more beautiful one, the larger one, or simply the Osterbrunnen with the
greatest number of eggs. For a while, Biberach with approximately ten thousand decorated egg shells held the record, only to be dethroned in 2005 by Sulzbach-Rosenberg, which is not even situated in Franconia
but in neighboring Bavaria, where the tradition only recently caught on. Here, the stunning number of sixteen thousand eggs topped the former record and took its place in the Guinness Book of Records.
Obviously, to achieve such feats, enormous numbers of eggs are needed which can no longer be supplied through normal household procedures. Therefore calls for natural eggshells are
nowadays placed on the Internet, a successful method of furnishing local groups with the desired natural product. Just imagine thousands of housewives getting bright red cheeks while strenuously blowing the
contents of the raw eggs through the tiny holes pecked in at both ends – quite an energy-consuming procedure. Surely the traditional German soft-boiled egg as breakfast staple will have had to make room for the
less customary fried eggs for months…
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Berlin: The City of the New Century
by Carla Waldemar
Fashion, food, and fantastic architecture fill the former walled city and offer wonderful options for vacationers.
Déjà vu all over again, as they say. Berlin set the style for the world around it in the 1930s. Well, it is time to come back to the cabaret, old chum. After decades of repairing war
damage and the blight the wall cost, Berlin once again is the übercity of all Europe. It is setting fashion trends that force the French off the catwalk, opening museums the Italians can only wish for, and
launching trendy restaurants that leave the rest of the country in the culinary dust.
West Berlin hung in during adverse times. Today it is as stately as ever, but the action has shifted to the east. The lindens have been replanted on Unter der Linden, the stylish
boulevard that cuts a swath through the sizzle. A ravishing new skyline bounds it – signatures of the world’s Who’s Who of architects. I.M. Pei has constructed a dramatic exhibition hall of curvy glass and steel
for the aristocratic German Historical Museum, his first project in Germany. And just across the boulevard stands the new Berlin branch of the Guggenheim, bringing the mountain to all visiting Mohammedans. The
formidable Reichstadt now sports a jaunty dome of glass and chrome by Britain’s noted Sir Norman Foster, which visitors can circumnavigate to gain a stunning three hundred sixty-degree view of the city. (It also
hosts a restaurant by a chef they are all hailing as the Wolfgang Puck of Germany.) The glass floor provides a view of the Bundestag (Parliament) at work below, giving a new meaning to transparent government.
Beside the ever-breathtaking Brandenburg Gate, a jazzy Frank Gehry interior startles the customers of an outwardly staid bank. The Hamburger Bahnhof railroad station is the new
site of the masterpieces of the Flick Art Collection, designed by premier Swiss architects Herzog de Meuron. And an ornate former military building (okay, this one is in West Berlin, but just barely) is the home
of the new Museum Fotografie, displaying a collection of fashion and celebrity photographer Helmut Newton’s naughty nudes. A former glass factory also has debuted as the new Berlinische Galerie, showcasing art
made in Berlin from the late nineteenth century onward – many so provocative they make those 1930s cabarets seem tame.
The five world-class museums on Museum Island are being refurbished, one at a time. And the already-legendary Jewish Museum, telling the story of two millennia of Jewish life in
Germany that New Yorker Daniel Libeskind designed in the moving form of a broken Star of David, was joined in May 2005 by the country’s first Holocaust Memorial, a somber sea of two thousand seven hundred cement
slabs near the Brandenburg Gate. (Visitors may search documents and view interactive displays housed underground.)
At Potsdamer Platz, once the daunting site of the death strip near Checkpoint Charlie (and indeed, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum offers a vivid and moving portrayal of countless
escape attempts) rises the new Sony City, designed by noted United States architect Helmut Jahn to resemble a glass-paneled Mount Fujiyama in honor of the homeland, and perhaps ego, of its owners. Its neighbor,
the new Film Museum, salutes, among others, the remarkable Marlene Dietrich, the quintessential queen of cabaret. Potsdamer Platz also claims Germany’s largest casino, opened in1998. Yet, despite the landscape
of building cranes (nicknamed the official bird of Berlin), the city still takes claim as Germany’s greenest metropolis, with over thirty percent of its acres dedicated to parks, woods, and waterways…
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Learning From the Past: Germany’s Open-Air Museums
by Sharon Hudgins
The lifestyles of long ago are preserved for future generations at a host of German museums that take the experience outdoors.
I've been a fan of German Freilichtmuseums (open-air museums) ever since the first time I visited one more than twenty years ago in Bavaria. These open-air historical museums consist of
houses, barns, workshops, outbuildings, fields, gardens, and pastures depicting rural (and sometimes village) life during centuries past.
Most Freilichtmuseums focus on daily life in the particular geographical region where they are located. And most (if not all) of the buildings are real edifices dating from the
fifteenth to the twentieth century, which have been dismantled and moved to the site of the museum, then reassembled there. In many cases, these historical buildings have been saved from destruction when old
buildings were being torn down to make room for new ones. Some Freilichtmuseums also have a few buildings that are modern-day reproductions of older edifices.
The houses contain furniture, appliances, cookware, tableware, linens, and decorative items – the same as, or similar to, those used by the occupants a century or more ago.
Workshops for blacksmithing, carpentry, and other trades are equipped with historically accurate tools from that period. Village stores are stocked with the manufactured goods available to people at that time.
And barns often display agricultural machinery, horse trappings, and a variety of vehicles from humble wagons to fancy coaches.
These museums provide a fascinating glimpse into the past, into the daily lives of people who raised their own animals, grew their own crops, ground their own grain, baked their
own bread, churned their own butter, spun their own yarn, and wove their own cloth. Most Freilichtmuseums offer hands-on workshops where children and adults can learn some of the skills their ancestors possessed
(as a matter of necessity) for putting food on their tables and clothes on their backs.
The world's first open-air museum of everyday life was established near Oslo, Norway, in 1881. Ten years later, a similar museum opened in Stockholm, Sweden, which became the
model for museums of this type around the world. The Danes established their own open-air museum in 1901 and the Dutch in 1912.
In 1909, the Germans built a Freilichtmusem consisting of new reproductions of houses from East Prussia and the surrounding area. However, the museum established by the Thüringian
city of Rudolstadt in 1914 to 1915, with several houses dating back to the seventeenth century, is Germany's first Freilichtmuseum of authentic historical buildings. The largest regional museum of this type was
established in Cloppenburg, in Lower Saxony, in 1934. World War II slowed or halted the expansion of these projects, but, during the 1960s and 1970s, many new Freilichtmuseums opened throughout the country. Some
are small museums situated on only a few acres of land in or near urban centers, but the majority are located in rural areas where the museum covers a much larger expanse, often in a bucolic setting such as the
rolling moors of northern Germany or the foothills of the Bavarian Alps.
On my first trip to a Freilichtmuseum, I became so enthralled that I've made a point of visiting these kinds of museums wherever I travel, not only in Germany but also in
Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the United States, Japan, Korea, and even Siberia. Last year my husband and I planned an entire vacation around Freilichtmuseums in parts of central and northern Germany, going to
six museums in seven days, with a side trip to the large Netherlands Open-Air Museum just across the border in Arnhem. Some people might consider that excessive. We thought it was fun!
We started at the Fränkisches Freilandmuseum in Bad Windsheim, southeast of Würzburg, where you can spend two or three hours wandering down the pathways connecting more than
seventy buildings on display, including a few dating from the Middle Ages. Keep up your stamina with refreshments from the little beer gardens and snack stands conveniently located on the route. And be sure to
taste the helles (pale-colored) and dunkles (dark) beer brewed on the museum premises…
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Bern: Swiss Capital Boasts New Attractions
by Leah Larkin
With the Alps as its backdrop, Switzerland’s capital city captures hearts with its combination of medieval and metropolitan styles.
Bern, the charming Swiss capital surrounded by rolling hills and distant peaks, has always been a delight. Two new attractions opened their doors last summer, yet another reason to
visit this enchanting city. The Paul Klee Center, a striking structure dedicated to the works of artist Paul Klee who spent much of his life in Bern, was inaugurated in June. In July, the Stade de Suisse, Bern’s
state-of-the-art national stadium, was unveiled. It has a solar power unit that is to provide energy for nearby homes and a shopping complex.
Even without these new attractions, Bern seduces with its medieval ambience, lively city center, pretty river – and playful bears. The big furry creature is the city’s namesake. As the
legend goes, a dashing duke – Berchtold V of Zähringen – founded the city and named it after the first animal killed in a local hunt. Today the city’s bear pit is a popular site.
Bern was founded in 1191 for strategic reasons as a stronghold in a country torn with turbulence. Much of the city was destroyed by fire in 1405. It was rebuilt, mostly of sandstone,
and it is that medieval structure that today gives the city a special flavor. Just walk through the center of the old town, full of ancient fountains festooned with flowers, towers, arcades, and sandstone
facades. The appearance is definitely Middle Ages.
With three and seven-tenths miles of arcades, Bern has one of Europe’s longest covered shopping areas that offer cool shade on hot summer days and protection from the elements when the
weather is foul.
Check out downtown Bern on a Thursday evening when the stores are open late. In summer months, it is like a huge street party with crowds milling around, eating and drinking at
restaurants and bars, which, especially in the Kornhausplatz area, seem to have moved into the plazas and onto the sidewalks. Even during the day, the city’s numerous outdoor cafes and eateries are hot spots.
Here is a rundown of what to do and see in Bern. The city is not that big – you can do it all in a day, and mostly on foot. English is widely spoken.
Begin a visit at the Zytgloggeturm (Clock Tower) in the center of the old town. This medieval monument is more than four hundred years old, but it still works, almost perfectly,
telling not only the time, but also the day of the week, the date of the month, the position of the sun, and the phases of the moon. It puts on a show at four minutes before the hour when crowds gather at its
base. Mechanized characters, including a bell-ringing jester, an armored horseman, a bearded Father Time, and of course, bears, all parade by…
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Exploring the Black Forest by Train
By Bill and Esther Schindler
An old railway gives you a unique view of the German countryside as it twists and turns through mountainous terrain.
Anytime you travel, you encounter a contradictory set of desires. You want to look around and explore where you are, and you also want to get from Point A to Point B.
In Germany, one way to achieve both goals is to take the train. And, if your route takes you through the Black Forest in southwest Germany, there is no better trip than a few hours
spent on the Schwarzwaldbahn (Black Forest Railway). The two and one half hour train trip is relaxed and romantic. Plus, it takes you through countryside that you would never see if you drove a car along the
twisty "B" highways that creep along the valleys of the Black Forest. You'll especially appreciate that if you're the person who's supposed to be driving, instead of gazing at the scenery!
Americans are not used to thinking of train travel as appealing; our golden age of Pullman cars is long gone. In the U.S. passenger trains travel primarily through ugly industrial
areas, with only graffiti to look at, and with a limited number of train stations in desirable areas. Few passenger routes are available, and even fewer are an attractive alternative to car or airplane.
Yet, in Germany, the efficiency, cleanliness, and speed of train travel, accompanied by the high cost of auto fuel, make it a much more common way to get from one place to another.
Trains arrive in the city center, close to the sites you want to see.
It is also much less intimidating to take the train than you may imagine -- and the Schwarzwaldbahn is a great introduction.
The Schwarzwaldbahn was the first "mountain railway" built in Europe. It runs from Offenberg in the north, to Singen in the south -- near Konstanz and the Bodensee (Lake
Constance). Some trains use the Schwarzwaldbahn to run from Konstanz to Karlsruhe, so you have a bit more extended route; however, it's the Singen-to-Offenberg section that is particularly notable.
What makes the trip unique is the section from Hornberg to St. Georgen, in which the railway has thirty-six tunnels (out of a total of thirty-nine along the whole route) and two
"turning loops." The reason for the loops and tunnels is that the railway has to change altitude by about one thousand five hundred feet in less than seven miles (as the crow flies). The result is some
wonderful scenery!
If you look at the geography of the Black Forest, you will understand the need for all those tunnels. It is a very hilly region, and a topographic map looks like a crumpled linen
tablecloth that someone forgot to iron when it came out of the dryer. This ensures wonderful hiking countryside (and, in fact, there are some awesome hiking trails throughout the Black Forest), but it was quite
a challenge for railroad builders. The choice was expensive bridges or lots of tunnels…
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Without Rhyme or Reason: The Castles of Switzerland
by Keith W. Strandberg
Although they may not be the first things that spring to mind, Switzerland boasts a treasure trove of castles to entice visitors.
I am a huge fan of castles. Everywhere I go, I see if there is a castle nearby and go visit if I can. Switzerland is one of my favorite places in the world, not just because there are
so many castles there, but that certainly is one of the reasons. In Switzerland, at last count (made by www.swisscastles.ch‘s
webmaster André Locher), there are seven hundred sixty-six castles! That is about one for every three or four villages, which makes touring Switzerland a wonder for castle lovers.
To understand why there are so many castles in Switzerland, you have to understand a little bit about Swiss history. "Switzerland is in the heart of Western Europe, a region where
civilization has been developing for thousands of years," says Robert Herren, director, Fondation du Château de Chillon. "The history of our country is completely mixed. This history has many shadows
as there are limited documents about the first centuries of our history after the Roman period. The Romans were the first to leave important traces of construction that can be found in Switzerland today.
"A lot of Swiss castles were constructed between the eighth and eleventh centuries, in relation to the alliances and powerful conflicts between powers, empires, kingdoms, dukedoms,
or earldoms, which marked the territory," Herren continues. "The castles, which were the homes of the leaders and the nobility and served to protect them, were transformed and enlarged, constantly
adapted for the needs of their owners and users. The nobles constructed the castles and the first towns which developed around them, in general protected by a moat, river, stream, or something else." So,
there are castles sprinkled throughout this beautiful country, seemingly around every bend in the road and near every picturesque country village.
There is no objective way of saying whether one castle is more beautiful than another. Taste is very subjective. Some people prefer the castles that are the best preserved, while others
like ruins. Luckily, Switzerland has all of these, and everything in between. There are castles that are private residences (like Chateau de Collex), there are castles that have been renovated to be
museum-quality in their finish and presentation, giving you a very good idea of what life was like during the Middle Ages (like Chateau du Chillon), while others are host to things seemingly incongruous to
castles (like the automobile museum in Castle Grandson or the horse museum in La Sarraz). Most castles are located in prominent positions, able to survey the land for miles to around, while others seem to be out
in the middle of nowhere, guarding nothing. There is no rhyme or reason to Swiss castles, which makes them all the more intriguing…
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"Heiliger St. Florian, verschon' unser Haus, …"
Firefighting and Firefighters through the Ages
by Robert A. Selig
From St. Florian to the evolution of firefighting, we look at how the flames of the Middle Ages were tamed.
"Heiliger St. Florian, verschon' unser Haus, zünd' and're an! – Saint Florian, preserve our home, set others on fire!" Most Germans will have heard this somewhat disrespectful
jingle in some form or another about St. Florian, the protector from fire and Patron Saint of firefighters. And many will undoubtedly hear, and quote, it again on Thursday, 4 May, when Catholics around the world
will celebrate the Feast Day of St. Florian. Especially in Europe, Catholics and non-Catholics alike will also be reminded by their news media that 4 May is International Firefighter's Day. Obviously these dates
are not coincidental, but what does St. Florian, who was martyred in the fourth century, have to do with firefighters?
St. Florian was a Roman military officer stationed in modern-day Lorch in Austria, who had embraced Christianity but refused to give up his faith when arrested during the persecutions
under Emperor Diocletian. He was tortured and killed around 304 A. D., when a millstone was tied around his neck and he was thrown into the river Enns where he drowned. Today the millstone is kept as his most
important relic in the crypt of the Church of St. Florian near Linz. Though never formally canonized, St. Florian was considered a saint and called upon for assistance long before the requirement of formal
canonization was instituted under Pope Urban VIII in 1634. Florian had been on the official compendium of saints first compiled by the Catholic Church during the tenth century, and it is within this historical
context that a shrine and monastery were built at the site of his torment around 955. (The first saint to be added to the "official" list was St. Ulrich of Augsburg, canonized in 993.) In the course of
time, the village of St. Florian grew up around the monastery. In 1138, King Casimir of Poland and the Bishop of Cracow asked Pope Lucius III to send the remains of the saint to Cracow for burial. Since then,
St. Florian has not only been the protector of Linz and Upper Austria, but of Poland as well. Florian's veneration as a saint is rooted not only in his martyrdom, however, but also in the legend that soon after
his death, a person was saved from fire by invoking his name. In a different version of the event, St. Florian miraculously extinguished a fire with a single pitcher of water, thereby saving the life of the
supplicant.
During the Middle Ages and for centuries before and after, people considered fire one of the four basic elements of nature, the others being water, air, and earth, and bestowed upon it
an almost divine quality as the giver of warmth. Fire has always also been said to possess a cleansing quality, viz. the ordeal by fire for defendants as part of the judicial system. God spoke to Moses out of a
burning bush, and after the flood He warned the Israelites that He would cause no more floods, but rather use "fire next time" to punish a sinful world. Not surprisingly, the faithful often considered
conflagrations as punishment for sin similar to what had happened to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah…
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LANGUAGE:
Und sie schreiben weiter auf Deutsch
von Gert Niers
In der Presse war es bereits für tot erklärt worden, und innere Querelen schienen jede Aussicht auf Wiederbelebung zunichte zu machen, aber jetzt steht es wieder da – mit einem neuen
Vorsitzenden, einer neuen Satzung und einer neuen Anthologie: das PEN-Zentrum deutschsprachiger Autoren im Ausland, die Nachfolge-Organisation des berühmten deutschen Exil-PENs, dessen Mitglieder über alle Welt
verstreut leben. Viele von ihnen haben jedoch die USA als Wohnort gewählt, vorübergehend oder für den Rest ihres Lebens.
Die Abkürzung PEN steht für Poets, Essayist, Novelists – ein übernationaler Autorenverband, der 1921, drei Jahre nach Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs, in London ins Leben gerufen wurde.
Seine Autoren haben sich der Wahrung der Menschenrechte, der Förderung der Völkerverständigung und der Freiheit des Gedankenaustauschs verpflichtet. 1925 wurde das erste deutsche PEN-Zentrum zugelassen.
Nachdem sich 1933 das Nazi-Regime in Deutschland breit gemacht hatte, konnte von einer freien Literatur und der Freiheit der Autoren (sowie der restlichen Bevölkerung) kaum noch die
Rede sein. Mit Bücherverbrennung, Zensur, Verfolgung und Ermordung von Schriftstellern hatte sich das offizielle Deutschland disqualifiziert, ein PEN-Zentrum zu stellen. Im November 1933 zog es der deutsche PEN
vor, selber aus dem internationalen Verband auszuscheiden.
Die wirkliche, freie deutsche Literatur wurde von nun an im Exil geschrieben. Die Autoren, die sie hervorbrachten, schlossen sich 1934 auf dem Kongress in Glasgow zum deutschen Exil-PEN
zusammen. Es war dies das erste Mal, dass der Internationale PEN ein Zentrum für Schriftsteller zuließ, die vom Regime ihres Heimatlandes ins Exil getrieben worden waren. Erster Vorsitzender dieses Zentrums war
Heinrich Mann, der ältere Bruder des Nobelpreisträgers Thomas Mann, später ebenfalls Mitglied. Rudolf Olden übernahm das Amt des Sekretärs.
Bereits Ende 1933 hatten Rudolf Olden, Lion Feuchtwanger, Ernst Toller und Max Herrmann-Neiße beim Internationalen PEN eine Vertretung der deutschen Exilautoren angeregt. Alle
Schriftsteller, die heute Rang und Namen haben in der deutschen Literaturgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, gehörten dem Exil-PEN an, darunter (außer den bereits genannten) Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Anna
Seghers. Über 70 Mitglieder zählte die Organisation 1938.
Die erste Krise stellte sich für den Autorenverband nach dem Tod Rudolf Oldens ein, der 1940 als Schiffspassagier der Torpedierung durch ein deutsches U-Boot zum Opfer fiel. Nach
Kriegsende wurde immer wieder die Frage aufgeworfen nach dem Sinn einer Exilorganisation ohne realen Anlass zum Exil.
Eine offizielle Einladung der neuen Bundesrepublik an die im Ausland überlebenden Autoren (sowie andere Emigranten) zur Rückkehr in das Land, aus dem sie hatten fliehen müssen, blieb
jedoch aus. Im Laufe der Jahre war für diese vormals vom NS-Regime Verfolgten die Fremde zwar nicht unbedingt zur neuen Heimat, aber die alte Heimat oft zur Fremde geworden. Der Name PEN-Zentrum deutschsprachiger Autoren im Ausland wurde 1948 eingeführt, wobei es jedem Mitglied freisteht, den jeweiligen Aufenthaltsort weiterhin als Exil aufzufassen. Hans Sahl schrieb einmal, dass für einen Emigranten das Exil zum geistigen Zustand geworden sei. Noch 1994 brachte das umbenannte PEN-Zentrum einen Band in eigener Sache unter dem Titel Exil
ohne Ende heraus.
Die im vorigen Jahr verabschiedete Satzung lässt auch Schriftsteller, die ihren Wohnsitz in Deutschlandland haben, zur Mitgliedschaft zu, solange “deren Werke und deren Verhalten dem
Geist der PEN-Charta nicht widersprechen.”
Aus der historisch-politischen Situation ergab sich, dass Amerika zahlreichen Mitgliedern dieses Schriftstellerverbands zum Aufenthaltsort wurde. Zu den in die USA emigrierten und auch
dort verstorbenen Autoren gehören Lion Feuchtwanger (München 1884 – Los Angeles 1958), Ernst Waldinger (Wien 1886 – New York 1970), Vicky Baum (Wien 1888 – Los Angeles 1960), Manfred George, ursprünglich Cohn
(Berlin 1893 – New York 1966), Oskar Maria Graf (Berg am Starnberger See 1894 – New York 1967), Friedrich Bergammer, ursprünglich Glückselig (Wien 1909 – New York 1981), Robert Breuer (Wien 1909 – New York 1996).
ENGLISH:
And They Keep on Writing in German
by Gert Niers
The newspapers had already published obituaries, and internal quarrels seemed to destroy every hope for revitalization, but now it is back in on its feet – with a new president, a new
constitution, and a new anthology: the PEN Centre of German-Speaking Writers Abroad, the successor organization of the prestigious German Exile PEN whose members are dispersed all over the world. However, many
of them have chosen the United States for their residence, temporarily or for the rest of their lives.
The abbreviation PEN stands for Poets, Essayists, Novelists – an international association of authors that was established in London in 1921, three years after World War One. Its
members are committed to the guarantee of human rights, to the pursuit of communication between people of different countries, and to the free exchange of thoughts and ideas.
After the Nazi regime had taken over Germany in 1933, free literature and freedom of authors (as well as of the rest of the population) ceased to exist. With book-burnings, censorship,
persecution and murder of writers, the official Germany disqualified itself from maintaining a PEN centre. In November 1933, the German PEN decided on its own to quit the international organization.
From that point on, the real, free German literature was written in exile. The authors producing it founded the German Exile PEN in 1934 at the congress in Glasgow. This was the first
time that the International PEN admitted a centre for authors who had been forced into exile by the regime of their home country. First president of this centre was Heinrich Mann, the older brother of
Nobel-prize winner Thomas Mann, who joined later. Rudolf Olden accepted the office of secretary.
Already at the end of 1933, Rudolf Olden, Lion Feuchtwanger, Ernst Toller, and Max Herrmann-Neiße had proposed a representation of the German writers in exile. All high-ranking authors
in today’s history of twentieth century German literature belonged to the Exile PEN, among them (in addition to the ones mentioned before) Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Anna Seghers. More than seventy names
were on the roster of this organization in 1938.
The first crisis hit the literary association after the death of Rudolf Olden, who lost his life as a ship’s passenger during the torpedo attack by a German submarine in 1940. After the
end of the war, the question was asked repeatedly: What is the purpose of an exile organization without a real cause for exile?
However, the new Federal Republic of Germany failed to invite the authors (and other emigrés) abroad to come back to the country from which they had to flee. In the course of the years,
the foreign parts did not necessarily become a new homeland for the former refugees from Nazi Germany, but the old homeland had often become foreign. The name PEN Centre of German-speaking Writers Abroad was
introduced in 1948 with the understanding that it is up to every member to still consider the current place of residence as exile. Hans Sahl once wrote that, for an émigré, exile had become a mental state. As
late as 1994, the renamed PEN Centre published on its own behalf a volume titled Exile without End.
According to the by-laws passed last year, writers with residence in Germany can also become members, as long as “their works and their behavior do not contradict the spirit of the PEN
charter.”
Based on the historical-political circumstances of the time, America became the place of residence for numerous members of this association of writers. Within the group of authors who
emigrated to the United States and also died there, mention should be made of Lion Feuchtwanger (Munich 1884 – Los Angeles 1958), Ernst Waldinger (Vienna 1886 – New York 1970), Vicky Baum (Vienna 1888 – Los
Angeles 1960), Manfred George, formerly Cohn (Berlin 1893 – New York 1966), Oskar Maria Graf (Berg/Lake Starnberg 1894 – New York 1967), Friedrich Bergammer, formerly Glückselig (Vienna 1909 – New York 1981),
Robert Breuer (Vienna 1909 – New York 1996)…
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AT HOME:
From Mush to Crunch: European Müsli and American Granola
by Sharon Hudgins
I first tasted the breakfast cereal known as Müsli when I was living in Europe in the early 1970s. Packaged in cellophane bags or cardboard boxes, it was a dry mixture of rolled oats,
brown sugar, dried fruits, and nuts (usually hazelnuts or almonds). A small amount combined with cold milk or sprinkled over plain yogurt was a delicious and nutritious way to start the day.
Later I learned that Müsli was originally developed in Switzerland around 1900 by Dr. Maxmilian Bircher-Benner for the patients at his "natural health" clinic in Zürich.
That first Müsli was a kind of uncooked, high-fiber, oatmeal-and-apple mush, eaten cold for breakfast, or as the first course of an evening meal, or even as a supper dish itself, accompanied by buttered
whole-grain bread. Although it doesn't sound very palatable, the concoction was so popular with the doctor's patients that the recipe for it was eventually published in the mid-1920s.
Until the 1960s, however, Müsli remained a dish eaten mainly by people who consciously consumed "health foods." However, during the past forty years Müsli has morphed
from a thick cold mush favored by a few into a variety of crunchy dry breakfast cereals eaten by a large segment of the population. Initially these dry cereal mixtures were sold only at special health-food
stores (known as Reformhäuser in German-speaking countries), although many people also made their own Müsli at home. Today, in supermarkets all over Europe, you can purchase many brands of packaged mixes of grains, nuts, sweeteners, and dried fruits that call themselves Müsli.
That funny-sounding word is a Swiss-German diminutive form of Mus, a term connoting a pulpy food, a puree, a mush. Müsli is the spelling in German; Müesli is the Swiss
form; and, in English, the word is spelled muesli, without an umlaut. Bircher-Müesli refers specifically to the original type of Swiss oatmeal-and-apple mush.
Of course our own American granola is a close cousin of those modern European dry cereals now called Müsli or Müesli. Made from a similar combination of ingredients, granola is a blend
of grains, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, honey or sugar, and vegetable oil. In America, it is eaten with milk as a cold breakfast cereal; as a pick-me-up snack (usually in the form of granola bars); as a crunchy
topping for yogurt, ice cream, and hot cereals; and as an ingredient in cookies, muffins, piecrusts, puddings, and breads…
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FAMILY RESEARCH:
German Military Records
by James M. Beidler
American military records, especially the files documenting pensions, are a great source that many genealogists use.
So it is natural that Northfield, Minnesota, reader Carol Spessard thought that a good topic for this column would be German military records, specifically early twentieth-century
navy records and nineteenth-century Prussian military documents. It is a worthwhile topic; however, there are a couple strikes against you doing this type of research for Germans.
Let us get the biggest problem over with first: An air raid in February 1945 burned personnel rosters and card indexes (Stammrollen und Karteimittel) of the Prussian Army, the
transition army (Übergangsheeres), the Army (Reichswehr), and the Imperial Navy (Kaiserlichen Marine).
Now let us add to that very substantial problem the fact that many of the records that remain are difficult to access without knowing the regiment of the solider – which, of
course, is often what you, as a researcher, are trying to find out! So now that your expectations have been lowered, let us turn to what types of records and background it is possible to get:
- Records of soldiers treated in military hospitals (along with extracts from their personnel rosters) can be found at: Krankenbuchlager Berlin, Wattstrasse 11-13, 13355 Berlin and the
Bundesarchiv – Militärarchiv, Wiesentalstraße 10, 79115 Freiburg/Breisgau.
- Lists of Prussian and other German officers are generally available in book series with titles such as Rangliste der Königlich Preussischen Armee.
- Many military stations had their own church parishes and therefore kept records of baptisms, marriages, and burials that are great vital records substitutes. Some of these have been
microfilmed by the Family History Library and can be searched by parish name at www.familysearch.org . Unfortunately, this is the only substantial group of German military records in the Mormon microfilm system.
- A website that gives a list of pre-1914 Imperial German military units can be found at http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~maampo/militaer/milindex.html .
- Some military records from German states (other than Prussia) are available in their respective state archives. For specifics, see Ancestors in German Archives: A Guide to Family History
Sources (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004).
- World War II German military personnel may have service records at: Bundesarchiv – Zentralnachweisstelle, Abteigarten 6, 52076 Aachen or Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt) Eichborndamm 179, 13403
Berlin.
- German military cemetery listings for World Wars I and II can be found online at www.volksbund.de . The listing is in German; to get an English version, put the URL for the site in a Google search and click “Translate this page” on the search hit that results.
A final military collection is held in the United States. In the National Archives and Records Administration’s Record Group 242 – called “Collection of Foreign Records Seized” are the
Rasse und Siedlungs Hauptamt (German for “Chief Office for Race and Settlement”) files. The most useful part of these microfilmed files are thousands of Ahnentafels (German for “ancestor charts”) – many of which
stretch back six generations from the 1930s to the mid-1700s…
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CALENDAR:
April:
Philadelphia, PA
April 1: Stiftungsfest, GTV Almrausch. Visit www.gtvalmrausch.org or email plattler@aol.com or call 215-855-3376.
Indianapolis, IN
April 1: Athenaeum Turners’ St. Benno Fest at the Athenaeum. Call 317-630-4569 ext. 1.
Port Washington, NY
April 1: Die Gemuetlichen Enzianer’s 75th Anniversary Bavarian Bauernball at the Polish American Hall. Call 516-249-9632, or 516-488-6551.
Frederick, MD
April 7: Der Stammtisch monthly social gathering at Brewer’s Alley, 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127 and ask for Fritz or
Stammtisch.
San Antonio, TX
April 7: Beethoven King William Area Event at the Beethoven Halle und Garten, 422 Pereida Street. Call 210-222-1521.
Oregon, OH
April 14: Teutonia Maennerchor and Damenchor’s Good Friday Fish Fry at Oak Shade Grove 3624 Seaman Rd. Call 419-691-4116, or for advance tickets, call 419-474-7604.
New Holland, PA
April 22: Spring Meeting, Palatines to America, PA Chapter presentations by John T. Humphrey at Yoder’s Restaurant Banquet Room. Call 717-507-7237.
San Antonio, TX
April 26-28: Fiesta Gartenfest at the Beethoven Halle und Garten, 422 Pereida Street. Call 210-222-1521.
Tulsa, OK
April 28-30: The German American Society of Tulsa’s 3rd Annual Germanfest at the German American Society of Tulsa on 15th Street and Lewis Ave. Visit www.gastulsaorg or call 918-744-6997.
San Antonio, TX
April 29: King William Fair at the Beethoven Halle und Garten, 422 Pereida Street. Call 210-222-1521.
Oregon, OH
April 29: Teutonia Maennerchor and Damenchor’s Annual Fruehlingszeit Konzert at Oak Shade Grove, 3624 Seaman Rd. Call 419-474-6052 and ask for W. Urbanus or any chorus member.
May:
Lancaster, PA
May 4-7: The Society for German-American Studies’ 30th Annual Symposium at the Lancaster Host Resort and Conference Center, 2330 Lincoln Highway East. Contact Dr. William Donner at 610-683-4249 or donner@kutztown.edu, or Dr. David Valuska at 610-683-8944 or valuska@kutztown.edu.
Bethlehem, PA
May 5: Historic Bethlehem Partnership Events Walking tour of Bethlehem’s South Side begins at Comfort
Suites, 120 W. Third Street. Visit www.historicbethlehem.org or call 610-868-6868.
Fredrick, MD
May 5: Der Stammtisch monthly social gathering at Brewer’s Alley, 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127 and ask for Fritz or
Stammtisch.
San Antonio, TX
May 5: Beethoven King William Area Event at the Beethoven Halle und Garten, 422 Pereida Street. Call 210-222-1521.
May 6-7: Staats Saengerfest, Beethoven Maennerchor at the Beethoven Halle und Garten, 422 Pereida Street. Call 210-222-1521.
Bowie, MD
May 6: Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society Spring Conference in Comfort Inn with Marion Wolfert, AG, speaking on German genealogy topics.
Email at dmkuster@comcast.net or call 732-674-9963.
Bethlehem, PA
May 6, 13, 20, and 27: Historic Bethlehem Partnership Events One-hour guided tour of Bethlehem’s Historic District begins at Historic Bethlehem Welcome Center, 505
Main Street. Call 1-800-360-TOUR or 610-691-6055.
Jessup, MD
May 7: Association of German-American Societies of Greater Washington, D.C.’s 37th Annual German-American Festival at Blob’s Park. Visit http://www.geocities.com/agas_dc/ or call 301-577-6488.
Leavenworth, WA
May 12-14: Maifest Email info@leavenworth.org or call 509-548-5807.
Newark, CA
May 13: 35th Anniversary/ Trachtenfest of the Almenrausch Schuhplattler Call 510-530-5229 and ask for Barbara Clement.
Bethlehem, PA
May 13: Historic Bethlehem Partnership Events Old-fashioned horse-drawn Carriage Rides. Visit Historic Bethlehem Welcome Center or call 610-691-6055 for
tickets.
San Antonio, TX
May 19: Maifest at the Beethoven Halle und Garten, 422 Pereida Street. Call 210-222-1521.
Covington, KY
May 19-21: 27th Annual Mainstrasse Village Maifest 2006: Visit www.mainstrasse.org or call 859-491-0458 and ask for Donna Kremer or Jerry Bamberger.
Cincinnati, OH
May 21: Maifest at the German Heritage Museum. Email one2print@aol.com or call 513-575-0131.
Baltimore, MD
May 25: Baltimore Edelweiss Club Annual Picnic at Patapsco State Park (Rt. 40). Call 410-747-9616 and ask for Rita Kirsch.
Danbury, NH
May 25-27: Third Annual “Best of the Wurst” Festival. Call 1-866-DANBURY or visit www.innatdanbury.com
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