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October/November 2009
“For Queen Luise” – Berlin’s Iron Jewelry
by Phyllis Meras
Although iron had been fashioned into many things over the centuries, it was the untimely passing of a beloved queen that inspired artisans to find the delicate side of the metal.
Some say it began with Charlemagne who was crowned with an iron crown in 774. Others say the German love affair with iron developed because there was so much iron ore in the
country’s mountains and, as early as the Middle Ages, assiduous German workers delved deep to mine it.
From the beginning, iron, of course, was used in war for armor and armaments. It was used for locks and hinges. However, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, wrought iron began
to be fashioned into church screens and palace railings, shop signs and elegant gates, balustrades and window grates. Then new English methods of manufacturing iron were introduced into Germany. These made it
easier to use and, in 1796, with the help of this English expertise, the first royal iron foundry was established in Gleiwitz. A few years later, in 1804, the Royal Ironworks was opened in Berlin and, in 1815, a
third ironworks was acquired in Sayn by the Prussian crown. Meanwhile, a method of pouring molten iron into molds had been developed. Soon decorative iron art made its way inside the home. Prussia’s
Friedrich Wilhelm III was intrigued with the powerful look of iron and decorated the Neues Palais at Potsdam with iron items – candlesticks and iron vases and clocks.
Before long, such items were appearing on dining room sideboards all over Prussia while wall plaques of religious scenes were hung on walls and statuettes of animals and market women,
busts of Shakespeare and Goethe held places of honor on library desks and mantelpieces. Tobacco boxes, paperweights, snuff boxes, perfume bottle holders, and checkers all began to be made of iron. It was
inexpensive compared to precious metals, hard, but easy to work. Cemetery crosses and commemorative monuments also began to be fashioned of cast or wrought iron.
But iron jewelry? Who would have thought of such a thing?
In 1776, at the foundry in Gleiwitz near the iron mines of Silesia, someone did. And about 1806, production of iron jewelry began. First, cameos and medallions were produced. Leonhard
Posch, an Austrian sculptor who moved to Berlin and worked at the Royal Porcelain Factory and the Berlin mint, was a specialist in the fashioning of these. In the beginning, he used a simple gold frame to
enliven the faces on the dark iron medallions he designed. Later, the frames were embellished with flowers or leaves of gold.
At first such medallions were viewed simply as something of an oddity. Then, in 1810, Prussia’s beloved Queen Luise died…
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Grand Touring With Grandchildren
by Patricia Bloebaum
For travel-seasoned grandparents, an overseas vacation with the grandchildren presents a golden opportunity to see a beloved vacation destination from a new perspective.
We were sitting in a Biergarten at Burg Thallichtenberg near Kusel when our two grandsons first uttered the phrase that we would hear again and again in the four weeks ahead –
This is the BEST…!"
They had been clambering up and down winding stairs, climbing over ruined walls, and peering through archer's windows for an hour and were hot, tired, and thirsty. We found
a table shaded by a huge, leafy Linden tree and bought a couple of Cokes at the refreshment stand. They were icy cold and came in real, old-fashioned, green-glass Coca-Cola bottles. After taking the first swig,
both boys said, "This is the BEST Coke I ever tasted!"
It was the first full day of our vacation to Germany. Twelve-year-old Robert and nine-year-old Douglas had been counting down the months, weeks, and days since we had announced
that we would bring them with us to Deutschland on our next trip. Now, we were finally there, and I was relieved to know that they had made the transition from America enthusiastically.
In the days ahead, they would declare that Germany had the BEST bread, milk, bratwurst, pretzels, noodles…you can fill in the blanks. My husband and I smiled at each
other. This was going to be a great month.
Planning the trip was fun, but actually being there with two eager little boys was an indescribable joy. We recommend it to any grandparents who have wondered whether they could
keep a couple of kids occupied and interested during travels in a foreign country.
Of course, there is one big caveat. If your grandchildren are spoiled, whiny little individuals who constantly demand to have every whim satisfied – forget it. Our
grandsons live a modest life with their mother, who works at three jobs to support them, and they are grateful for every extra goody that comes their way. So every day of our travels was like a beautifully
wrapped present just waiting to be opened and enjoyed.
Germany is filled with varied adventures for children. Whether it is a well-known (expensive) amusement park like LegoLand or a neighborhood playground in a Black Forest
village, kids will have a ball. And because we were staying in apartments in private homes, the boys discovered countless little details of everyday German life.
They were amazed (and amused) at the wide variety of toilet-flushing methods, and recounted every kind of pull-chains, push-buttons, pull-up knobs, pull-down levers, and
wall-mounted-press-here panels designed for German bathrooms. They also thought the room-darkening Rolladen were wonderful inventions, and became our official Rolladen puller-uppers and letting-downers every day…
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The Charms of Karlsruhe
by Leah Larkin
Germany’s youngest city boasts a sprawling palace, superb museums, renowned universities, and a finger on the technological pulse of the world.
For me, Karlsruhe was a delightful surprise. I had lived in Germany for many years not that far from this former capital of the state of Baden – in Darmstadt to the north and
then Stuttgart to the southeast. Yet I had never spent any time in the city.
My recent visit began with a stroll through the park and gardens in the town center. (The city has eight hundred hectares of parks and green spaces.) This welcoming oasis has two
lakes, a stream, fountains, gardens, tree shaded lanes, flamingoes, pelicans, ducks – and some one thousand animals at the adjacent zoo. You can rent an electric boat on one lake for an automated trip. The
boat follows a set course. Stroll by the other lake’s musical fountain. The shoots of water followed the sounds of a Strauss waltz as I watched and listened. Admire the blossoms. City gardeners change the
flowers three times per year, planting seasonal specimens each time. Take a photograph of the pelican pack swimming on the lake.
It is enchanting, and just one of the many aspects that make this city so livable. Monika Storck moved to Karlsruhe from Berlin twenty years ago. “I’m happy here. The
atmosphere is wunderschön,” she says. She went on to list some of the city’s advantages:
- Pleasant climate – spring comes to Karlsruhe before arriving in other German cities.
- Short distances to everything. You can walk almost everywhere.
- Fantastic location. Close to the Black Forest. France is twenty minutes away. The Frankfurt airport is an hour away by train. Paris is just three hours with the French high speed TGV train.
- Excellent public transportation. The streetcar network is amazing, pioneering a system that draws visitors from other cities who want to learn more about it.
- High living standard.
Karlsruhe is Germany’s youngest city and was founded in 1715 when Margrave Karl Wilhelm built his royal palace in the city. He wanted to rule and live in peace in the
city, hence the name “Karl’s ruhe,” (Karl’s peace). To entice settlers to his town, he offered religious freedom and no taxes on property and capital – for the first twenty
years. Settlers came from France, Switzerland, Italy, and Poland.
Today, the city is home to three hundred five thousand inhabitants, plus some thirty thousand students who study at its nine universities and colleges. Its Technical University was
named an “elite university” in 2007, one of only six in Germany to be awarded the title…
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The Berlin Wall: A New Life
by Marlene Fanta Shyer
It kept friends and families divided for nearly thirty years. Today, portions of the Berlin Wall have found new life as reminders of Cold War days past and a city once divided.
The border was opened at exactly 10:30 in the morning on the ninth of November in 1989, at Bornholmer Strasse in East Berlin. Today, there is a double row of cobblestones indicating
the place where the Wall once stood. As part of the Berlin festivities marking the historical day the city was again united, schoolchildren are building plastic, domino-type blocks that will be toppled to the
left and right of the Brandenburg Gate, symbolically re-creating the fall of the notorious Wall. It will be the high point of a huge celebration that will include music, exhibitions, and various commemorative
events. Now, exactly twenty years after its doom, you might well ask, "Where did it all go? What happened to the Wall?”
Segments, parts, bits, and chunks have shown up in some unlikely places, including eBay, where you can buy a piece for anywhere from ninety-nine cents to three thousand dollars,
or find it encased in glass in the sort of souvenir shops that also sell postcards, T-shirts, and Elvis placemats. Museums have built exhibitions around large portions in surprising places, like Marbles, the
children's museum in Raleigh, North Carolina, where a piece of the Wall sits next to a German MTV video and a list of the most popular names for boys and girls in Germany. (Leon and Leonia are the top
favorites.)
In tiny Hope, Idaho, population of eighty-six and twelve miles from Sandpoint, a chunk is on public display but on private property; deep in the heart of Dallas, at the Hilton
Anatole Hotel, it is a big attraction in the seven-acre park adjoining the hotel, where it adjoins a fish pond and jogging track. A piece also found its way into the promenade of the Long Wharf, a restaurant in
Portland, Maine. The owner of the restaurant, Steve Dinillo, said his father paid "just for the rigging" to someone who owned the piece and had previously displayed it in various parts of the city. The
man who donated it has vanished, but now the seven foot tall, three-section piece invites many questions from his patrons, presumably, "What's it doing here?" It is also a conversation piece in
the Main Street Station Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where it is part of the action in the main floor men's room. Four urinals are built right into it. What happens in Vegas, hopefully does stay in
Vegas!
The largest piece, longer than three quarters of a mile, is still in Berlin, at the East Side Gallery on Mühlenstrasse, and there are many other segments throughout the city.
The Westin Grand Hotel has recently added a new perk: In the main lobby of the hotel is an authentic piece, weighing two and seven-tenths tons. Guests who book the "Tear Down the Wall" package will
receive a night at the hotel along with a safety helmet, goggles, hammer and chisel and a chance to chip away "their own piece of history."
In the United States, the biggest part of the Wall outside Germany, once at Freedom Park in Arlington, Virginia, is in its latest home at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Eight
twelve foot high sections of concrete, each weighing three tons, stand side by side on the concourse level, a handy place to take a photograph. Nearby is the East German guard tower that loomed near the
East-West crossing…
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When in Trier…
by Lucy Gordan
The wine-soaked banks of the Moselle are home to Germany’s oldest city and its greatest link to the Roman Empire.
For an adopted “Roman” of many years like me, visiting Trier could have been a disappointment like “carrying coals to Newcastle” since I have more and better
of the same at home. Not the case; I enjoyed every minute of my three-day stay, the minimum amount of time for appreciating the sights and wine-producing environs of Germany’s oldest city on the banks of
the Moselle River.
The ancient Romans had a saying “Ubi bene, ibi patria“ (where you feel good, there is your home), so Augusta Treverorum was officially founded in 16 BC by the Emperor Augustus, although Julius Caesar’s legions had camped here previously. According to legend, however, Trier dates from 2000 BC, when Prince Trebeta, son of the Assyrian King Ninus, to escape the sexual advances of his stepmother, Semiramis, after his father’s death, fled from home and set up residence here in a settlement he called “Treberis” after himself. An inscription on an historic old house in Trier’s cobble-stoned Hauptmarkt
or main market square claims: “Ante Romam Treveris stetit annis mille trecentis” (1,300 years before Rome stood Trier). Not to mention that in the user-friendly Städtisches Museum
Simeonstift of local history, situated in a Romanesque eleventh-century cloister next door to Trier’s most famous landmark, the Porta Nigra or “Black Gate,” there is a beautiful
sixteenth-century portrait of Trebeta framed by scenes from his legend. Archbishop Poppa had commissioned the museum’s building as a church (now demolished) to honor the early medieval hermit Simeon, who
for seven years had locked himself up in the eastern tower of the dark sandstone Porta Nigra. The Porta Nigra is the largest (nine-nine feet high, one hundred nineteen feet wide, sixty-six feet deep) and
best-preserved city gate surviving since the third century AD
Although reduced to rubble around 275 AD by an Alemannic tribe, Augusta Treverorum was rebuilt in even grander style and renamed Treveris. Over the next century it became one
of the leading cities of the Roman Empire and was promoted to “Roma Secunda” (Rome the Second), north of the Alps. As a powerful administrative capital, it was adorned with important government
buildings, public baths, magnificent residential palaces, and temples: the remains of this unique heritage have been UNESCO World Cultural Sites since 1986. The Roman emperors Diocletian (who had made it one
of the four joint capitals of the Empire) and Constantine both lived in Trier for years at a time.
Thanks to Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, Trier survived the collapse of the Empire in 476 AD and became an important center of Christianity and one of the most
powerful archbishoprics in the Holy Roman Empire. During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Trier thrived as both east-west and north-south crossroads for commerce and became one of Germany’s most
important wine-exporting centers…
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Any Way the Wind Blows – Germany’s Windmills
By Jörg M. Unger
An old technology and amazing craftsmanship endure and educate today thanks to the commitment of those captured by the windmill’s spell.
“Herzlich willkommen und Glück zu.” Hans Knapp and his wife, Brunhilde, gave us a warm welcome and ushered us into their windmill in the village of Linda near Neustadt,
Thuringia – lying just a few miles off the autobahn A9 from Munich to Berlin.
Dominating the ground floor, the mill’s main shaft measures two feet in diameter. It is a forty-foot-tall fir trunk, dating back to 1867 when the windmill was rebuilt after a
fire. ”Though the shaft shows some cracks and tiny woodworm holes, it is as solid as it was in those days,” Hans told us. Next to it, there is a pair of scales used for weighing flour sacks before
delivery to the local baker and farmers.
A steep flight of well-trodden stairs leads to the upper floor, where grain once ran through a funnel on the millstones. Our small bedroom is beyond a shaft of the windmill’s
steering device, over which we have to climb to get to bed. Wonderful. I did not sign us up for five-star luxury. I just wanted the children to feel the atmosphere of this old mill, which did its job until the
early 1970s. However, we do not go without a shower facility and a simple kitchen where we can prepare supper after our hiking and cycling tours to the beautiful lakes in the surrounding countryside.
Under the windmill cap, the kids listen to Hans explain the principle of grinding grain. Fascinated, they watch the big cogwheels turning and transforming the energy of wind into the
vertical rotation of the main shaft that drives the millstones below. Later, they help Hans pull the rope to apply the wooden brakes for stopping the sails. At midnight I'm still awake in the small
bedchamber of the old mill, listening to the beams and rafters that creak gently as the wind sweeps against slate-covered walls.
During weekends, the windmill becomes a café and Brunhilde serves her homemade cakes and fruit flans to visitors, who come to see the windmill that also displays hundreds of different
flour sacks, old tools, and equipment used by former millers. When the mood takes him, Hans takes his guitar from the wall and turns the floor where grain sacks were once stored into a cabaret, as he enjoys
entertaining his guests with sayings, songs, and poems about a miller’s life…
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Potsdam – Frederick the Great’s Island Paradise
By Anna Cramer
From the beautiful serenity of Sanssouci to clandestine spy exchanges on Glienicke Bridge, Potsdam has survived the ages to once again reclaim its “paradise” status.
We do not know, why in the middle of the seventeenth century Elector Frederick William the Great decided to make Potsdam his second residence after Berlin, thus starting an
unprecedented transformation of the marshy lands between the rivers Havel and Nuthe. But his vision and - ultimately - achievement is best described in the words of his friend and counsel, Johann Moritz Prince
of Nassau-Siegen, in a letter to him, dated August 20th, 1664:“…das gantze Eyland muß ein Paradies werden.” (“…the whole island must become a paradise.”).
Eventually, after decades of planning and hard work, the small market town on the island in the middle of a chain of interconnected lakes, which later became the capital of the state
of Brandenburg, then the core of an emerging Prussia, did turn into a beautiful Baroque city. Most of the work was done by skilled craftsmen from the Netherlands, Russia, Bohemia, and France, whose Huguenots
fled persecution, and whom William offered protection as well as generous land deeds, thus making Potsdam an early center of European immigration. Soon used as a garrison, the military purposes, which eventually
paved the way to Prussia’s dominating role in Europe, were always complemented by the royals’ love of culture, of the beauty of classical Roman architecture, Italian villas, English gardens, and
French music and literature.
Today, the old town and six hundred hectares of parks in Potsdam and its surroundings, along with their twelve castles, form the largest World Heritage site in Germany. They range from playful Rococo Sanssouci Castle (Schloss Sanssouci)
to the gloomy neo-gothic Babelsberg Castle, built in 1835 by the great architect Schinkel, who shaped Berlin’s imperial architecture in the nineteenth century. The main jewel in Potsdam’s crown of
palaces and villas, set in English gardens and green woods along the banks of the glittering Havel lakes, is undoubtedly the castle “Sanssouci”, built in 1747 by Frederick the Great as his summer
– and later – permanent residence. With this small, but elegant building, set humbly at the top of wine terraces, spreading out like a fan towards the lovely park, King Frederick, who kept no court
and abhorred the bustle of the city and the pompous buildings and lifestyles of his fellow kings, fulfilled his dream of a peaceful country retreat. Here, he could be alone with his hunting dogs, could play the
flute, compose music, and enjoy the company of his small circle of intellectual friends, the French philosopher Voltaire being the most notable among them. He named it Sanssouci, “without worries”,
and had it built in large parts after his own sketches. With this first monarchic building, he gave the small garrison town its new stamp, “Frederician Rococo”, which became such a unique feature of
Potsdam…
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2 + 4 = 1 ?
The Long Road to 9 November 1989 and German Re-Unification
By Robert A. Selig
As the celebration of twenty years of reunification begins, we look back at the negotiations that enabled four, to allow two, to become – one.
"Wir sind ein Volk - We are one people." Twenty years ago this was the motto with which Germans reached out across the crumbling Berlin Wall, greeting each other and
loudly proclaiming to a startled world their ardent desire to come together again as a single nation forty-five years after a lost war had cut off large areas of territory on her borders and divided the rest
into four Zones of Occupation. After some hesitation the victorious allies agreed to let the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), the German Democratic Republic join the Bundesrepublik Deutschland
(FRG), the Federal Republic of Germany, in an enlarged German state. Much has happened during these past two decades as the euphoria of celebration was followed by the realization that the expense and effort of
crafting the "einig' Vaterland", the "united Fatherland", would be much larger and take much longer than anyone could, or dared to, predict in the heady days of 1989. In spite of many
a success story in the neue Bundesländer, the un-loved yet inescapable designation for the states that emerged out of the ruins of the collapsed DDR, even optimists are convinced that it will take many more
years for the two parts of Germany joined by legislative fiat and the consent of the allies to be inhabited by ein einig' Volk again.
Much has been written about the social, economic, and political causes behind the developments that let President Ronald Reagan's impervious plea of 12 June 1987: "Mr.
Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" become reality but two years later when the Berliner Mauer, that symbol of the division of the world into two adversarial camps, ceased to divide Germany and Europe a
good twenty-eight years after it had been built. It was well known in the West that for years East Germans had had enough already of the real existierende Sozialismus - the actually existing socialism - but few believed that they would live to see the end of it. What was, and has been, lost amidst the euphoria of 1989 and 1990, is that from a legal point of view it actually mattered very little what those Germans dancing on the crumbling wall wanted. The events of 1989 and 1990 were a triumph of international diplomacy, made possible by a degree of cooperation amongst the victors of 1945 that no one would have thought possible even a year earlier. If die Wende or Change as Germans euphemistically call the breathtakingly quick collapse of the Arbeiter
- und Bauernstaat - the "State of the Workers and Farmers", surprised the Germans, it surprised the Allied Powers even more.
On 8/9 May 1945, the Wehrmacht had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, yet this surrender did not mean the end of the German state as such. Under constitutional law,
i.e., the law that organizes the internal workings of a state, as well as international law, i.e., the law that regulates relations between sovereign states, Germany defined as a legal entity had only become
handlungsunfähig - incapable of independent action. In 1945, the victorious powers gave that legal entity new political borders and re-organized it according to wartime planning. Taking the borders of 31 December 1937 as their starting point, the Conference of Potsdam gave the territories east of the Oder-Neisse Line, almost 24% of the territory of pre-war Germany, to Poland and the Soviet Union. Helgoland became British until 1 March 1952, when the United Kingdom returned the, at the time uninhabited, island to Germany. On Germany's Western frontier, the Saarland
once again became a French protectorate (as it had been from 1920 to 1935) with its own passports, government, and currency, because, as U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes declared in a speech in Stuttgart
on 6 September 1946, "The United States does not feel that it can deny to France, which has been invaded three times by Germany in 70 years, its claim to the Saar territory." The rest of Germany was arranged into four zones of occupation. As wartime friendship deteriorated into the Cold War, the three western zones went their own way as did the Soviet Zone. The Soviet attempt to torpedo western integration through the Berlin Blockade not only failed due to the airlift of indispensable goods into the beleaguered city from 24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949, but accelerated the path to the Grundgesetz,
the Basic Law, of 23 May 1949, which merged the American, French, and British Zones into the Federal Republic of Germany. The Soviet Zone responded by declaring itself the Deutsche Demokratische Republik on 7 October 1949…
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Language: Amerika in Wien
Von Peter Pabisch
“I´ve got you under my skin …” – der amerikanische Schlager, gespielt in einem der rund zwanzig McDonald’s in Wien, wo auch die „coolest“
Geburtstagspartys über die Runden gehen! Ein so genannter Familienpass bietet mit Gutscheinen noch viele andere Vergnügungen an, wie man sie in den U. S. A. ebenso kennt. So kann man eine Wand hoch klettern, auf
einem städtischen Fahrrad in die Pedale treten, Europas größten Freizeitpark besuchen, im Legoland Atlantis spielen, Kinderjeans kaufen – oder man zerrt seine Eltern einfach ins „Toys Are
Us“-Kindergeschäft. Mit den meisten dieser Gutscheine bietet McDonald´s auch ein freies „glückliches Mahl“. Die Stadt Wien und das Österreichische Rote Kreuz unterstützen dazu den Spaß, der auch
einen Unterhaltungsdollar bietet, der wie der richtige aussieht.
Wechseln wir gleich zum Thema „Dollar“. Das berühmte Kunsthistorische Museum in Wien hat auch ein Münzkabinett, wo die historische Entwicklung des Silber-Dollars authentisch
dargestellt wird. Eine Familie Schlick, die im 16. Jhd. lebte, besaß eine Silbermine im Joachimsthal in der heutigen Tschechischen Republik. Dort ließ sie Silbermünzen prägen, die man allgemein Joachimsthaler
Silbermünze nannte. Diese Münze gewann sogleich große Popularität, weil sie den richtigen Silbergehalt bot; die Leute wollten nicht ihren langen Namen gebrauchen und bezeichneten sie kurz als Thaler oder Taler.
Die Habsburger Kaiser und Könige verbreiteten sie rasch in ihrem weltweiten Reich – und bald gab es eine westlich-spanische und eine östlich-europäische Version. Obwohl auch andere Bezeichnungen dafür
aufkreuzten – wie Guldina und Silberpiaster, blieb „Taler“ die populärste Namensgebung. Die Bayern und Österreicher, die auch in Böhmen und Mähren lebten, und daher auch die Wiener, in deren Stadt
der kaiserliche Hof residierte, sprachen das Wort mit verdunkelten „a“ aus, so dass es wie „Dola“ oder „Dolla(r)“ klang. Zur Zeit der Gründung der Vereinigten Staaten kam es wahrscheinlich über
den spanisch-südamerikanischen Weg zum Silver Dollar, wie man ihn noch heute kennt. Zu jener Zeit wurde auch der „Maria-Theresien-Taler“ geprägt, der es sogar zur ersten Weltwährung brachte und bis nach
Asien und Afrika Verwendung fand, ja in Äthiopien noch heute gelten soll. Maria Theresias Denkmal steht übrigens vor dem Kunsthistorischen Museum. Sie hat als erste aufgeklärte Herrscherin der Welt die
allgemeine Schulpflicht in ihrem Reich eingeführt, wie sie heute in jedem zivilen Land zu finden ist.
Und zu ihrer Zeit in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jhds. fuhren viele europäische Botaniker in die Welt und sammelten Samen, die sie zu Hause anpflanzten, so dass Wien viele nun
zweihundert Jahre alte amerikanische Bäume in seinen großen Parks aufweist – wie Mammut- und Küstenmammutbäume, Sumpfzypressen, Weytmouthkiefern, Magnolien oderTulpenbäume. Die schönen Colorado- und
Engelmannfichten mit ihren blauen Nadeln, sowie Eichen- und Eschenarten zieren die Wiener Hausgärten. Und die vielen Gemüsepflanzen verdienen ein eigenes Kapitel – allen voran der Erdapfel und der
Paradeiser, das sind typische Wiener Wörter für die Kartoffel und die Tomate…
Language: America in Vienna
by Peter Pabisch
“I’ve got you under my skin” – the American song played in one of Vienna’s close to twenty McDonald’s, where also the city’s
“coolest birthday parties” take place. The restaurant is also the place to find a city family pass, similar to those found in the U.S., which offers even more family entertainment options. Kids can
climb up a wall, ride on a city bike, visit Europe’s largest spare time park, play in Legoland Atlantis, buy children’s jeans, or drag their parents to “Toys-R-Us.” Most of the bonuses
are part of a McDonald’s “Happy Meal.” The City Council of Vienna and the Austrian Red Cross also support the family fun, with the gift of a “fun dollar” that looks almost like the
real buck.
Which leads to the next topic: the silver dollar. The famous Art History Museum in Vienna has a coin collection on display and an exhibition that summarizes the development of the
silver dollar. In the sixteenth century, a family by the name of Schlick owned a silver mine in Joachimsthal, the valley of Joachim, in what is the Czech Republic today. There they had silver coins minted, which
were referred to as “Joachimsthaler Silver Coins.” The coin immediately gained popularity because of its solid silver content, yet nobody wanted to use its long name. So, they became known by their
shortened name “Thaler” or “Taler.” The Habsburg kings and emperors distributed them over their vast empire – and soon a Western Spanish and an Eastern-European version could be
found. Although they were referred to by other names – such as “Guldina” or “Silver Piaster” – the most popular one, “Taler,” remained. Bavarians and Austrians,
and thus the Viennese, pronounce the “a” sound, like in “sock.” Since the imperial court resided in Vienna, “Taler” was pronounced by everyone more like “Doler” or
“Dollar,” At the time of the American Revolution, the silver dollar was introduced, most likely, via the Spanish-American route. Almost simultaneously, the Maria-Theresien-Taler was minted, which
could be seen as the first currency of worldwide importance, since it was and has been used in Asian and in African countries as well. Maria Theresia’s monument is displayed in front of the Art History
Museum in Vienna. She was the first ruler to introduce compulsory school education, which can be found in every civilized country today.
During her time in the eighteenth century, many botanists traveled the world to collect seeds which they planted in their home countries. Today, Vienna can refer to many
two-hundred-year-old trees in its parks – such as sequoias, redwoods, bald cypresses, Weymouth pines, and magnolias (tulip trees). Many beautiful Colorado spruce and Engelmann spruce, with their blue
needles, as well as American oak and ash trees, adorn private gardens in Vienna. Also many vegetable plants deserve their own mention, especially the potato and the tomato, which the Viennese call
“paradise apple.”…
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At Home: Mixing It Up With Beer
by Sharon Hudgins
Germans brew many of the world's best beers. So why would anyone want to pollute that felicitous combination of flavors with additives that completely change the character
of the beer?
It's a myth that flavored beers are a modern marketing ploy. For a start, the hops traditionally used in brewing beer is a flavoring agent itself. And for centuries brewers
in many places have added other ingredients – herbs, spices, fruits, berries – to make their beers more palatable and more attractive to drinkers.
Yes, the Germans proudly proclaim their Reinheitsgebot, an early regulatory law limiting the ingredients that could be used in beer. However, over the centuries it has been
amended several times to allow brewers to add other edibles besides the originally mandated barley, water, hops, and yeast. Many German beers are now made with wheat in addition to barley. And Gose –
a spicy-tasting, deep amber-colored beer from Leipzig – is flavored with coriander and salt during the brewing process.
However, the most common way of changing the taste of beer is to add other "flavor profiles" after the beer has been brewed. Even beer-loving Bavaria's beloved Weizenbier
(wheat beer) is sometimes served with a slice of lemon – although this practice remains controversial among certain diehard drinkers.
Berliner Weisse – Berlin's special dry, low-alcohol wheat beer – is often served "mit Schuss," with a splash of raspberry, strawberry, or
red-currant syrup that sweetens the beer and tints it a rosy hue, or with Waldmeister Sirop made with woodruff, a natural herbal additive, that colors the beer green. Popularized in the nineteenth century as a
refreshing summertime drink, these flavored Berlin beers are served today in large thick-glass goblets that look like champagne coupes on steroids. Since the beer has such a foamy head, dainty drinkers sometimes
sip it through a straw. Other variations include Berliner Weisse Blau, spiked with a shot of blue Curaçao, or a wheat-beer cocktail that I've dubbed "Bier Kir," made with sweet
black-currant liqueur like the wine-based Kir apéritif in France.
Beer is also mixed in different proportions with non-alcoholic beverages to produce lower-alcohol drinks or to dilute the bitter taste of the hops. Radler
(meaning "bicyclist") is a half-and-half combination of beer and a sweet lemon (or lemon-lime) carbonated drink (soda). The Radler
was reputedly invented by a Bavarian innkeeper in 1922, when he mixed Dunkles (dark) beer and lemon soda to stretch his beer supply to serve the large number of thirsty bicyclists and hikers who suddenly
showed up at his place one sunny summer afternoon…
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Family Research: Changes to German Vital Record Law
by James M. Beidler
For the last half century, strict privacy laws made Germany's vital records difficult for researchers to access but all of that changed at the beginning of 2009 with the enactment
of a new statute known by one of those more-than-a-mouthful compound words – Das Personenstandsrechtsreformgesetz or "the Civil Registration Reform Act." The law changed "how certain
records will be kept in the future (basically changing from paper to electronic records), it changed the titles used for some future records, unified many individual laws enacted since the late 1950s, and
changed what records will now be considered public records and, therefore, what will be available to genealogists," according to Susannah E. Brooks, a veteran researcher and first vice president of the
family history organization the Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society.
First, a review of German vital records and substitutes is in order. Registrations of births, marriages, and deaths first begin for some parts of Germany in 1792 when the French
invasion of the area west of the Rhine brought that region under their administration. Civil registration was adopted by Hesse-Nassau in 1803, by Westphalia in 1808, by Hanover in 1809, the Prussian mega-state
in October 1874, and by all other parts of the German Empire in January 1876. In the three centuries before civil registration, the best bet for finding vital events is in the parish registers: baptisms yield
birth dates, places, and parents' names; marriages yield the dates, names of wedding partners, and fathers' names; and burials show names and dates of death. Starting dates of extant records vary by
village: While modern wars destroyed relatively few of these records, conflicts such as Thirty Years’ War (1618 to 1648) and the War of the League of Augsburg (1688 to 1697) resulted in the loss of many a
church book. So while the first church records date to 1524 – and requirements for record keeping were begun by Lutherans in 1540 and Roman Catholics in 1563 – it is more typical to find church books
that start around 1650.
However, back to the civil registration records. Brooks explains that there are two sections of the new law, each with an important impact on researchers. "The first states
that within certain guidelines, anyone with a legitimate interest will have access to the records. For genealogists this means that you may now legally access records for the relatives of your direct-line
ancestors," Brooks said. "In the past you could not hire a researcher in Germany to find records for your great-grandmother's siblings since you or your designee were only permitted to have access
to records on your direct-line ancestors."…
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Calendar:
September – October – November 2009
Please contact events directly to confirm dates, locations, and admission fees.
SEPTEMBER
New York, NY
September 10 – November 21: Exhibition: In Pursuit of Knowledge – 600 Years of Leipzig University. The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street. Call 212-838-6690 or visit www.grolierclub.org .
Anaheim, CA
September 18 – October 31: Oktoberfest at the Phoenix Club. 1340 S. Sanderson. Fridays through Sundays. Call 714-563-4166 or visit www.thephoenixclub.com .
Davenport, IA
September 27: Volksmarch. German American Heritage Center. Call 563-322-8844 or visit www.gahc.org
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OCTOBER
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 email athfound@sbcglobal.net .
Cincinnati, OH
October 1 – 31: German-American Heritage Month. Sponsored by the German-American Citizens League of Greater Cincinnati. For calendar of events, visit
www.gacl.org .
Fredericksburg, TX
October 2 – 4: 29th Annual Oktoberfest. Call 830-997-4810 or visit www.oktoberfestinfbg.com .
Leavenworth, WA
October 2 – 4, 9 – 11, 16 – 18: Oktoberfest. Call 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org
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Davenport, IA
October 3: Grand Opening – German American Heritage Center. Call 563-322-8844 or visit www.gahc.org
.
Plantsville, CT
October 3: 23rd Annual German-American Day Dinner Dance. Aqua Turf Club. Call 203-888-5976 or visit www.gadct.org .
Cincinnati, OH
October 4, 11, 18, 25: Sunday exhibits and programs at the German Heritage Museum, 4764 West Fork Road. Visit www.gacl.org .
Crossville, TN
October 9 – 10: 19th Annual Oktoberfest. Call 931-707-7291, email jguzek@citilink.net, or visit www.crossvilleoktoberfest.com .
Indianapolis, IN
October 10: Germanfest. Athenaeum/Das Deutsche Haus, 401 E. Michigan Street. Visit www.athenaeumfoundation.com .
Davenport, IA
October 11 – 17: Zither Congress and Concert. German American Heritage Center. Call 563-322-8844 or visit www.gahc.org.
Columbus, OH
October 17: 2009 Fall Seminar – Ohio Chapter Palatines to America. Visit www.oh-palam.org .
Marthasville, MO
October 17 – 18: Deutsch Country Days. Luxenhaus Farm, 18055 State Highway 0. Call 636-433-5669, email: info@deutschcountrydays.org, or visit www.deutschcountrydays.org .
Lancaster, PA
October 18: 160th Anniversary Celebration – St. Joseph Catholic Church Parish. 440 St. Joseph Street. Full
day of activities including Mass in German. Call 717-397-6921 or visit www.stjosephslanc.com.
Fredericksburg, TX
October 24: Food & Wine Fest. Marktplatz, 100 block of W. Main Street. Visit www.fbgfoodandwinefest.com.
New Holland, PA
October 31: PA Chapter, Palatines to America Fall Conference. Speakers John T. Humphrey and Lisa Kerr Illowite on “Social History & PA Germans.”
Visit www.pa-palam.org .
NOVEMBER
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 email athfound@sbcglobal.net .
Cincinnati, OH
November 1, 8, 15, 22, 29: Sunday exhibits and programs at the German Heritage Museum, 4764 West Fork Road. Visit www.gacl.org.
Washington, D.C.
November 4 – January 8, 2010: Iconoclash! Political Imagery from the Berlin Wall to German Unification. Goethe-Institut FotoGalerie. Visit www.goethe.de/washington.
New York, NY
November 6-7: 30th Annual Conference & Teacher Development Forum of the German Language School Conference. Call 203-792-2795 or visit www.germanschools.org.
Thornwood, NY
November 7: Annual Christkindlmarkt. Bavarian Club Edelweiss presents its annual Christkindlmarkt from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the
American Legion Hall. German gifts, vendors, food, and entertainment. Email: bavarianclubedelweiss@yahoo.com or visit www.bavarianclubedelweiss.org.
Houston, TX
November 17 – January 8, 2010: Exhibition: In Pursuit of Knowledge: 600 Years of Leipzig University. Houston Public Library.
Central Library, 500 McKinney. Call 832-393-1313 or visit www.houstonlibrary.org .
New Braunfels, TX
November 20, 21, 22: Weihnachtsmarkt German Christmas Market. A shopping extravaganza to benefit The Sophienburg Museum and Archives. Kongresshalle (Downtown
Civic Center). 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Call 830-629-1572, visit www.sophienburg.com, or email Sophienburg@sbcglobal.net.
Ferdinand, IN
November 21 – 22: Ferdinand Christkindlmarkt. Markt Bier Stube. Call 1-800-968-4578 or visit www.ferdinandindiana.org .
Fredericksburg, TX
Starting November 27: Hill Country Christmas Lighting Trail. Boerne, Burnet, Dripping Springs, Fredericksburg, Goldthwaite, Johnson City, Llano, Marble Falls, New Braunfels, Round Mountain, and Wimberley. Call 866-839-3378 or visit www.tex-fest.com.
Leavenworth, WA
November 27 – 29: Leavenworth Christkindlmarkt. Call 509-548-5807 or visit www.leavenworth.org
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