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February / March 2007
Knock Back a Bitter Shot – Underberg Bitters
By Sharon Hudgins
Did you overindulge again, eating way too much of Joe Bob's barbecue, Mama's sweet-potato pie, or some fancy chef's signature dish?
Feeling as stuffed as the proverbial Thanksgiving turkey? As overfed as a Perigord goose?
Then try knocking back a shot of Underberg, a bitter liquor that many Europeans drink at the end of meal to stimulate their digestion.
That's right. Finish off all that fine food with a shot of bitters that is guaranteed to shift your sluggish stomach into high gear.
First concocted in Germany more than 150 years ago, Underberg is an elixir made of aromatic herbs from 43 countries, which is matured for several months in barrels of Slovenian
oak. According to the bottle's label, the main ingredients are filtered water, alcohol (44% by volume), and "natural flavors from herbs and roots of the genus gentiana."
Since it doesn't contain any gluten or added sugar, Underberg is considered safe for people who must avoid those substances.
Despite its alcohol content, Underberg is actually classified as a food product that can be sold in grocery stores and restaurants that do not have a liquor license. Perhaps
that's because this unusual potion is sold only in little single-portion, 20 ml (2/3-ounce) brown bottles--a distinctive marketing device that the company has used for more than 50 years…
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Profile: John Kay & Steppenwolf: A German-American Success Story
By Don Heinrich Tolzmann
Steppenwolf is the name of Hermann Hesse’s famous novel, as well as the name of the legendary rock ‘n’ roll band that came out of 1960s America. Formed by John Kay (Joachim Fritz
Krauledat), the band soared to superstar status with mega-hits, such as “Born to be Wild.” The life of lead singer and founding father John Kay reads like a classic story from American history, rising from
German immigrant kid to pop culture icon.
Joachim Fritz Krauledat was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, in April 1944, a precarious location at a perilous time in history. A month before his birth, his father, a soldier in the
German Army, died on the Russian front, and the following year the Red Army rolled over East Prussia on its way to Berlin, destroying much of the historic inner city of Tilsit, now Sovetsk.
Like most East Prussians, Kay’s mother fled to what became East Germany, and then again in 1948, this time to the freedom of West Germany, of which Kay says that this was “something for
which I will forever be grateful.” Settling in Hannover, Kay grew up listening to United States Armed Forces Radio. Ten years later, he immigrated to Toronto, Canada, along with his mother and stepfather. Here
Kay learned English by listening to American radio programs.
In 1963, the family moved south to Buffalo, New York, and then to Santa Monica, California, and the East Prussian youth began his musical career as a folk singer. The 1960s were of
momentous import for America and Kay played a major role in the musical revolution of the period by founding Steppenwolf. It recorded its first album in just four days, and its lead song “Born to Be Wild” became
a super-hit, and was featured in the 1960s counterculture film Easy Rider.
Steppenwolf made the name of Hesse’s novel ever more famous, no doubt causing many to read it. According to Hesse scholar Theodore Ziolkowski, the protagonist of the novel is an
intellectual “who loses faith in the ideals of the spirit and regains it ironically, by learning to affirm the senses and the world of trivial everyday that he had previously feared and rejected.” Hesse wrote
that it “is not a book of a man despairing, but of a man believing,” and that it takes one on “a sometimes fearful, sometimes courageous journey through the chaos of a world whose souls dwell in darkness.” Some
of that Weltananschauung typified the Zeitgeist that engendered the band Steppenwolf…
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Land of Wine and Wall
by Bill Stephens
Vintners in the former GDR regions of Saxony and Saale-Unstrut up the ante with quality wines and wine tourism.
Sitting in a cozy Leipzig coffee house on a cool November afternoon, I had just completed an assignment that acquainted me with many churches and museums, but few eastern Germans.
When the local tourism department woman casually mentioned that eastern Germany boasts two of the country's thirteen wine regions, I was curious. My map showed that the small Saxony and
Saale-Unstrut wine regions are far north and east of western Germany’s famous wine regions. They seemed too cold for wine production. And I wondered about winemakers in a former socialist state.
In the heart of the Saale-Unstrut wine region, I was greeted at the Naumburg train station by forty-one-year-old local winemaker Stephan Herzer. Driving into town, Herzer told me
Saale-Unstrut is an old wine center and Europe’s northernmost wine area. During most of eastern Germany's socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) period from 1949 to 1989, he said all Saale-Unstrut wine was
made by the state-owned wine co-op and Landesweingut state-owned winery. Used mostly as currency, the wine was unexceptional.
"Today, everything's totally different," Herzer said. "Some winemakers like me moved here from western Germany. And many local people studied winemaking in the west. Now
a third of production is from small private wineries. Everyone is using modern techniques and equipment. Wine is sold to consumers and the quality is much improved. Local wineries offer wine tasting and
touring."
In quaint Naumburg, we drove into Weingut Herzer, which looks like a mini-medieval fort. In his wine tasting room, Herzer began pouring. When the Wall crumbled in 1989, Herzer says he
was a wine student in West Germany. "Interested in eastern Germany, I traveled here as a tourist and met local people." Herzer moved to the Saale-Unstrut region in 1992, rented a vineyard, and began
growing grapes. Eventually, he made his own wine.
It was tough at first for the new local private winemakers, he said, because eastern Germans craved western products. "Now that a new generation has improved the wine, there's
local pride. Our wineries are wining awards. We've made a huge leap in sixteen years. Saale-Unstrut wine is a curiosity for west Germans."
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The Salt Mine of Merkers
by Jörg M. Unger
This immense mine was surveyed for “white gold” at the turn of the last century, inspected for real gold in 1945, and is visited for history and natural sights today.
Explosions in mines are nothing out of the ordinary. The blast in the salt mine of Merkers on the morning of April 8, 1945, however, revealed a treasure so spectacular that even the
commander-in-chief of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, accompanied by the Generals George Patton and Omar Bradley, personally went down the Kaiseroda
shaft, and the small place in Thuringia hit the headlines of Newsweek, New York Herald Tribune, and other prominent papers.
The village of about two thousand inhabitants lies, surrounded by the rolling hills of the Thuringian Forest and the mountain ranges of Rhön, on the upper reaches of the river
Werra, eighteen miles south-west of Eisenach. Huge derricks rise into the sky and white slag heaps indicate that salt is mined in the valley. Several layers of clay have protected the salt against dissolving by
ground water for more than two million years. The deposit is up to one thousand three hundred feet thick and was discovered at the end of the nineteenth century. Two seams of potassium salt run through the rock
salt layer that extends between the towns of Berka, Fulda, Bad Hersfeld, and Bad Salzungen – a region with the size of Greater Munich.
After nearly one hundred years of production, the salt plant at Merkers ceased to be profitable. Most of the factory buildings were removed in the early 1990s and the Kaiseroda shaft
became an adventure mine in August 1991. Today, it welcomes more than seventy thousand visitors every year because of its history, natural sights, and special attractions.
Dressed in a coat and provided with a safety helmet and lamp, you enter the visitor’s room and an experienced miner greets you with a powerful “Glück auf” (good luck). In only
ninety seconds, the elevator brings you one thousand six hundred forty feet down to the second level of the salt deposit, which dates back to Upper Permian times when large parts of Europe were covered by sea.
Due to the difference of air pressure and because huge ventilators constantly blow fresh air into the mine, you have to go through a weather sluice, where you face a heavy “wind” like the expedition crew in
Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. Behind the sluice, several small, open trucks with all-wheel drive await you for a fifteen-mile-long, adventure tour that takes about two and a half
hours.
After the first short drive at twenty miles per hour, the truck stops in front of a gate, lettered with the word Goldraum (gold room) and the visitors might perhaps feel like General
Manton Eddy, Colonel William Russell, and some soldiers of the 282nd Engineer Combat Battalion, who had the order to blow up vault’s entrance – blocked by a brick wall three feet thick – on the morning of April 8, 1945. You enter a cavern, which is about seventy-five feet wide and twelve feet high. The old tram railway tracks still lead one hundred fifty feet into so-called Room No. 8 that once tried to conceal more than eight thousand gold bullion, crates with silver and platinum bars, over seven thousand sealed bags, stacked knee-high and laid out in twenty rows. Among them, there were one thousand three hundred bags of gold Reichsmarks, British gold pounds, French gold francs, and other European currency, American twenty-dollar gold pieces as well as eighteen bags and one hundred eighty-nine suitcases, trunks, and boxes containing personal valuables, looted by the SS from the victims in the concentration camps…
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Schwäbisch Hall – Land of the Salt Simmerers
by Leah Larkin
Untouched by the bombs of World War II, this half-timbered treasure along the Kocher River is a delight.
Schwäbisch Hall? Schwäbisch Gmünd? One is a postcard-perfect, tourist-popular ancient town. The other, although less picturesque, is also ancient. I got them confused on a recent trip,
and visited Schwäbisch Gmünd first, thinking it was the gem I had heard about. I was mistaken, but enjoyed a pleasant visit to the town nonetheless. More about that later.
The two towns, just forty kilometers apart, are in Baden-Württemberg not far from Stuttgart.
Schwäbisch Hall is enchanting and merits the attention heaped upon it. Its Altstadt, hugging a slope where half-timbered houses rise in tiers like layers on a wedding cake, was
relatively undamaged by World War II bombs and is said to be one of the best preserved in Germany.
Park the car, cross a bridge over the Kocher River, and trek up a narrow, shop-lined pedestrian street. It ends at the Marktplatz, old Germany at its best with a collection of antique
houses – half-timbered, gabled, some softly colored. Your eye continues up, up a long set of steep steps to the town crown, St. Michael’s church, which dominates the scene like a hilltop castle.
During my visit, thespians where rehearsing on the church steps for a performance of Everyman which was to be staged there as part of the festivities for the town’s eight hundred
fiftieth birthday last year. However, every summer from mid-June to mid-August – continuing a tradition that began in 1925 – outdoor performances take place on the fifty-four steps surrounded by the Marktplatz’s
pretty buildings, an attractive mélange of giant dolls’ houses in different architectural styles.
St. Michael’s, primarily Gothic but with a Romanesque tower, is now a Lutheran church, thanks to Johannes Brenz. In 1522, the town council hired Brenz, a priest from Heidelberg who had
met Martin Luther and was a fan of the Reformation. Those who took communion from Brenz were proclaimed “reformed Protestant,” with eighty-two percent of the churchgoers joining the ranks in what was known as
the “Soft Reformation.”
Brenz was dedicated to education, making school compulsory for boys and girls who learned to read and write. He bucked the practices of his time and preached against witch-hunts – no
witch was burned in Schwäbisch Hall. In 1548, he had to flee, as Emperor Charles V wanted a return to the Catholic faith. The city did revert to Catholicism, but only for a few years. Nonetheless, the church
looks more Catholic than Protestant. Brenz did not strip St. Michael’s of its Catholic trappings – candles, statues and religious pictures – as was the fate of most Catholic churches during the Reformation…
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East Frisian Tea – An Obsession
by Tido Holtkamp
While the cold North Sea winds blow, East Frisians warm their souls with a rich tradition of drinking tea.
The town of Norden in East Frisia (Ostfriesland) prides itself not only of the best tea museum in Europe, but, in the summer of 2004, Norden also put on a roaring “Tea Fest” lasting
several weeks. While a tea festival is nothing unusual in this “Land of Tea Drinkers,” the event in Norden outdid them all.
You could visit exhibits on tea and mixing teas, on Indian and Chinese teas, you could attend seminars on “The Importance of Water for Making Tea” and on “The Tea Ceremony;” you could
learn about India and her teas during the “India Week;” you could hear a famous author discuss his tea-ology; you could listen to a number of choirs compete for the “best tea song;” you and your kids could
compete in various tea games (tea running, lifting tea cartons, pushing tea carts), you could admire exhibits of the best-designed tea cans and tea packages, and, best of all, you could get a seat at the longest
tea table of the world, which made it into the Guinness Book of World Records measuring seven hundred seventy meters with three thousand three hundred eighty-nine tea drinkers sitting at it. This feat easily
bested the previous record of six hundred sixty meters with three thousand three hundred one drinkers, established in 1999 in the neighboring Marienhafe. For the occasion, a porcelain manufacturer pumped out a
special issue of four thousand tea services (all sold out); and a special delegation from the sister city Bradbury-on-Avon showed off an English high tea party as designed by the Duchess of Bedford.
In East Frisia, it seems, tea drinking has developed from a habit into an addiction. Per head, the East Frisians consume over six pounds of tea a year, more that twelve times the
average in the rest of Germany. What brought this about?
Situated in the northwestern corner of Germany, East Frisia lived in relative independence and in close association with the Dutch neighbors for many years. Then followed years of
invasions and occupation and a succession of rulers: Prussian Kings, Napoleon, Kings of Hanover, and again Prussia. Today, East Frisia is a part of the Land of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen).
In the Dutch Province of Friesland, the Frisian language is taught in the schools, but, in East Frisia, only small pockets of Frisian persist. However, under the veneer of High German,
the locals prefer to speak their Low German (Plattdeutsch) dialect, and “Moin, moin” is still the common greeting – morning, noon, or night.
When, after the Thirty Years’ War, the Netherlands became independent and turned to trade and sea fare, their ships brought treasures from the Far East, among them tea. At first, tea
cost a lot of money and remained the privilege of the rich, but soon the British and the Dutch saw the potential of this new drink and began to plant “tea gardens” in their colonies in India, Ceylon, Java, and
Sumatra. When the British discovered tall tea trees in Assam in the mountains of northern India, tea became a major import for Europe. First the English began to drink tea, then the Dutch took to this new drink,
and soon the East Frisians followed suit…
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Lost in the “Asparagus Triangle”
by William A. Davis
Tender white spears prepared in myriad ways herald spring in Germany.
White asparagus is a beloved symbol of spring in Germany, a kind of culinary first crocus, and its annual arrival a cause for national celebration. In asparagus season – traditionally
from late April to the end of June – most Germans will eat Spargel at least once a day and many restaurants will serve virtually nothing else, although in many delicious forms from soup to dessert.
During asparagus season – Spargelzeit – more than seventy thousand tons of asparagus are consumed in Germany, virtually all of it white and most locally grown. Asparagus is cultivated
in a number of places around the country, including Saxony and Bavaria, but the general consensus is that the finest white asparagus comes from an area in Baden-Württemberg between Heidelberg and Mannheim known
as “The Asparagus Triangle” and centered on the aristocratic old town of Schwetzingen which claims to be the “Asparagus Capital of the World.”
The soil in the area is what makes the difference. Light and sandy, it is ideal for mounding over asparagus beds to protect growing plants from direct exposure to the sun, which is what
produces the chlorophyll that turns asparagus green. Green and white asparagus are genetically the same plant but the white kind has a distinctive taste much appreciated by asparagus gourmets.
“This is absolutely the best asparagus, there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world,” says Hans Röckenwagner, a German-born and trained chef who now lives in Los Angeles.
“Smooth and buttery with a deep, rich flavor, it’s a real delicacy.” White asparagus also has cultural significance, he says. “Germans love the fact that this is their vegetable.”
Röckenwagner, who grew up in Baden, is the chef who has done the most to popularize German white asparagus in southern California, where it was once virtually unknown. “I started
serving Spargel in 1987 because I missed it myself,” he recalls. “It was hard to interest people at first and I had to educate them about its quality and versatility.” During the season, Röckenwagner says he now
imports about four hundred pounds of white asparagus both for his own restaurant, 3[sic] Squares Bakery Café in Venice, and to service other Los Angeles chefs.
For most of the year, the main attraction in Schwetzingen is its eighteenth century Baroque castle. The palatial former summer residence of the prince electors of the Palatinate (the
region around Heidelberg), it has one of the largest and most beautiful formal gardens in Germany. Asparagus has been cultivated in Schwetzingen for more than three centuries, dating back to the time when it was
known as “the royal vegetable” and was a luxury only aristocrats, like the prince, could afford…
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Munich – A Tradition of Looking to the Future
by Laura Fleming Schulte
Germany’s southern gem beckons visitors with a wonderful mix of old and new.
Waiting for his train on a Munich S-Bahn platform, a blonde-haired, lederhosen-clad man shouldering a dented tuba shouts into his cell phone in Bavarian dialect, “Ee bin gleich doa!
(I’ll be right there!)”
Like so many of his fellow Müncheners, this man embraces modernity from a vantage point solidly based in tradition. Although Bavaria’s capital has long been synonymous with Old World
tourism, in recent years it has become home to Germany’s mushrooming high-tech industry. The silicon boom is being echoed by a boom in new structures and activities as the city reinvests its profits and
reinvents its beloved institutions.
Even for the returning visitor who thinks he knows Munich, the sheer number and scale of changes may be surprising. And they begin upon arrival at Franz Joseph Strauss Airport’s
sparkling new Terminal 2, which is designed to welcome Munich’s growing numbers of international travelers with a distinctly local accent. Just minutes after disembarking from their flights and being whisked
through state-of-the-art baggage handling and passport control systems, visitors are liable to encounter an authentic beer garden or a Christmas Market – complete with mulled wine and an ice skating rink! The
terminal’s massive outdoor plaza, covered by an enormous canopy roof made of a translucent glass fiber membrane, is the perfect “platz” for such seasonal events.
Another newcomer, Allianz Arena, appears to the west of the autobahn during the drive into Munich from the airport. Resembling a massive plastic doughnut, the innovative and
controversial stadium designed by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron of Basel, Switzerland, welcomed fans to Germany during the opening game of the 2006 World Cup. Allianz Arena was built as a home field for
Munich’s two, time-honored soccer clubs, Bayern Munich and TSV 1860. In keeping with the standards of architectural daring set by the tented glass roof of their former home, the1972 Olympic stadium, the new
building’s skin is made of inflated ethylene tetraflouro-ethylene cushions, which are especially impressive at night when illuminated in the appropriate home team’s colors.
Further on in Munich’s center, more shoppers than ever fill the popular pedestrian mall in Neuhauserstrasse. However, just the other side of the twin-towered Frauenkirche, between
Theatinerstrasse and Kardinal Faulhaberstrasse, is Munich’s chic new shopping arcade, the Fuenf Hoefe, or Five Courtyards. Also designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the arcade, which links five inner courtyards
of an older city block, features a lofty glass-and-steel interior with swanky boutiques, hip eateries, and the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung art exhibit hall, all tucked behind an exterior from the 1900s…
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Fooling Fish With Fur and Feathers
Angelin in Deutschland
by Judy Florman
Looking for a serene and natural way to experience Germany? Grab a rod and fly – the fish are biting!
For a change of pace to serene, Germany offers a short cut to Zen: fly-fishing its streams. Enthusiasts herald the sport as a form of meditation.
They exalt it as an activity that exercises all of oneself – mind, body, and soul. When you fly fish, they say, you begin to interact with your native self. You start to exercise
your hunting brain, becoming fully engaged, so that you almost disappear from yourself, yet you are completely there.
According to German fly-fishing maven, Scott Johnson, “The combination of fish, water, and access in Germany make fly-fishing ‘a must do’ for American business travelers and
tourists.”
He adds, “There’s nothing more thrilling than casting flies for Brown Trout and Grayling in a glacier-carved lake or a stream running under an overlooking castle.”
Stuart Longhurst, importer of Echo Rods for Northern Europe and resident of Lüneburg Heath near Hamburg, has been hooked for forty years, ever since his grandfather put a fly rod
in his hands for his eleventh birthday. “It’s not just fishing, it’s the whole package,” he affirms. “It is peace and tranquility. Sunsets over the ocean, wildlife on the river bank, autumn colors, spring
awakening, shooting stars, sea eagles, ospreys, otters, king fishers, wild boar, stags, and companionship.
Robert Stroh, who touts angling his “home water,” the river Jachen near Munich, reports fly-fishing has changed his life. Five years ago he wedded his hobby to his vocation as
cabinetmaker and segued into a professional enterprise of his creation – split cane fly rods.
For Tina Strixner of Munich, it is “not a sport; it’s a passion.”
Fly fishers come from all walks of life: inventors, dancers, photographers, poets, medical professionals, guides, and shop owners. As an international sport, it knows no age
limits – from teenagers to grandparents.
And Germany is unique – both for its naturalist offerings and its controversial concept of fishing.
There are rules and strategies, techniques and finesse. First we will start with the German law “once caught, must be killed.” (As opposed to other countries which practice the
sport as environmental sparing, executing “catch and release.”)
Longhurst finds it “particularly illogical.” “The law says,” he explains, “it is not humane to go fishing for fun, only for food. Paradoxically, an angler can only take/kill a
fish if it is equal to or above the minimum legal size for that species. If it’s below, it has to be returned to the water it was taken from, unharmed.”
“That double standard,” he complains, “is crazy and completely out of sync with the modern way of thinking.”
Johnson reports that though catch and release is not “legal” in Germany, not everyone follows the rules and many Germans catch and release. “Water rights holders (conservators of
waters),” he adds, “may even specify catch and release regardless of the law.”
In Germany, a tourist (Auslander – foreigner) may obtain a ninety-day visitor’s fishing license (Besucher-Fischereischein) at a minimal cost equal to the standard German
license, but the residents’ required course and exam is waived. A temporary fishing license in Bavaria, good for three months, costs €45, with other states having similar systems…
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Sound from Silence: Poet Margot Scharpenberg
by Gert Niers
Margot Scharpenberg is not unknown to readers of German literature – whether they live in America or in Germany. Her work has been reviewed many times over the years on both sides of
the Atlantic. Apart from 29 books, her bibliography encompasses more than 600 contributions to magazines and newspapers. Of her three prose books, two contain short stories, and one is non-fiction: a critical
invitation to New York City. Her largest American readership lives in New York, the city where the author took residence in 1962 (first in Brooklyn, then in Manhattan). Over the years, the Deutsche Haus at NYU,
its counterpart at Columbia University, and the Goethe House (opposite from the Metropolitan Museum of Art) have repeatedly provided a forum for her work.
Like a wanderer between two worlds and two languages, Margot Scharpenberg also maintains residence in her native city, Cologne, where she spends several months a year. All of her books
have been published in Germany, where she also has her largest audience. However, the Carleton Germanic Papers dedicated an entire issue to her in 1993 (before taking permanent residence in New York,
Margot Scharpenberg taught at Carlton University in Ottawa, Canada). Her first published poem is called “Flußmündung” (Rheinischer Merkur: May 13, 1955), and the title of her first poetry volume is Gefährliche
Übung (Munich: Piper, 1957).
It is probably not surprising that a person who is exposed to two languages is also susceptible to the implications and consequences that a language has for our human existence. Since
modern poetry has often focused on language as the subject of a poem (comparable to a film about the making of a film), language as an existential condition has – next to the concept of time – become a Leitmotiv
in Margot Scharpenberg’s poetic œuvre…
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Ash Wednesday 1945: The Day the Old Dresden Died
by Robert A. Selig
Few military operations conducted by the Western Allies during World War II, with the possible exception of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were and still are today as
controversial and evoke as many emotions as the bombing of Dresden. Ever since this beautiful city – Germany’s Florence on the Elbe – went up in flames in the early morning hours of Ash Wednesday, 14 February
1945, killing upwards of twenty-five thousand people, the destruction of Saxony’s capital has been used, and abused, for political purposes by historians, politicians, and demagogues alike whose political
convictions run the gamut from the far left to the far right. Bombenholocaust shouts Saxony’s far-right National Demokratische Partei in a thinly veiled attempt at both a victimization of Germans and a concurrent relativization of the mass murder of six million people in the gas chambers of the Nazi regime. Before the Wall came down in 1989, the East German Communists and their Soviet masters, and since then their political heirs in the Linkspartei, portray it as an example of the war crimes committed by the Capitalist system. Revisionist historians within Germany and abroad see in it the deliberate murder of innocent civilians in a city devoid of military value while more conservative historians defend it as a legitimate, if unfortunate, operation in a war that the Germans had after all brought upon themselves.
“Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg (do you want Total War)?” Joseph Goebbels, Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda had screamed at the audience in one of his most famous speeches
in the Sportpalast in Berlin on 18 February 1943. The answer had been a thunderous “Sieg Heil!” No wonder that Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, the much-maligned “Bomber” Harris, would, on 29 March 1945, in
response to criticism of the bombing of Dresden, paraphrase Otto von Bismarck’s famous statement that “The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” Harris' version read: “I
do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.” Is it with a sigh of relief that the United States Air Force, in its official history, quotes
Harris’ remark, adding that “the Americans, happily, cannot and would not claim credit for this aspect,” – the destruction of the city and the death of over twenty-five thousand people – “of the Dresden
bombings” since it had been the Royal Air Force which had carried out the raid? At the same time, however, the United States Air Force feels the need to defend it as “the last of the instances during World War
II in Europe when the shock effects of area bombing resulted in nearly total demoralization of a great enemy city.”
In this highly politicized and emotional debate, which focused more on why the city was bombed rather than on what happened or how it happened, that began almost since the day Dresden
was laid in ruins, few bother, or are able to look dispassionately at the events of Ash Wednesday 1945. These emotions are best expressed in the memorable words spoken by Germany's first Federal President
Theodor Heuss, in 1955, that, on 8 May 1945, “we," that is – Germany and the Germans as well as Dresden and her inhabitants, "were both redeemed and destroyed.” Not surprisingly then today, just as in
1945, politics and emotions threaten, as former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder warned in a speech in Dresden on the anniversary of the bombing in February 2005, to obscure the facts, to reverse cause and
effect. What, then, are the facts?…
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LANGUAGE:
Albert van Amstel lehrt
Fremdsprachen mit Musik
Von Gert Niers
Seit Jahren bereist er den nordamerikanischen Kontinent mit seiner Gitarre und einem kleinen Koffer. Mehr braucht der fliegende Holländer nicht, wenn er auf wochenlanger Tournee High
Schools, Colleges und Universitäten besucht, um den Fremdsprachen-unterricht auf unterhaltsame Weise zu fördern.
Albert van Amstel kommt tatsächlich aus der nach diesem Fluss benannten niederländischen Hafenstadt, und da die Holländer seit Jahrhunderten ein weltoffenes Volk sind (sie haben
bekanntlich New York gegründet, das zunächst Nieuw Amsterdam hieß), kann der musikalische Botschafter sein Publikum auch gleich in mehreren Sprachen bei guter Laune halten. Außer deutschem Liedgut umfasst sein
Repertoire spanische Canciones, französische Chansons, italienische Canzones und Lieder in seiner Muttersprache. Was deutsches Material betrifft, so berücksichtigt van Amstels künstlerisches Konzept sowohl die
vom Kabarett her gegebene Tradition als auch den modernen Protestsong.
Albert van Amstel
Uses Music for Teaching
Foreign Languages
by Gert Niers
For years he has been traveling over the North American continent with his guitar and a small suitcase. That is all the flying Dutchman needs when he goes for weeks on tour to high
schools, colleges, and universities to promote an entertaining approach to the teaching of foreign languages.
Albert van Amstel is actually at home in the Dutch harbor town named after that river, and since for centuries the Dutch have been a people open to the world (as a matter of fact, they
founded New York, which was first called Nieuw Amsterdam), this musical ambassador masters several foreign languages to keep his audience in a good mood. Apart from a set of German songs, his repertoire includes
Spanish canciones, French chansons, Italian canzones, and material in his native language. As far as German material is concerned, his artistic concept has incorporated the cabaret heritage as well as the modern
protest song…
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Minding Your Curds and Whey (Photo essay)
by Heide G. Castleman
Contented Alpine cows are the first step in the process that yields delectable cheese.
Have you ever wondered how cheese is made? Well, I sure have – and finally, I got my chance! While attending a summer conference in the small town of Davos in the southeastern corner of
Switzerland, I had the opportunity to visit the Clavadeler Alp located at an altitude of nineteen hundred seventy-one meters where I could watch the process in operation. Unlike many other areas of the world
where cheese is commercially made, in European Alpine regions, during summer months, herds of cows are grazed in high altitude meadows, often quite remote from local villages. For preservation, the unadulterated
raw milk is made daily into cheese in chalets by just a few people who take up residence in the same place for the entire summer.
One morning I met with a small tour group and up we went to such a location by cable car, leaving the Davos valley fast behind us. I was enthralled by the scenic grandeur of the
mountains all around and, before too long, we had reached the gondola station where a guide met us. He led us through lush flower-filled meadows, forested areas, and pastures before reaching a typical chalet.
Along the way, cows, many wearing bells around their necks, ignored us and went about their business of chewing, re-chewing, and digesting the grass as if they understood how important their rich milk would be
for the cheese making…
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AT HOME:
The Melting Pot: Classic Swiss Cheese Fondue
by Sharon Hudgins
"I would never eat fondue at this time of year," said Hugo, a native Swiss, as he dipped a small cube of bread into a pot of bubbling melted cheese on a hot summer night
at a restaurant in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. "The Swiss eat fondue only in the winter."
He was right. Warm, heavy, creamy cheese fondue, with its subtle tastes of wine and liquor, is definitely a dish for the icy depths of winter, when both stomach and soul seek
solace in caloric comfort foods.
However, if you go to Switzerland at any time of the year, you should eat cheese fondue at least once, on its home ground, no matter what the weather. If you travel to Switzerland
in the summer, just save your fondue meal for a cool, rainy day.
Cheese fondue is surely Switzerland's best-known contribution to the world's cuisines. A simple peasant dish of aged cheeses melted in wine over an open fire, Swiss fondue has
migrated from the farmhouse hearth to the modern kitchens of home cooks and restaurant chefs all over the globe. Serving cheese fondue at parties even became a suburban fad in the United States from the 1950s to
the 1970s. Although it faded in popularity during the past twenty years – when seldom-used fondue pots could be found at garage sales all over the country – this dish has recently been revived by a new
generation of American cooks. Today you'll find a proliferation of high-priced fondue sets at any gourmet cookware shop or big department store.
Back to Switzerland – the birthplace of cheese fondue. The Swiss make a variety of fondues from the many fine cheeses produced there. Classic Swiss fondue always contains aged
Gruyère cheese (called Greyerzer Käse in German), usually mixed with one or more other cheeses in varying proportions. Emmental cheese is often paired with the Gruyère. When equal amounts of these two cheeses
are combined, the fondue is known as moitié-moitié, or "half-and-half," the French term a clue to fondue's probable origin in the French-speaking, western part of Switzerland. Other cheeses often
thrown into the pot are Fribourg Vacherin, Appenzell, Sbrinz (similar to Parmesan), and Gorgonzola (especially in the Swiss Italian-speaking areas)…
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FAMILY RESEARCH:
Contacting a Society Leads to Success
by James M. Beidler
We all love a success story, don't we? Since genealogical research is filled with more "dry holes" than "gushers," it is always great to hear how someone else has
solved a problem. After all, what worked for another might just be the key to our success, too, right?
German Life reader Trudy Muller Lundy combined the help of an overseas genealogical society with a distant cousin and the Internet to find a huge cache of her ancestors in an area of
Germany that is often difficult to research. "My parents came from Saxony, Germany, in the late 1920s," Lundy said. "My father arrived in 1926 – my mother and four older surviving siblings came in
1927. There were actually five children born in Germany. I am the eighth child and second youngest of four children born in the United States."
As with many people, Lundy had no interest in genealogy until midlife, and unfortunately, both of her parents had passed away by then. Hindering her when she decided to start a search
in 1984 was the fact that her father had forbidden the family to speak German so they would become "good Americans."
"My first letter, written in English in 1984, was sent to my father's place of birth, Theuma in Saxony, before 'the wall' came down," Lundy said. "It took a couple of
letters over a couple a years before I received a response. The answer from the Lutheran pastor in Theuma included most names, dates, and places of my father's direct line from the time they had come into Saxony
from Bavaria about 1800."
In 1988, Lundy received a letter from the wife of a first cousin once removed in Rückmarsdorf near Leipzig. "Their only child, a daughter, was interested in genealogy at that
time," she said. The same Lutheran pastor who had helped her had shared Lundy's address with them. From a couple of addresses that she had somehow hung onto from her mother, Lundy then sent letters to two
first cousins whose mothers had corresponded with her mother. "Both of these cousins were living at the same addresses their parents had resided," Lundy said. Correspondence relationships were
established, and Lundy said that one of the cousins was especially grateful that "the connection" was once again established…
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CALENDAR:
February
Indianapolis, IN
First Wednesday and First Saturday of the month: Docent-led Athenaeum tours. Located at 401 East Michigan Street. Call 317-251-8658.
Frederick, MD
February 2: Der Stammtisch monthly social gathering at Brewer’s Alley, 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127 and ask for Fritz or
Stammtisch.
Danbury, NH
February 6: Fasching Celebration. Call toll-free 1-866-DANBURY or visit www.innatdanbury.com
Danbury, NH
February 20: Fasching Celebration. Fasching Celebration. Call toll-free 1-866-DANBURY or visit www.innatdanbury.com
Danbury, NH
March 25: Cooking class with Chef Bob. Learn to make Roulade with Gravy and Potato Pancakes. Call toll-free 1-866-DANBURY or visit www.innatdanbury.com
March
Indianapolis, IN
First Wednesday and First Saturday of the month: Docent-led Athenaeum tours. Located at 401 East Michigan Street. Call 317-251-8658.
Frederick, MD
March 2: Der Stammtisch monthly social gathering at Brewer’s Alley, 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127 and ask for Fritz or
Stammtisch.
Tomball, TX
March 30 – April 1: Texas German Convention. Call 281-444-7572, email glennguettler@aol.com
, or visit www.texasgermansociety.com
Tomball, TX
March 31 – April 1: Tomball German Heritage Festival. Old Town Tomball – Antique District, 200 Main Street. Call 281-379-6844 or email gradsand@yahoo.com
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