Der Chiemsee

Looking for a fun vacation? The Chiemsee, a lake in Bayern, is one of Germany's most popular resorts. The Chiemsee is located between the cities of München and Salzburg. München is known as Munich, and Salzburg is located in Austria, so that means that the Chiemsee is located near the border between Germany and Austria. Austria, of course, is known as Österreich.

Of the towns and cities located on the shores of the Chiemsee, Prien is the most well-known. From Prien, ferryboats go to the three islands in the Chiemsee. A ferryboat is a Fähre. The most popular of the three islands in the Chiemsee is the Herreninsel. In 1878, King Ludwig II built a castle there. The name of the castle is Herrenchiemsee.

The other two islands are the Fraueninsel and the Krautinsel. The Chiemsee is the largest lake in Bayern. The Federal Republic of Germany has sixteen states, or Bundesländer, of which Bayern, also called Bavaria, is one.

King Ludwig II was known for building extravagant castles. Herrenchiemsee was intended either to be a copy of the famous palace of Versailles, or to be something even grander. It was never completed, and the king spent only ten days there during his short life. It is now open year-round to tourists. The Fähre trip from Prien to the Herreninsel lasts only about fifteen minutes.

From the Fähre to the palace, it's about fifteen or twenty minutes by foot. Arriving at the castle, one sees a large garden with seven fountains. A large marble fountain stands in front of the palace. Twenty of the castle's rooms are available to tourists. The palace also houses a museum about the short life of King Ludwig II. He lived from 1845 to 1886; he was king of Bayern, not king of all Germany. In fact, it was while Ludwig was king, in 1871, that the many different Germanic kingdoms were united to form one country, Germany.

This new country was ruled by an emperor, Wilhelm, and his chancellor, Bismarck. Ludwig was one of many regional kings under the emperor. Some history books refer to King Ludwig as King Louis, the Anglo-French version of his name. He supported music and the arts, but had to distance himself from the composer Richard Wagner, once the public learned of Wagner's bizarre opinions, some of which the king secretly shared. In 1886, he was declared insane, and died several days later. To this day, many scholars wonder whether his death was an accident, a suicide, or murder.

Schule

Germany's school system is perhaps in some ways more complex than the various systems found in the United States. A German child will start, like an American child, by going to Kindergarten, but already at this level the German system is somewhat different. The German Kindergarten covers the range of the American Kindergarten, but in addition covers much of what in America is called preschool. While Kindergarten in the United States is usually one year (for a half-day in the better American school systems, otherwise for a full day), a German child may attend Kindergarten for two or three years of half-days, starting at a somewhat younger age than the typical American Kindergartner.

Next comes the Grundschule, the German version of grade school, grammar school, or elementary school. All children attend the Grundschule in the same manner from grades one through four. After fourth grade, teachers make a comprehensive evaluation of each student, including, but not limited to, thorough standardized testing. After this evaluation, a decision is made about which school the child will attend for fifth grade.

There are three common options for school after the Grundschule: the Hauptschule, the Realschule, and the Gymnasium. The Hauptschule includes grades five through nine; some students there will attend an additional optional grade ten. The goal of the Hauptschule is to prepare a student to successfully enter an apprenticeship program and become a Lehrling in a trade or profession. Students who do well in the Hauptschule occasionally transfer to a Realschule.

The Realschule includes grades five through ten, and aims to prepare students for further technical study at variety of institutions, usually called Fachhochschulen. Some students finishing the Realschule may instead choose to become Lehrlinge, and others may seek to enter a Gymnasium.

A Gymnasium included, until recently, grades five through thirteen. Now, however, many of Germany's sixteen Bundesländer have restructured their school systems so that the Gymnasium is grades five through twelve. The years at the Gymnasium are divided into two phases: after tenth grade, students are considered to be in the Oberstufe. Students who complete the Gymnasium go on to undergo a grueling set of examinations called the Abitur. An American student can complete high school and a four-year degree at a university without undergoing a test as rigorous as the Abitur. It lasts for several days, and includes written and spoken examinations on a variety of subjects. After the Abitur, students usually begin studying at a Universität , but some will choose to become Lehrlinge instead.

The typical school day, at any of the various schools mentioned above, often ends earlier than an American school day. Many German children will have lunch at home, school having ended perhaps shortly after noon. After fourth grade, each day of the week will have different classes, and some days end later than others. A student may be done with school at 12:30 one day, but 1:30 the next day. For those students attending a Gymnasium which has made the transition to a twelve-year program instead of a thirteen-year program, the school days may be a bit longer, as they have to cram the same amount of curriculum into a smaller number of years. The school day usually includes a Pause and a Große Pause, somewhat like a coffee break in an American office, not long enough for a meal, but rather merely a snack and a chance to go outside for a few minutes.

Other types of school in Germany include a Gesamtschule, which is a blending of a Hauptschule, a Realschule, and a Gymnasium in one building; a Sonderschule which is a school for students with special needs; and a Ganztagsschule is a school which keeps students busy until late in the afternoon instead of letting them out earlier. A Ganztagschule may have a Mittagspause, offering lunch either in a school cafeteria, or at a nearby Imbiß. A Waldorfschule offers an alternative style of education, based on the methods of Rudolf Steiner.

Some Gymnasien specialize in a few subjects, while others offer a larger variety. A altsprachlicher Zug is a series of courses which emphasizes ancient languages like Latin and Greek. A neusprachlicher Zug emphasizes modern languages like English and French. In any case, a German student will usually have two or three foreign languages. A naturwissenschaftlicher Zug centers on the natural sciences like chemistry and physics. All students in Germany attend religious instruction at their public schools. Because of Germany's strong belief in the freedom of religion, a student can choose which type of religious instruction she or he attends. For Christians, classes are offered either by a Roman Catholic church or a Protestant church; for Jews, a local rabbi will offer instruction on behalf of the synagogue; for Muslims, an Imam or a Mullah will instruct. Likewise, Buddhists or Hindus will receive instructions regarding their faiths. Students who refuse to take any form of religious instruction may attend a class in ethics instead.

Students participate in Klassenausflüge, which are like American field trips to local sites. A Klassenreise is a bigger and longer trip, and may last several days.

The school year includes more vacations in Germany than in America. German students may get a week or two at Pentecost for Pfingstferien. Although there are more vacations in the German schools than in the American, the total number of schools days is similar, corresponding to the fact that the German schools have a much shorter summer vacation to compensate for the more frequent vacations during the school year.

Freizeit!

German teenagers enjoy a wide variety of activities in their free time. Whether they attend a Hauptschule, a Realschule, or a Gymnasium, many of them join clubs. Unlike American clubs, the clubs for German high school students are usually not organized in or by the school. For example, sports are popular in Germany the same way they are in the United States, but German schools do not have any teams or athletic departments. Instead, after school ends, students leave the school building and go to a Sportverein - a sports club - which has teams and where they practice.

Different words are used for the clubs - Sportverein, Sportgemeinde, Fußballklub, or Sportgemeinschaft - but teenagers from different schools can, and do, belong to the same club. A club may have several teams for the same sport if there are enough people who want to play. There's no connection to grades, so students don't worry about whether their scores are good enough to make them eligible to play. Because the clubs are privately organized, and not part of the school system, money is no problem - the clubs are always on the lookout for a good player, even if she or he can't afford the membership fee.

Other activities are organized in a similar way. Most schools don't have a band, an orchestra, or a choir. After school, students will go to a Musikverein or a Gesangverein to practice and prepare for concerts. Being part of a musical group is popular among German teenagers and among American teenagers - but in Germany, these music groups aren't part of the school.

Drama clubs and theater groups are likewise organized outside of school. Plays and musicals are performed in local theaters, not at the schools.

This means that the typical German high school is pretty quiet after classes end. There are often no practice fields, swimming pools, or theaters in them. German high school students do the same types of free time activities that American students do, but they don't do them at school.

Outside of organized activities, of course, German teenagers spend their time playing computer games or video games, going to dances or movies, watching TV, or engaging in hobbies like photography, drawing, or painting. They do these activities on their own, or they can go to a Gemeinschaft or a Gesellschaftsklub which offers facilities for hobbies. Many Kirchen and Jugendorganisationen offer events for young people too.

Young people in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany tend to travel in groups, without parents or adults, on short trips of several days - maybe to go skiing or to see a major city. For such trips, Jugendherbergen are available at discount rates, so that teenagers have a safe and clean place to stay without paying too much.

A City with Three Rivers

Many towns were founded were two rivers merge into one. It's a natural place for permanent human habitation. The rivers provide water for agriculture, fish to each, and transportation by boat.

Cities with three rivers enjoy even more advantages than those cities located at the confluence of two rivers. Cities with three rivers tend to become more significant for this reason. A list of cities with three rivers would include Passau in Germany, Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and Three Forks in Montana. Some cases are ambiguous: the city of Koblenz is located at the intersection of the Rhine and the Moselle rivers (called the Rhein and Mosel, respectively), but the Lahn river joins the Rhine close to Koblenz, so that it might choose to consider itself a town with three rivers. Other such ambiguous cases exist, and in any case, proximity to more rivers in general is an advantage to a town - although the danger of flooding is thereby also increased.

The city of Tübingen also features three rivers. They contributed to the town's early successes. The three rivers which meet in Tübingen are the Ammer, the Steinlach, and the Neckar. Grammatically, each of these rivers has a gender: der Neckar, die Steinlach, and die Ammer. Linguistically, each of the names has an etymological history. The name 'Ammer' derives from a Celtic word amra meaning water or moisture. The Steinlach derives its name likewise from the geography of the region through which it flows: its channel is cut through layers of chalk, revealing at times fossils. The Neckar's name is derived from a likewise Celtic word, nik or nikros, meaning "attacking" or "raging" waters.

The Ammer begins northwest of Tübingen near the town of Herrenberg. Its general course is southeasterly, approaching the Neckar, with a few minor deviations. In 1493, a canal was created, drawing from the Ammer. This canal begins near the town of Unterjesingen, west of Tübingen. The canal runs roughly parallel to the Ammer, south of it. While the Ammer runs tangent to the northern boundary of Tübigen's old town area, the canal runs directly into it. The old town area is thus bounded by the Neckar on the south and the Ammer on the north. The old town itself is thus situated on shallow ridge, sloping down to south and to the north. The Ammer canal, then, lies north of the high point of the old town. In the northeastern quadrant of the old town, the Ammer canal splits, one branch returning to the Ammer, and the other branch running through a deeply cut underground channel to the Neckar. The Ammer continues, veering sharply northeast away from the Neckar for a short detour around the small mountain, or big hill, known as the Österberg. It curves southeasterly again, and enters the Neckar.

The Steinlach begins almost directly south of Tübigen, near the village of Talheim. Talheim is slightly southeast of Mössingen. From Talheim, the Steinlach meanders naturally for a few kilometers, but then becomes perfectly straight in segments. In 1861, civil engineers straightened the river. Straightening a river changes its flooding patterns, increases the drop to be harnessed by mills, makes it more predictably accessible for irrigation, and allows for easier navigation. In the case of the Steinlach, flooding patterns and mill usage may have been behind the impetus to straighten the river. Trees, now quite tall, were systematically planted along both sides of the river, and walkways constructed, created a park-like setting for several kilometers.

The Neckar is by far the largest of Tübingen's three rivers. Tübingen is merely one of many towns and cities along the course of the Neckar. Near Tübingen, the Neckar has been straightened. Most of the civil engineering to straighten the Neckar - such work is called Begradigung or Korrektion - was done to manage flooding and to create smooth and level patches of ground near the river on which factories could be build. Much of this was done in the early 1800's. Another such project was performed in 1911. The later project also created the Neckarinsel, a long thin island in the river which lies directly south of the old town. The island is approximately 500 meters long, and known for a statue honoring the author Friedrich Silcher, and for the Platanenallee, a park-like planting of two parallel rows of trees with a pathway between them. These two rows of trees were already in place before the island was created, and were originally somewhat longer than they are today. The Neckar plays an important role in the Tübingen's life. Its scenic quality makes it part of the town's allure to tourists, and university students conduct an annual race of Stocherkahn boats - shallow, gondola-like boats which are poled, not rowed. The Neckar enters Tübingen from the southwest and leaves heading northeast, and is tangent to the southern boundary of the old town.

The landscape along the Neckar and the Ammer includes a great deal of grape-farming on the hillsides. Wine from these valleys has a centuries-old tradition. The Steinlach valley is less frequently a site for vineyards. A general knowledge of the geography of these three rivers is a valuable aid to hikers exploring the region by foot.

Surprise! Reunification

In 1983, in the area around Reutlingen, an informal survey showed that the majority of Germans, across all demographic groups, did not expect to see a reunified Germany in their lifetimes. Reutlingen lies a few kilometers southwest of Stuttgart. The survey was a project conducted by a student at the Pädagogische Hochschule - a state teacher's college. Every subgroup - by gender, by age, by educational level, by income - included a majority of respondents who indicated that they did not expect to live to see a reunited Germany. A majority also said that they expected that Germany would be reunited eventually, but apparently in the distant future.

Only six years later, the world was amazed by images of German citizens cheerfully chipping away at the Berliner Mauer - the infamous Berlin Wall. A few months later, the Wiedervereinigung - reunification - would be a political reality.

One group was, if surprised, at least ready for the reunification: the city planners in Berlin. For forty-five years, the planners in West Berlin had carefully designed all of the city's systems to be readily integrated in the event of reunification. Throughout the decades, the various routes of subways, streetcars, and commuter trains - U-Bahn, Straßenbahn, und S-Bahn had been expanded, but always with an eye to connecting to the lines on the other side of the Wall. The bus routes, of course, lacking fixed infrastructure, could also be easily combined. Other forms of fixed infrastructure likewise designed for speedy consolidation with the hardware of East Berlin: telephone, electricity lines, water and sewage pipes.

Some had mocked the planning, and considered it a waste of money to build systems that connected to nothing. But the planners had the last laugh, and when the Wall fell, Berlin, a major city of nearly four million, saw its key infrastructure systems integrated quicker than most observers had thought possible.

Bread

Visitors to Austria, Switzerland, and Germany enjoy sampling the excellent products of bakers in those countries. Torte and cake of all types, and other creations of pastry, lure the sweet-tooth in mid afternoon, preferably enjoyed with a cup or two of coffee in a sunny outdoor cafè or Konditorei as they are called.

But perhaps even more sublime than the sweet baked goods are the breads. German bakeries excel at bread, and pride themselves on serving only the very freshest. Most bakeries will not sell a loaf of bread more than twelve hours old. The variety of breads baked is enormous.

German bakers categorize the hundreds of varieties of bread in several ways. One approach is to sort them by the types of grain from which they are made. Bakers use flours derived from Weizen (wheat), Roggen (rye), Dinkel (spelt), Vollkorn (whole grain), and mixtures of these. Rye is more common in Germany than in America; many Americans have come to think of rye as a sharp flavor, because it is often mixed with caraway or other herbs. Rye bread without caraway has, to the contrary, a smooth and pleasant flavor.

Breads can also be categorized by their external surfaces. Among the smooth-surfaced breads are both the plain and the shiny, the latter achieving a gloss from a type of glaze applied before baking. Some have a coating of Mohn (poppy seeds) or sesame seeds. Most distinctive is the Laugenbrot, made in the same manner as the pretzel. A solution of lye dissolved in water is prepared; immediately prior to baking, the bread is dipped into the solution and then placed on sheets and put into the oven. This process produces the shiny brown crust.

This use of lye in baking produces not only the pretzel and Laugenbrot - the actual full loaf of Laugenbrot is relatively rare, more often being made of a rope of dough braided into a loaf, or smaller rolls sold as Laugenstangen or Laugenbrötchen - but the beloved bagel. The Jewish Germans - the Yiddish community - use the same lye process. Originally invented by Polish Christians, the bagel was refined and standardized among Jewish Germans, from whom it spread throughout the world.

Many modern industrial bakeries make pretzels or bagels without lye, but purists insist on lye. The boiling lye solution is dangerous and even toxic, but in the course of baking, the heat and the chemical interaction with the dough makes it safe.

Some types of bread or Brötchen feature a slashed surface. Shallow cuts may be diagonal or lengthwise, and allow the dough to rise differently as the yeast works. The cuts also change slightly the consistency and flavor of the crust.

Because of the prominence of bread in the German diet - many Germans go to the bakery every morning to buy the freshest possible rolls for their breakfast - a rich vocabulary has developed around the topic. Rolls are favored because, being smaller than a loaf, they can be purchased daily for ultimate freshness, and are known variously as Semmeln, Wecken, and Brötchen. The best ones taste so good that neither butter nor marmalade is necessary.

Fritz Lang's Metropolis

First shown in 1927, the film Metropolis has a secure place in history for several reasons. As a canonical set of images, it has influenced numerous director and producers, including Star Wars visionary George Lucas. As a science fiction plot, it intersects with Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. Its quasi-socialist political subplot taps into postwar European society in the mid 1920's. And the love story woven through it never hurts.

Dealing with massive advances in technology, the movie hits the Luddite nerve. In the early parts of the film, it seems that the working class must suffer ruthless exhaustion, and the educated class suffer a parallel mental exploitation, in this futurist world in which machines become godlike.

A single vocabulary word captures this nicely: in hallucinogenic scene in which the protagonist, the son of the industrialist plutocrat who runs the mega-city, is enlightened as to the true nature of industrial exploitation, a machine is re-envisioned as the ancient Mesopotamian idol Moloch. Seeing workers fed to the machine as ancient polytheists fed live humans into the fires lit to worship the idol, the protagonist shrieks "Moloch!" and faints.

In more technically artistic ways, too, the film is a classic. Its use of lighting, shapes, and motion clearly delineates a style to which the film belongs. Film historian Lotte Eisner describes the scenes depicting large numbers of workers going to and from their factories:

To describe the mass of inhabitants in the underground town in Metropolis Lang used Expressionistic stylization to great effect: impersonal, hunched, servile, spiritless, slavish beings dressed in costumes of no known historical period. The stylization is extreme during the change of shift when the two columns meet, marching with rhythmic, jerky steps, and when the solid block of workers is heaped into the lifts, heads bowed, completely lacking individual existence.

The geometry of forms - whether of groups of people, or of buildings - is one aspect of Metropolis imagery. Another is lighting, an important element in any film.

In Metropolis, as in all his films, Lang handles lighting admirably: the futuristic city appears as a superb pyramidal accumulation of shimmering sky-scrapers. By means of trick shots and hyper-elaborate lighting, illuminated windows and stretches of dark wall stand out like the white and black squares of a chess-board; the light seems to explode, spreading a luminous mist, falling as iridescent rain. The models of the city, with its streets and jutting bridges, seem huge.

Film historian Siegfried Kracauer, who is noted for over-reading the future into the past, and the audience into the film, combines these two tendencies by seeing films as reflecting the psychology of the current audience as it leads into a grim future. For Kracauer, Metropolis is not be exempted from this, his usual method:

One film was more explicit than all others: Metropolis. In it, the paralyzed collective mind seemed to be talking with unusual clarity in its sleep. This is more than a metaphor: owing to a fortunate combination of receptivity and confusion, Lang's scriptwriter, Thea von Harbou, was not only sensitive to all undercurrents of the time, but indiscriminately passed on whatever happened to haunt her imagination. Metropolis was so rich in subterranean content that, like contraband, had crossed the borders of consciousness without being questioned.

Kracauer believes, then, that audiences of 1927 contained the psychological seeds of the evil which would be unleashed in 1933, and that the scriptwriter had absorbed this Zeitgeist and exuded it again into the plot. Whether one agrees with Kracauer or not, it is true that the plot is in some respects haunting; the scriptwriter, Thea von Harbou, was also Fritz Lang's wife, and had written the script in novel form. It was published separately as a novel. Despite Kracauer's possibly overly psychological interpretation of the film, his summary of the plot suffices:

Freder, son of the mammoth industrialist who controls the whole of Metropolis, is true to type: he rebels against his father and joins the workers in the lower city. There he immediately becomes a devotee of Maria, the great comforter of the oppressed. A saint rather than a socialist agitator, this young girl delivers a speech to the workers in which she declares that they can be redeemed only if the heart mediates between hand and brain. And she exhorts her listeners to be patient: soon the mediator will come. The industrialist, having secretly attended this meeting, deems the interference of the heart so dangerous that he entrusts an inventor with the creation of a robot looking exactly like Maria. This robot-Maria is to incite riots and furnish the industrialist with a pretext to crush the workers' rebellious spirit. He is not the first German screen tyrant to use such methods; Homunculus had introduced them much earlier. Stirred by the robot, the workers destroy their torturers, the machines, and release flood waters which then threaten to drown their own children. If it were not for Freder and the genuine Maria, who intervene at the last moment, all would be doomed. Of course, this elemental outburst has by far surpassed the petty little uprising for which the industrialist arranged. In the final scene, he is shown standing between Freder and Maria, and the workers approach, led by their foreman. Upon Freder's suggestion, his father shakes hands with the foreman, and Maria happily consecrates this symbolic alliance between labor and capital.

In synopsizing the story, Kracauer alludes to Homunculus, a 1916 film which influenced Lang's style. Although Metropolis has a seemingly happy ending, Kracauer sees a more foreboding moral to the story:

On the surface its seems that Freder has converted his father; in reality, the industrialist has outwitted his son. The concession he makes amounts to a policy of appeasement that not only prevents the workers from winning their cause, but enables him to tighten his grip on them. His robot stratagem was a blunder inasmuch as it rested upon insufficient knowledge of the mentality of the masses. By yielding to Freder, the industrialist achieves intimate contact with the workers, and thus is in a position to influence their mentality. He allows the heart to speak - a heart accessible to his insinuations.

In Kracauer's interpretation, every film made prior to 1933 somehow foreshadows the grim usurpation of power by the National Socialists, and every film in that era also somehow manifests society's psychoses or character flaws which enable or even cause that seizure of power. But despite Kracauer's over-reading, it is true that after assuming control of the nation in 1933, the party did offer Lang the opportunity to work in its propaganda agencies. The power of Lang's work had been recognized and understood. Lang knew that refusing such an offer would endanger him, so he simply fled from Germany and settled in the United States.

The history of Metropolis, and in some cases the history of the history of Metropolis, has taken various turns in the almost 100 years since it was released. It premiered in Berlin with a running time of 153 minutes. Over the next several years, as it was released and rereleased in various countries around the world, it was abridged in various ways. Many versions had a run time of around 90 minutes, meaning that over 40% of the movie was lost.

In recent decades, as film historians began to understand that this film is a priceless historical treasure, the efforts to restore the film to its original state began. Three tasks faced the restorers: first, to gather all the footage which could be found; second, to ascertain the correct order of the various scenes in the film; third, to digitally sharpen the images, treating each frame as a digital image. At 24 frames per second, the restorers faced the job of analyzing and manipulating approximately 220,000 separate photographs! After years of work, a restored version of Metropolis was released in 2001 at a length of 124 minutes. The restorers had gathered every bit of footage they could find, sharpened the images digitally, and made educated guesses as to the order of some scenes. This was the best that could be done, and historians and the viewing public would have to content themselves with it.

To the great surprise and joy of cinema fans everywhere, a museum in Buenos Aires discovered, in 2008, a nearly-uncut version of Metropolis. After several more years of restoration work, it was released with a run time of 148 minutes. The Argentine footage not only restored missing sections of the film, but also served as a guide to the exact order of the scenes. Today, there are perhaps only five minutes of material missing, and a viewers can have nearly the same experience as that original audience in 1927.