Picking the Winner

Make sure you aren’t caught in the wrong scarf and blowing the wrong teams Vuvuzela.  Ask ‘Murdoch the Psychic Soft Toy’ or try one of our other suggestions for picking a winner at this years World Cup.

Traditionalists might want to go with Paul the Psychic Octopus, the mystic  mollusc  who has, according to Worlwide Press Reports, predicted the outcome of games unerringly thus far in 2010.  Which team flag is on his lunchbox?  Seems simple,   but beware.  Paul you see was born and bred in Weymouth.  That makes him British and, in my book, not to be trusted when it comes to any game involving penalty shoot outs.  I offer instead Murdoch The Psychic Soft Toy.   Sit him in the middle of a flat surface and wait.  If he finally falls backwards put money on the second team playing and forward on the first.  Best of all is that he doesn’t even need squid food as bait.  On the negative side he tends to be influenced by drafts.

Coins were of course introduced not to replace bartering your favourite camel for a packet of Camels but to save lives.  What?  Well, where once men would lock swords to the death over a fair maid, along came someone (presumably rubbish at fencing) who said “let’s design something that, just like most arguments, has two sides.  Then lets chuck it in the air, and decide who owns America”.

Don’t have a coin? Try that old traditional selection song “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo…” But not too loud – it’s just a teeny, weeny, meeny bit Racist (though that never occurred to me in the school playground when I was choosing players for our kickabout).

If you’re into numerology you could add up the letters in a team name relative to their place in the alphabet: ENGLAND = 5+13+7+12+1+13+4 = 55.  5+5=10  Divide that by the Managers Birthday and take the square root of David Beckham’s telephone number multiplied by John Terry’s boot size = Spain (or possibly not).  Experts will note that pesky ‘a’ in the middle with a single 1 point.  Without it we’d have a World Cup winning team named ‘Englnd’.  It would be 5+13+7+12+13+4 = 54. 5+4=9 and 9 is an acknowledged lucky digit (remember Lennons ‘Number 9 Dream?)

That’s how close we were to living OUR dream Englnd fans!

Or you could just sit back with a cool beer with your feet up and let the players decide who wins.  But where’s the fun in that?

… and for those of you who switched allegiance from England to Germany only to lose out a second time – the game for 3rd place will be screened at the Museumsplatz Open Air site in Bonn:

Germany v Uruguay

Entry 6pm

Tickets are 6 Euros from the usual Ticket Outlets (Bonn Ticket etc)

Bonn’s Swinging Sixties

I’m a big fan of Bonn’s oldest surviving pop band Sunny Skies, so when founder of the ‘Skies’ Rope Schmitz told me there were other musicians from Bonn’s pop past performing again I was intrigued.  The evening has been organized by Bea Tradt who sung alongside Rope (Rolf-Peter) in the original Sunny Skies and will feature many of the musical heroes from Bonn’s past (someone calculated their ages would total almost a thousand years of Bonn Rock History, which I think is thinking a little bit TOO hard!)

There will be reminiscing about the past and a small sixties market too (although I guess my chances of buying one of those ‘Beatles Wig in a box’ that I saw as a youngster, but without sufficient pocket money, has gone forever).

Should be an interesting and fun evening so dust off your drainpipes, oil your hula hoop and head for Endenich!

SIXTIES UNITED LINK

And to get you in the mood for a swinging sixties evening here is a fascinating and fun homage to Bonn in the Mods and Rockers days:
THE BONN-BEAT WEBSITE LINK

Federal Republic is 60

This year sees the 60^th Anniversary of Germany’s Federal Republic.  The BRD (or Buntes Republic Deutschland as musician Udo Lindenberg famously called it) was born in Bonn so naturally Bonn will be celebrating.   Many of our Seasonal Celebrations such as the Museums Mile and Beethoven Festivals will accordingly have Federal Republic motifs this year but the whole party kicks off this coming weekend.  The (rather frighteningly!) titled ‘Long Night of Democracy’ begins on Saturday 23 May when all Museums on the Museums Mile , Villa Hammerschmidt, the World Conference Centre and parts of the UN Campus will open their gates, doors, Portcullis’ or whatever.

So, lots to do and see is promised.  Lots of Tourists are promised too,  so for those wishing to escape the  Federal Republic my recommendation:  a visit to the Bunker Museum in Ahrweiler.  The most expensive building in the BRD was built in the 1960’s to protect 3000 people in the event of a Nuclear Strike.  I suspect  that unless you were a member of Bonns Government at the time you would not have had an invitation then – so make the most of it now.

More details: Details

Mayday!

So, did you wake up this morning and find a tree outside the door with your name on it?  No, I didn’t either, but in case you were wondering, here is a reminder of what it’s all about…

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The Maibaum and it’s British equivalent the Maypole, probably date from German Paganism so it’s only fair that one of the oldest illustrations of a Maypole, The 1590 fresco by Hans Donauer, is to be found in Münich. The Germans, being German I guess, have always taken their Maypole  duties very seriously. From the 16^th Century whole communities would organize the cutting and erecting of a pole (usually Hawthorn or Birch) which had to be at least 100 ft in height, bolted upright and guarded night and day because stealing someones Maibaum was serious business.

Of course for this serious task the German’s appointed a ‘Maibaumchef’ and proceeded to draw up a long list of equally serious rules  – the most important being that in stealing a Maibaum “No force shall be used”. Entire villages were mobilized to prepare and protect the tree although how they would do so sans force is not documented.   One can almost hear the cries of  “You can take our horses, you can take our women, but you will NEVER take our Maibaum!”

I was a little disappointed after reading all this stirring information. Our Maibaum in Kessenich certainly sits happily in the right place – centre of the ‘village’ – beside the Nicholas Church.  Even without a tape measure and ladder though I was pretty certain it wasn’t the regulatory 100 ft high.   When I came to photograph it  I was not wrestled to the ground by ten heavily built Morris Men bells a jangling.  An elderly man looked at me warily it’s true, he walked quickly away to return armed with nothing more dangerous than a watering can with which he proceeded to wet the nearby roses.

The Kessenich Maypole

Perhaps more emotion these days is attached to a variation of the theme – ‘Liebesmaien’.

Here the work is not team oriented but undertaken by individual, young, love-smitten men. Aim of the game being to erect a small tree (usually Birch) outside the house of the object of ones affections.  There are a fair few of these about in my neighbourhood but I never see anyone coming or going from the houses – maybe they are too embarassed to risk being asked if they are the subject of a tree declaration.  For those of you who never saw it on ‘Blue Peter’ here is how it’s done:

A heart made from wood or stiff card is attached to the Birch tree (or branches thereof) stating the name of the intended recipient (presumably so that your girlfriend doesn’t think you have a thing going for her mother?). This is collected at the end of May and is usually rewarded with an invitation to a picnic/BBQ. Women’s Libbers will be pleased to hear there are even so called “Schaltjahren” when a girl can take the upper hand (or tree in this case).

Digging still deeper into tradition (gardening pun intended)  I discovered records of village sales, with Auctions of May brides involving all unmarried girls younger than sixteen. I can’t speak for seeing any of this around here – but who knows what they get up to in Dottendorf?!

Law returns to Bonn

Small time Medieval criminals in Britain were often locked into stocks and pillories in town squares for public ridicule. Germany also made its contribution to making a rogues life uncomfortable however – The Pranger. Bonn was no exception, and it took a hefty collision with a lorry to finally end its days outside the Münsterbasilika. Until recently that is.  Another in our series looking at famous and not-so-famous Bonn landmarks.

26 July 2005 in Bonn was a day on which the spirits of many a long dead medieval rogue might have looked down on the Münsterbasilika and smiled. On that day a careless lorry driver felled in a moment the City’s symbol of Civic law at its most public. A symbol that has stood for many years and held captive many criminals.

On 24 July 2007 Mayoress Bärbel Dieckmann unveiled the renovated ‘Bonner Pranger’, back in its former place of honour outside the main door to the Münsterbasilika. Some might argue that on the day she also became the first ‘victim’ for a ‘barracking’ from the public, since Bonn’s ‘Save the Metropol’ initiative took the unveiling as an opportunity to demonstrate it’s displeasure with the Council’s handling of the currently threatened Bonn Theatre.

People who were ‘pranged’ in the Middle Ages certainly had it much worse though. Petty thieves and the like would be chained by the neck to a brass ring on the Pranger’s pole and subjected to any abuse, oral and physical, that the passing Townsfolk might like to meter out. The time chained up though was usually only the start of their misery. It would lead to their being ostrasized by the entire community since being seen with such a person was to be considered as being like them. In short, it meant no further part in the community – and the community was vital at a time when barter was as important as money in the hand.

Proof that the Bonn Pranger is still used to this day

For the record, the Pranger is 2.70m high and made from Roman Sandstone with a trachyte (volcanic rock) base. The top ‘cannonball’ represents the ‘Citizen’s Law’ by which the offenders were tried. Records of the time show that paying for the parading of criminals was a matter of some contention. A list was even drawn up detailing charges for each form of torture carried out.

Some might wish that the brass ring was put back on the Pranger’s forbidding surface and it was again made ‘ready for action’.  For now though we will just have to chain people who annoy us to the post with our imaginations.

Who knows what the future might hold though – the Council wanted it put back after all! 

Marie Kahle – Her Story

Imagine you woke up in Bonn
one morning to hear that a shop in your street had been broken into and
ransacked..   What would you do?   Offer to help clean up?   Seems a natural reaction one would
think.

Marie Kahle did just that in
Kaiserstrasse.  Months later, fearing for
her life, she fled to England where she remained  with her family until her death.  A plaque in the Bonngasse ‘Walk of Fame’  is dedicated to her, as is a Street name.
Here is her moving story.

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The year was 1938 and the Kahle family were highly respected, non-Jewish, residents in Bonn.
Professor Paul Kahle was a man of some influence and instrumental in developing Eastern Studies in
the curriculum at the University and had many influential friends worldwide. He was to need them when his
world began to fall apart.

On 10 November a Pogrom took place in Bonn
(as it did in many German Cities around this time). Jewish residencies were systematically ransacked
and their occupants beaten. Only days before, the Bonn Synagogue had been set ablaze  with firemen standing by only
to ensure that the flames did not spread to nearby houses. Marie Kahle’s children had tried to warn
local shopkeeper Emilie Goldstein (22 Kaiserstrasse) that the Nazis were on the
march but had not found her; half an hour later they returned to find the shop
door ripped open and the shop itself a shambles.

Site of the Goldstein Corsetry Shop (Kaiserstrasse 22) today.

Marie’s son, Wilhelm, spent most of the following day helping clear up.  It was forbidden by the Nazi authorities to enter Jewish shops but Marie had many Jewish friends and, to show moral support, she often visited them after dark. Whilst she was at Emilie Goldstein’s however the shop was also
visited by a policeman and both Marie and Wilhelm were reported to the local Right Wing Press. A week later the aptly named ‘Westdeutsche Beobachter’ (West German Observer) included the headline  A Traitor To The German People and the lives of Marie, Paul and their family
fell apart. The house was watched day and night. By day stones broke the
windows, by night thugs hammered at the front door. A caricature of Marie with hangmans noose was erected in the street and  ‘Here lives a Jew Loving Traitor’ painted on the pavement before her house. Compounding the danger was the fact that the Kahles also had an unregistered Jewish student staying at their house.  Marie herself fled to a nearby Convent; her husband (who also had a Polish Rabbi
Assistant) was forced to vacate his post at the University. Wilhelm was expelled from the University and could have fared worse had the Duty Policeman reported that he had not conclusively seen the boy cleaning up in the shop – which would have merited a much greater punishment.

Possibly the lowest point was reached when a former family friend, probably on Nazi Party orders, told Marie the only hope of saving her family lay in committing suicide. He ‘graciously’ even offered to provide the poison if throwing herself before a train was too traumatic! She was ‘requested’ to attend a hearing at the Nazi Headquarters and there possibly only escaped being tortured  through the intervention of a local, lowly paid policeman, two of whoms children had been clothed from head to foot through Marie’s local charity work.

Site of the Kahle House today

Due largely to the many internationally influential friends that Marie and particularly
Paul had, an escape to England was planned. Under the guise of a holiday, first Marie and later her husband and children, all fled to Holland and then on to England. The children arriving only hours before a new
rule forbidding all but Hitler Youth members travel outside Germany.

Marie herself never again returned to Bonn.
Suffering a long time from ill health, she died at only 55 years of age in 1948.
Her husband became an honorary Doctor at Oxford University and only returned to Germany at the request of his son Theo.  He died in Düsseldorf in 1963. John Kahle returned to Bonn in 1950.  William (Wilhelm), the eldest of the brothers, cared for Marie until her death and became a priest at Westminster Cathedral.  He died in 1993.  John Kahle became a ‘Post-War’ German as he himself said – “Charged with the task of rebuilding the world-view of the German people” The youngest brother, Ernest, also settled back in Germany after the War.  He studied Economics in Bonn and married here.

Marie Kahle published her story in England under the title ‘What would you have done?’ in 1945.

It took fifty years for the book to first appear in German language and even now it has only been sporadically re-published, last time in 1996 along with a chapter by her son John and a longer article by husband Paul detailing the rise of Nazism in Bonn
University up to his departure to England in 1939. The English version has long been out of print but if you see one in German it makes a fascinating (and rather
frightening) read.

Having found out what Marie Kahle endured after her and her sons act of kindness on that black day in November 1938 ask yourself, truly – would you have done?

‘Allo ‘Allo whats this then?

„I will say this only once…“

 

This season I will be avidly checking my TV schedules for the arrival of a rather famous British comedy classic.  No, the Germans seemingly are still not ready for ‘Del Boy’ from ‘Only Fools…’ or even for that most lovable of habitual prison offenders Norman Stanley Fletcher from ‘Porridge’.  What they are ready for (apparently) is “Allo Allo”.  ProSieben/Sat1 has bought all 85 episodes of the popular show which ran from 1982 until 1992.

 

"Allo Allo's" farcical portrayal of WW2’s French Resistance was largely grounded in popular shows of the time like ‘Colditz’ and ‘Secret Army’ and to be fair, the foibles of every nationality were relentlessly pursued for laughs – be it the beret wearing, sex mad French, the upper class twit Brits or the Germans… 

What audiences here will make of Lieutenant Gruber and, in particular, Herr Flick of the Gestapo I cannot imagine. I rather suspect that for Brits, watching  the audience will be more entertaining than watching the show.    

Easter or Xmas?

May I be the first to wish all our readers a Happy Xmas! and a  Merry Easter!

This shelf in a local store here in Bonn seems a bit uncertain quite what time of year it is. 

Or perhaps the owner truly believes in the old saying that 'What goes around, comes around'?

Brothers in alms – Maria Laach

The announcement by a downstairs neighbour of an impending birthday celebration in her appartment was all I needed to set off in search of peace, solitude and good food.
If you too need a quiet corner to think about everything and nothing, join me on my short trip up the motorway to paradise…

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Maria Laach

I can’t confess to having ever ‘found’ religion, but if I ever did it would not be after a visit to St Peter’s, St Pauls or even (whisper it quietly in Bonn) Cologne Cathedral.  It would be in a tiny Abbey surrounded by glorious volcanic countryside  just up the A61.

The countryside

In between the Mosel Vineyards and the romantic Ahrtal sits Maria laach and its Benedictine Abbey.  The area is a visits worth in practically any weather – a glorious mix of tall beeches, Spruce and Ash trees alongside centuries old oaks.  Picturesque in Summer sunshine, dark and mysterious in Autumn, awe inspiring in thick winter snow. Take a walk around the lake’s circumference and watch for bubbling patches of water at the lakeside. Examine the basalt and pumice rock quarries created from 10.000 year old volcanic eruptions, or just enjoy the silence and stillness that for me is the most precious commodity the area has to offer.  A good mood is guaranteed for all, and even the most hardened of city dwellers will find him/herself wanting to say ‘hello’ to the friendly cows when they wander over to check-out the mornings first tourists.

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The Abbey and Monastery

Peace is indeed such a valuable commodity that many people are loathe to give it up.  The Monks at Maria Laach are an example.  One of 26 such monastries in Germany, they have their own community, complete with woodworkers and electricians.  My guide book tells me there are some 13000 Benedictine Monks worldwide and I counted some thirty or so brothers at the evening vespers before almost falling asleep to the sounds of their singing.  (this really is a place to relax).   The Abbey itself dates from 1093 and is too wonderful for words so I will just say ‘see for yourself’.  It has a good many visitors, but ultimately is still, clearly a place of work and worship (Ora et Labora!) for its Benedictine inhabitants.  Whilst  I must admit that having to stop work every four or five hours to come to prayer as the monks do would not keep the wheels of industry turning, I can’t help thinking they might be on to something.  Most of us have plenty of work to do, but how much time is left to reflect upon what we are doing?  No, I’m not fiercely religious, But Maria Laach Abbey does make me pause for thought when I don’t usually have the time (or can’t be bothered to make the time perhaps?) to do so.

Seehotel Maria laach

At under an hours drive from Bonn, Maria Laach  is easy to plan as a day out.  To really relax, or catch the 5.30 ‘Morgenhore’ (Morningsong) at the Abbey though you might want to stay overnight.  In days gone by monastries would offer a roof over your head and food for weary visitors.  They still offer these things today in fact, but  Sadly the Maria Laach Hotel is not free.  It is very comfortable though with a wonderful menu and friendly staff.  They cater for business seminars and for weary hikers with equal gusto, and whether you want top cuisine or just coffee and cake you wont be disappointed.  A tip here is to try any cake with apple in – the local apples are varied and delicious; and any dish with duck in – just try not to feel too guilty when you visit the lakeside ducks afterwards.  Diners seem to finish astonishingly early in Germany I find, and you are apt to find yourself alone in the restaurant after 9 pm.  The solution is to head for the nearest ‘Kneipe’ which, conveniently if you are already languidly relaxed with wine, is in the hotel – ‘Im Eichenkamp’.  The owner, Werner Bösch,  looks astonishingly like a good friend of mine in Portsmouth and treats me (and every other guest) as if he really was my friend.  My girlfriend remembers a business seminar that was rounded off in this very wine cellar until four in the morning – and the owner stayed awake to refill the peanut bowls throughout. Even my friend in Portsmouth would have been in bed by then I suspect.

This is very definitely a place to relax; to talk for hours about everything.  Lets invite the Iraqis and Iranis, the IRA and the British Government, George Bush and everyone else down to ‘Im Eichenkamp’ and get those problems sorted out over good wine and salted peanuts.  Let them all wake up with a clear head next morning for a walk round the lake and a prayer in the Abbey.  If world peace is possible anywhere, this is the place.

Internet: www.maria-laach.de
Hotel: www.maria-laach.de/seehotel

You can easily reach Maria Laach and its Abbey by car from Bonn.  Just take the Autobahn A61 to the turn-off ‘Mendig/Maria-Laach’  The Abbey is about 2km from the turn-off.  By public transport it is a little more difficult to get to:  A train to Andernach, followed by a bus ride is required:
Buses from Andernach (Breite Straße 98):
Monday to Friday: 07.58 – 13.18 – 17.33
Saturday: 08.33 – 12.33 – 16.33 Sunday & Holidays: 12.33 – 18.03

Please check these details are current before travelling.

Anyone for cake?

Thought I'd share this culinary delightful translation error with the world.  From the menu of a top Bonn Hotel.  As a main course you could have a meal including 'Red Pepper Scum' (an unfortunate mis-translation of the German 'Schaum'=froth).

A glass of wine here (0,2l) will set you back 9 euros – and that's not a 'typo'…

Anyone else with a 'silly' picture from Bonn?  Please mail jpeg to us: english.network at gmx.de

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