Time for my annual Spring multi-day hike across Europe. This time is Germany. I will be doubling down this year with an additional transatlantic trip to England, but that won’t be for a few more months. I will get to the brief digestible history of Germany in a second, but first let’s discuss current affairs. I was looking forward to this trip for many reasons, but one timely reason was I wanted to see how rational Germans dealt with their own right-wing party. You see, they have a version of the current American Republican party, called the AfD.
As of late I am reading a lot of books about how seemingly intelligent people over history are taken in by authoritarian cults. People have suggested reading an article from the 80s by Isaac Asimov, laying out an argument for the dumbing down of society and how people who were once in the limelight, will support a con man if he sympathizes with them and promises to make them important again ("Bring back the America of the 1950s"). That seems a reasonable explanation, along with the inability for people to admit they are wrong once they realize the emperor has no clothes. What confuses me is why republicans are willing to lie to no end and give up all of their values (assuming they had any) to support this grift. I take solace in the fact that this is nothing new, countries have been victims of their constituents stupidity for ages (Cults of Personality) I still believe in 10 years no one will care about Trump and all those who voted for him will either crawl back into the woodwork or produce a state of cognitive dissonance that separates themselves from those "other" Republicans.
Anyway, as mentioned, Germany has their own group of idiots, going by the abbreviation of AfD. What differentiates Germany from the US is the recent history of already going through this sad set of events. After the events of the 30s and 40s they actually wrote laws into their constitution preventing such groups from gaining a hold on the government again, but there are ways around that. We went through something similar in the US, but it was 100 years removed from Nazi Germany. In the 1840s and 50s we had half the country coming up with lies and laws to marginalize African Americans because white people slowly started losing a grip on absolute power. This of course led to the Civil War. A smaller situation arose against communism later with Joseph McCarthy, but never truly got off the ground. I wondered if we are too far removed from that insurrection to appreciate the current climate.
The Germans I did talk to about this laughed at the AfD as merely adolescent children who will grow up soon, or maybe not, but regardless they will never go anywhere. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are in a place we were in during the 1940s when, regardless of our troubles at home we were able to band together as rationale humans to combat a larger evil. What is preventing us from seeing the same evil in our midst today? Is it because it did not arrive in rows of goose-steeping troops and parades of tanks, but rather in the form of a man in a suit and tie?
As I said, at the end of the day, I think good people will win out in American, and hopefully as a result of all this we also will make amendments to our laws to prevent such movements from every getting off the ground again (maybe not with this Supreme Court). The whole; “That which does not kill us, only makes us stronger.”
Maybe we are going through the growing pains necessary when borders are blurred. We were once a loose collection of states, but naturally with organization, comes a larger role for a federal government to take hold as interstate relations increases with increased travel and commerce. This may now be happening on a global scale. In 20 years maybe “North America” becomes a country including the states of USA, Canada and who knows, maybe Mexico and the same could happen with “Europe.” I have no problem with that. I am not under the false assumption, as I see it, that the United States is some superior experiment any longer. I certainly appreciate how lucky I was to be born here, but in all my travels, I do not often experience much difference in lifestyle outside of 3rd world countries. On the other hand, all things seem to reach a tipping point of being too big and break apart, so who knows the right answer.
Anyway, back to the trip. The plan was to fly into Germany and basically hike south along the Rhine until reaching Switzerland, sleeping in pensions and B&Bs along the way.
So, my Germany primer in 30 seconds or less. The Romans and more specifically, Julius Caesar, tried unsuccessfully to control the area called Germania. The Franks and Charlemagne came in later and conquered the Germanic tribes, splitting the area into 3 distinct regions with East Francia being the one we are concerned about here. It morphed into the Holy Roman Empire (1st Reich), a rebirth of the Catholic church in the region. Eventually people got tired of all the crap the Pope was dishing out and Martin Luther stapled some stuff to a door. The Protestant Reformation took hold and the Empire was split up as a result of the 30 Years’ War. Here you start getting places like Prussia and Bavaria. Napoleon comes in, then gets booted back out. A guy name Bismarck successfully unites these various states to form the first German empire (2nd Reich) in the late 1800s. Then you get this real POS Kaiser Wilhelm II, who has every mental shortcoming you can think of, that goes and starts WW1. After Germany is defeated, the German Empire is torn apart again. A couple decades later Hitler, piggy-backing on the disgruntled feeling of people believing they got a raw deal at the Paris Peace Conference, unites the German republic once again (3rd Reich) and we all know the rest from there; the wall comes down in the late 80s and Germany is off and running. Now Germany is the most powerful country in the European Union. Easy to do when you don’t spend 100B (USA) on Defense annually (mostly because you’re not allowed to).
Although I may have some German heritage in my blood, I spoke no German and really knew nothing about these people other than that they are practical, not funny, and like structure in their lives. The title of this blog, “Danke Schoen” (Thank You Very Much) was one of the few phrases I knew. I only remember that from the scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I had forgotten it, but heard it a couple times once I got over there and could not get the scene out of my head for the rest of the trip.
I also remembered this one from the movie “Step Brothers”, but was not able to use it in everyday conversation
Amy dropped me off at the airport in Detroit 4 hours early for my flight. She claimed to have an appointment that required such a move, but she texted me after leaving me, “Sorry, I got the appointment time wrong! Have fun at the airport!” I normally would have chilled in a lounge, downing whiskeys and Chex Mix, but they were closed, leaving me to pace the concourse, contemplating the difference between people sitting at the Spirit gates, vs all others. My flight boarded at 4:10pm. The lounge opened back up at 4:00pm. I made a mad dash in there like I was on the Supermarket Sweep game show, stuffing spiral hams down my pants and slamming any alcoholic beverage I could find as a chaser to the Ambien I just dosed.
I sat down on the plane next to this gentleman that lacked many of the social graces we take for granted. He was in the window seat. He took control of the middle armrest from the get go and was unwilling to relinquish it, even going so far as to push my arm off of it if he inadvertently gave ground during a coughing fit. He also found it convenient to use my tray table as his trash can and even though he did not speak English, demanded assistance from me on multiple occasions on how to operate the seat-back in-flight entertainment. The lady in front of me bashed my knees upon reclining and the one behind used my seat as leverage when she got up to the bathroom every 5 minutes. I tried to find my happy place, wondering if the universe was conspiring against me. Is this a Flash Mob on the plan just fucking with me?! Would the guy next to me please just go to sleep and stop opening the shade to look at the sun! And stop calling the flight attendant to gruffly demand more alcohol.
I arrived in one piece in Frankfurt. I found a bus into the city center to take some pictures in the Old Town.
I was hiking the WestWeg Trail, which extends through the Black Forest from Pforzheim to Basel Switzerland. The trail is 180 miles. I normally only do 100 mile sections as I find that a good distance for my fleeting attention span. This required me to take a train a couple hours south of Frankfurt to the town of Hausach, about halfway along the trail from North to South
I walked to the Main Frankfurt train station. Man, my bag was already feeling heavy! Not a good sign. I had never been in a large open-air train station. I felt like I was in one of those WW2 movies where I boarded a train bound for the frontline, leaning out the window waving, as it pulled out of the station.
I was kinda surprised that no one really spoke English around here. I guess Germany is not the tourist draw of Paris or Barcelona. I don’t think I ran into any Americans either on my trip. Not a bad thing. One thing I found new; Normally when I travel people speak broken English to me because I look out of place, but in Germany, I look like everyone else so all conversations invariably started with a person speaking German, and me explaining I could not speak German. This embarrassment on my part led to fewer interactions.
It was challenging to find the right train, even for a seasoned traveler like me who has braved the Tokyo subway system and lived to tell the tale. The tickets purchased from the machine (a struggle in itself) would not tell you the platform or time of train you needed. You had to rely on screens for that. Nothing in English mind you.
I eventually made it to Haslach after switching trains a couple times along the way. A small village right next to the trail. After checking into my lodging, I walked the area.
I found a small restaurant where I sampled the local specialty of maultaschen. Basically lasagna jammed inside ravioli pasta. It was excellent. I don’t drink often, so committing to making the most of the German experience I had two glasses of Hefeweizen and was feeling capital! The owner asked if I could write Google review for the place. I was happy to. The next morning I looked at my review. I think I simply put “maultaschen!” This was a lot for me as I am not big on reviews of any sort. Early bed with the jetlag. I will be hitting the trail first thing!
Until Tomorrow
Darren
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