Eisenach, Erfurt, Bittefeld

13/7 BIG BROTHER GREG’S BIRTHDAY - Oi! Oi! Oi! 

Soft rain has fallen all night.  No exercise or school this am, just a slow breakfast and over to the Castle on the Hill (Wartberg) as they reckon it is overrun with tourists by 1100.  We pass straight through Eisenach, it’s foothill town where JS Bach was born.  No doubt an accomplished mathematical musician but to me, he represents years of unmelodious torture as I practiced 4 bars at a time of his ‘studies’ or etudes, over & over again...often for an hour or so.  In contrast to Beethoven in Bonn…..

Spectacular Wartburg Schloss dates to the very early 1000s (the wooden beams have been accurately dated, the timber was felled in 1162 - how do they do that???)

1162AD??

This is Germany’s only UNESCO listed castle...and, like most of Europe, it has loads of them.  Not only were battles fought, but this medieval palace is also marked by peaceful events.  

fireplace

Ludwig the Leaper

Here Elizabeth of Hungary (taken at age 4 from her parents for a royal marriage in the future) performed the Miracle of Roses in the 12^th century; ex-communicated Luther translated the bible from Greek into German whilst in hiding, allowing the  word of God to be accessible to the people & thus starting the Reformation in the 1500s;

Wagner wrote his Opera the Tannhauser and, in the 1800s, the student’s fraternity of Jena celebrated 300 years of Reformation and 4 years of the defeat of Napoleon with their red, black and gold flag, the colours of which became the flag of the Nation. 

We enjoyed a guided tour (in German but with an English brochure) and saw beautiful old frescos, chandeliers (or crown lights as they call them in German), intimate rooms with walls covered in mosaics and alluring grand fireplaces.  At the end, we were left to explore the small study in which Luther wrote his 95 thesis, translated the bible and designed the Luther Rose, the emblem of Wil’s school St Peters Lutheran College in Brisbane.  

Luther's desk, here the bible translated, for all to read!

Thoroughly educated, we chugged along the freeway for another hour to the city of Erfurt, Thuringia where Luther went to university and Goethe, Germany’s Shakespeare & last renaissance man, made his mark.  Our stop this time is adjacent to an athletics track and large sports ground.

On our bikes/feet, we explored another really pretty recently and ongoingly face-lifted altstadt with winding cobbled roads, a spiky skyline, wonderful aesthetic markts with flower gardens, remarkably comfortable chairs, fountains & play equipment, TWO enormous Doms side by side and a gargantuan hilltop citadel with views over it all. 

The zentrum is bisected by a wide, tannin-coloured pebbly bottomed shallow river that bends around corners, brushes willows and slithers under cute little stone bridges.  The fairest of them all is the Kramerbruck, each side comprised of rows of sweet 2 story half-timbered houses on a stone arch foundation that tightly squeeze a very narrow, cobbled, cafe lined pedestrian street. 

Kramerbruck Bridge

On the outskirts are bland, ugly dense concrete residential blocks, which together with street names like Karl Marx and Juri Gargarin, are reminders of a different time when this was East Germany.  Around that, like a plump velvety green ribbon, is the softening beauty of Germany’s gorgeous forests.

new Erfurt

Old Erfurt

Feeling lazy about dinner and the subsequent wash-up in our sports ground carpark stop, we opt for the $1 local specialty, grilled Thuringia Bratwurst smothered in mustard & tomato sauce.  The kids work it off on trampolines in a markt playground and then back on the bikes for writing homework, trip preparation and bed.

Around us, a colourful bunch of Masters Athletes have gathered with their skinny legs & medals hanging from their motorhome rear vision mirrors.

14/7 Sad morning, happy afternoon

Despite threatening skies, J+J wiggle out for a 10BX before the pregnant black clouds disgorge, just as we are getting back into Eddie.  The wind howls and swirls so that the rain is pelted horizontally at us from several directions, all while we sit in the comfort of Ed enjoying breakfast and smashing some school work.  

The clouds seem to have emptied by the time school is out and we make for the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, just near Weimar, situated on a hill fringed by forest, one of the largest camps on German soil (not as big as Auschwitz in Poland).  

This camp was set up in 1937 and originally held Hitler’s political opponents, then when the war got underway it welcomed Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, other misfits (disabled, lazy, naughty, mentally unwell, different, not befitting the master race).  It was not intended to be an extermination camp, nevertheless countless deaths resulted from overwork, malnutrition, disease and of course hanging, strangling, and shooting.  There was extensive medical experimentation including trials for a typhoid vaccine that managed to kill nearly 1/3 of it’s subjects.  Up to 400 people/night were killed in a room the prisoners thought was for medical checks - they entered and were told to stand under a beam to have height checked, not knowing that in a room adjacent an SS “human” shot them through a narrow slit, through the neck while loud music was playing to disguise the shot.  The bodies were piled up and taken immediately to the crematorium. 

Inevitably some arrived alive, talking, even sitting up at which stage they were lynched and strangled on the many hooks around the room we visited - you just couldn’t stay there in that room for long.  Adjoining the crematorium is a dissection room.  It’s one thing to wonder at how so many SS staff could be enlisted to do such evil deeds, another thing for us to fathom the doctors’ involvement.   The camp acted as a conduit to nearby camps and of course to the extermination camps to the east.

The entry gait has a sign that says “Jeden Das Seine“ which means “to each his own.”  Que??

"To each his own?!?"

The clock above the entry gate reads 3:15 pm, the time the Americans entered in April 1945, after most of the SS dogs had fled with tails between their legs.  Can’t imagine the impact the place must have had on those soldiers.

There is a large museum but we were advised the kids were a bit young and to be honest the adults were not up for any more portrayals of the evils humans can perpetrate on themselves.  It is interesting for us to note the impact on the German visitors.  Most of the cars in the park have German plates, everyone we saw in the camp was deeply affected.  There are a few large dormitory style buildings for kids camps - they clearly don’t shy away from the reality of the atrocities committed by this regime of their forebears.   Fantastic, may it remain in perpetuity for all the world to see the results of racism and prejudice.

A quiet but pleasant drive to the small town of Bittefeld which is the start of a scenic drive north to Berlin.  As it was getting late we intended to lay up somewhere on that road rather than get into the big smoke and find the site full.

Low and behold there’s a lake and a crowd and lots of rowing boats - a German club regatta in full swing.  Only 8’s, lots of them (esp the nice yellow ones), great standard of rowing (like Aus nationals, but there are no national athletes here, the B’s are in Lithuania, the A’s are 2 weeks from the Olympics).  The races are 500m sprints, 1 on1 knockout, in quick succession, doof doof music thumping, the commentator makes it sound like a football game, stalls abound selling wurst and beers.  No wonder they are so bloody good at this sport.

Decide to stay the night parked up by the lake, finish some writing for the kids, a sandwich for dinner followed by Happy Feet 2 - sweet!!!