I cannot write about my time in Germany without reflecting on the ever present spectre of the wars this country has known. As we toured the churches and cathedrals most are in stages of repair from the devestation of the war with photographs somewhere in the back that show the churches after the bombings.
As part of our trip across the country we visited the Marienborn Checkpoint. For those of us here in the US who may not have thought about this a lot, the concept of the separation of the east and west in Germany is limited to a single wall in Berlin and Checkpoint Charlie. According to the ever available Wikipedia, Marienborn was the largest inner German checkpoint of the GDR (The German Democratic Republic) and was the primary route between West Germany and West Berlin. At its height, the checkpoint employed app. 1000 people who were deeply trained in detection and intimidation techniques. Lighposts flooded the area with light day and night - enough ampage to light a city of 20,000.
The checkpoint at Marienborn now provides an audio walking tour of the buildings and operations during the cold war era. You could see what was considered contraband: toys, games, radios, books, etc. You saw where they took apart cars and trucks looking for people or contraband being smuggled, questioned people or detained them, and the area where farm animals were quarantined. All very sobering.
From there we visited the German wall memorial at Grenzdenkmal Hötensleben. It is appropriate to remember what happened here. In Berlin the wall was a single wall separating the city. Today all evidence is removed except the rock that is embedded in the streets. However at Grenzdenkmal, a portion of the wall was preserved. It is more than a wall! It is an expanse of land that was guarded, lighted, mined, and patrolled. Please look at the you-tube video (link above) to see what it was like.
What I learned as I listened was the fact that the wall was designed to keep people in far more than to keep people out. With all the people that had tried to return to West Germany after the war, the GDR needed to keep workers to keep the state going. Once a person reached retirement age at 65 they were no longer confined to the East. I have to tell you that this led to interesting reflections on my part about the need to control people, their minds and their bodies. What happens to us when we place the needs of an institution above the needs of human beings?
Then - as fate would have it - I arrived in Austria just in time to witness the funeral cortege of Crown Prince Otto Von Habsburg, last descendent of the throne of what was the Holy Roman Empire. It turns out that while in Germany we visited the church of St.Severus in Quedlinburg which was often visited by the early Holy Roman Emperors. It was an amazing collpase of history to be in Vienna on that day.
The Holy Roman Empire itself ended with the invasion of Napolean, but the line of the emperor continued until the last person in this position, Karl Von Habsburg, was forced to abdicate after the First World War. His oldest son, who would have been the next emperor, lived a long and politically active 93 years and died this summer. His passing was honored by the Austrians with a very long cortege in which people were dressed in their native costumes - all very Bavarian looking - and banners, and drums. According to the BBC: "On Saturday, the Austro-Hungarian Empire seemed to come back to life as moustachioed men in richly brocaded Habsburg-era uniforms marched behind his coffin in solemn procession through Vienna."
All of it the ending of an era. Much to think about....
