WWII week: berlin calling

We don’t pretend to be historians or true Kriegstourists, but I was noticing that we have visited and happened upon quite a few significant relics and reminders of World War II, especially Nazi Germany’s enduing monuments and dread ambitions. Here is the next installment of this series—this time from the capital. Berlin’s architecture is framed in the styles of many eras and diverse regimes, from Prussian princes to the German Democratic Republic, and has many other examples of war time buildings besides—like the old Tempelhof airport, but the Olympic stadium and park that hosted the 1936 summer games was a showcase of propaganda for all the world to see.

Live television broadcasts (among the first in the world ) of the events and invocation also went down as the Earth’s first embassy to the rest of the Universe—signals beamed transnationally and then escaping into space at the speed of light for any other civilization with a sensitive enough aerial antenna to receive. Another strange assembly gathered because of the fighting and desire to create spectacle are these heroic statues in the forecourt of the Citadel at Spandau. These historic German figures were removed from their spots along Siegsalle (Victory Alley)—along with the Siegssaule (The Victory Column, which was originally in front of the Parliament Building, the Bundestag)—because they were in the way of Albert Speer’s plans to create the World-Capital Germania, with a colossal peoples’ hall spanning this avenue. Speer’s plans were never realized and with subsequent revolutions, the statues have been in storage ever since.

WWII week: tysk (fleirtyding)

Previously, we had seen many of the coastal fortifications, still mostly intact, along the beaches of the Baltic, in the Normandy and in the harbours of the Bay of Biscay, and we were surprised to discover what an extensive network of defenses from World War II are yet to be found with some searching in Norway.

Unlike the pillbox concrete installations that defy erosion and the slippage of the decades (at least on human terms) as essential reminders spanning much of the continent and beyond, the Norwegian continuation of the Atlantic Wall, built under the orders of Nazi German to stave off an anticipated Allied invasion, are hewn into the very geology, cut into cliffs and granite boulders, like these

labyrinthine emplacements of trenches, bunkers and batteries found at Fort Nordberg and along the trek up to Fort Varnes and spread across the beach at Ny Hellesund all in the southwest part of the country, and commanded a strategic view of important berths and navigable points, bottlenecks and hiding spots, along the unfamiliar network of fjords. The title, tysk (fleirtyding) is Nowegian for German, Deutsch (disabiguation, [Begriffsanklarung]) to signify that Norwegians do not believe that the German people are unchanged or all the same.

eurotrashing or the columbian union

Although the most recent rhetoric against the general deportment of the body eurotique has been toned down somewhat—or at least, transmuted into a pseudo-intellectual soapbox about the urgent need for urgency and action, it is still very much cachet in Anglo-Saxon political debate and attacks to summon up the Continental, European leanings of one’s opponent—thereby ending all possible discussion.

The spectre of socialist regimes and bloated bureaucracies and welfare states are yet ammunition enough for a moment’s deflection at the expense of a distant and abstract punching-bag. One, I’m sure, can expect the criticism of the European club to become harsher and more pointed as the election season in America approaches. Meanwhile, the dissonant coda to all these judgments from critics, skeptics and sophists is that the EU government and member states ought to be converging towards a so-called United States of Europe, with common policies and standards.

I cannot imagine, however, a more disjointed and decodified union than America. The EU is not demanding that Alibamo impose the same sin-taxes as Nieuw Amsterdam does—or that Tejas or Øklahomå adopt their standards for vehicle registration plates or levy duties on income, retail sales or property uniformly either. Hopefully, once all the shouting is done with, people will realize that there are aspects, both traditional and experimental, about Europe and its organization worthy of emulation.

iconoclasts or gerrymandering

Soon it will be the regionally-observed German holiday of the Feast of the Assumption (Maria Himmelfahrt) commemorating the passage of the Mother of God into Heaven without having to suffer the pains of death. It is not a federal holiday, however, and is only celebrated in communities that are historically predominately Catholic. I knew that religion cut a strange figure over the Free State of Bavaria, differing confessions triggering potential disruptions in mass-transit (as one locality might take on a holiday schedule while the destination might not), postal deliveries and stores and businesses being open, aside from church processions and services—but until I saw it expressed cartographically, like in this map from the state government, I did not realize what pockets, exclaves and enclaves there were and how the footfalls of Protestantism and the Counter-Reformation looked on the march.

I wonder about the history and consequence of each small subdivision and where and when the schism came about. The light blue areas represent places that observe the holiday and the white areas ones that do not. The purple-grey areas are “parishes of trees”—quite a lot more of them than I realized too—Gemeindefrei districts that are forests and unpeopled.