welkende under glass

Lilies are quite the retiring and undressing of flowers, coming undone once no longer fresh and tend to go in pieces when they begin to wilt. We had a bright bouquet for a few days—which all of a sudden was disarmed. A bloom intact fell from the vase into a wine glass, dusting the inside with pollen. I thought it made an interesting, accidental still life subject.

WWII week: gravity's rainbow

Though after the war, these two locations on the Baltic (Ostsee) coast remained state secrets and off-limits under DDR leadership, being repurposed, occupied and then neglected, both the Colossus at Prora at the rocket research facility at nearby Peenemünde survived and are today exemplary edifices of the aspirations and determination of the NSDAP, well curated and accessible testimonials. The intended beach resort complex consisted of eight identical monolithic buildings and would have housed twenty thousand holiday-makers, planned as an affordable vacation destination for the average family and for soldiers on leave. The scale of this place was just unreal, cavernous and unending as it repaired into the vertical horizon along the shoreline.

There is a dock for cruise ships and dancehalls and cinemas. Work on this compound, a project of the KdF (Kraft durch Freude, Strength through Joy) programme, which also brought the Volkswagen to the public, had to be halted as the work escalated and the forced labour that went into the building was diverted to other more pressing concerns before it saw a single guest, like rocketry research and development at the Peenemünde laboratories.

Werner von Braun and other physicists and engineers here tested and perfected the jet-propelled V-1 armaments that were used to bombard Allied territory. Never before had war-makers the ability to hurl terror from the skies in this way and connive such destruction from a distance. Originally, the push was for another kind of action-at-a-distance with drone-bombers operated by remote-control but the prototypes were not tenable in the battlefield, and experimentation and application eventually saw use during the Cold War and in peace time with space exploration, often at the hands of the same architects. The laboratories demanded huge resources and had a dedicated power plant and railhead, in addition to the vast testing-grounds, dormitories and workshops. Both sites host excellent museums, chronicling their existence, legacy and the Zeitgeist.

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.