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.

resupinate

After some months of dormancy, my little orchid again budded and came into full bloom. These flowers have a very specific and peculiar architecture, and there are more kinds of orchids than there are different species of birds and are closely related to asparagus. Resupination refers to the structurally downward facing dog yoga pose that the parts of the flower assumes as it develops and suggests being upside down, though almost all flowers grow this way so I wonder upside down to what.

My orchid does not display the advanced and a little smug mimicry of this wild cultivar (evolved, coerced to look like something it’s never seen) but I can certainly see the family resemblance.

sing-a-long

A group of artists have collaborated to create luggage-labels for all the des-tinations mentioned in the folk standard “I’ve been Everywhere,” covered by Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. There are some really brilliant designs and I certainly would not mind seeing this group applying themselves to bigger undertakings.

werewolf x-ing

dbase or paying peter to rob paul

The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia is again bringing scrutiny on itself by putting on airs of vigilantism and proceeding with the purchase of more data CDs from Swiss banking institutions with information on German account holders.

While I can understand and do sympathize with the slowness of reform and the byzantine channels of bureaucracy, NRW is really airing its frustrations—continuing to pursue this tactic in order to reclaim hypothetical tax revenue loss from citizens who might be seeking to hide wealth in the Confederation and then previously threatening to withhold financial assistance meant to help the former East Germany develop economically—by taking matters into its own hands and exercising a prerogative that is criminal, at least by proxy, is exacerbating and threatens to unseat the whole process. Such volleys of deals that are not above board, however indirect, and trafficking in stolen goods would make the Swiss, I think, unwilling to entertain more transparency and reform in a legal framework, and turn German depositors into anathema, unwelcomed like their American counterparts already shunned by the US’s world-policing. Further, Switzerland, in order to dampen the effects of investors seeing the franc as a safe-haven and the follow-on inflation of its value (being bad to trade and export), is buying up quite a significant amount of German bonds. In other words, servicing German debt, and while I don’t think that act against its own interests like the government of NRW (or what the American authorities are doing) by doing something rash and outside of jurisdiction, decisions are suspended on a delicate equilibrium that is not beyond being passive-aggressive.