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June/July 2007
Profile: Cloris Leachman— Frau Blücher Speaks!
by Vickie J. Rubinson
The mere mention of her name was enough to spook horses and keep fans laughing for thirty years since Mel Brooks' hilarious horror spoof Young Frankenstein.
The mysterious Frau Blücher was played by German-American actress Cloris Leachman. Leachman is no mystery to millions of Americans since she appeared in dozens of movies, plays, and
television shows.
"In Hollywood, they wanted to cut off my nose and change my name," muses Leachman in an interview. "So I opened a phone book and just picked out a name. It was
Leavitt...so I left it!"
A versatile player, equally adept at comedy, music, or drama, Leachman gained early experiences on stage plays during the Golden Age of television. Hailing from the Midwest, Cloris
began her career as a radio performer while still in her teens.
Opting to attend Northwestern because of its esteemed acting school, Leachman entered the Miss Chicago beauty pageant while still an undergraduate, eventually competing in and placing
as one of the five finalists in the 1946 Miss America competition.
Taking the $1,000 scholarship prize, she headed to New York City for further training, eventually being invited by Elia Kazan to join the famed "Actor's Studio."
Hollywood soon beckoned and she eventually landed the role of ditsy self-absorbed landlady Phyllis Lindstrom on the now classic Mary Tyler Moore Show. The role earned Leachman two
Emmy Awards as Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy. In 1972, Leachman received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role of Ruth Popper in The Last Picture Show.
"I have fond memories of these comedies I appeared in," says Leachman. "When we filmed High Anxiety, I was to play sinister psychiatric Nurse Diesel. So I penciled in
a light mustache, added extra shoulder pads, and raised my costume's torpedo shaped breasts to just below my chin and talked out of the side of my mouth. It was a riot!"
So agrees mentor/producer Mel Brooks: "Cloris' genius is that she never plays comedy for laughs. She's deadly serious as the character."…
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Coming Back From the Brink
by Norman Levine
Ravaged by the effects of the Holocaust, Germany’s Jewish community takes steps toward renewal.
Suddenly, they were gone. As Adolf Hitler’s final solution decimated the Jewish community across Germany, the world has wondered if those of Jewish faith would ever return. My
visit to several Jewish communities in Germany – Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin – revealed that, although a void still exists, there are signs of rebirth.
The Federal Government of Germany and the individual Lande as well, are extremely generous in their financial support of these rebuilding efforts. Not only have they donated money, but
they also provide security personnel to protect Jewish synagogues or community centers from anti-Semitic attacks. In Berlin, the golden domed Old Jewish Synagogue at 28-30 Oranienburgstrasse is guarded around
the clock by city police and, around the corner, a smaller Jewish synagogue is secured with similar police surveillance.
“The Jews of Leipzig are very grateful to both the Federal Government of Germany and the Lande government of Saxony,” Art Kaufman, Chair of the Israeli Religious Community of Leipzig,
said. “The survival and growth of the small Jewish communities throughout Germany could not have taken place without the help of these governments.”
Eva Rietze, Chair of the Jewish Community in Dresden, affirmed Kaufman’s statement. “Here in Dresden a new Jewish synagogue was completed in 2001. Named the Semper Synagogue, this new
prayer house would not stand today without the financial assistance of both Berlin and Saxony.”
“Most of the new Jewish immigrants come from Russia,” Art Kaufman informed me. “They come back because they have previous ties.”
Kaufman’s grandfather left Leipzig at the turn of the twentieth century to relocate in Russia and inadvertently saved Kaufman’s father and Art Kaufman himself from the Holocaust. The
collapse of both Communist East Germany and the Soviet Union and the establishment of a unified democratic German state were the impetus propelling Kaufman back to the original birthplace of his grandfather.
“Ninety percent of the Jewish population in Leipzig is from Russia, “Kaufman advised.
The exodus of Jews from Russia also exhibits a geriatric bias. While younger Jews relocate to the United States and Israel – memories and family connections are the magnets that draw
the older Jews back to Germany. For the most part, the Jewish inhabitants throughout Germany are in the geriatric age group.
The German social service state is another incentive for elder Jews to remain in Germany. Social benefits for seniors, such as medical care, housing subsidies, food allowances, and
social support mechanisms, are more ample in Germany than in the United States or Israel, and so an aging population feels more secure in that country…
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The Painted Churches of Texas
by Nan Bauroth
The artistic mastery of German, Swiss, and Czech immigrants lives on colorful frescoes, ceilings, and altars.
Deep in the heart of Texas cattle country, the spires of four quaint churches rise out of the endless grasslands, as if lifting their hands toward heaven. Known as “The Painted
Churches of Texas,” these unpretentious buildings dating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century house an unexpected treasure trove of masterful decorative painting by German, Swiss, and
Czechoslovakian immigrants.
Although Texas claims twenty painted churches, of which fifteen are listed on the National Historic Register, the four located near the town of Schulenburg are the most renowned
because of their level of artistry.
Sharon Rankin, long-term docent and authority on the Painted Churches, says the story behind these beautiful sanctuaries began in the 1820s when Texas still belonged to Mexico. Eager to
settle its vast territory, the Mexican government offered free land grants and urged Germany to send emigrants. Royals, worried about the rising number of “revolutionaries” in their midst, formed a stock company
owned by noblemen to ship any troublemakers to Texas. From 1847 to 1850, more than fifteen thousand immigrants from Germany disembarked, with more flooding in after the Civil War.
“The itinerant artisans who painted the churches came through Galveston and traveled on oxcarts along the waterway and main roads,” says Rankin. The many churches and public buildings
being erected during this influx created a demand for artisans trained in Europe.
“In exchange for room and board, these artists would take a job at someone’s house and paint their living room or something else until their reputation reached the point they could
charge money,” Rankin explains. Such was the case with Gottfried Flury, a Swiss artist who decorated The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church, along with several others in Texas.
According to a history of Schulenburg written by F. Lottoe in 1902, the city at that time was entirely comprised of Germans, including many Moravians, with a sprinkling of Bohemians and
blacks.
The “Father” of Schulenburg was Christian Baumgarten. Born in Tartun, Saxony, he immigrated to Texas in 1854 and married Ernestine Pannewitz, who had come from Pennig, Germany.
Baumgarten acquired his stake when the land he owned was purchased in 1873 by the railroad to build a line and train station, an event that spawned the town. A century later, the German and Czech roots of
Schulenburg (which means “school town” in German) are still very much in evidence.
The painted decoration in these four tiny churches is a New World variant on the classic pastels, faux marbling, and ornate gilt of German cathedrals. Emigrant artisans incorporated
numerous symbols, such as the descending dove, Maltese Cross, Eye of God, and initials “IHS.” They often concocted their own secret recipes of color, which they used to spectacular effect in stenciling exquisite
designs…
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Earthbound Paradise – Constance
by Leah Larkin
Germany’s largest lake offers beautiful water, miles of shoreline, and endless options to bike, boat, swim, and shop.
My introduction to Constance was from a bicycle seat. This vibrant German university city on the shores of the Bodensee (Lake Constance) is part of the well-known Bodensee bike
route, which circles the lake and takes in three countries: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Constance is a jewel on the route, and I have been back several times – with and without my bike. This city of eighty thousand, on the border with Switzerland, is a mini-paradise on the
water with gorgeous gardens, fabulous frescoed houses and a bustling harbor. Boats that cruise the lake, as well as shuttle visitors to the nearby islands of Mainau and Reichenau, and the Rhine Falls, depart
from the town.
Constance hugs the western end of the Bodensee, where the Rhine flows from the lake into a smaller lake, the Untersee, then onto the North Sea.
Swim in the lake, take a boat ride, rent a bike for a pedal to Switzerland and/or Austria, admire the architecture, visit a museum, chill out on the beach with a book – Constance is a
place for all.
On a recent visit – without bike – I had more time to explore the narrow streets of Constance’s old town and tour its attractions. The painted houses are my favorite. Due to its
proximity to Switzerland – the Allies did not want to risk damaging a neutral country – Constance was not bombed during World War II. Several turn-of-the century houses with colorful facades add an artistic
touch to the inner city.
It was the fashion back then to illustrate historical events with painted scenes on buildings, as had been done hundreds of years earlier in the Renaissance. Constance has several
outstanding examples of these elaborately decorated structures, including the Rathaus, a sixteenth-century building that was decorated much later with paintings that tell the history of the town. There is one
original frescoed house from the Renaissance, Haus Zum Goldenen Löwen. The wonderful façade on the Haus zum Hohen Hafen in the Obermarkt, an important historical square, which was the site of executions in
medieval times, is another gem. The tourist office has a helpful brochure, “Konstanz, a Walking Tour,” with information on these and other historic houses.
Constance played a major role in Catholic Church history. From 1414 to 1418, the Council of Constance convened to put an end to the Great Schism. Three men – Gregory XII, John XXIII,
and Benedict XIII – all claimed to be pope. The Holy Roman Emperor of the time, Sigismund, insisted on the convocation and chose Constance as the site because it was an imperial city…
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New York’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum
by James E. Held
For many German immigrants, New York’s tenements were their first meager attempts to establish a home in their new world.
As Frau Natalie Gumpertz frantically paced the wooden floors that October 7, 1874, night, the clock chimes marked the passing hours and that her husband Julius, an unemployed
shoemaker, was still not home. Shady characters lurked in New York’s teeming Lower East Side, especially since the Panic of 1873 had created waves of bankruptcies and twenty-five percent unemployment. Leaving
her four sleeping children, she clung to the railing like a lifeline in the darkened hallway reeking of cabbage, onions, and coal smoke, hoping perhaps she would find him at John Schneider’s “Lager Beer Saloon”
on the ground floor. Maybe neighborhood friends detained Julius at one of the many Vereine, clubs catering to athletes, choirs, and free-thinkers, because distractions were many in Klein Deutschland: lectures at 10th Ward Hotel, Germania, or Odd Fellow’s Halls; performances at the German Opera House or Stadttheater or else Bier und Musik at the Bowery’s Wintergarden, Thalia, Germania, and Atlantic Garden,
establishments emblematic not of the thoroughfare’s future seediness, but of New York’s vibrant German culture. On Orchard Street, however, Natalie gazed into the darkness where Julius vanished forever. Today,
Spanish bodegas, gentrification, and Chinese characters rather than German Gothic script distinguish this neighborhood between Avenue A and the Bowery, St. Marks and Grand Streets, but Natalie’s saga remains a
significant chapter of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
While log cabins represent our rural heritage writers, artists such as Henry Roth and George Bellows made brick tenements symbols of immigrant life. Many Germans found political
freedom and economic opportunities not in tilling the soil, but within America’s bustling cities. By 1880, New York, with one hundred fifty-four thousand immigrants, harbored the world’s third largest German
community after Berlin and Vienna. Still, if the Irish found a dubious welcome, most at least spoke English, but Germans were the first major arrivals outside the Anglophone world. They were met with suspicions
about their language, distrust of their Catholic and Jewish faiths, disdain for Socialist and anti-slavery principles and displeasure at celebrating Sabbath with music and festivities. A law banning German from
New York streets was narrowly defeated, but thriftiness and toil won begrudging admiration. Poet Walt Whitman frequented the gemütlich beer halls lining the Bowery, but modern visitors need only to enter 97 Orchard Street to discover the daunting challenges German urban pioneers faced…
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Hansastadt Wismar
by Zac Steger
From Hanseatic League member to a showcase for classic Brick Gothic architecture, Wismar enchants visitors with its eclectic mix.
There is a certain mysterious beauty about the Baltic port city of Wismar. It is evident that this gem of Backsteingotik (Brick Gothic architecture) and former member of the
Hanseatic League has its fair share of history to tell, from seamen and merchants to conquering Swedish armies and even vampires!
Wismar is a charming city located at the Mecklenburg Bay, somewhat sheltered from the stormy waters of the Baltic by Poel Island. It lies on a stretch of coastline that features some of
northern Germany’s most beautiful cities, including Schwerin, Rostock, and Lübeck. Along with nearby Stralsund, also a Hansa city, Wismar was quite deservingly designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in June
2002.
The first mention of Wismar goes back to 1229, with the construction of the Basilika St. Marien (St. Mary’s Basilica) beginning shortly after in 1250. It is one of four important
churches in Wismar and, in 1945, it was destroyed in an air raid by Allied bombers. Only the tower of the church remains.
Air raids also severely damaged the nearby Archdeaconry, considered one of the most beautiful secular examples of Brick Gothic architecture in Wismar. It was partially reconstructed in
1961 after additional damage created when the local government decided to blow up the St. Mary’s Basilica.
Entering the old town from the northeast, one follows the old canal, once used for drinking water. This leads to the first major site in the city, the St.-Nikolai-Kirche, which, at
thirty-seven meters high, boasts the fourth highest steeple in all of Germany and one of the largest in all of Europe. A true gem of architecture in Wismar, this late-Gothic basilica was spared during World War
II and is worth seeing for its beautiful façade and interior frescos, as well as the fifteenth-century Beautiful Madonna and Child sculpture.
The nearby Schabbelhaus was built in the sixteenth century and named for Mayor Hinrich Schabbel. It was one of the earliest Renaissance-style buildings along the German Baltic coast and
today it houses the Stadtgeschictliche Museum (City History Museum).
Krämerstraße is filled with beautifully decorated gabled houses, which are today home to various shops and bakeries. One of the most notable businesses here is Karstadt, which was
opened by Rudolph Karstadt in 1881 and today is one of the most popular department store chains in Germany. At the end of Krämerstraße, visitors pass the gold colored building housing the “Löwen Apotheke,” or
Lion’s Pharmacy…
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Louisville’s German Elegance – The Seelbach Hotel
by Susan McKee
Thanks to German brothers Louis and Otto Seelbach, you can fall under the spell of European opulence along the Ohio River.
A century ago, Louis Seelbach and his younger brother, Otto, decided it was time to open a second hotel in the bustling riverfront town of Louisville, Kentucky. The brothers, who
had emigrated from Bavaria, had started out working for other hoteliers and then running a series of restaurants and small inns, but in the 1870s they opened Seelbachs, a hostelry in the warehouse district.
As Louisville expanded, it was time to take advantage of the growing tourist trade and build a new hotel in the style and tradition of the grand hotels of Europe. Their original would
be renamed The Old Inn, and the new became the Seelbach Hotel.
Opened in 1905, the one hundred ninety-six-room, ten-story hotel became so popular that, after only two years, the brothers were confident enough to add a new wing, expanding the hotel
to three hundred fifty rooms.
Louisville is located on the Ohio River, a main artery for westward expansion in the nineteenth century when transporting goods and people by boat was much faster than by road. It was
on the route from the eastern settlements of the United States through Pittsburgh and on to the Mississippi River and then south to New Orleans. This settlement, centered on what is now 12th Street, had been
officially designated a town by the Virginia legislature in 1780 – Kentucky was part of colonial Virginia.
During the American Revolution, the town was named “Louisville” in honor of King Louis XVI of France for his assistance against the British, and, in 1792, Kentucky became the fifteenth
American state. When Louisville became an incorporated city in 1828, it had a population of seven thousand. Once the canal bypassing the rocky rapids of the Falls of the Ohio was opened in 1830, the city grew
rapidly. Train service arrived in 1891. In 1900, there were more than two hundred thousand in Louisville, by then the largest city in Kentucky, and the tenth largest in the United States.
The Seelbachs were among the newcomers. By the 1870s, Louisville had attracted enough German immigrants to support six different chapters of the Independent Order of Redmen, a German
benevolent society. According to historical sources, thirteen churches advertised themselves as specifically serving the German population of Louisville, including four Roman Catholic, two Methodist Episcopal,
one Baptist, and six Evangelical churches. There were three German banks, four German-language newspapers, and two German musical societies. Today, some fifteen percent of Louisvillians claim German ancestry…
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The Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center
by Wendy Komancheck
The combined efforts of Kutztown University and the Kutztown Folk Festival help preserve the Pennsylvania Dutch heritage while introducing it to new generations.
The culture is quickly changing in the Pennsylvania Dutch region of Pennsylvania, which extends from the Lehigh Valley to York County in the south central part of Pennsylvania.
The pastoral landscape of farms, roadside fruit and vegetable stands, the Pennsylvania Dutch accent, among other peculiarities of the culture, are fading fast as “outsiders” move into the area and farmland is
transformed into subdivisions and highways.
Fortunately, the folks of the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, recognized this trend and decided to do something about it in 1992. The Center
holds more than ten thousand artifacts of the Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Culture Society. Additionally, the Center has pieces that reflect another transition in American history – the time that moved from
agricultural to industrial in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, those artifacts reflect a time where people wanted to hold onto and pass the Pennsylvania Dutch culture onto the next
generation.
Interestingly, many exhibits also emphasize women’s roles in the agrarian culture that focus on Pennsylvania German life, such as “domestic skills, cultural tastes, and women’s
clothing.” Also, farming is realized at the Center with agricultural pieces dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Center encompasses a thirty-acre nineteenth-century farm complete with authentically restored stone farmhouse, barn, and outbuildings. The property also features a one-room
schoolhouse (circa 1870) and a library dedicated to genealogical, cultural, and historical resources.
Darlene Moyer, assistant director at the Center, explains that the Heritage Center was the brain child of the former Kutztown University President, Dr. McFarland; Dr. David Valuska, who
is a history professor at the University and a Civil War expert; and Vice-President Bill Sutton of Kutztown University. Moyer says, “The University had an adjoining farm and we’re exploring uses for it. Dr.
Valuska was hired as the first director, and the Center grew from there. Communication and negotiation with the now deceased President of the Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Culture Society, Florence Baver, was
successful in having the artifacts and library merge with the Heritage Center.”
The Pennsylvania Dutch are descendants of the Palatinate region of Germany and include the Amish, Mennonites, Lutherans, and Reformed. The Pennsylvania Dutch dialect is a High German
dialect that traces back to the Palatinate as well as dialects from southwestern Germany and Switzerland. If you travel within the Pennsylvania Dutch region, you may hear the dialects and the Pennsylvania Dutch
accent. Today, the Amish and Mennonites primarily speak in Pennsylvania Dutch, while other Pennsylvania Dutch descendants speak English with Pennsylvania Dutch words sprinkled into their speech that reflects the
High German spoken by their ancestors…
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At the Three-Country Corner – Zittau
by Jörg M. Unger
Visit this seventeenth century trading powerhouse at the shared borders of Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
“Der Aussichtsturm ist offen“ (the lookout tower is open), a sign reads in front of Johanniskirche (Church of St. John) and invites you to climb up
the two hundred and sixty-six steps to the tower keeper of Zittau. He blows his trumpet at noon and welcomes visitors to enjoy the view upon the town and the nearby mountain range from his lodgings two hundred
feet above the market square.
Lying on the banks of the rivers Neisse and Mandau, Zittau is situated in the southeastern corner of Saxony, also known as the “three-country-corner,” where the borders of the Czech
Republic, Poland, and Germany meet. Zittau was founded by the Bohemian King, Ottokar II in 1238. About one hundred years later, Zittau banded together with the towns of Görlitz, Bautzen, Löbau, Kamenz, and
Lauban (Luban in Poland today) against the despotism of aristocracy and it got a free town. As a result of the Thirty Years’ War, it fell to Saxony in 1635. Because of the easy access to Bohemia, Zittau became
one of the richest trading towns of Saxony in the seventeenth century and an important cultural center as well. It was known for its cloth weavers, merchants, and beer brewers. Even today, the architecture of
patrician houses, official buildings, and churches shows the wealth of those days and you can find lavishly decorated buildings and fountains, which date back to that era.
After Reinhard Rokitte – a member of the European guild of night watchmen and tower keepers – has put away his trumpet, he may tell you about the Seven Years’ War and July 23,
1757, when the Austrian Imperial Troops shot at the spires of St. John with red-hot cannon balls, for a price was put on each hit. The church burnt down to the ground and the bombardment caused a huge fire in
the old town. The rebuilding of church started in 1766 but, due to the lack of money and structural faults, it took seventy-one years until St. John could finally – with the help of the Prussian master builder
Karl Friedrich Schinkel – be completed and opened again in 1837. Since then, the tower keepers of Zittau have watched over the city to signal enemies and prevent further disasters.
Within a radius of half a mile around the lookout tower, you can see the spires of Weberkirche (weavers’ church) in the west, Marienkirche (Church of Our Lady) and the monastery
church in the north, and Kreuzkirche (Church of the Holy Cross) in the east. The latter one was a fortified church in the Middle Ages. Built in a Bohemian style of construction, it has a nave of fifty-two feet
square, and from the center, the single, forty-foot-high pillar rises into the star-shaped vault like a large umbrella. Its choir houses, instead of an altar, the most valuable exhibit of Zittau – the Large
Lenten Veil of 1472, which is a masterpiece of sacred textile painting. Originally, Lenten veils were plain and simple cloths to shroud the choir or altar of a church from Ash Wednesday to the Easter Week. In
the course of time, however, many veils developed to real “picture bibles.” The Large Lenten Veil of Zittau measures twenty-two by twenty-seven feet and was painted with ninety pictures in tempera colors,
depicting scenes of the Old and New Testament. ..
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German Craftsmen and the Founding of Jamestown, 1607 to 1610
by Robert A. Selig
Four centuries ago, a small group of German glassmakers and carpenters stepped ashore in Jamestown as part of a bold experiment to colonize a new land.
On 14 May 2007, the Commonwealth of Virginia and with it, the whole country, will celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jamestown in 1607, the first
permanent English settlement on the American continent and cradle of the United States of America. During their state visit to Jamestown in May 2007, Queen Elizabeth II of England and her husband, the Duke of
Edinburgh, will no doubt also see this marker on the grounds of "Historic Jamestowne":
GLASSMAKING – 1608
HERE ON GLASSHOUSE POINT THE JAMESTOWN SETTLERS, IN 1608, BUILT
FURNACES, MADE GLASS, AND SHIPPED A "TRIAL" OF IT TO ENGLAND.THIS MARKED THE BEGINNINGS OF OUR AMERICAN GLASS MANUFACTURE, ONE OF THE NATION'S FIRST "INDUSTRIAL"
ENTERPRISES.
What this historical marker does not tell the royal or any other visitors is that the "Jamestown Settlers" who produced the seventeenth-century glassware artifacts on
display there were four or five German craftsmen who had arrived on the good ship Margaret & Mary in late September or early October 1708, just a little over a year after the first group of Englishmen had
claimed the area for King James I and the stockholders of the London Virginia Company.
This small group of German settlers, eight or nine at most, which Captain Christopher Newport brought to the New World in the fall of 1608, constitutes but the vanguard of what since
then has become the single largest non-English ethnic group in the United States. Over the next decades, these first few men were followed by more skilled craftsmen from German-speaking Europe who added their
labor, knowledge, and lives to the crucible out of which would grow homes for tens of millions of their fellow countrymen who followed the route they had pioneered in 1608.
Precious little, however, is known about this small German contingent among the seventy-plus passengers of the Margaret & Mary that left England in July 1608. Most historians
agree that there were five German glassmakers, "Dutchmen" in the language of the times, who possibly came from Hessia in Central Germany. This assumption is based on the chemical analysis of fragments
of a crucible brought by these glassmakers that were found in the ruins of the furnace they built outside the settlement in 1609 which places the crucible into Central Germany. Crucibles for glassmaking are
vessels made of a refractory substance such as graphite or porcelain and are used for melting the raw glass and working with it at high temperatures. Besides the glassmakers, the Margaret & Mary also carried a Swiss-German mineral prospector named variously William Volday or Faldoe (probably Wilhelm Waldi) and three German carpenters known only as Adam, Franz, and Samuel. Just like the three or four Polish potash and soap-ash makers on the Margaret
& Mary, these men had been sent to Virginia for their skills rather than to farm or serve as common laborers…
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At Home: Foam on the Range
by Sharon Hudgins
Foamy-textured foods are currently a fad among trendy chefs in many parts of the world. A decade ago, certain chefs in Spain began introducing diners to ethereally frothy foods
called espumas, made by forcing puréed-and-strained ingredients though a whipping-cream gadget that uses nitrous oxide gas to aerate the liquid. Poof! Suddenly you have fruit foam, berry foam, potato foam,
tomato foam, zucchini foam, fish-egg foam, even wood-scented water foam – whatever flavor you want.
However, there's nothing new under the sun. Frothy foods have been around for centuries, if not longer: British syllabubs, French mousses, and sabayons, Italian zabaglione, Russian gogol-mogol,
to name only a few.
French sabayon and Italian zabaglione are both thick foams made from eggs, sugar, and wine, most often served as desserts or as sweet sauces. The German version of these eggy sweets is called Weinschaum
("wine foam") or Weinchaudeau (a combination of German and French words meaning "wine-hot-water," since the mixture is cooked over hot water). A slightly thinner version is the sauce known as Weinschaumsosse or Weinschaumsauce ("wine-foam sauce"), sometimes made as a savory sauce for fish or vegetable dishes, but more often as a sweet sauce to accompany fresh fruits and berries, ice creams, crêpes, soufflés, cakes, and boiled or steamed puddings, such as Bavarian Dampfnudeln.
You don't need any fancy kitchen equipment to make Weinschaum or its saucy cousin at home. The secret of these spumy sweets is constant whisking and attention to temperature
control. Once you get the hang of making these classics in your own kitchen, you'll wonder why all the fuss about today's fashionable foamy foods. Besides, after tasting the trendy potato, mushroom, and zucchini
foams, I'd choose a good old-fashioned Weinschaum over them any time!…
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Language: Heines Denkmal in der Bronx
Von Gert Niers
Fast so kompliziert wie sein Leben in Deutschland war, so ist die Geschichte dieses Denkmals, das ursprünglich in seinem Geburtsort aufgestellt werden sollte, aber dann auf die
andere Seite des Atlantiks in eine Gegend gelangte, die er nie betreten hatte. Gemeint sind der Lyriker und Essayist Heinrich Heine und das Heine-Denkmal in der Bronx.
Heinrich (bzw. Chaim Harry) Heine wurde 1797 in Düsseldorf geboren. Die Familie war jüdischer Herkunft. 1819 begann er ein Jurastudium, das ihn von der Universität Bonn nach
Göttingen, Berlin und wieder nach Göttingen führte. 1825 erhielt er sein Doktorat in Rechtswissenschaften. Um eine Anstellung im Staatsdienst erlangen, trat er zum lutherischen Glauben über und ließ sich auf den
Namen Christian Johann Heinrich taufen. Allerdings brachte ihm dieser offizielle Religionswechsel nicht viel ein. Auf Grund von gegen ihn gerichteten Intrigen und Vorurteilen blieb ihm ein Lehramt an der
Universität München versagt.
Heine, vor allem an Literatur, Philosophie und politischen Fragen interessiert, etablierte sich als freier Schriftsteller und Journalist. Seine ersten Gedichte erschienen unter
einem Pseudonym 1817. Seine Dichtung spiegelt oft den schmerzhaften Konflikt zwischen romantischer Sensibilität und harter Realität wider. Als Jornalist und Essayist konnte konnte er sarkastisch, geistreich und
umwerfend witzig sein (eine Einschätzung, die davon abhängt, ob ein reaktionärer oder progressiver Leser sich Heines Werk vornimmt). In Deutschland war Heine oft umstritten wegen seiner kritischen Grundhaltung
und seines Kampfes um Freiheit von Tyrannei und Dummheit.
Heine’s Monument in the Bronx
by Gert Niers
Almost as complicated as his life was in Germany, so is the history of this monument which originally was supposed to be set up in his native town, but then wound up on the other
side of the Atlantic Ocean in an area on which he had never set foot. We are referring to the poet and essayist Heinrich Heine and the Heine Monument in the Bronx.
Heinrich (originally Chaim Harry) Heine was born in Düsseldorf in 1797. The family was of Jewish background. In 1819, Heine began his law studies, which took him from the
University of Bonn to Göttingen, Berlin, and again to Göttingen. In 1825, he received his doctorate of jurisprudence. In order to enter a career in public service, he converted to Lutheran Protestantism and was
baptized Christian Johann Heinrich. However, the official change of religion did not help him much. Intrigue and prejudice were directed against him and robbed him of a job offer from the University of Munich.
Heine, mainly interested in literature, philosophy, and political issues, established himself as an independent author and journalist. His first poems appeared under a pseudonym
in 1817. His poetry often reflects the painful conflict between romantic sensitivity and harsh reality. As a journalist and essayist, he could be sarcastic, sharp-witted, and hilariously funny (a judgment that
depends on whether a reactionary or progressive reader examines Heine’s work). In Germany, Heine was often controversial because of his critical attitude and his fight for freedom from tyranny and
narrow-mindedness…
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Family Research: Long Years of Research Rewarded
by James M. Beidler
German Life reader Kenny Burck from Cincinnati, Ohio, is the proof that a genealogist never knows when a “gusher” will come his way – no matter how many years of “dry holes”
his research has yielded.
Burck began his research in 1968 and has made seven trips to Germany and numerous trips to American repositories in search of ancestors. So when he made his sixth trip to the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Library in Salt Lake City in January, the odds of a “breakthrough” find were probably against him.
He roamed around the library for a couple days looking for undiscovered resources, then put the name of his ancestor, Susanna Catharina Scharf, into the LDS website, www.familysearch.org, and came back with information that was teasingly close to what he knew.
The situation was that Susanna Catharina’s husband, Johann Michael Frank, a barrel maker (born in 1754) and his family lived in Schriesheim, Baden, for generations – however,
Johann Michael apparently had moved to another location, married about 1785, and had at least one son before moving back to Schriesheim.
Burck had used the standard methodology of searching towns surrounding Schriesheim – expanding his search by making larger and larger circles around Schriesheim, but did not find
the marriage or birthplace of Johann Michael’s wife, Susanna Catharina. He knew she was born about 1759 (Burck knew her birth year from her age at death recorded in the Schriesheim Evangelical Church book on 18
May 1813 that indicated she had lived fifty-three years, seven months and nineteen days but did not indicate her birthplace). The LDS website’s International Genealogical Index listed – unfortunately without
adequate sourcing – a Susanna Catharina Scharf, born about 1763 (that was close) and married about 1780 (also close) in a place, “of Riguewihn.” The problem was Burck could not find “Riguewihn.”
Then he put all of those years of retained research knowledge to work. He recalled that during a previous trip to Europe in 1991, he visited the town of Riquewihr, Alsace, now in
France. The town was named Reichenweier in German and was now a well-known tourist spot with a rich wine history and would have had a need for barrel makers. He knew that young men learning an occupation would
many times travel away from home to another town to learn the required skills to become a successful craftsman…
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Calendar:
June:
Frederick, MD
First Friday of the month: Der Stammtisch. From 7:00 p.m. on at Brewer’s Alley, located at 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127 and ask for Fritz or Stammtisch.
Indianapolis, IN
First Wednesday and first Saturday of the month: Docent-led Athenaeum tours at 401 East Michigan Street. Call 317-630-4569, ext 1.
San Antonio, TX
June 1: Southtown First Friday. Call 210-222-1521.
Newport, KY
June 2-3: German Day Kickoff & Celebration. Call 513-351-3185, or E-Mail one2print@aol.com .
Manheim, PA
June 8-9: German Sommerfest. Call 717-898-8451, or E-Mail lancasterliederkranz@comcast.net .
Harmony, PA
June 9: Herb & Garden Fair. Call toll-free 1-888-821-4822 or visit www.harmonymuseum.org .
San Antonio, TX
June 15: Gartenkonzert. 5:00 p.m. to midnight. Call 210-222-1521.
Covington, KY
June 16-17: 7th Annual Goettafest. Call 859-491-0458 or visit www.mainstrasse.org .
Covington, KY
June 16-17: 5th Annual Mainstrasse Village River Raid Renaissance Festival. Call 859-491-0458 or visit www.mainstrasse.org .
Walpole, MA
June 16-17: Sommerfest. Boylston Schul-Verein. Call 508-660-2018 or visit www.germanclub.org .
Hershey, PA
June 21-24: Gaufest. For information on attending, visit www.edelweissreading.com .
Leavenworth, WA
June 21-23: International Accordion Celebration. Call the Chamber of Commerce at 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org .
Cole Camp, MO
June 23: Sängerfest (German Music Festival). Call 660-668-3157 for more information.
Waukesha, WI
June 28: German Car Club Thursdays. Audi/VW/Opel Enthusiasts. From 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Drink and dinner specials will be offered. Held at Weissgerber’s Gasthaus.
Kutztown, PA
June 30-July 8: The Kutztown Festival. Hours are 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily. Admission is $12 for adults, $11 for seniors, Free for children 12 and under with adult.
Call toll-free 1-888-674-6136 or visit www.kutztownfestival.com .
July
Leavenworth, WA
July: Summer Theater including Sound of Music. Call the Chamber of Commerce at 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org .
Frederick, MD
First Friday of the month: Der Stammtisch. From 7:00 p.m. on at Brewer’s Alley, located at 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127 and ask for Fritz or Stammtisch.
Indianapolis, IN
First Wednesday and first Saturday of the month: Docent-led Athenaeum tours at 401 East Michigan Street. Call 317-630-4569, ext. 1.
Kutztown, PA
July 1-8: The Kutztown Festival. Hours are 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily. Admission is $12 for adults, $11 for seniors, Free for children 12 and under with adult. Call
toll-free 1-888-674-6136 or visit www.kutztownfestival.com .
Leavenworth, WA
July 4: Kinderfest. Call the Chamber of Commerce at 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org .
San Antonio, TX
July 6: Southtown First Friday. Patriotic program featuring singing as well as dance and a slide show.
Covington, KY
July 15: Mainstrasse Village Classic Car Show. Over 250 classic cars will be showcased. Call 859-491-0458 or visit www.mainstrasse.org .
Lombard, IL
July 19-22: 40th Annual Germanfest. At Sacred Heart Church, intersection of Maple and Elizabeth Streets. Call 630-627-0687 or visit www.sacredheartlombard.org
San Antonio, TX
July 20: Gartenkonzert. 5:00 p.m. to midnight. Call 210-222-1521.
Des Plaines, IL
July 20-22: Annual Weekend Folk Dance Workshop. Call 860-875-3559 or E-Mail Karin-grottier@webtv.net .
Waukesha, WI
July 26: German Car Club Thursdays. Porsche Enthusiasts. From 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Drink and dinner specials will be offered. Held at Weissgerber’s Gasthaus.
Milwaukee, WI
July 27-29: German Fest. Henry Maier Festival Park. Call 414-464-9444 or visit www.germanfest.com .
Timonium, MD
July 28-29: 107th Annual German Festival. State Fair Grounds. Call 410-522-4144 or visit www.md-germans.org .
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