DACH

German Christmas gifts to Britain

Everybody knows that the Christmas tree came to Britain from Germany. These days a lot of know-it-alls like me will also smugly point out that it wasn't introduced by Prince Albert as is often said, although pictures of Victoria, Albert and their children around a tree definitely publicised and popularised the tradition in both Britain and the USA. However, rather than go into a long debate about the origins of the Christmas tree, I thought that for a festive blog post I'd mention some Christmas things which we owe in some degree to Germany without realising it.

1) Tinsel. Yes, tinsel was a German invention, originating in Nuremberg in the 17th century and originally made of metal foil. Like other shiny Christmas things (including the use of lights on a Christmas tree, ascribed by legend to Martin Luther), the theory is that it was meant to represent the stars shining over Bethlehem. One of the famous phrases coined by the humorist Loriot, whose death DACH marked in September, was "Früher war mehr Lammetta!" ("There used to be more Tinsel!"), a grandfather’s lament at the lack of decoration on his family's environmentally friendly tree.

2) Christmas Pudding. Of course Christmas pudding itself is very, very British. However, a story which I hadn't heard before but which I've come across in various places this year claims that it was the Hanoverian king George I who restored its popularity when he enjoyed some during his first Christmas in England in 1714. As this anecdote was new to me, I cynically wondered whether it was a bit of sly marketing on the part of a shop which is selling "George I's Christmas Pudding" this year, but whatever the source, it's been around for some time and appears in at least one respectable history of Victorian cooking [BL shelfmarks YC.2007.a.17420 and m07/.21989]. Still, at least we can't blame anyone but ourselves for mince pies.

3) Boney M. We all know that the much-loved "Silent Night" comes from Austria, and Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Handel's Messiah. But in my local supermarket on Saturday I was reminded of another great German musical contribution to Christmas: Boney M's rendition of "Mary's Boy Child". Although all the members of the band came from the Caribbean and most grew up in the UK, the group was put together and their records produced in Germany by singer-songwriter Franz Farian. (Boney M also recorded a version of "The Little Drummer Boy", but let's draw a veil over that.)

So, as you trim your tree with tinsel, prepare your pudding and put on your festive pop hits album, remember the metalworkers of Nuremberg, the Hanoverian kings of England, and the disco singers of Offenbach am Main. And have a very happy Christmas.

SR

Broadening the Focus

Go into any public library or bookshop in the UK to look for works on German history, and you’ll find that most, if not all, of the books on display cover the Nazi period. Likewise, we’re all familiar with the complaint that school history teaching and TV history are obsessed with the Nazis It would be easy for someone living in Britain to assume that there were only twelve years of German history which were of any significance to the wider world – that significance being, of course, an entirely negative one.  

However, the last couple of years have seen some attempts to broaden the focus. First, two recent books have explicitly set out to look at German history in a wider context. Simon Winder describes his book Germania [BL: YK.2011.a.3018] as a "personal response" to German history. He explains in his introduction that he chose to finish in 1933 because he wanted "to get around the Führer and reclaim a bit of Europe which ... for most of its history has been ... no more or less admirable than many other countries". Winder goes on to point out that "Germany is a place without which European culture makes no sense", and Peter Watson’s The German Genius  [BL: m10/.20742] expands on this theme, reminding us just how influential German thought was in almost all areas of the humanities and sciences from the 18th to the early 20th centuries.

The broadcast media have also been widening their coverage of Germany. Last winter BBC 4 had a brief  "Germany Season" with programmes on art and history as well as travelogues. More recently the BBC correspondent Misha Glenny has been presenting a series of Radio 4 documentaries on "The Invention of Germany" (still available online at the time of writing). All these programmes look at the wider context of German history and culture.

When a former German Ambassador to London, Thomas Matussek, commented in 2005 on Britain’s apparent obsession with with the Second World War and ignorance of the modern democracy which is today’s Germany there was an inevitable backlash from commentators arguing the we must never forget the crimes of Nazi Germany. But in a sense those protesting had missed the point: nobody was asking people to forget the Nazi era or the Second World War, only to remember that those twelve years do not represent the whole of German history and culture.

Thus neither of the books described above try to ignore the Nazis. Winder says that his book is "of course soaked in the disaster of the Third Reich" and Watson considers not only the ways in which the "German genius" became warped by Nazism but also the many theories as to why this happened. However, both writers also acknowledge and examine the  broader picture of a country which has historically been both our ally and enemy, and with which we have shared deeply influential political and cultural ties for centuries. And surely that can only be good for our ongoing relationship.

SR

Anglo-Saxons in Sachsen-Anhalt - GSLG Conference 2011

In past years we’ve blogged about joint Wesline conferences in Durham and Manchester. This year, however, the German Studies Library Group celebrated its 25th anniversary independently with a conference in Halle as guests of the University and State Library.

Halle's quite a small city, and not terribly well known to Brits if the reactions of friends and colleagues were anything to go by. But it's an attractive place, relatively undamaged by the ravages of the 20th century, and culturally it punches above its weight. It was the birthplace of the composer Handel (or Händel to the Germans), and was a major centre of German Pietism. This movement influenced not only the foundation of Halle university but also that of August Hermann Francke's influential and, for its time, progressive orphanage and school. We visited this marvellous complex of 18th-century buildings and its historic library during the conference, and  I almost envied the orphans – until I heard about the busy schedule and strict supervision…

As well as Pietism, Halle University was influenced by enlightenment ideas, and was among the pioneers of teaching and research methods that made German scholarship hugely influential in the later 18th and 19th centuries. Such an 'enlightened' university naturally recognised the importance of a strong library, but it was not until the late 19th century that the main collections were brought together in a designated (and again pioneering) building – we were lucky enough to be allowed up into its flat roof for stunning views over  Halle! Even now there are several departmental libraries – although far fewer than the 92 which the current director discovered when he arrived in 1997.

As well as climbing about on rooftops, we enjoyed a fascinating programme of talks and visits. It was interesting to learn about others' experiences with projects and systems the BL is currently involved with, particularly Google Books, new catalogue searching software, and the proposed new cataloguing rules, RDA. The fact that colleagues from both countries were involved in the same projects and using the same systems shows how international librarianship is becoming. We encountered another sign of the times on a visit to the very modern law library when one of our group asked if there was a laptop-free zone in the building and two students working nearby laughed incredulously at the very idea.

On our last day we visited the German National Library (DNB) in Leipzig. Founded in 1912 as the Deutsche Bücherei, it has just completed a new extension which will be fully open in time for the centenary celebrations next year. It was interesting to compare the history and practices of the German and British national libraries. The two major differences are that the DNB collects only material published in or relating to Germany, and that there is a charge for reading room use, an idea greeted with outrage whenever suggested here! 

We ended our day in Leipzig and our 25th anniversary conference with a concert of Mendelssohn and Bach at the Gewandhaus. As ever it had been a stimulating few days of formal and informal exchanges, making new contacts, renewing old ones, and getting a glimpse of the wider library world in both the UK and Germany.

[SR - who also took the photos]

A cow and a comedian

Outside the financial pages, the main news story from Germany to feature in the British media this summer was that of Yvonne the cow. Yvonne escaped from a Bavarian farm in May and spent over three months defying increasingly ingenious attempts at capture. Finally, with a smart bovine eye for the end of the silly season*, she allowed herself to be recaptured on 1 September, and will now live out her days in an animal sanctuary.

A German story which hardly featured at all in the British press (here's an exception) was the death of "Loriot", the pen and stage name of Viktor von Bülow. You may be thinking "who?", but if you've spent any significant length of time in Germany you’ll probably be familiar with the pseudonym  – or at least with Loriot's distinctive cartoon figures, often of plump, rather melancholy-looking, spud-nosed men.

But Loriot was not just a cartoonist, but also a writer, director and performer; he directed and starred in two successful films and made a series of TV shows which have become classics. He coined catchphrases which echo through the obituaries in the German media, and his characters such as Wum the dog (dogs were a constant in both his life and his cartoons) and the "Stone Louse" also remain household names. The latter, created for a spoof nature documentary, was later included as a joke entry in a standard German medical dictionary; its removal in 1994 led to an outcry and its hasty reinstatement.

Although he became a national treasure, Loriot first came to prominence with something of a scandal. A series of cartoons for Stern magazine in the early 1950s, "Auf den Hund gekommen" ("Gone to the Dogs"), showed a world where the roles of human owners and canine pets are reversed and were condemned by readers as "disgusting" and "a degradation". But Daniel Keel, who had recently founded the publishing firm of Diogenes in Zurich, had sufficient faith to publish the cartoons in book form. Loriot remained loyal to Keel and his firm for the rest of his life.

Auf den Hund gekommen is the only one of Loriot's works which I can find that has appeared in English (Dog's Best Friend, London, 1958; BL 012332.a.51). Perhaps British audiences were as shocked as German ones and wanted no more, or perhaps it’s just that humour doesn’t always travel well. Indeed, many Brits tend to think that humour is completely lacking from the German psyche, and would consider "Germany’s greatest comedian" (as Loriot was voted in 2007) a contradiction in terms. You can find some of his sketches on the Internet (some are even available with English subtitles) and make up your own mind.

Differences in humour aside, it's difficult for a non-German to fully appreciate or explain Loriot's significance; I feel a bit presumptuous to be writing about him at all. But I hope I'm right in saying that he was a man who would have seen the funny side of being less interesting to the British public than a runaway cow.
[SR]

* And thanks to Yvonne I now know that the German word for Silly Season is Sommerloch – literally "summer hole".

The man who would be Emperor - 2

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the eventful life of the Habsburg monarchy's last Crown Prince, Otto, who died in July aged 98.

Paradoxically, it was announced that the man who had not been allowed back into Austria until he renounced his claim was to be given an imperial burial. Criticism of this plan came from both left and right, with monarchists complaining that as Austria had no interest in restoring Otto in life it should not be allowed to make tourist capital of him in death. Many socialists, meanwhile, felt that the ceremonies were unfitting for a Republic. I take a more relaxed view: monarchists could see this as Austria’s attempts to make peace with the past, forgetting the bitterness of the post-1918 years. They will never again bury an Archduke, born in the purple of the imperial era.

Otto’s coffin made its journey from his home town of Pöcking to Vienna, lying in state in Mariazell en route while mourners filed past. It was joined by that of his wife, Regina of Meiningen, who died in 2010 and had lain temporarily interred with her own ancestors until then. The funeral, held in Vienna's Cathedral, the Stephansdom, was attended by royal, ex-royal and diplomatic representatives from around the world. Many even sang the former anthem, the Kaiserhymne, though the Austrian President, Heinz Fischer, abstained for obvious reasons. Afterwards, a cortege more than a kilometre long traced the route that Otto himself had walked as a young child at the funeral of Franz Josef, bearing the coffin to the imperial crypt. As it passed the Hofburg, soldiers fired a military salute. 

At the door to the crypt, itself one of Vienna’s most strange and atmospheric tourist attractions, the coffin bearers enacted the famous ritual of knocking and requesting entry for Otto, using his full string of imperial titles. Monks inside duly declared that knew him not, and entry was requested a second time using the academic and political titles he had earned in his career. Again, entry was refused, and only when the erstwhile Crown Prince was announced as "Otto, a sinner" did the priests swing open the door. This ceremony, which seemed designed poignantly to echo Otto's path in life, is actually said to have been enacted at every imperial funeral for centuries. Austrian officials, however, would unromantically insist that the triple knock is nothing but a legend, and that Otto himself first caused it to be used for his mother’s funeral in 1989!

[The tomb of Karl VI in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna; picture by Welleschik from Wikimedia Commons]

By tradition, Habsburg hearts are buried apart from the rest of the body. Otto chose to have his interred in the Benedictine Abbey at Pannanholma in Hungary, where he had spent time as a boy learning the Hungarian language. With this act, he seemed to lay to rest the awkward – sometimes even poisonous - relationship that had existed between the later Habsburgs and the Kingdom of Hungary, that prickly junior partner in the Dual monarchy.

[Janet Ashton]

When the Wall went up

The Berlin Wall was the most potent physical symbol of the Cold War. With exuberant graffiti art on its western face and heavily guarded "death strips" on the eastern side, it represented the division of a country and a continent and highlighted the contrast between democracy and dictatorship. It was the backdrop before which western politicians from JFK to Ronald Reagan stood to call for an end to Communism.

It was 50 years ago this week, on 13 August 1961, that Berliners woke to find that the political division of their city had become a physical reality. Overnight, East German troops had erected fences and barbed wire along the border between East and West Berlin. In the following days the barriers became stronger and higher, concrete replacing wire; eventually the Wall would be some 155km long with an average height of 3.6m and an elaborate defence system on the eastern side.

The building of the Wall had a devastating effect on the lives of Berliners. Because the barriers appeared so suddenly and unexpectedly, some found themselves caught on the "wrong" side, and not all managed to return home. East Berliners who had worked or studied in West Berlin were cut off from their jobs and education and penalised for their suspected western sympathies. Families and friends were separated, and whole streets were divided by the Wall, the inhabitants evicted from their homes.

A volume of photographs from the early days of the Wall with commentary by the German writer Wolfdietrich Schnurre (Die Mauer des 13. August. Berlin, 1962; BL shelfmark YA.1991.b.7307) captures the atmosphere of the time. Schnurre was a fierce critic of the Wall, which separated him from his father, and the pictures he chose emphasise the human cost of what was happening. Some of the most poignant show attempts to communicate across the ever-growing wall; in one a woman holds up a makeshift notice reading "How are you? Hello Mum Dad Angelika + Horst". Others show people escaping to the west by climbing perilously from houses on the eastern side of the border.

The collection doesn't include what became the most iconic image of escape, that of 19-year old East German soldier Conrad Schumann leaping over a wire barricade. Just over a year later another young man attempting to escape became a more tragic icon: 18-year old Peter Fechter was shot and bled to death in front of East German soldiers who wouldn't help and West German onlookers who couldn't.

It seemed impossible to imagine Berlin without the Wall when I was studying in Germany in the late 1980s. Yet by the end of that decade it had fallen, having lasted less than 30 years. In today's Berlin it's hard to imagine the Wall or find any trace of it – something that troubles those who believe that its near-complete destruction in 1990 was over-hasty from the perspective of historical research and cultural memory. The events of 1989 give cause for happier commemoration, but on the anniversary of the Wall's beginning we should not forget the events of 1961 and the 28 years when Berlin was divided.

[SR]

 

 

The wall in late summer 1961 (Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 145-P061246)

The man who would be Emperor

On July 4th, a retired politician died at his home in Bavaria. If this were a fairy story, the astonished neighbours would only then have learned of the extraordinary life and pedigree of the modest old man next door. But it isn't a fairy story, and everyone who knew his name recognised the genial Dr Otto von Habsburg as the former pretender to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the last Crown Prince of the empire that once dominated central Europe.

Born in November 1912, Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, Archduke of Austria, would claim later in life to remember being photographed with his great-grand-uncle, Kaiser Franz Josef I, who succeeded to the throne in 1848 and was a last link with figures from the Napoleonic era. The span of their joint memories could claim to cover the best part of two centuries.  Aged four, newly elevated to Crown Prince, Otto walked through Vienna in Franz Josef's funeral procession. It was the last funeral held for an Emperor, though not quite the last to observe the particularly imposing ceremonies associated with Habsburg burials. Shortly afterwards, Otto attended the last Habsburg coronation, when his father assumed the Crown of Hungary in Budapest. Within two years, the Dual Monarchy would be defeated and the Habsburgs in exile, albeit without formal renunciation of their rights and powers.

Following the premature death in 1922 of his father Karl I, Otto was considered by monarchists to be the rightful Emperor. He learned most of the languages spoken in the former Habsburg lands, gained a doctorate in political science, and worked for his own restoration. It came tantalisingly close: for a time, the Nazis considered restoring him as a puppet monarch to bring legitimacy to their own regime in Austria. This option would have seemed attractive to many of his contemporaries in the German-speaking royal houses, but Otto refused to be a party to it or even to meet Hitler. Sentenced to death for his opposition to the Anschluss, he sought refuge in the United States, from where he lobbied against both Nazis and Communists with equal ferocity. After the war, he returned to Europe, but was barred from entering Austria until 1961, when he formally renounced his imperial claims.

For the rest of his long life, the former Archduke and Prince wrote books on politics and history [examples in the BL at YA.2001.a.17846 and YA.1995.b.6229] and worked for European unity, serving as a member of the European Parliament and head of the Paneuropean Union. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this descendant of so many Holy Roman Emperors was Christian and conservative in his politics, even admitting admiration for Francisco Franco, but he was tolerant to other faiths and had helped many Jews escape from Nazi Austria. He married a princess of one of the former German houses and they had seven children, several of who are also active in politics, the arts or the media.

Dr Habsburg was the last survivor of a world gone beyond recall, and a remarkable figure in his own right. Austria would mark his passing in a truly memorable way.

                                            ………..to be continued

Janet Ashton

A lexicographical discovery

Because the BL's collections are so rich and wonderful, it’s easy to get a bit blasé about precious and unusual items. It's not that we take our treasures – or any of our collections – for granted, but I tend not to be hugely surprised when, for example, I’m checking an antiquarian dealer's catalogue and see that we have two copies of the book marked "extremely rare", or when I discover that one of our early German books has beautifully hand-coloured plates or an interesting ownership inscription.

However, every now and then I come across something that does stop me in my tracks, and this happened the other day when I was following up an enquiry letter from Germany. The enquirer worked for an institution called the Daniel Sanders Haus , which commemorates the German lexicographer of that name.  Like many English speakers who have studied German, I had actually heard of Sanders without realising it: together with one Eduard Muret, he compiled a German-English dictionary, first published in 1869, and the modern successor to that dictionary, published by the Langenscheidt Verlag, is still known as "Muret-Sanders".

Anyway, according to the letter I'd received, Sanders sold the working notes for the two-volume German dictionary which he compiled single-handedly and published between 1860 and 1865 to the then British Museum Library. I must admit I was initially inclined either to doubt the story or pass the enquiry on to a manuscripts specialist, but the enquirer had done his research thoroughly and provided two BL printed book shelfmarks, LR.276.a.2 and LR.276.a.3. When I ordered these I was amazed to discover that in each of these two copies, the two volumes of the dictionary were indeed swollen to five and six volumes respectively by the interleaved sheets of Sanders’ notes.

And what notes! Not just handwritten notes on the interleaved sheet, but additional slips pasted in, cuttings from newspapers and magazines with particular words and phrases highlighted and annotated, and in at least one place a whole little pamphlet of additional notes attached to the interleaved sheet.  
Altogether a fascinating view of the lexicographer at work: it was one of those moments which made me want to spend the rest of the day (week, month…) examining the volumes, and I was amazed that I’d never heard of them in my 18 years at the BL.

So I wrote back to the enquirer explaining that he was indeed right about Sanders' notes. I hope that he or one of his colleagues is able to come and study the dictionaries in the detail they deserve, though it could potentially be a lifetime's work given the volume of material and the difficulty – even by 19th-century German standards – of Sanders' cramped handwriting. Meanwhile I'm very grateful to the enquirer for setting me on to the volumes; enquiries have often led me to interesting corners of the collection, but there are few which I have found so intriguing as this.

SR

On the occasion...

With all the coverage of the upcoming royal wedding, I couldn't help thinking that there's one celebratory art which we've lost: that of the occasional poem to mark such events. I understand that even the Poet Laureate was initially uncertain about composing a piece for the event, and while no doubt plenty of amateur poets have written verses celebrating the royal couple, it’s unlikely that many of these will make it into print.

Look back to the 18th century and it was a different story; royal births, marriages and deaths and coronations inspired outpourings of verse for printing and distribution. Loyal clergymen, schoolmasters, students, or civil servants were usually the authors, and showed off by writing in Latin or filling their verses with classical and biblical allusions. Inventive devices such as acrostics (can you spot one in this blog post?) and chronograms were also popular. And it wasn't only royalty who got the treatment. Many occasional verses were written – and printed –  for the writers' friends or family.

A collection of such verses which I have come to know well, among the many examples in the BL, is a volume of pieces from the province of East Frisia which we bought a few years ago [BL shelfmark RB.23.c.522]. Not only do they constitute a fascinating piece of social history, they are also fascinating examples of a genre almost forgotten today. Divided into categories – marriages, births deaths; royal and non-royal subjects –  they commemorate events in the lives of the ruling family and educated middle classes of what was then a small North German principality. Coincidentally, and poignantly, the collection covers what turned out to be the final years of East Frisia's ruling dynasty and thus of the principality's independence.

A particularly eye-catching wedding ode in the collection was composed for the wedding of Prince Georg Albrecht to Princess Christiane Luise of Nassau in 1709. This is a complex and striking example of a pattern poem, where the lines are made into a visual image. Hard to read as a text, though!

RB.23.c.522(14), "Der Seegens volle Rauten-Krantz...".

English monarchs of the period were also celebrated in verses like these, and as the 18th century saw the union of the British and Hanoverian crowns, many celebratory odes were written in German or by Germans to commemorate events in the lives of our first four Georges – there’s a collection from the reign of George II at C.127.k.13.

Royal visits from England to the Hanoverians’ German territories were a regular topic of such verses. In one example (Peter Johann Haber, "Als des ... Herrn Georg II. ... Ankunft in Dero teutsche Lande ... verehret wurde …", Hannover, 1755), the poet welcomes the King as "the Sun of our country", "best of Kings" and "hallowed monarch", and begs him to "stay longer, stay here for ever" rather than return to England.

Nowadays this kind of hyperbolic flattery, although standard in the occasional verses of the eighteenth century, would probably be a bit too much even for the most devoted royalists. Even so, the odd Latin ode or pattern poem might not go amiss among some of the tackier royal wedding souvenirs of 2011.

SR

When the swastika flew over White Hart Lane

I'm a lifelong Tottenham Hotspur supporter and first saw them play in 1958 as a schoolboy in London. I've lived in the north for many years now but while changing one's car, house or even wife is perfectly normal behaviour, changing one's football club is completely out of the question. In the next few weeks I shall be cheering on my beloved Spurs in their away matches at Northern venues.

Spurs have a glorious history and are regarded as one of the big clubs in English football. They're doing very well at the moment in both the Premier League and European Champions League and at last challenging that other lot from N5 for the top honours. But I wonder how many of today’s fans know about a darker incident in the Club's history from the 1930s.

In 1935 the swastika flew over the Club's stadium, White Hart Lane (actually at half-mast as a mark of respect to Princess Victoria who had died the day before) when an international friendly between England and Germany took place at the ground. It was a curious choice of  venue because within football Spurs are known as "the Jewish club" owing to support from Jewish communities in north London. There were also Jews among the players.

After the fixture was announced the public, press and radio discussed its possible implications widely. Even more importantly the government considered it but failed to perceive its significance at a time when the rise of Fascism in Germany and Italy was so evident. As a consequence of the match going ahead the propaganda war associated with it was lost.

In the months preceding the match there were protests by Jewish groups, football groups, factory organisations and trade union bodies because of the Nazi propaganda surrounding the game. The protests were further fuelled by stories of a Polish Jew being killed by Nazis during another match in Germany.

The 1930s saw huge numbers attending football matches as the game was now established as the main working-class recreation amongst males, and 10,000 Germans made the journey across the Channel for the match. Turnstiles were marked Zweischilling Eintrittskarte for their benefit.

On the day of the match a demonstration march converged on White Hart Lane. Leaflets printed in German were handed out by demonstrators and there were some minor scuffles with pro-Nazi sympathisers. But no major incidents occurred and the game was played without trouble in front of a 60,000 crowd. England won 3-0.

Although the German team gave the Nazi salute as they lined up, the English team didn't. But it was the prelude to even more controversial sporting events in the later 1930s, such as the so-called 'Nazi Olympics' of 1936 when the black American Jesse Owens so infuriated Hitler with his athletic superiority, and the 1938 Germany v England football match in Berlin when England players infamously did give the Nazi salute.

In more recent years Spurs have seen some happier German associations with players like Steffen Freund, Christian Ziegler, Ghanaian German Kevin-Prince Boateng, and the incomparable Jürgen Klinsmann coming to play for them.  But the 1935 England-Germany international remains a bizarre episode in the history of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. 

[Trevor Willimott]