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June/July 2008
Documenting the Journey: Germans in America
by Brenda Ruggiero
Germans in America is a four-part television series currently being shown on various public television stations throughout the United States. The series uses location shooting, archival footage, interviews with the descendants of immigrants, and historical re-creation to bring history to life.
The project was originally initiated by Hans-Robert Eisenhauer, deputy program director for ARTE, the European Cultural Channel. The idea derived from a PBS program on the
Irish. Since Germans represent a large group as well with a totally different history, Eisenhauer was interested in creating a program about them. He approached Bill Gilcher at the Goethe-Institut in Washington,
D.C., and selected Axel Engstfeld as his producer.
The next step was to find partners, which Engstfeld noted was difficult because of the difference in perspective.
“For example, for a German view of the history of immigration, it is very important to reflect the reasons and circumstances why the people left the country,” he
said. “For an American audience, that is of minor importance. Then there is a different approach in filmmaking and style in PBS and the German market…it ends up in year-long debates with different
potential co-producers. In the end, we decided to just go ahead with only the European money secured.”
Engstfeld asked Peter Mesenhöller to serve as his historic advisor/consultant for the four-part documentary. The original intent was to cover a time span of about three hundred
years of German emigration to America, but the men soon realized that this would result in “reeling off” historic facts.
“Instead, we developed the idea of personalizing history through a number of historic protagonists whose biographies could serve as paradigms or ‘typical’
examples for the millions of Germans who left the German territories,” Mesenhöller said. “Re-enactments…became a crucial and critical issue in developing the scripts for each part of the
series. The entire production took some four years, over which each sequence was continually re-evaluated.”
According to Gilcher, they originally looked for an American public television co-production partner in Boston, Washington, or Chicago, but were unsuccessful. Once the series was
produced in German with European funding, they looked for a United States public television partner for an American adaptation. Their search led them to the National Educational Telecommunications Association
(NETA) and South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV)…
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Profile: Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester – The Sounds of Another Time and Place
by Vickie Rubinson
Founded in 1986 by the charismatic baritone Max Raabe, “Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester” embodies the high style and musical glory of the 1920s and 1930s. Based
in Berlin, they currently perform over one hundred fifty concerts a year, around the world celebrating this timeless music, with uncanny precision and drama.
Max Raabe’s art lies in revealing the enigmatic intelligence and universal power of the German chansons from the turbulent Weimar Republic. A singer with incredible range,
Raabe has the ability to capture the cunning rasp of the cabaret singer, the confidant bel canto hero, the carefree timbre of early jazz, and the falsetto of ragtime, all backed by his stellar twelve-member band.
“It’s supposed to be elegant, tasteful nonsense,” says Raabe of the Palast Orchester. “I liked the idea of standing on stage in elegant tails with the
orchestra and celebrating such strong language as “schwein” (pig) and “sau” (swine). It was an elegant way of snubbing. It was supposed to be a one-time gag.”
The forty-five year old Raabe is originally from Lünen in Germany’s Westphalia region. He took his first musical steps in church choirs. At the age of eighteen he fled from the
influence of the local diocese and moved to the city that, although then surrounded by the Wall, was still liberal minded and would later become the cradle of fame: Berlin. It proved fortunate to have founded
the Palast Orchester. Two years after making this investment in his musical future, Raabe began his studies in opera at the University of the Arts in Berlin, a seven-year endeavor, which, upon completion,
certified him as a baritone.
The 1990s were important for Max Raabe. He had a super hit with a song about a non-ringing phone and also gathered experience in film. In The Blue Angel, he played a student; two years later he played Dr. Siedler in the Berlin cult production of Im weisen rossl. Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester made appearances in Sonke Wortmann’s film Der
bewegte Mann, which was soon followed by Raabe’s role as an anti-alcoholic drunk for the television production of Charley’s Aunt. And finally there was Werner Herzog in The Invincible, Raabe,
once again appearing with the Palast Orchester, plays a master of ceremonies in the 1930s.
The Palast Orchester reanimates songs that were once played at each and every ball and festivity in Weimar era Germany, popular songs that everybody sang in the streets. Some
were labeled “Entartete Kunst“(degenerative art), and were forbidden during the Nazi regime.
After 1933, Germany robbed itself of its culture as many of its artists were exiled or killed. The singers and composers, whose names were slated for eradication, celebrate a
quiet triumph today, finding new audiences enamored with the music’s skewed humor, mocking irony, and amusing nostalgia…
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Gallery: Albrecht Dürer: Germany’s Renaissance Man
by Kim Carpenter
“What beauty is, I know not, though it adheres to many things.”
This comment by draftsman, printmaker, and painter Albrecht Dürer is perhaps one of the art world’s greatest understatements. From the complexity of his woodcuts and
engravings to the richness of his watercolor and oil paintings, Dürer emerged as one of Northern Europe’s most important artists, a man who played a key role in bringing a literary humanism to the visual
arts of the Renaissance.
The son of a Hungarian goldsmith, Dürer was born in Nuremberg, the eldest surviving son of eighteen children. He initially planned to follow in his father’s footsteps, and
through goldsmithing he received invaluable instruction in drawing and engraving. His interests, however, lay elsewhere, and despite his father’s misgivings he determined to pursue printmaking as a
vocation. At age fifteen, he therefore began a three-year apprenticeship under Michael Wolgemut, a highly respected painter who also exerted considerable influence over Nuremberg’s printmaking industry.
While most publishers tended to pay low-skilled carvers to create images for books, he employed his own draftsmen. This practice allowed Wolgemut to oversee every aspect of his workshop’s output, resulting
in prints that were technically superior to the majority produced at the time. Aside from the technicalities of the trade, Dürer therefore learned important lessons in entrepreneurship.
Once he finished his tenure at Wolgemut’s workshop, Dürer embarked on his Wanderjahre, spending four years traveling throughout Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
This time as a journeyman helped broaden his worldview as well as educate him regarding the types of works being produced outside Germany. Upon his return to Nuremberg, he wed Agnes Frey, the daughter of a
wealthy brass worker. The union was an arranged marriage, and despite Dürer’s upbringing in a large household, the couple had no children. For the most part their relationship appears to have been a
business arrangement, one that benefited the young printmaker in a variety of ways. For example, Agnes’s dowry financed a trip to Italy, where Dürer further refined his artistic eye and developed an
interest in classical and mythological content. His father-in-law’s largesse additionally allowed Dürer to purchase a home and establish his own workshop, an investment that helped set him on the way to
becoming one of the city’s most prominent and prosperous printmakers while still only in his twenties.
In this regard, Dürer’s decision to remain in Nuremberg was financially shrewd. With a population of fifty thousand, the city was large and wealthy, an imperial
“free city” among some three hundred German principalities. It also lay at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, an ideal location for trade. Moreover, Nuremberg had no painter’s guild. Although
such organizations benefited members by providing unemployment and health insurance, they also limited social and intellectual aspirations by proscribing more entrepreneurial activities. Because he was free of
such restraints, Dürer was able to cultivate relationships with leading scholars and civic leaders, associations that ultimately gained him portrait commissions by some of Europe’s wealthiest elites,
including the likes of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian of Austria…
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A German Declaration
By Nick D’Alto
On this anniversary of America’s independence, take a surprising look back at the origins of the famous declaration – in German!
Here is a remarkable document. Prepared in July 1776, it is the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence made available to the American public. And it is printed in
German! Did I miss something in history class?
In fact, we all did. Preserved today in the collection of Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg College, this unusual version of America’s founding document reveals the
rarely-told story of German master printers and their key contributions to the colonial cause. Here is the familiar story of the American Revolution that we all learned as school children – John Hancock
and Independence Hall – but with a surprising Teutonic twist.
And yet it should not be a surprise at all. Because when the founding fathers met in 1776, Philadelphia was an English city with a very German voice. By the eve of the
revolution, one in three residents of the city was a German. Nearly half of Pennsylvanians spoke German as their first or second language. And demand for the printed German word was high. Unfortunately, the
city’s most renowned printer, Benjamin Franklin, had long been critical of the Mennonites, Moravians, and Brethren in his midst. ("Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of
Aliens?” he scorned.) Yet Franklin was also a businessman, and turned a brisk trade publishing almanacs, hymnals, and other German-language literature.
To do it, Franklin sought out native speaking translators, and employed skilled German printers in his shops – men such as the Wittgenstein Quaker Christopher Sauer (born
Ladenburg, 1695), and later his son, Christopher II. Trained in Europe, these craftsmen added considerable skill to the early American printing trade. So much so, that many key milestones in colonial printing
are works in German. This includes the first truly American Bible (prepared using American-manufactured paper and type). For the German of revolutionary days, Volkslesestoff (popular reading matter) included
Hauspostille (sermon books) and Flugschrift; small folded pamphlets with travel stories, entertainment, even jokes. Learned readers could enjoy great works of literature, translated. For the more political,
newspapers such as Lancastersche Zeitung and Germantowner Zeitung report on the important issues of the day, including talk of revolution.
However, a storm was growing. Led by the influential Sauer clan, many Germans in Pennsylvania’s Brethren communities remained committed to Quaker pacifism. Despite growing
unrest in the colonies, they resisted armed conflict with the crown. Yet another voice was rising, from men such as the Moravian Pietist, Heinrich Miller (aka Johann Heinrich Moeller). Born 1702 in Rhoden,
Dukedom of Waldeck, Miller’s youthful wanderlust took him through Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. He crossed the Atlantic three times, working in New York and London. In 1752, he began printing for
Benjamin Franklin. Begun in 1760, Miller’s own newspaper, the Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote became a pipeline for presenting the cause of independence to German speakers throughout the colonies. Miller campaigned for repeal of the Stamp Act. He translated colonial documents for the Pennsylvania Assembly. When the Continental Congress wished to speak in German, Miller was their voice…
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Rhine River Cruising
by Don Heimburger
View Germany’s castle architecture from a different perspective as you float through Germany’s historic past.
The legendary Rhine River – Europe's most important waterway – is a key to unlocking the colorful history of many of Germany's fascinating highlights.
This land's famed Rheingau and Rheinhessen wine country, its charming and important river towns and cities such as Cologne, Koblenz, Rudesheim, Mainz, Braubach, Speyer, and
Breisach, and its plentiful fairy tale castles, offer breathtaking views – especially from a cruise boat.
Picture this: you are sitting in a comfortable top-deck lounge chair with a soft river breeze blowing and a cool drink in your hand, as you sail smoothly through the fortress-dotted,
lush landscape of the venerable Middle Rhine. And everything you require – sleeping accommodations, a restaurant, lounge, library, and sundeck – are all a few steps away as you float down the river.
On a recent twelve-day trip between Antwerp, Netherlands, and Basel, Switzerland, on Viking River Cruise's three-deck one hundred ninety-eight-passenger, four hundred
thirty-three-foot-long Viking Sun, the Rhine became an open history book, with wineries, quaint cobblestone pedestrian-only streets, flower-box-brimming half-timbered houses, friendly native people, with
museums and inviting shops thrown in as a bonus.
Upon making reservations for this six hundred seventy-seven-mile journey, departure information and an itinerary showed up in the mail so that I could begin anticipating the sights
and attractions my adventure would bring. I also learned that the Oberwesel-based ship I would be sailing on was built in 2004 and contained ninety-nine cabins, all facing outward. Rooms featured private
bathrooms and showers, telephone, television, a safe, hairdryer, individual climate control, and the larger, upper deck bedrooms featured French windows that opened.
Boarding in Antwerp was easy, especially when several young ship hands carried luggage to the cabins, and I settled in inspecting the ship's amenities, one of which was always-on
coffee and iced tea, as well as a big fruit basket near the lounge. Mid-afternoon pastries were standard fare, as well.
As the ship pulled from the dock at the end of the second evening dinner, passengers rushed to the upper deck to toast our “setting sail” and to watch as the twinkling
lights of the river towns and villages came and went.
After visiting Antwerp and the preserved medieval town of Brugge, the Viking Sun cruised to Rotterdam, Delft, Schoonhoven, Gouda, Amsterdam, and Arnhem before crossing into
Germany. Many of the passengers had anticipated the natural beauty of Germany's landscape near the Rhine, and wondered aloud what the next few days would bring…
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Emissaries of Good Will
by Ruth Rovner
Volunteer service bridges generational divides and helps heal the wounds of a distant past.
Growing up in the small village of Altrich, Germany, Thomas Kiesgen never knew anyone Jewish. However, since he came to Philadelphia last September, he has not only become
acquainted with many Jews but has formed a close friendship with a Holocaust survivor.
Kiesgen, twenty, is participating in a program for young Germans called Action Reconciliation for Peace (ARSP). The ARSP was founded in 1948 by members of the Protestant Church in
Berlin to confront the legacy of the Nazi era by doing good works as a sign of atonement. Young Germans accepted into this volunteer program are sent abroad for a year of volunteer social service. They take on
varied projects as a way to show Germany’s commitment to peace and good will.
In the United States, they assist the elderly, the homeless, and the disabled. However, a major focus is working with Holocaust survivors and with institutions involved in Holocaust
education.
“I’m not responsible for what happened during the Holocaust, but I want to remember and to show that young Germans care,” says Thomas. “I think we have a
responsibility to work for understanding between our generation and the Jewish community.” Thomas is one of twenty-four volunteers in the United States this year. They are serving in nine cities, including
Philadelphia, which is the United States headquarters for ARSP.
Other ARSP volunteers are at work this year in twelve countries in Eastern and Western Europe and Israel. In all, there are one hundred eighty volunteers this year, ranging in age
from nineteen to twenty-seven. “These are young people who want a meaningful experience,” says Dr. Matthias Hass, Executive Director of the United States program. “They see themselves as
Germans and they feel a responsibility to confront German history. But it’s not only looking into the past. It’s doing something to help people here and now. On one level, it’s international
relations on a one-to-one basis. Our volunteers are unofficial ambassadors from Germany.” One such ambassador is Eva Herrmann. She is a volunteer for Project EZRA, a New York agency that helps needy
elderly Jews on the Lower East Side. Quite a few are Holocaust survivors.
Eva, nineteen, visits ten Project EZRA clients every week, including two Holocaust survivors. Her oldest client is one hundred one. She often spends several hours with each one. She
reads news article from Jewish Week to one blind woman, and helps others with whatever personal needs they have. And she offers what they value most: companionship. “They appreciate having someone visit,” says Eva. “And they even say it’s a great thing that Germany sends young volunteers.”
She’s formed a special friendship with one client, Elizabeth Rosenfeld, a Holocaust survivor in her nineties. Eva visits her in the nursing home where she resides, taking her
for walks in her wheelchair or simply spending time talking…
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New Glarus, Wisconsin: America’s Little Switzerland
by Ginny Ripley
If the economy keeps you stateside this summer, you can find a bit of Switzerland in Wisconsin.
New Glarus, Wisconsin, is four thousand miles away from Glarus, Switzerland –but you would be hard-pressed to prove it. This tiny Swiss Village tucked into the southwest
corner of the state has much the same weather, terrain, architecture, food, customs, and culture as its Swiss counterpart.
With fertile farmland, golf courses, woods, and sixty-three miles of pastoral biking, hiking, and snowmobile trails along the Sugar River, New Glarus is a year-round recreational and
cultural delight.
America’s “Little Switzerland” is just one-half hour south of the State Capital of Madison and one and three-quarter hours from Milwaukee. Even the drive there is
part of the fun, unless you suffer from motion sickness. How they cut these rolling, turning highways into the countryside is beyond comprehension. I often lament that the world is overpopulated and there are
far too many subdivisions carving up the land. A trip to New Glarus is the perfect antidote. It always does my heart good to see the wide open green spaces, dotted with family-owned farms and Brown Swiss cows,
lambs, goats, and horses.
There is a nominal $3.00 charge to use the state trail. Bring your own bike or you can rent a decent trail bike right in town at the historic railroad depot that doubles as the
Visitor’s Center. They will also give you plenty of suggestions for restaurants, attractions, tours, and more.
The twenty-three-mile Sugar River Trail meanders through wildly different ecosystems and charming towns – Albany, Brodhead and Monticello – so you will not want to pedal
past too fast. The crushed limestone trail crosses over fourteen weathered bridges, ideal spots to snap a photo, rest, or watch quietly for signs of wildlife.
Bike enthusiasts will be glad to know that the newly opened Badger Trail now intersects the Sugar River Trail, adding another forty miles to explore. The highlight of the trail is the
twelve hundred-foot long Stewart Railroad Tunnel built in 1887. Do not try it without a powerful flashlight – when you get past the slight bend in the tunnel, you are plunged into total darkness, which can
be unnerving with the sounds of bat and swallow wings flapping overhead.
After your bike tour, there is plenty more to do in New Glarus, most of which you can navigate by bike or on foot. When you sniff the tangy aroma of hops in the air, you know we were
getting close to my favorite stop. The New Glarus Brewery recently moved into new quarters, with a grand opening planned for this summer. They offer tours and samples of their famous and fancifully named Spotted
Cow, Totally Naked, and Fat Squirrel beers, all made by hand without preservatives or additives. The little brewery was named Best Small Brewery in America (2003). The awards just keep coming to this world-class
operation in tiny New Glarus. They were named Midsize Brewery of the Year in 2005 and 2006…
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The Eastern Cantons: Belgium’s German Corner
By Leah Larkin
Moors, marshes, meadows and a touch of German can be found along the Belgian border, just a stone’s throw from Germany.
Kurt Ortmann likes to tell the story of how he earned medals from four different armies – Belgian, German, British, and American. Ortmann lives in Eupen in the
German-speaking part of Belgium where he was president of the parliament for many years.
In May 1940 he was a Belgian officer, but Hitler’s troops marched in, hauled him off to jail where he was given a German military uniform, and then sent to Africa to fight for
the Germans. He was wounded and rescued by the British, who realized he was not German. He joined their Army, but made his way back to Belgium. Along came the Americans. They were impressed
with his ability to speak four languages and enlisted him among their ranks. “I got four medals from four different armies,” he proudly announces.
Ortmann, a jolly character with piercing blue eyes and bushy gray eyebrows, is an expert on the history of this tiny region, the Eastern Cantons, a narrow strip of land which extends
from the Dutch border in the north to Luxembourg in the south, a sixty-kilometer long stretch that is the heart of the Ardenne-Eifel region with Germany on its eastern border.
There are three cantons – Eupen, Malmedy and St. Vith – belonging to the Eastern Cantons. Eupen in the north and St. Vith in the south are German-speaking areas
with seventy-one thousand inhabitants. In the middle is Malmedy, a French-speaking area.
German, along with French and Flemish, is one of three official languages of Belgium, although only 0.7 percent of the population speaks German. Those who speak German also speak
French, as it is part of the school curriculum in the region.
Eupen and Malmedy were awarded to Prussia by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The territory remained part of Germany until the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 when it was ceded to
Belgium. Back then some of the citizens wanted to remain German, Ortmann says.
In 1940 Hitler annexed the territory. At that time, some of the residents are said to have welcomed the Germans, even joining up to fight on the German side, although others joined
the resistance, including Ortmann’s father who had fought in World War I and feared the consequences of a Hitler regime. St. Vith, Malmedy, and Eupen were completely destroyed during the 1944-1945
Battle of the Bulge. After the war, they were reabsorbed into Belgium.
Beginning in the 1970s, the German-speaking communities acquired increasing autonomy. Since 1973 they’ve had a popularly elected council. The official “deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft Belgiens”
(German speaking community of Belgium) dates to 1983-1984 when an executive branch with headquarters in Eupen was established. It is one of the smallest self-governing entities in Europe with its own
newspaper, radio, and television stations.
The area is intriguing to explore, especially for those who like to hike and bike. There are immense forests and a vast heath – both with trails…
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The Ephrata Cloister
by Wendy Komancheck
Travel to eastern Pennsylvania for a look at religious life in the eighteenth century.
Traveling along on U.S. Route 322 in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, you will notice a group of buildings in the old German style, and a sign welcoming you to the Ephrata Cloister. Who
were these people who lived there, and made history with their printing and music? The Ephrata Cloister was a monastic religious community composed of a group of celibate men and women, who were waiting for the
second coming of Christ. Once he came in the middle of the night, they would go to heaven and be married to God. The founding father was Conrad Beissel, who was born in 1691 in Eberbach, Germany. Like many of
his generation, he escaped religious persecution by coming to Pennsylvania and buying land from William Penn.
When he first arrived in America, Beissel lived in Germantown, Pennsylvania, now a neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia. Later, he moved to the Conestoga Creek in Lancaster County,
and spent part of his first decade in the New World leading a Brethren congregation. In 1732, he began to desire solitude, where he headed to northeastern Lancaster County, which is now Ephrata, where there was
ample woodlands to lead a reclusive lifestyle. According to the visitor’s guide, published through the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), “His desire for a quiet home free from
distractions allowed him to continue on his spiritual pilgrimage to join God in Heaven. Two issues remained important to Beissel: Saturday was the main day for worship, and a desire to unite with God left no
room for earthly marriage.”
Soon Beissel found that others wanted to join him in his spiritual retreat. By 1750, Ephrata had nearly eighty celibate Brothers and Sisters, who were known as the Solitary. Area
families also wanted to become part of this movement. Since they were married and had children, these Householders, as they were called, did not live at the Cloister, but lived on nearby farms. They would join
the Solitary for Saturday worship services. The brochure states, “The Householders contributed funds, products, and assistance to support the Brothers and Sisters.”
The Solitary followed a strict schedule of work, prayer, worship, sleeping, and eating. They grew all of their own food, and they only ate in the evening after a full day of chores,
and four hours of prayer that started at 5:00 a.m., and continued on throughout the day, with an hour at 9:00 a.m., an hour at 12:00 p.m., and the last hour of prayer at 5:00 p.m. They ate their single meal at
6:00 p.m. in the dormitories. These meals usually consisted of bread, barley meal, and vegetables.
The Brothers and Sisters lived in separate dorms that consisted of three floors and an attic. Stube kuchens were built in the center of each floor, and were used for cooking and heating. Beds were narrow with a block of wood as a pillow to remind them that creature comforts were not meant to be obtained on earth…
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Düsseldorf: Old Town Charm Meets Bustling Metropolis
by Anna Cramer
Get acquainted with both sides of this dazzling city along the Rhine.
When the Kurfürst (Elector) Johann Wilhelm came to power in 1690, he picked Düsseldorf, his birthplace of now three hundred and fifty years ago, as residence. It was not so much
for the beauty of the place that Jan Wellem, as he was called, chose this place, but Heidelberg, his preferred residential town, lay in ruins after the war with France, sharing the fate of so many places in
those war-torn times. He lived until 1716 and is still in Düsseldorf, sitting proudly on his bronze horse – crafted by Grupello in 1711 – in front of City Hall, overlooking the Market Square. Before
him he enjoys much the same sight his contemporaries had back in the late 1690s. Turning around today, however, he would not believe his eyes.
To both north and south, eight elegant modern bridges span the river, there are prominent high-rises, and the old fishing harbor, once the lifeline of the settlement on this
flood-proof promontory of the Rhine river, has recently been transformed into the glamorous “Art- and Media Harbor,” home to big names in the media, design, and advertising business. And if Jan
Wellem were to step down from his horse and walk the short distance to the old canal, he would find one side of it occupied by impressive bank buildings, the other by luxury shops, forming the famous Kö or
Königsallee (“King’s Boulevard”), perhaps Germany’s most elegant shopping street.
The best view he could get today, however, would be from the seven hundred ninety foot high Rhine tower, where he could let the city rotate once around him while taking a
leisurely one-hour dinner in the tower’s revolving restaurant. Would he be able to read the five hundred and twenty-five foot high decimal clock – unique in the world – consisting of brightly
lit windows in the tower? It can even be read from the opposite bank of the Rhine.
Düsseldorf, a city of approximately six hundred thousand inhabitants, can easily be explored by walking, taking a guided bus tour, or in the old style, with a horse-drawn coach.
After having been destroyed by allied forces almost beyond recognition in World War II, the reconstructed Old Town is now a virtual tourist magnet, especially at night. Two hundred and sixty inns, pubs, and
restaurants form what is often called the “longest bar in the world.” Quite different from many pubs in the northern or eastern parts of Germany, clients here often actively involve strangers in a
chat over an Altbier, the strong, dark beer that is only brewed in Düsseldorf and served in traditional restaurants with dark wooden tables and wainscoted walls.
In summer, when long beer tables are set up at the narrow sidewalks, every night feels like a festival with lively people packed in the small streets. In addition to the
Altbier, another liquid specialty of Düsseldorf should be tried: the liqueurs “Killepitsch” and “Samtkragen” (velvet collar) which can even be bought at a tiny window in the pub’s
outer wall to people savoring it on the sidewalk. By way of culinary specialties, the Rhineland and Düsseldorf have a lot to offer: Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl enjoyed the famous Sauerbraten (horse meat,
pickled for a few days), a treat other gourmets may need a long time to successfully acquire a liking for…
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Gotha – Germany’s Land of the Lost
by Jörg M. Unger
From its department store town hall to a rich history in paleontology, Gotha never ceases to amaze visitors.
“The bones of these creatures prove that the continents of Europe and America belonged to the same landmass of Pangaea during Permian times about two hundred ninety million
years ago,” David Berman explained, pointing to the picture of two species of Seymouria sanjuanensis, named after the small town of Seymour in the north of Texas where these early reptiles and
ancestors of dinosaurs were discovered for the first time. Being a curator from the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has joined the team of Dr. Thomas Martens, director of the Museum of Nature in Gotha, for three to four weeks every summer for the past fifteen years. In July 2007, David Berman returned with his colleague, Amy C. Henrici, who is the lab technician and collection manager of the Museum’s Section of Vertebrate Paleontology, and is joined by Prof. Stuart Sumida from the Department of Biology of California State University, San Bernardino, for further excavations in the Bromacker quarry of Tambach-Dietharz, twelve miles southwest of Gotha. The idea of working together developed when Dr. Thomas Martens spent six months in Pittsburgh in 1992 and joined several study trips of American paleontologists to the canyons of the southwest, supported by the Carnegie Museum.
“These reptiles are also called the Tambach Lovers, as the two animals snuggled up to each other when a landslide of mud must have caught and covered them.” David Berman
continued, wiping the sweat from his brow with his cap. After the sensational discovery in 1997, Amy Henrici prepared the twenty-inch-long skeletons at the Carnegie Museum, which took her about one year to
complete. Today the Tambach Lovers are displayed in Gotha’s Museum of Nature – together with other well-preserved remnants and reproductions of prehistoric creatures and their footprints that were
found in the Bromacker quarry. The exhibition also shows a huge diorama of about four hundred thirty square feet, created by the Canadian illustrator Jan Sovak from Calgary that takes visitors back into an
inhospitable landscape of Permian times.
The development of paleontology in Germany goes back to Ernst Friedrich von Schlotheim (1764 to 1832), who was the co-founder of paleobotany and worked at the court of Ernst II, Duke
of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg from 1772 to 1804, as well as to Johann Gottfried Geissler (1726 to 1800), founder of modern paleontology. Being an astronomer and mathematician himself, the duke made Gotha a city of
natural sciences and arts. He had an observatory built on nearby Seeberg Hill from 1789 to 1791, and well-known scholars like Baron Franz Xaver von Zach (1754 to 1832), director of that observatory, and Karl
Ernst Adolf von Hoff (1771 to 1837), geologist and author of the first scientific travel journal for ramblers in Thuringia, passed on their knowledge in astronomy and geology to Johann Wolfgang Goethe.
Mathematician Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773 to 1843), philologist Friedrich Jacobs (1764 to 1847), and historian and geographer Johann Georg August Galletti (1750 to 1828) taught at Gotha’s high school and
produced further generations of scientists. The duke’s court library was opened to the public in 1775 and, after the discovery of letterpress printing, Justus Perthes (1749 to 1816) and cartographer Adolf
Stieler (1775 to 1836) established the first publishing house in 1785 that produced detailed maps and an atlas, which dominated the market for more than one hundred years…
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The Congress of Berlin, 13 June to 13 July 1878
by Robert A. Selig
Four months following the Peace Treaty of San Stefano, European leaders reconvened to satisfy the interests of Great Britain an Austria-Hungary – much to the dismay of Russia.
Article I. Bulgaria is constituted an autonomous and tributary Principality under the suzerainty of His Imperial Majesty the Sultan. It will
have a Christian government and a national militia.
This, the first of sixty-three articles of the treaty that codified the results of the Congress of Berlin of 1878, was meant to ring in what the leading statesmen of Europe
hoped, in vain, as it turned out, would be a more stable and peaceful era of international relations on the Balkans. Looking back over the one hundred thirty years that have passed since German Chancellor Otto
von Bismarck called his fellow heads of government to Berlin to create a new order on the northwestern frontiers of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, it quickly becomes apparent that the world is still
grappling with many of the same issues discussed in Berlin in 1878. The territorial ambitions of Serbia, the fate, if not the very name, of Macedonia, the status of the Sanjak of Novi-Pazar, as the northern
parts of Kosovo were known in the nineteenth century, and the strategic interests of world powers such as Russia behind them, are still playing out on the world scene, (for example, the proclamation of an
independent Kosovo in March 2008 over the fierce opposition of Serbia and Russia or the April 2008 NATO meeting in Bucharest where the alliance did admit Croatia and Albania as new members over strong Russian
objections but was unable to overcome Greek opposition to Macedonian membership). And since an as yet small group of diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic is already calling for a conference of great powers in
Berlin some time in 2008 to calm emotions on the Balkans, the anniversary of the 1878 conference provides an opportunity to look back at the issues and decisions of more than a century ago in one of the most
restless regions of the world.
The old saying that the Balkans produce more history than they can consume locally was as true in 1878 as it is today. Even in 1878, the roots of the conflict that the Congress of
Berlin tried to cut had spread for centuries already across the Balkans and held every religious, ethnic, and social group in their grasp. Contemporaries were very much aware of the intractable nature of the
issues facing them and feared nothing more than getting drawn into the quagmire of Christian-Muslim-Serbian-Russian-Kosovo-Albanian-Pan-Slavist politics. Bismarck in particular had no interest in the fate of the
people "down there." In his opinion, all of the Balkans were not worth "the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." However, his cordial relations with the court in St. Petersburg
pre-destined him for the role of intermediary when the Russian-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878 threatened to expand into a European-wide conflagration. What had happened?…
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Language: The Youngest General of the United States
by Ernst Mettendorf
Galusha Pennypacker was a chubby-faced seventeen-year-old recruit in the 97th Pennsylvania Regiment when, in April 1861, the Civil War broke out. To cover the fact that he was
underage, he sported a mighty mustache under his round nose. His fellow soldiers elected him lieutenant, but he declined in favor of a somewhat older recruit. Already four months later he was appointed company
commander. He was promoted to major in October of the same year. The 97th Regiment joined the Tenth Army Corps and was first deployed in South Carolina. Pennypacker was commander of the regiment when it took
Fernandina on the Florida coast. He stayed there until April 1864 also as garrison commander.
In the meantime, he had not yet turned twenty, but during all of his military service held a commanding position that normally would have been entrusted to a much older officer. When,
in May 1864, the transfer of the Army Corps was imminent, he received his promotion to colonel. In this capacity, he commanded his regiment during the ensuing battles in Virginia. That is where he was wounded so
severely on May 20, 1864, that he had to spend three months in a military hospital.
After his return to active duty, during the Petersburg campaign, he was in charge of a brigade of four regiments, among them his own from Philadelphia. Wilhelm Kaufmann, author of The Germans in the American Civil War,
states in his book that the 97th Pennsylvania Regiment consisted mostly of Pennsylvania Germans. In January 1865, the end of the war was near. The Confederates were practically cut off from their European supply
lines. The harbor of Wilmington, North Carolina, was their last connection to the outside world. The access to the harbor was mainly secured by the strategically important Fort Fisher at the mouth of Cape Fear
River.
In January 1865, Colonel Pennypacker’s brigade belonged to an army under the command of Major General Alfred Terry. The order was now to take the fort. After 57 warships had
sufficiently bombarded the target, the Union troops went ashore at next daybreak. They occupied the dunes around the fort and dug themselves in. Once again the Navy laid the fortress under fire, and at 8:00 a.m.
General Terry gave the order to attack...
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Sprache: Der jüngste General der Vereinigten Staaten
Von Ernst Mettendorf
Galusha Pennypacker war ein pausbäckiger siebzehnjähriger Rekrut im 97. Pennsylvania-Regiment, als im April 1861 der Bürgerkrieg ausbrach. Unter seiner runden Nase trug er einen
mächtigen Schnauzbart, um seine Unmündigkeit zu verbergen. Seine Kameraden wählten ihn zum Leutnant, doch er verzichtete zu Gunsten eines etwas älteren Rekruten. Schon vier Monate später bestimmte man ihn zum
Kompanieführer. Bereits im Oktober des gleichen Jahres wurde er zum Major befördert. Das 97. Regiment gehörte zum 10. Armeekorps und wurde zuerst in South Carolina eingesetzt. Bei der Einnahme von Fernandina an
der Küste von Florida befehligte er das Regiment und diente dort bis zum April 1864 auch als Kommandant der Garnison.
Inzwischen war er beinahe zwanzig Jahre alt geworden und hatte in all dieser Zeit eine leitende Stellung bekleidet, die man sonst nur einem weit älteren Offizier anvertraut. Als im
Mai 1864 die Verlegung des 10. Armeekorps bevorstand, erhielt er seine Beförderung zum Oberst (Colonel). Als solcher befehligte er sein Regiment während der folgenden Kämpfe in Virginia. Hier wurde er am 20. Mai
1864 so schwer verwundet, dass er drei Monate im Lazarett zubringen musste.
Wieder zurück bei der Armee, führte er im Petersburg-Feldzug eine Brigade von vier Regimentern, darunter sein eigenes aus Philadelphia. In seinem Buch Die Deutschen im amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg stellt Wilhelm Kaufmann fest, dass dieses 97. Pennsylvania-Regiment größtenteils aus Pennsylvanier-Deutschen bestand. Im Januar 1865 zeichnete sich das Ende des Bürgerriegs ab. Die Südstaaten waren so gut wie abgeschnitten von ihren Versorgungswegen nach Europa. Der Hafen von Wilmington, North Carolina, war ihre letzte Verbindung zur Außenwelt. Die Zufahrt hierher wurde hauptsächlich von dem strategisch wichtigen Fort Fisher an der Mündung des Cape Fear Rivers gesichert.
Oberst Pennypackers Brigade gehörte im Januar 1865 zu einer Armee unter dem Befehl von Generalmajor Alfred Terry. Sie hatte den Auftrag, diese Festung zu erobern. Nachdem 57
Kriegsschiffe das Ziel hinreichend bombardiert hatten, landeten die Unionstruppen im Morgengauen des folgenden Tages. Rings herum um das Fort wurden die Dünen besetzt und Stellungen ausgehoben. Die Flotte
beschoß tags darauf noch einmal die Festung und morgens um 8 Uhr befahl General Terry den Angriff...
At Home: Hamburger – Not Just Another Fast Food
by Sharon Hudgins
Many American foods have their roots in recipes and culinary traditions brought to this country by immigrants.
Consider the hamburger, which is eaten in every city and town of the United States. According to David Gerard Hogan, writing in The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink,
"Food historians offer numerous, often contradictory accounts of where the hamburger originated, but most trace it to northern Germany [where the port city of Hamburg is located], which had a similar beef
sausage" – although we certainly don't think of hamburger as a kind of sausage meat today.
Hogan goes on to say, "The hamburger, in turn, accompanied the massive wave of German immigrants coming to America during the early to mid-nineteenth century. Their ethnic dish
of seasoned ground beef appeared on the menu of New York City's elite Delmonico's restaurant in 1834, featured as the Hamburg Steak. By the latter half of the century, American cookbooks included recipes
for Beefsteak à la Hamburg..."
Around the turn of the last century, several Americans began putting these chopped meat patties between two halves of a bun and selling them in public places, from lunch wagons to
stands at county fairs to the big Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. However, it wasn't until the 1920s that commercial hamburger sandwiches, as we now know them, started becoming popular in
the United States, ushering in the "burgers and fries" fast-food era. Despite its German antecedents, the hamburger today is known around the world as the quintessential American food.
Modern Germans eat American-style hamburgers, too, at fast-food chains like McDonald's and Burger King in Germany, or cooked on grills over hot coals in their own backyards.
However, German cuisine also has its own traditional chopped-meat patties, served either as a main dish with vegetables and starches on the side, or stuffed into little bread rolls spread with butter or mustard.
Deutsches Beefsteak is the name of these chopped-meat patties in Hamburg, where the ground beef is mixed with egg, onions, parsley, salt, and pepper, then pan-fried in butter and served with a garnish of sautéed onion rings. In Hamburg, I've also eaten a modern take on the humble hamburger: a salad of white asparagus and sun-dried tomatoes with fresh herbs, drizzled with olive oil and topped with little perfectly grilled patties of chopped sirloin, each about the size of an old half-dollar coin, crusty on the outside and juicy on the inside.
In other parts of Germany, ground meat patties are known by a number of different names, from Buletten in Berlin to Fleischpflanzerl in Bavaria to Bremer Beefsteak in Bremen. Frikadellen is the more general term for these pan-fried or griddle-cooked patties, the word you see most often at street stands and local festivals where Frikadellen are a popular snack food. All of these are made with ground beef (or a mixture of beef, pork, and veal) combined with egg and bits of bread or rolls (softened in milk or water), seasoned with onions and spices. Berliners prefer onion, garlic, parsley, and ground caraway seeds in their Buletten, whereas Bavarians add dried basil and grated lemon peel to their Fleischpflanzerl.
The Bremen version contains mashed potatoes and sour cream, and is served with sautéed onions and brown gravy made from the pan drippings…
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Family Research: Tips for the Elusive Old World Connection
by James Beidler
More readers who are doing the genealogy of their family have as their goal finding the hometown of their immigrant ancestor or ancestors. This only makes sense, since that connection
across the water is often the most difficult research leap to make, for a variety of reasons.
When a researcher reaches this point in his or her genealogy – and, of course, that can vary depending upon which of the five centuries of German immigration to America in which
the ancestor falls – the very first step is the same: Evaluating documents about that immigrant for the name of a village or area.
This may sound matter of fact but can entail its own challenges. Documents in German are often written in a different cursive script that can be hard to decipher. The name of the
village or region listed may be in a dialect, or be phonetic, or just plain corrupted over the years. Plus some smaller villages in Germany have been absorbed by larger ones, making it impossible to find on the
modern-day map.
Despite these challenges, the papers from and about the immigrant – be they a family Bible, a naturalization document, or a letter from relatives abroad – should be
scoured for any evidence of a village name.
To do so, the researcher may have to teach him- or herself the basics of German cursive script (a good book: If I Can You Can Decipher Germanic Records by Edna M. Bentz) and learn some phonetics of the language to be able to “translate” a village name into correct German. And maps from the present should not be the only ones you are using – historical maps can show those villages that no longer exist (check out the website of the Federation of East European Family History Societies – http://feefhs.org/ – for some good historical maps that include Germany).
The more historical background and knowledge of basic German vocabulary that you have, the more successful you will be. The late Arta Johnson, a linguistics professor who studied
genealogy from that angle, told the story about a family that was convinced that they came from the town of “Gross Herzogtum, Württemberg.” Johnson said she smiled when she heard that: What the
record was trying to tell this family was that they merely were from somewhere in the Grand Duchy (“Grossherzogtum” in the German language) of Württemberg … not any specific village.
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Calendar
June
Ambridge, PA
June-September: Special weekend demonstrations and activities at Old Economy Village. Call 724-266-4500 or visit www.oldeconomyvillage.org
Cambridge, MA
Through June 30: A Taste of Power: 18th–Century German Porcelain for the Table at Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum. For more information, visit www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/exhibitions/busch/IsabellaAndOctavio.html
Frederick, MD
First Friday of the month: Der Stammtisch at Brewer’s Alley, 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127.
Indianapolis, IN
First Wednesday and first Saturday of the month: Docent-led tours of the Athenaeum at 401 East Michigan Street. Call 317-630-4569, ext. 1 or E-Mail athfound@sbcglobal.net
Harmony, PA
June 14: Harmony Museum Herb & Garden Fair. Exchange plants or buy from specialty vendors. Grounds of the Harmony Museum at I-79 exits
87-88. Call 888-821-4822 or visit www.harmonymuseum.org .
Leavenworth, WA
June 19-21: International Accordion Celebration. Call 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org .
Covington, KY
June 20-22: The 8th Annual Goettafest in Mainstrasse Village. Call 859-491-0458 or visit www.mainstrasse.org .
Walpole, MA
June 21-22: Sommerfest. Boylston Schul-Verein. Call 508-660-2018 or visit www.germanclub.org .
Philadelphia. PA
June 22: German-American Day 2008. On the grounds of the Cannstatter Volksfest Verein, 9130 Academy Road. Call 215-332-3400 or visit www.germanday.us .
Ambridge, PA
June 27-29: A Harmony Society Family Reunion. A special series of tours and festivities for descendants of the Harmony Society members.
Pre-registration required. Call 724-266-4500, ext. 101 or visit www.oldeconomyvillage.org .
Cleveland, OH
June 28-29: German-American Fest at the German Central Farm. Sponsored by the Federation of German American Society of Cleveland. For more information, visit www.Fogas.org .
Kutztown, PA
June 28-July 6: Kutztown Folk Festival. Between Allentown and Reading along Route 222. Call 1-888-674-6136 or visit www.kutztownfestival.com .
July
Frederick, MD
First Friday of the month: Der Stammtisch at Brewer’s Alley, 124 N. Market Street. Call 301-631-0127.
Indianapolis, IN
First Wednesday and first Saturday of the month: Docent-led tours of the Athenaeum at 401 East Michigan Street. Call 317-630-4569, ext. 1 or E-Mail athfound@sbcglobal.net .
Fredericksburg, TX
July 4: July 4th Celebration at Sauer-Beckmann Farm/Stonewall. At LBJ State Park, 199 State Park Rd. 52,
Stonewall. Call 1-888-997-3600 or visit www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/lbj or www.fredericksburg-texas.com .
Fredericksburg, TX
July 4: July 4th Celebration Parade down Main Street and program at Marktplatz. Call 1-888-997-3600 or visit www.fredericksburg-texas.com .
Luckenbach, TX
July 4-6: Everybody’s Somebody 4th of July. Live music with Walt Williams and Friends. Call 1-888-997-3600 or visit www.luckenbachtexas.com .
Leavenworth, WA
July 4: Kinderfest. Call 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org .
Ambridge, PA
July 12: The Joy of Toys. Old Economy Village. Call 724-266-4500 or visit www.oldeconomyvillage.org .
Baltimore, MD
July 12: 12th Annual Spring/Summerfest. Sponsored by the Deutsche Geselligkeit, Inc. Call 410-491-0845.
Franklin Square, NY
July 12-13: Volksfest at the Plattdütsche Park, 1132 Hempstead Turnpike. Call 516-354-3131.
Fredericksburg, TX
July 18-19: Night in Old Fredericksburg. At the Marktplatz, corner of North Adams Street and West Main Street. Call 1-888-997-3600
or visit www.tex-fest.com .
Ambridge, PA
July 23: Gateway Clipper Fleet Tour. Lunch cruise up the Ohio River and a guided tour of Old Economy Village. Call the Gateway Clipper
Fleet at 412-355-7941.
Milwaukee, WI
July 24-27: Germanfest at the Henry W. Meyer Festival Grounds. Visit www.germanfest.com .
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