Eisenach

I love castles, and there are so many in Germany. One that has been on my list for a long time is the Wartburg Castle in Eisenach.

downtown Eisenach

Eisenach is a picturesque town in its own right, but most people go to Eisenach to see the Wartburg Castle. The thing about castles is that they are usually way above the town...

The hike up there is worth it for the view, though.

Even for a castle, the Wartburg is REALLY old: the main hall was built in 1155.  The castle is pretty well-known thanks to a famous visitor it had nearly 500 years ago. In 1521, Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church, and he hid out in the Wartburg Castle.  He used his time at the Wartburg to translate the New Testament of the Bible into German.

Martin Luther's room at the castle, presumably where he wrote his translation of the Bible

chapel inside the castle

It's a BIG castle!

It Happened in Bosnia

I was only in Bosnia for a short time last spring, but it was long enough to know that I wanted to go back.  I told my students I was flying to Sarajevo on Thursday, and one of them said, "You go to all the weird places."  Maybe so. I can't explain it, but I am fascinated by the Balkan region.  

This blog is more-or-less a travel blog, not a political one. When you travel to the Balkans, though, it's hard to leave politics out of it. Before planning my last trip to the Balkans, I had a vague sense of what had happened in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Fighting broke out among the Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Bosnian Muslims. They all hated each other, and had been killing each other for generations…and that was a good enough reason for the rest of us to stay out of it.  All sides had all committed atrocities; therefore, they were all equally guilty, right?

I don’t think so anymore.

At the beginning of the war, the rest of the world tried to help stop the war by refusing to sell or give any of the fighting parties weapons. Sounds good, right? No weapons, no fighting. The problem is that this left Croatia and Bosnia at a gross disadvantage; neither had a real army. The Serbs, on the other hand, had all of the Yugoslav arsenal at their disposal.  

When I heard of the war in the Balkans back then,  I was under the impression that fighting was all over. Not true. None of the actual clashes were in Serbia; some of the fighting was done in Croatia, and a lot of it happened in Bosnia.  Even twenty years later, many shelled buildings serve as a reminder.

      



Of the more than 100,000 killed or missing at the end of the war, over 68,000 of them were Bosnian Muslims*.  I believe it, too. I have never seen so many cemeteries –with such new-looking headstones—as I did all over Bosnia. 

part of a cemetery in Mostar; most of the people buried here died in 1993

During World War II, Croats murdered many Serbs; the Serbs used this as a reason to attack the Croats in the 1990s. The Serbs better hope that the Bosnian Muslims don't use the same reasoning in thirty years.

 

 Bosnia, twenty years after the war

 

 

 

 

*From The War Is Dead, Long Live the War, by Ed Vuillamy. The numbers come from a thorough analysis by two Polish investigators, Zwierchowski and Tabeau. They have been criticized by both Bosnians (who think the numbers are too low) and the Serbs (who think the numbers are too high).   

 

 

Schönes Wochenende

Last week we were off for "ski week".  I don't ski, but I did travel to a fabulous location where there was some snow (more on that later!).  I didn't leave right away, though.  The Saturday before I left, I decided to get on a train and just ride. The Germans have just the thing for that; it's called the "Schönes Wochenende Ticket": on Saturday or Sunday up to five people can ride anywhere on the regional trains for just 40 Euro.  The regional trains are slower than the ICE trains, so it's perfect for just sitting and staring out the window...which is what I did on the way to Koblenz.

The train took about two hours to get there from Frankfurt, and the train followed the Rhein...I was able to see many of the castles I saw on the Rhein River cruise.  Once I arrived, I made my way to the Deutsches Eck, where the Rhein and Mosul rivers meet.  There Kaiser Wilhelm II had a massive monument made to honor his namesake, Kaiser Wilhelm I.   

 

The Kaiser was knocked off his pedestal during WWII. When he was returned to the top of the monument in 1993, a memorial was erected behind him:

The memorial is dedicated to those who suffered from the partition of the country; June 17, 1953 was the date of uprisings in East Germany, and November 9, 1989 was the day the Wall came down. It seemed to me to be an odd place for that memorial, but then I thought better of it...Germans have a thoughtful sense of history--perhaps they feel they have to counterbalance this massive memorial's show of might with some mitgefühl, or maybe it serves as a warning of what that might could lead to when left unchecked.

Happy Reformation Day!

Halloween isn't the only celebration going on today.  October 31st is also Reformation Day, which is a holiday in several German states (although not in the one I live in, unfortunately).   On this day in 1517, a Catholic monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church (Schlosskirche) in Wittenberg, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

The Castle Church ("Schlosskirche") in Wittenberg

top of the church tower; it reads "Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott" (a mighty fortress is our God)--the title of Luther's most famous hymn.

The original door on which Luther had nailed the 95 Theses burned in 1760; King Friedrich Wilhelm IV had it replaced with a bronze door with the 95 Theses inscribed.

Luther's writings may have made him popular with the people, but not so much with the pope and the emperor.  Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1521, but he continued to preach in the City Church (Stadtkirche) in Wittenberg. That year, the Stadtkirche went against the Catholic Church and held its first "Lutheran" (in German, Evangelisch) service. 

The Stadtkirche in Wittenberg where Martin Luther preached; it was also where he married and where his children were baptized.

It's hard to imagine the sleepy, picturesque town of Wittenberg fomenting any kind of fervor, religious or otherwise. I saw a number of tourists in Wittenberg this weekend, but there weren't any Reformationstag festivities. Surely something would be happening on the days before the actual Reformation Day, right? (Of course, I come from a place that, if people realized that could make money out of it, would turn Reformation Day into Reformation Month.)  To the Germans' credit--and most likely their economic detriment--they began setting up for Reformationstag only the afternoon before (Sunday, October 30th). 

workers setting up the Reformation Day celebration on the town square; the top of the city church (Stadtkirche) is in the background

near the entrance to the Lutherhaus, the Luther museum; it was originally a monastery, but later housed Luther and his family

It is a shame, though, because this town looks like it could use an economic boost.  I heard, though, that the town has a large celebration that lasts for several days in the summer: Luthers Hochzeit (Luther's wedding).