Germany – Seite 6 – bruecken_schlag

Schlagwort: Germany (Seite 6 von 8)

The Variety of Home

I am curating a twitter account this week that works by the rotation curation principle. It is called @i_amgermany and a different German or lover of Germany tweets on it every week, changing Sunday nights. Of course that makes me want to write about Germany on here this week, but I don’t exactly have a post in the drawer, and to be honest, taking care of two twitter accounts takes a lot of time.

So truthfully, it is a bit out of lack of time that I am bringing you a photo essay this week. Then again, when I look at the beauty I have to offer in this, I don’t think you will take it too badly. I am trying to show you the variety of what my beautiful home country has to offer, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did picking the photos for you.

Of course there are the thriving cities of Germany – Berlin, the largest and the capitol, surely comes first and foremost, but next in size are Hamburg, Munich and Cologne, and they are not to be neglected. All of them are very different, yet charming in their own ways.

The Speicherstadt, that is, City of Warehouses, shows you how functionality and beauty go together in Hamburg

When in Munich, climb up Alter Peter’s church tower – the view will be worth it!!

Cologne’s Cathedral is bound to leave you speechless with its gothic grandeur

But there is also landscapes! I had to cut down to a very small introduction of what Germany has to offer in that department. There’s the North and Baltic Seas in the North, and the Alps in the South, and a whole lot of rivers, mountain ranges, forests, lakes and fields in between.

Lake Constance borders Germany, Austria and Switzerland and brings maritime flair to the Southern most part of the country

Very dear to my heart, although I’m usually more fan of flat landscapes, are the rolling hills of Swabia, especially on a beautiful winter day like this

Would you have ever guessed that this is… Berlin?! Schlachtensee is a popular day trip destination in the summer

There are the castles that so many people associate with Germany. I have to admit I have never been to Neuschwanstein, the famous one that inspired the Disney castle, but there’s plenty of others worth visiting:

Castle Schwerin in the North East of the country is a true fairytale place to me

The Bayreuth Eremitage in Bavaria is worth a visit too – next to the castle you have a large park with beautiful grottos like this one

And in general there is much architecture to admire. Be it sacral in churches and monasteries or functional in post offices, train stations, hospitals, universities and so many more. Germany is just really pretty. Nothing to argue about that!

Bebenhausen in Southern Germany is one of the prettiest monasteries I have been to

The Fulda cathedral may not be as famous as the one in Cologne, but it surely makes for a beautiful stop right in the heart of the country

Lübeck with its hanseatic beauty of red brick stone holds a very special place in my heart!

Would you mind going to school here? This is Greifswald university, right by the Baltic Sea in the North East of the country. I absolutely loved my years as an undergrad student here.

Sometimes the beauty is not taken such great care of. This former hospital complex in Hohenlychen in Brandenburg is slowly left to decay. Such a shame.

Tübingen, another university town, has charmed everyone I know of. Studying there for my Master’s wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to me.

I could have and would have wanted to show you so much more, but I had to stick with places I had decent footage of this time around. Time and time again I think that travel in Germany alone could take years and years.

What are your favorite places in Germany? Or your dream destinations? Any places you think are must-sees – or need to be avoided?

Word Sights – Reichstag and Jakob-Kaiser-Haus in Berlin

April 2, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 5 Kommentare

„What does she mean by a ‚Word Sight‘?“ you may ask yourself. As I wrote about last week, and in my About me, and probably in a gazillion other posts as well, I have a thing for language. Now you may think that is true for any writer, but I really don’t think that is the case to just quite my degree, because I haven’t met many people that share my obsession of inscriptions, epitaphs, or really any other kind of writing in the public sphere. And that when it is so ubiquitious on buildings, monuments, pavements and statues, and in many other places! Couchsurfing hosts have suffered from my incessively nagging questions about what anyting written on any kind of surface from the parliament building to a banknote in foreign currency means. Meanwhile, I cannot really understand how anyone would not desperately want to know the meaning of those words.

In this spirit, I have something that I want to introduce you to today. Let me take you on a very quick walk through Mitte.

The Reichstag building must surely be on your itinerary when you come to Berlin. It has a long history that is intertwined with the history of the entire country. This was where Germany (that is, back then it was Prussia) was first declared a republic in 1918. Also, the dome of the building caught fire in 1933 under unknown circumstances, and the Nazis used this incident as pretense to fuel antisemitism by blaming it on the Jews. After 1945, the building was unused and left to decay until reunification. Today it is once more the place where the German parliament meets – a democratic one.

When you face the building, the large inscription above the front gates cannot be missed. In capital letters it says DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE, which means „For the German People“. The inscription was put there in 1916, not very much to the liking of the Prussian king who found it to be too democratic a gesture. Today, I personally know quite a few people who dislike the inscription for very opposite reasons: They think it sounds nationalistic, and that it should be removed.

Granted, the German word Volk, people, has been connotated in all the wrong ways during national socialism. It can carry a weird undertone when used in the wrong context, and for some people, the wrong context already is in the word deutsch, German. To me, however, this inscription on the Reichstag building is not the wrong context. I like the idea that a member of parliament would be reminded when entering the building that they are there as a representative of the German population, to work for the people in this country, and not solely for power, fame or money. To me, these three words are still a reinforcement of the democracy we are lucky enough to live in today. Looking at the historical facts about the place I sketched out above, I feel very aware of the fact that democracy is not to be taken for granted.

There is a second „word sight“ close by that I am sure many tourists overlook, and that is quite in keeping with the theme of reinforcing German democracy in the public sphere using words. When you pass by the Reichstag on the left side in the direction of the Spree River and walk toward Friedrichstraße station along the so called Reichstagsufer, you will soon notice a glass wall with writing on it to your right. Behind it is the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, the biggest German parliament building holding offices.

Jakob-Kaiser-Haus with Reichstag, Berlin, Germany

This shot is taken from the other side – you have the Reichstag building in the background.

Article 5, German Basic Law, Berlin, Germany

§5 – Freedom of Speech and Press

What is written on this glass wall, easily overlooked, are the first 19 articles of the German constitution – althoughthe German constitution is not called „Constitution“, but Grundgesetz, „Basic Law“. When the Federal Republic passed it in 1949, the idea was that one day the German Democratic Republic would be part of Germany again, and a constitution for the entire country would only be discussed then.

Article 3, German Basic Law, Berlin, Germany

§3 – Equality

After reunification, the Grundgesetz just stuck and we still don’t have a law that is called the Constitution. I kind of like Grundgesetz. Because that is what it is, it is the most basic law that we have, it settles our very basic rights.

I can never restrain a feeling of being in the presence of something grand when I come to the place where it is written down. Laugh at me all you want, but I think these words, be they technical as they may, be they nothing but a dry and dusty law, are of sublime beauty. When you come from the Reichstag building, you start by article 19. The further up front you go, the more basic the content of the articles. §5 Freedom of Speech and Press. §4 Freedom of Religion. §3 Equality before the Law for all People. §2 Right to self-development and personal freedom. And finally, my favorite, §1:

Article 1, German Basic Law, Berlin, Germany

§1 – Human Dignity

Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt.

In English that means:

Human dignity is inviolable. To respect it and protect it is the duty of all governmental authority.

And isn’t this what it all comes down to – that we are all human beings and that we all have a dignity that deserves to be protected? Isn’t that the essence of democracy, that we all deserve equal treatment and should all have equal rights and opportunities, and that the government we choose is a means to that end of protecting our rights and opportunities so that we can live a life worth living? I may curse politicians at times, I may have a very critical view of what is happening in this country – but the basic principles are the right ones, and this place states that for the whole world to see.

Being Drawn to Cologne

März 26, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 18 Kommentare

It was a big deal when I turned 12 years old for two reasons. One: I was allowed to sit in the front of the car now. Not that I got to do it very often as long as my older sisters were around to steal that much desired seat from me at every option. But it did make me feel very grown up when on my 12th birthday I was sitting next to my dad in the front seat of our family car. Two: My dad had made it a rule to take each of us girls on a small trip to a destination of our choice for their 12th birthday, just he and the respective daughter. My oldest sister chose to go to Berlin with him. My middle sister went skiing. And I went with my dad to Cologne. I do not remember why I chose that city, but I have beautiful memories of it.

So when last week I was due to go to a meeting in Düsseldorf, I decided to stop by Cologne for a few hours – just to check if everything was still there, you know. When I got of the train at the main station, I was a bit taken aback by the cold. I had spent the last few days in Southern Germany where Spring had made its first careful appearance, and the icy wind in Cologne came as a bit of a shock. But the sun was shining, and upon leaving the station, the immediate view of the Cathedral erased any doubts as to whether this had been a good idea. It was majestic and elegant, humungous yet delicate. Once more I stood in awe of this magnificent building.

I didn’t enter right away though, since I had absolutely no money on me, not even a coin to lock in my luggage at the train station, so the first thing I did was stroll into town in search of an ATM which proved rather difficult to be found. But who was I to feel annoyed by that. I was in Cologne, I had time on my hands, and walking through the city was fun even with pulling a carry-on the entire time.

Although I only meandered through what seemed to be the shopping district of Cologne, I found the city to be very atmospheric right away. People around me were talking in their funny, jovial Rhineland dialect and I kept listening in on conversations because I love the sound of it. But what made this afternoon most perfect, inspite of the freezing temparatures that sent me on to Düsseldorf with a cold, was the many many street musicians in the pedestrian zone I was walking through. I had to think of Istanbul where I first had the sensation of changing spheres every few meters with a new street musician adding to the moment’s glory.

I recorded a few examples for you. There was a guy with a flute and a few small jingle rings attached to his shoe that he was pounding with rhytmically so that his playing looked like a dance. And one with steel drums right in front of the cathedral that was a lot calmer, and his tune sounded funny in its solemn gravity. My favorite by far was a Klezmer Trio. Klezmer is a music style very dear to my heart which surely is rooted in my affinity to Eastern Europe. There is so much craving and longing, so much ambition in it. I feel that Klezmer is always driving onward, striving for more, urgently pressing to the next note, the next melody. And when it gets there, it is sighing in relief, only to move on right away. It speaks to me because I find myself as a driven spirit in its melodies and rhythms.

After having enjoyed these musical encounters in the pedestrian zone of Cologne’s downtown and having finally found an ATM, I made my way back to the cathedral.

The square in front of it was lively and packed with people. I approached the front gates with their characteristically gothic arches, and as I came closer, I looked up toward the towers reaching for the skies, as though they were actually trying to connect this earthly world to its creator.

I entered the church with many many others – tourists mainly, I suppose, but I don’t think exclusively. At any rate there was still lots of German to be heard. It didn’t feel like visiting the great cathedrals in Italy that I sometimes find deprived of their spirituality due to all the tourists. I found a place where I felt like settling, and sat there for about half an hour with this perspective on the beautiful architecture of the Cologne Cathedral:

I finally got up to move over to the candle stands. I really love the tradition of lighting a candle for someone. When I was still in school, my mother always used to light a candle at home when I had an exam, all the way through my final exam in grad school. She sat it on our dining table and every time she walked by it she would think of me and cross fingers.

I have lit candles in many many churches. To me it is a beautiful manifestation of my thinking and caring about someone. Looking at the stands filled with flickering lights, I was wondering who they had been lit for. I was wondering how many candles had been lit by people for themselves and how many had been lit for someone else. I though that there was maybe a lot of desperation and anxiety behind this – candles lit for people who were ill or had lost perspective and focus. So I thought about people dear to me and lit two candles out of the pure joy of living and experiencing beauty. Lights of gratefulness to shine and impart hope. And I hope amongst the candles were others like mine.

Karlshöhe in Stuttgart, Germany

März 17, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 7 Kommentare

The bridge I am showing you today may not be spectacular, but I absolutely love how the picture turned out. This weekend, I met up in Stuttgart with my girlfriends from grad school. Even though I used to live very close, I never saw much of Stuttgart before. My friend lives here now, and being shown around by her I got a whole new perspective on the city. As if it hadn’t been enough to be around wonderful people and feel that great sensation when you haven’t seen someone in a while, but it still all feels as though you had seen each other yesterday, we were also really lucky with the weather. Spring was definitely coming about yesterday as we strolled through Stuttgart’s fairer corners.

After we had taken a beautiful walk through a forrest that was still wintery, we came back down into the residential areas of Stuttgart’s South. Beautiful houses lined the steep streets, and the sun was bright and warm to a degree that it really felt like winter was over. We decided to get a drink on Karlshöhe, another small hill that had a cute little restaurant. In search of the place, we came across a dent on the hilltop. The bridge in the picture led over that dent, and as my friends crossed it and I took this picture, I had so many associations once again that dealt with transgression. Me and these girls, together we’ve crossed over from being students to having jobs. Maybe also from being girls to being women. Now together we were crossing from winter to spring. And I really hope they’ll be around for more crossings into the next stages of my life.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Being German and the Issue of Patriotism

März 7, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 80 Kommentare

Last week I wrote a post on cultural identity in this globalized world and in my own travel-filled life. The reactions were immediate and plentiful, and it seems that this is a subject that interests a lot of us. I am sure that this is because in travel, we always try to find ourselves. We confront ourselves with the other, the great unknown, the „cudne manowce“, as I like to call it, which is Polish for „the magical astray“. And we enjoy this because we perceive it as different only by comparison with what we are, and in this process we notice and understand our own inner workings better than before.

Along these lines, I have a few stories to tell about being German when you travel. I never noticed that I was German until I left Germany – that makes a lot of sense, because obviously most people I had known until then were German too, and this trait didn’t serve as a distinguishing attribute that would shape anyone’s individual personality. But then I went to other places. And I noticed that I was ridiculously punctual (by comparison with Mexican Americans). And well organized (by comparison with the French). And much more used to beer than vodka (by comparison with the Polish). And uptight (by comparison with Serbians). Even prude (I am SO looking at Sweden here!!). So there were moments when I felt very German, and I couldn’t believe I had never seen it before.

What I said about vodka goes for rakija as well – man, those Croatians can drink…

In becoming aware of my Germanness, I lost some of it, and that is what I wrote about last week. Other things I will most likely never get rid of, and the one thing that comes to mind fastest and that I have most been confronted with when travelling is the awareness of history and its direct link to patriotism. Let me explain with a little help of German singer-songwriter Reinhard Mey. The quotes below are translations of the lyrics to this song called Mein Land, „My Country“:

My dark country of victims and perpetrators,
I carry part of your guilt.
Country of betrayed ones and of traitors,
With you I practice humility and patience.

It all started when I was 16 and lived in Texas for a year. Kids would come up to me on the school bus and ask me questions such as: „So, are your parents Nazis?“ or „So, is Hitler still alive?“ or „So, have your family killed any Jews back then?“ Being 16 and a foreigner, I found it difficult to deal with this at first.

There was one particularly hard situation: We were talking about Auschwitz in my Sociology class. The guy behind me muttered to his friend: „What’s the big deal, it’s just a couple of people that died.“ I gasped, turned around, and gave him a huge speech after which I left the classroom in tears. Quite the drama queen, eh? But I don’t think he ever forgot it. In time, I learned that these things didn’t happen out of cruelty, but out of ignorance and I resorted to teaching people about the Third Reich instead of starting to cry.

I can’t sing to you hand to heart,
With eyes on the flag, and a word such as „pride“
won’t cross my lips even with an effort –
stupidity and pride are cut from the same cloth!

This is where patriotism comes in. I learned that while I may not identify with what happened in my country throughout history, other people will identify me with it. Whether I want it to be or not, Germany is part of me – and that includes its dark past. But with this dark past being such a dominant association with Germany, being proud of being German is something that doesn’t feel quite right. Add in the very important factor that an extremist form of patriotism is exactly what national socialism was all about, and you may understand why Germans are usually very very careful to express pride in their national identity.

I cling to you and even through your disruptions,
I am your kin in sickness and in health,
I am your child through all your contradictions,
my motherland, my fatherland, my country.

The more I have travelled, the more people I have met who never brought up the topic of collective German guilt. In fact it is often the other way around: People tell me how much they love Germany and I get all flustered and weird because it sounds strange and wonderful to me when someone has such love for the country I am from and no fear of expressing it. And then I have to explain that I am not used to that. Of course there was the soccer World Cup in 2006 that changed things for a lot of us and allowed us to wave Germany’s flag proudly for once. Things have relaxed since then, and I am happy about that. But at the same time I am not entirely sure about it. What if we forget? What if we lose awareness of the responsibility we have? What if things got out of hand?

World Cup Public Viewing, Greifswald, Germany

This was me at a public viewing for the World Cup in 2006. Over the top, you think? You should have seen some of the other people…

I have learned not to think of patriotism as an innocent emotion. I have learned that it has led to evil, and I have learned that there are no grounds to be proud of something you have no power over, such as your nationality. You can be grateful for it, happy about it, and identify with it, but as long as it is not your accomplishment, „pride“ is not the appropriate emotion to me. I think that feeling so strongly about this is very German. And it is something that I really want to hang on to.

I love Germany. But being proud to be German is something I don’t even want to feel. I would be scared that it might mean that I had forgotten my country’s past.

[EDIT JULY 2014] I recently closed comments on this post because I felt its time had come. It is important to me to stress once more that all my observations are highly subjective and personal. People in the comments have largely taken offense to the fact that I generalized a German attitude. I do think that I am not an exception in my views, but I am well aware that there are many other perspectives on the issue. In fact, patriotism is not at all problematic for many people anymore, especially for younger generations. I stand by this post and its importance because this one individual perspective I have, my very own approach to the topic, still holds valid and may grant some insights to the whole interplay of nationalism, patriotism, pride and history.

Failures and Successes – History Alive in Berlin

März 5, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 8 Kommentare

Surely you’ve noticed by now that I have a thing for history. I think countries are the same as individual people: It is easier to understand them if you know their personal past; their experiences, their baggage, their most wonderful successes and their greatest failures. Germany has a lot to offer in that department, and not only in the 20th century – although that is usually what everyone focusses on, understandably. And German history of the 20th century can’t be seen better anywhere in the country than in Berlin. Some of the places around allow you to truly understand Germany’s past – if you let them.

Standing freely between Humboldt University’s splendid main building and the German Museum of History, across from the State Opera at Unter den Linden boulevard, there is this fairly small and maybe unspectacular building.

Neue Wache (New Guard House)

In 18th century Prussia, the city castle of the Prussian kings was not at all far from here, and this was the armory. Today it is the „Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny“ – yes, that is its official name. Very long and technical, very German. Most of us just refer to it as Neue Wache (New Guard House), but the long version should begin to tell you about its function which is much more important.

There are specific memorials that commemorate the Jews killed in the Holocaust, the Roma and Sinti, and the homosexuals. There is a memorial that reminds of the burning of undesired books during the Third Reich, and there are living relics of Nazi architecture such as the Olympic Stadium or the airport in Tempelhof. Neue Wache is much less specific, and instead more inclusive. Here, we commemorate everyone who suffered from National Socialism and any form of tyranny and dictatorship before and after. We try to make amends for what this country has done and for what others have done. We include the victims and the resistance, the well-known heroes and every single footman, all countries, nations and ethnicities in our prayers, whatever that means to every single one of us. Personally I have always found this place to be deeply spiritual.

Käthe Kollwitz‘ „Mutter mit totem Sohn“ („Mother with her dead son“)

When you enter the building, it is but one big and almost empty room. In the middle there is a replica of a work by expressionist artist Käthe Kollwitz whose work I love deeply. She was considered a degenerate artist herself under the Nazis. The sculpture is called „Mother with her dead son“, and the intensity of it drives tears to my eyes whenever I go there and take a few minutes to think about what this place means. Buried here are also the remains of an unknown soldier and of an unknown concentration camp victim. The writing next to the sculpture says: „To the victims of war and tyranny“. The memorial is very plain, but it does invite you to linger and think about what it is there to remind you of. Take that moment. Calm yourself. And find in yourself the urge to make this world a place where cruelties like these will never happen again. You will go out a changed person if you allow it to happen.

And then there is a second dark chapter in recent German history – and while I feel that the history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or „Eastern Germany“, is a very complex matter that is quite usually immensely simplified, there is not much to argue about the end of this „other“ German State which began by the fall of the Berlin Wall. This event may be the greatest triumph, the most joyful moment in modern German history, and it means the world to me personally. If you’ve got time, I highly recommend a visit to te former secret police prison in Hohenschönhausen or to Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Memorial Berlin Wall) at Bernauer Straße. But if you want the immediate experience, if you want to touch and feel history and find a place where you could imagine what it must have been like, you should go to the East Side Gallery.

East Side Gallery Demonstration, Berlin Germany

There has recently been a fight over the East Side Gallery because investors are threatening to take parts of it down. This is the first part that construction workers moved a few days ago. I took this at the demonstration to save the East Side Gallery on Sunday, March 3, 2013.

The East Side Gallery is the longest preserved piece of the Berlin Wall. It starts between U-Bahn stations Warschauer Straße and Schlesisches Tor, line U1, right on the Friedrichshain side of Oberbaumbrücke. The wall was built in 1961 when more and more people started to leave the GDR. Only two months prior to that, the Secretary of the Socialist Party, Walter Ullbricht, had uttered the famous sentence: „Nobody has the intention of building a wall!“ The utter mockery of it…

The official state boarder at this point was actually on the Kreuzberg side of the river, meaning that the Spree river belonged to the GDR, even though the wall excluded it from Eastern Berlin territory – it was part of the so-called death strip. I read that children would sometimes drown on the Western shore because authorities weren’t allowed to help them once they had fallen into the water.

This is the former Death Strip, imagine the Wall behind you as you have this gorgeous view of Oberbaumbrücke and the Spree River.

The East Side Gallery is famous because artists from all over the world have contributed to its design. The side of it that faces Friedrichshain district holds incredible artwork that usually has immense political power, the way only street art can. I have recently noticed that it feels a lot like the Zaspa District in Gdansk, Poland with its famous murals. This is why most people come here, and it’s well worth a good look. However, I also recommend you pass through to the river side of the wall and into the death strip and think about the fact that this was no man’s land only 25 years back, that you would have been shot immediately, had you been found on this side of the wall coming from where you just now actually came from – the other side.

For many more great pictures of the East Side Gallery, I recommend this post by my friend Sarah at Wake Up Mona.

Oberbaumbrücke in Berlin, Germany

März 3, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 8 Kommentare

In honor of ITB, Berlin’s International Tourism Fair, I decided to feature posts about Berlin and Germany as a whole on the blog this week. This Bridge has been one of my favorite places in Berlin ever since I first saw it.

Oberbaumbrücke is located between the U-Bahn stations Schlesisches Tor and Warschauer Straße. When one of the post-box-colored U1-trains passes over it on a sunny day and the red brick stone and yellow wagons stand before a bright blue sky, those colors are of such intensity that the image is among the most vivid and dominant associations I have with Berlin. I have mentioned before that I love red brick stone more than anything, and Oberbaumbrücke is no exception.

When Berlin was a divided city, the river Spree marked the border at this point – the bridge connected Western Berlin Kreuzberg and Eastern Berlin Friedrichshain until 1961 when the Berlin Wall was built. Now the bridge was no longer connecting the two sides of the river, it was no longer connecting the two cities and countries. In the 1970s the so called „Kleiner Grenzverkehr“ (literally: Small Border Traffic) commenced, and pedestrians could cross again. After 1989 the bridge was renovated thoroughly and today once more connects two sides of the river that no longer belong to different states.

On the Friedrichshain side of it you will find the East Side Gallery, the longest part of the Wall that is still standing in one piece exactly where it used to stand. It is canvas for street artists today and shows some terrific artwork, largely on topics of mutual understanding between people and cultures and of overcoming the dark parts of history. Actually the East Side Gallery is in danger of being partially torn down right now, so you should go there quick before Berlin, horribly, may lose one of its most important historical landmarks. You can read more on it in this post I wrote.

Oderbrücke, Frankfurt (Oder) / Słubice, Germany / Poland

Februar 17, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 6 Kommentare

Bridges on Sundays comes to you from a place today that brings the Bridge as my symbol of connection between cultures to quite a literal level.

This photo was taken out of the train on Oderbrücke that connects Frankfurt / Oder in Germany with Świecko (Słubice) in Poland. The river Oder has only marked a border since 1945. Before, both sides of the river were German. After World War II Germany lost its Eastern territories, namely Silesia and Eastern Prussia, to Poland, while Poland lost large parts of Galicia, the Wilna and Nowogrodek areas to the Soviet Union. This map might make it clearer. In 1949 the Odra became the official border between the newly founded German Democratic Republic and the Polish People’s Republic. The Federal Republic of Germany didn‘t recognize this border officially until 1970 when Willy Brandt was chancellor. He had brought on a political course of rapproachment with the East. It was perceived as scandalous back then. Federal Germans felt that Brandt was giving up on land that was actually theirs to re-obtain one day. Thankfully those times are largely behind us, and hardly any German wants these territories back, but resentments die hard, and there is still mistrust between Poles and Germans when it comes to this, especially in older generations.

I only visited Frankfurt and Słubice for the first time last May and walked across a different bridge then that is open for cars and pedestrians. I remember feeling elated. There was no border control. There were no fences or gates or barriers. There was, simply spoken, just free access between the two countries. I thought “Schengen”, thought “European Union”, but this meant so much more than politics. It meant bridging the gap between two countries and removing all obstacles for people to come together and work through the hardships that history has burdened them with.

Neckarbrücke in Tübingen, Germany

Januar 23, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 9 Kommentare

Last week I introduced a new series to my blog – one that shows you photos of bridges! It’s that time of the week again, and so today I bring to you the second post in that series:

I have written about how the Neckar is not a true river to me because I grew up next to a river that was several miles in width and about to open up into the North Sea. But when I first came to Tübingen, that small university town in Southern Germany not far from Stuttgart where I was going to go to grad school, the bridge that crosses the Neckar was one of the places that I liked at once.

It was in the midst of summer when I first set foot in Tübingen, and it was beautiful weather. If you want to walk downtown from the train station in Tübingen, you have no choice but to cross the Neckar Bridge. Its balustrades were decorated with beautiful flowers on both sides, and it felt like a guard of honor for anyone who wanted to cross into town. Later I would see those same flower decorations everywhere in town – on lamp posts. On the town hall windows. In planters by the university buildings. The same flowers in the same arrangements everywhere. It was endearing and felt a tad bit finicky in a cute way, which captures much of the towns character for me.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every week. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

The River That Started It All – Hamburg’s Elbe

Januar 15, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 6 Kommentare

Dieser Post basiert auf diesem deutschen Originalpost.

Sometimes great happiness isn’t very far away. Sometimes it isn’t necessary to get on a plane or on a train or even on public transport. Sometimes all it takes is my mom’s bike and going downhill, ever downhill from my parents‘ house until I reach the beach. I was born and raised in Hamburg. I’m not sure if there is a place in the world that comforts me more than the Elbe River beach.

When I was a little girl, my parents would make us go for a walk along the river on weekends. I must have been 10 or 11 when for the first time I went down there for a stroll with friends *voluntarily*, and we thought we were the height of cool and very grown up.

I’m not often home in Hamburg, in fact I go there too seldomly. But when I do go, I make it a rule to go down and say hi to the big grey river at least once. When I moved to Tübingen in Southern Germany and was worried that I would miss the water, people told me: „But they have the Neckar River!“ People who have seen both will understand my reaction, which must have been a mixture from a chuckle, an actual laugh and a sniff. The Neckar is gorgeous, but it’s not a river – more like a creek. Playful, cute, harmless. Besides, it’s green. Or brown. It’s got all the wrong colors.

The Elbe at Hamburg’s outskirts is a stream, a powerful monster, wallowing along, taking my thoughts away with it whenever I need to clear my head. It is sometimes blue, but usually it is a thousand different shades of grey (ok, that phrase is basically ruined for me thanks to E.L. James, but if you ever come to my beloved river, you will see that there is more to the expression!). In summer, it’s a glistening mirror…

… and in winter it can be iced over, edgy, harsh. No matter the season – when big container ships come along, there will be waves, and when there’s good wind, there will be sailing boats, showing their pretty and colorful spinnaker sails if you’re lucky. The fact that I even know the word for this specific sail, even though I cannot sail myself, proves that I am from here. This is home, in any weather, under any condition, looking whichever way. As long as I know that this place exists, I will always strive to discover new and different places – because I will know that I can come back here, where everything feels safe and secure even in its instability. Sometimes the river floods and causes horrible damage. Usually it is merciful though, and it gives its all to the city. The port, one of the largest ones in Europe – Hamburg wouldn’t be what it is without it today and all through history.

It started when I was about 13 that every year we would go to see the Easter bonfires down at the river. If you lived in Blankenese, you would meet everyone you knew on that Saturday before Easter. The fires at the beach, the waters throwing back their warm light, the anticipation of it all – it has always been truly special. Four great fires are built up at the beach, and they rival each other for which one burns the longest. On each fire, at the top of the rod that everything is put up around, there will be a straw doll symbolizing the evil spirits of winter. Once it falls into the fire and burns, spring will gracefully come onto us. It is a deeply pagan tradition, and I like the fact that it is honored. Also, to me it was always deeply intertwined with Christianity nonetheless, because while my oldest friend and I would always stay at the Easter bonfires long into the night, we would still go to church at 5 o’clock the next morning – sometimes without sleep, coming directly from the beach.

The latest story I have to tell from the Elbe River is one of particular beauty, because it combines different things I love. Water. Fire. Music. People. In the summer, two of my oldest friends got married and had their reception in a beautiful restaurant right by the river, so close to the places where all of us grew up and had spent so many happy hours of our childhoods and our adolescence. I felt slightly melancholic with the densitiy of reminiscing, but at the same time I was bursting with happiness for my friends and being in awe about the beauty of it all with a childlike wonderment.

And when the time came to present the couple with our gift, I was so much more nervous than I usually am when I’m performing, because it meant so much more. One of my oldest friends stood there in her beautiful wedding gown, holding hands with one of my oldest friends, her groom; and one of my oldest friends was lighting the fires for his game of poi, and I started singing. And I tried to sing for them what I wished their life to be like. Allowing me to wish them well in this way was a gift for me too, and I don’t think I will ever forget it. You can watch it here: Fire spinning and live singing.

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