A new President in Germany

Tags

Bellevue, Berlin, Bundestag, Germany, President

Frank-Walter Steinmeier was born in 1956 in the small town of Detmold in North Rhine-Westphalia. His father was a carpenter and it is said that some within Germany’s political elite look down on Steinmeier for his lowly background. On the flip-side, he is often praised for having risen to such heights within the political system.

He has a doctorate of law which he was awarded in 1991 by the University of Giessen, and did his dissertation on state prevention of homelessness.

Soon after leaving university he went to work for the state Chancellery of Lower Saxony as an advisor, and in 1993 became director of the personal office for the Minister-President of the state, and later Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schröder.

While serving as head of the office of the Chancellor from 1999 following Schröder’s election victory, he earned himself the nickname “The Grey Efficiency” because of his ability to manage teams behind the political spotlight. Steinmeier was made responsible for Germany’s intelligence services and he helped Schröder forge a coalition with Russia and France against the US’s invasion of Iraq.

In the grand coalition of 2005, Merkel appointed him Foreign Minister, from where he was shifted up to Vice-Chancellor in 2007. But come the elections of 2009 his party was rejected in favour of Angela Merkel’s, and he became leader of the opposition until he was given the position of Foreign Secretary again in 2013 following another election.

The Election process

The process by which a new President is chosen is not a simple one. It’s not a direct vote by the German people, but rather the Federal parliament calls in so-called “Electors” to vote on behalf of the nation.

The 630 members of the Federal parliament or Bundestag are joined by 630 “Electors” in the house.

Each different state is given a different number of Electors to send to the Federal parliament depending on their population size, and the regional governments can vote for anybody to become an Elector. This led to the surreal situation on Sunday where politicians were mixing with film stars, the national football coach, and the nation’s best known drag queen to vote for the next head of state.

Different parties can put forward their candidate, but in reality the government chooses who it wants to be President and then the vote is purely a formality. Steinmeier received 74% of the ballots with 931 votes out of 1,260.

The role of the German President

The official role of the President is as the head of state of Germany. The President often has a lot of freedom in their job, but they tend to leave the actual running of the country to the Chancellor.

The President cannot create laws or policies, but can give direction as to what the political debate should be. The President must also sign off on laws. He also has the power to veto a law.

In general however the President represents the State of Germany itself, and has a role in upholding the law and constitution. The President is obliged not to comment on current political affairs, and should stay politically neutral, staying above party politics.

Probably the most important role of the President is to represent Germany at home and abroad, and having been Foreign Minister, Steinmeier is very qualified to do this. He will now spend the next four years fulfilling his duties at home and abroad. He has promised to focus on visiting “left-behind” communities around Germany.

He takes Office in March and will replace the current President Joachim Gauck who is 77. The Official Residence of the President is a former Royal Palace Schloss Bellevue in central Berlin, built as a summer residence for the brother of King Frederick II the Great of Prussia in 1786. The German President actually lives in a Villa in Dahlem a suburb of Berlin, the palace is only used for Official functions.

Sapphire Jubilee, EIIR

Tags

Canada., EIIR, Germany, Hohenzollern, Prussia, Sapphire Jubilee

On this 6 February in 1952 King George VI died in his sleep at the age of 56 of complications from cancer. His daughter Princess Elizabeth was proclaimed Queen and acceded the throne of Canada, Great Britain and the Dominions of the Commonwealth.

Queen Elizabeth II celebrate 65 years (1952-2017) on the throne today, but the Canadian monarch will not be spending it with parades and confetti. Instead, Queen Elizabeth II will spend her Sapphire Jubilee quietly and somberly in commemoration of the death of her father, King George VI.

The Queen is the first Sovereign to reach a Sapphire Jubilee. Queen Victoria reached her Diamond Jubilee and was the longest-reigning monarch until H.M. Elizabeth II surpassed her in 2015. While Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee was well-celebrated in 2012, this one will be more solemn.

Today she will remain at the Sandringham estate (where her father spent his last days) to contemplate on her long reign.

Queen Elizabeth II, nicknamed Lilibet was only 25 years old when her father died. She was then after a mourning period crowned in 1953 in Westminster Abbey. When she married Prince Philip in 1954, her father gave her a necklace and a pair of sapphire earrings. A decade after her coronation, she had a matching tiara and bracelet made.

The 90-year-old queen is one of the longest-ruling monarchs in history. The Sun King Louis XIV of France ruled for 72 years.

Picture taken last month at Buckingham Palace, from left to right, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles the Prince of Wales, H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Prince William Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Duchess of Cambridge. The men in this photo are wearing the Order of the Garter on their left leg with the blue sash of the Order.

What is interesting about this photo are the large portrait paintings framing this picture, on the left H.I.M  Emperor Frederick III of Germany and King of Prussia and on the right his wife Empress Victoria, who was the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria. The link to the Imperial Family of Germany who are first cousins of the Royal Family has been quietly emphasized lately. The current head of the German Imperial Family is 40 yr old H.I.R.H Prince Georg Friedrich of Prussia, their cousin, in the photo below with his wife Princess Sophie of Prussia.

Sun and snow

Tags

Birds, Cardinals, Charlottetown, Dresden, Germany, PEI, XMAS

As much as Friday and Saturday we got misty rain and some wind, always wind on this Island. Today we have roving clouds with small flurries of snow and blue sky with Sun. We are doing the Christmas tree and decorations today.

Here are some pictures which I find beautiful on this day.

The Via Appia built more than 2000 years ago. We walked this road which crosses Italy with its ancient pavement. What I discovered is that as you near the City Walls you have all these ruins, some elaborate, they are Mausoleums to the wealthy Patricians of Rome. So it was a famous road but also a cemetery in a beautiful setting. Misty Sunday morning in Rome.

This weekend is the Christmas Market on Richmond Street in Old Charlottetown and here is the bronze statue on a park bench of our First Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald dressed up as the tradition wants for the occasion. #discovercharlottetown

 

 

 

An evening view of a street in old Dresden in Saxony, Germany. The Xmas Market is on this weekend, I remembered it, like the one in Munich, so much fun and so many things to see. To think that Dresden just 25 years ago was still pretty much a ruin from February 1945 devastating bombings. Lovingly restored and in the background the dome of the Frauenkirchen rebuilt with public donations.

The Old Kirk of St-James in Charlottetown on Fitzroy Street. This presbyterian parish church was built in 1878 in its present form though the parish exist since 1770.

 

Ethics and where we stand

Tags

Ethics, film, Germany, Goebbels, history, morality, Nazi, office politics, Pomsel

I came across the name of Brunhilde Pomsel and the award winning film A German Life which is to be released in North America today 24 July 2016. http://www.a-german-life.com/trailer/

Although Brunhilde Pomsel always described herself as just being a side-line figure and not at all interested in politics, she nevertheless got closer to one of the worst criminals in world history than anyone else presently alive. Today aged 105, Pomsel used to work as secretary, stenographer and typist for the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Brunhilde Pomsel’s life mirrors the major historical ruptures of the 20th century and German life thereafter. Nowadays, many people presume that the dangers of war and fascism have long been overcome. Brunhilde Pomsel makes it clear that this is certainly not the case. “A German Life” forces viewers to ask themselves what they would have done and whether they would have sacrificed any possible moral principles in order to advance their own careers. Her extraordinary biography and unique personal journey into the past lead to disturbing and timeless questions:

Have we moved on or are we still unclear about our own morals and humanity and more importantly:
Where do I stand on these issues today?

Evil is never far from us and it is important that we ask ourselves questions, privately, no need to stand on a public square,  as an exercise in reflection on who we are and on where we stand on important moral and ethical issues. I am not talking here about liking this or that or making mundane crowd choices where we know that we are unlikely to be challenged because we reflect the majority view.

Is advancing your own career or making money and getting that promotion more important to you than taking a moral stand, even quietly, refusing to go along because you know it is morally wrong. It is easy, even today to blame Germany and the Germans for the 12 years of the Nazi dictatorship, they lost the war and the losers are always wrong. So it is easy to blame them even 75 years after the fact and knowing that the those who lived then are now dead. Only survivors like Brunhilde Pomsel can remind us that the monopoly of evil does not lie with one group but is something all of us, individually or in a group are quite capable of, it is human nature after all, but we are imbued with the capacity to reason and make choices, moral choices and ethical ones and take a different course of action.

Since 1945 there have been other conflicts in the world, other genocides to numerous to name and there are horrible conflicts now. We are quick nowadays with the internet to take position on a question, thanks to the Media who fans obsessively news items making us fearful of those who are different or by misrepresenting facts to get a reaction.

At 105 Pomsel is at the end of her life and beyond what we may think of her. She speaks as someone who will be leaving soon and has nothing to gain or loose. In her life testimony she forces us to see that as humans we do whatever will benefit us and maybe this is why the Nazi were at first, successful. But they are not the only ones to have been successful with ideology and mass communication and manipulation. We are so willing to believe what ever our leaders say. It is also important to remember that it does not have to be a stark choice like the ones of the Nazi dictatorship period. It can be questions on immigration, social justice, minority groups, etc or simply something in society that is unjust.

What I found frightening about her testimony is how willing she was to look away simply to get ahead, she does say I was not interested in the politics or the speeches, I was young and I wanted to get ahead, everyone was doing it. On hearing that I thought, I know quite a few people like that, I worked with people like that.

I hope that those who will see this movie will not simply nod their heads and think like donkeys, but make the effort to ask themselves, how would I act in such circumstances or how do I act now when confronted with a situation.

Pomsel says she believes people would have done the same as her and would still do today. I believe her, many would.

 

photo not PEI

Tags

Alexanderplatz, Berlin, BRD, FRG, GDR, Germany, Spree river

This photo of central Berlin, the Capital of the Federal Republic of Germany, re-united and once again the Capital since 1990. It had lost that title in 1946 with the division of Germany by the Allies when the Capital moved to Bonn for the Western part of the Country and the Eastern part kept Berlin, half demolished, bombed out as their capital.

The photo below is East Berlin now known as Mitte or central Berlin. The Princes and Kings of Prussia lived on the island on the Spree River as of the 15th century until 1918. The buildings on the left side of the photo, you have the great dome of the Lutheran Cathedral it was connected to the Imperial Palace across the street, heavily damaged in 1944 it was lovingly restored to what it was like in 1918, the crypt is full of coffins of the Royal Prussian family members. The cathedral is surrounded by several museums all fully restored since 1989 at great expense. The collections are breathtaking, varied and shows the knowledge and quality of the curators who worked for the Hohenzollern family. The long gray facade building on the Spree river is the old stables of the Palace, housing hundred of horses and carriages at one time. The empty space between the cathedral and the stables is occupied today by the reconstruction site of the great City Palace of the German Emperors. On the middle of the photo is St-Nicholas neighbourhood also heavily damaged by aerial allied bombardments in 1942-1944, the churches have been restored and so has the red brick tower and building of Berlin’s City Hall. The modern towers you see in the background is Alexander Platz built to celebrate the visit to Berlin of Russian Tsar Alexander I in 1805, it was re-imagined by the Communists East German government and turned into a typical soulless ugly brutalist architectural monstrosity for army parades, think Red Square or Tien An Men Square in Beijing.

 

Same area another shot taken around 2007

two view points

Tags

Canada., documentary, Germany, Marshall Plan, Nazi, post war, UK, USA, war, WWII

Recently I was surfing on You Tube and found two short documentary films both made in 1946. One is British and the other is American, same topic, same story but completely different approach. The British one is highly moralistic and full of condescension, preachy and negative. The American one is Bon Enfant in tone that American way of being optimistic and full of yes we can do this and all will be well now, no worries folks, we are here to make friends and build the future. I often long for that America which appears to have vanished.

Of course the two documentaries are about Germany 1946, the war is over, the Nazi regime defeated, its leadership dead or in jail. Now it is time for re-construction and with that post war view of all is possible. The American want to bring prosperity to the defeated nation, it shows us a German family, father, mother and two kids. Father works in a factory, responsible fellow, mom the good housewife and the kids happy. The nightmare of the Nazi dictatorship which lasted 12 years is over. The narrator even inserts German words into the dialogue so the viewer can see that the former enemy is now just a simply guy wanting to get on with life. The family has a meal together, father smokes a pipe, kids do homework and their home is simple but clean. For all you know this could be an American family. The American documentary is somewhat naive, you think of innocents abroad as Mark Twain use to say.

Contrast this with the British documentary, it is full of reproach against that awful people who inflicted two world wars on the World in the space of 20 years. Forgetting that the First World War was about Europe including the British sleepwalking into a conflict that could have been averted. The narrator then goes on to mention the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 as further proof of the perfidious Germans. Forgetting to tell us that Queen Victoria, the most German of British Monarchs cheered Bismarck on that one and only changed her tune when her Ministers told her the public could not understand her pro-German sentiment.

The British documentary shows you a lot of devastated German cities, people walking about aimlessly, stunned by the defeat and the catastrophe they brought on themselves. The narrator says “What are we to do with these people” “should we let them starve”, ” Kill them all”. All rhetorical questions of course, the narrator goes on to say it is our duty to reform them and educated them so they can set aside their terrible ideas. He also brings in Christian principals and values, all is presented as a burden for the civilized British people. Redemption of the German people will come through atonement for sins, the narrator then goes on to name German Industrialists like Krupp who made money from the war, comical really, as if no one in Britain ever made a huge profit from the war. Everyone must be punished! Emphatically states the narrator almost in hysterical tones.

Looking at it I thought, well here we go again, same nonsense from the British and the French we saw in 1919 which lead directly to hardship and the rise of Nazism. Luckily this time the new Super Power America is there to set the tone and by 1948 Britain will be pushed to the margins as the Empire crumbles, same fate awaits the French and their colonial empire.

You certainly do not see in the British documentary any spirit of Internationalism, it is still about revenge and the old European rivalries. The documentary in itself speaks to a British audience, holding fast certain beliefs about the enemy, which cannot be revisited or re-interpreted. In Canada we also bought into the British interpretation of the war and to this day presentation follows orthodox lines. The Americans being a new Super Power can be magnanimous, they have no past sins.

The British documentary forgets to mention that the war could not be won by Britain alone, all the Commonwealth countries and Canada came to the rescue. Britain was almost defeated by Germany during the Battle of Britain. They also forget to mention that Edward VIII and Ms Simpson’s were Nazi sympathizers and if Britain fell they would have been happy to help Herr Hitler, sanitize Britain and get rid of Churchill and brother George VI. Unclassified documents today show what had long been suspected but never mentioned publicly.

I just found those two documentaries fascinating and indicative of the post-war period.

This British exclusionary spirit still exist today, the latest is the Brexit vote on 23 June, will Britain leave the European Union over some imagined fantasy of not being able to control their own destiny? As if Britain today could go at it alone, what of all the British citizens now living, working for years in other EU countries, out of the EU means they go home to the Sceptre Isle which would certainly created an economic crisis of large proportions. Again it is this idea that people have to play by our rules and Britain is not open to working with others unless it can dictate the terms.

General DeGaulle back in 1969 said that Britain should not be allowed to enter into the Common Market as the EU was then called. He could foresee problems because of British attitudes. In Europe the rivalries die hard, sad really.

 

 

 

In 9 days

Tags

Britain, Canada., Charlottetown, George III, Germany, Havoner, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, PEI, Prussia, Victoria

This is the period of the New Year or Spring Festival in Asia, celebrated in China but also in Vietnam and other Asian countries but not in Japan which has a different history and gods. The number 9 is reserved for the Emperor, the Son of Heaven, who the Chinese see has the great dragon who has 9 sons, the little dragons. This image is found on walls and gates of Palaces in China and a somewhat different version in Vietnam. The number 8 is for everyone and seen as very lucky.

But in my case the 9 days refer to our imminent trip to Prince Edward Island. We will fly to Moncton in New Brunswick which is about 80 minutes from Ottawa and then drive the 2 hours across the great Confederation sea bridge to PEI. (see header image).

Here is some more history about the Island and the name of its Capital Charlottetown foundation date 1764 by British Officer Captain Samuel Holland. There was no town or village on that spot prior to that date, but at the entrance of the harbor facing the coast of New Brunswick across the strait of Northumberland, there was a small fort, Port La-Joye.

Coat of Arms of the Capital Charlottetown, PEI

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Sophia Charlotte; 19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818) was the wife of King George III. She was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from her marriage in 1761 until the union of the two kingdoms in 1801, after which she was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until her death in 1818. She was also the Electress of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire until the promotion of her husband to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814, after which she was also queen consort of Hanover (Germany). The city was name for her, being a new Queen and the Island was now part of an expanding Empire.

Queen Charlotte was a patroness of the arts and an amateur botanist, who helped expand Kew Gardens in London. George III and Charlotte had 15 children, 13 of whom survived to adulthood. She was distressed by her husband’s bouts of physical illness and insanity, which became permanent in later life and resulted in their eldest son being appointed Prince Regent in 1811.

Sophia Charlotte was born on 19 May 1744. She was the youngest daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Prince of Mirow and his wife Princess Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a small north Prussian duchy in the Holy Roman Empire.

The children of Duke Charles were all born at the Untere Schloss (Lower Castle) in Mirow. According to diplomatic reports at the time of her engagement to George III, Charlotte had received “a very mediocre education”.

When King George III succeeded to the throne of Great Britain upon the death of his grandfather, George II, he was unmarried. His mother and advisors were anxious to have him settled in marriage. The 17-year-old Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz appealed to him as a prospective consort partly because she had been brought up in an insignificant Prussian duchy and therefore would have had no experience of power politics or party intrigues. He instructed her on her arrival in London “not to meddle”, a precept she was glad to follow.

Charlotte spoke no English but was quick to learn the language, albeit speaking with a strong German accent. It was noted by many observers that she was “ugly”, had a dark complexion and flared nostrils. “She is timid at first but talks a lot, when she is among people she knows”, said one observer.

The King announced to his Council in July 1761, according to the usual form, his intention to wed the Princess. By the end of August 1761, a party of escorts departed for Prussia to conduct Princess Charlotte to England. Arriving at St. James’s Palace on 7 September, the Princess met the King and the royal family. The following day at nine o’clock, the wedding ceremony took place in the Chapel Royal and was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Secker.

Less than a year after the marriage, on 12 August 1762, the Queen gave birth to her first child, the Prince of Wales, who would later become King George IV. In the course of their marriage, they had 15 children, all but two of whom (Octavius and Alfred) survived into adulthood.

Around this time the King and Queen moved to Buckingham House, at the western end of St. James’s Park, which would later be known as Buckingham Palace. The house which forms the architectural core of the present palace was built for the first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby in 1703 to the design of William Winde.

King George III and Queen Charlotte were music connoisseurs with German tastes, who gave special honour to German artists and composers. They were passionate admirers of the music of Georg Frideric Handel. Both George III and Charlotte were of German origin so this is understandable. George III was also the nephew of Frederic II the Great of Prussia.

In April 1764, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then aged eight, arrived in Britain with his family as part of their grand tour of Europe and remained until July 1765. The Mozarts were summoned to court on 19 May and played before a limited circle from six to ten o’clock. Johann Christian Bach, eleventh son of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, was then music-master to the Queen. He put difficult works of Handel, J. S. Bach, and Carl Friedrich Abel before the boy: he played them all at sight, and those present were quite amazed. Afterwards, the young Mozart accompanied the Queen in an aria which she sang, and played a solo work on the flute. On 29 October, the Mozarts were in town again, and were invited to court to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the King’s accession. As a memento of the royal favour, Leopold Mozart published six sonatas composed by Wolfgang, known as Mozart’s Opus 3, that were dedicated to the Queen on 18 January 1765, a dedication she rewarded with a present of 50 guineas.

Queen Charlotte was an amateur botanist who took a great interest in Kew Gardens. In an age of discovery, when travellers and explorers such as Captain James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks were constantly bringing home new species and varieties of plants, she ensured that the collections were greatly enriched and expanded. Her interest in botany led to the South African flower, the Bird of Paradise, being named Strelitzia reginae in her honour.

The French Revolution of 1789 probably added to the strain that Charlotte felt. Queen Charlotte and Queen Marie Antoinette of France kept a close relationship. Charlotte was 11 years older than Marie Antoinette, yet they shared many interests, such as their love of music and the arts, in which they both enthusiastically took an interest. Never meeting face to face, they kept their friendship to pen and paper. Marie Antoinette confided in Charlotte upon the outbreak of the French Revolution. Charlotte had organized apartments to be prepared and ready for the refugee royal family of France to occupy. After the execution of Marie Antoinette and the bloody events that followed, Charlotte was said to be shocked and overwhelmed that such a thing could happen to a kingdom, and at Britain’s doorstep.

Today when Islanders think of a Queen in their history it is usually Victoria, another princess of german descent, because she is associated with Canadian Confederation. Charlotte has disappeared in collective memory and has far as I know there are no statues of her in the Capital, sad really because Queen Victoria never cared much for PEI.

 

 

 

 

Happy Yule!

Tags

21 December, Ancient, Christmas, German people, Germany, Scandinavia, Yule

Today is the Winter Solstice 21 December and German Radio MDR and Nederland Radio NRK is playing favourites for this Feast. The weather here in Ottawa today has been very mild almost Spring like but I am not complaining because it is a lot nicer than ice and snow given the City of Ottawa has no budget for clearing snow. For Christmas day prediction say it will be 14C. I say good!

So Happy Yule another celebration, in a Season of many celebrations.

Yule or Yuletide (“Yule time”) is a festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later undergoing Christianised reformulation resulting in the now better-known Christmastide. The earliest references to Yule are by way of indigenous Germanic month names Ærra Jéola (Before Yule) or Jiuli and Æftera Jéola (After Yule) December-January. Scholars have connected the celebration to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin.

Terms with an etymological equivalent to Yule are used in the Nordic countries for Christmas with its religious rites, but also for the holidays of this season.

Books I am reading

Tags

Bolchevism, Fallada, Germany, Lenin, Nazism, Russia, Soviet, Stalin, terror, USSR, WWII

Recently I started two books, one was given to me by someone who came in for an interview at the Museum it is entitled Alone in Berlin, by German writer Hans Fallada (nom de plume) whose real name was Rudolf Wilhelm Adolf Ditzen (1893-1947). He was the greatest writer of the XXth century. Fallada suggests that morality under the Nazi Dictatorship was not measured by the size of the struggle; it mattered only that one did not capitulate…the very act of writing Alone in Berlin – to say nothing of the stunning political clout of the novel itself – implies that for Fallada, the artist’s true role under fascism was chiefly one of bearing witness.

The story starts in an apartment building in central Berlin where several families live. All have different economic conditions, a retired senior Judge, an old Jewess, a worker and his wife, a Nazi party family with sons in the SS, a shifty alcoholic and his prostitute wife and their 5 kids. Tragedy strikes when the worker Quangel and his wife learn by official letter of the death of their son Otto, a soldier in the German Army invading France, this death will make of them resisters, the book is dark and full of anguish and fear. The Quangel write postcards denouncing the Fuhrer and leave them around Berlin. The Gestapo and the SS embark on a hunt to find whoever is responsible and it is a game of Cat and Mouse. The reader understands that many Germans resisted the Nazi, hated them but given the politics of fear and the Police State with the constant threat of the Concentration Camp for anyone resisting or criticizing the Fuhrer, people kept their heads low. Fallada who lived through it all also explains how the Nazi regime financed itself through extortion of the public in general and Party members.

Primo Levi called this book ”the greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis. I have read other books about German resistance and living conditions during the Nazi dictatorship, it has been 75 years now and more biographies and diaries are coming out, it was not a black and white picture many shades of grey and complex reality. The picture is one of a society in turmoil and we have to ask ourselves what would we do if we lived in such atmosphere where the police can arbitrarily arrest you, beat you up, kill you or send you to a concentration camp. Where the wrong word can mean a death sentence, where no one can be trusted, where no one will be foolish enough to come to your defence.

A few years ago I read two biographies entitled Purgatory of Fools and Berlin Diaries 1940-45, it was the stories of two sisters of Russian-German origin, Marie Princess Vassilchikov and Tatiana Princess Metternich. Both worked at the German Foreign Ministry as secretaries and were implicated in the attempt on Hitler’s life in 1944. They miraculously survived the war. However they do give a gripping account of the horrors under the Nazis.

The other book is about Joseph Stalin, who was not Russian but Georgian who becomes  the all powerful dictator of Soviet Russia under the Bolcheviks. Entitled Stalin, the Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It gives a psychological picture of the man and his family and entourage. It also re-establishes in reality what actually happened from 1917 onwards, removing all the romantic nonsense about the Revolution or that it was done for the people. What we see is how the people, the peasants, millions of people were starved, put to death, a country destroyed by fanaticism similar to what we see with the Taliban today. It was not the overthrow of the Tsar or the old Aristocratic Regime that was achieved, since the regime stop to exist in February 1917 by the sudden abdication of Nicholas II forced out by his cousins, a surprise to all including the Bolcheviks. No it was the fanatical pursuit of an inhumane ideology ”Bolchevism” to create the new man, a robot  basically who only thought in terms of means of production, devoid of any human feelings described as Bourgeois sentimentality.

The author Montefiore gives us a detailed psychological portrait of the people in Stalin’s entourage, few actual Russians, many were Jews who occupied top positions around him, their families, the children, their lack of education, their poverty and in the case of the Jewish colleagues the oppression they felt in Russian society. Even after the so called Revolution, Bolchevik Jews could not be promoted to senior positions because they were considered non-Russian, though non-Jews like the Armenians, Ukrainians, Abkazians, our other Ethnic groups could. Stalin will eventually get rid of all of them in his purges.

Montefiore did meticulous research much through interviews of the children now aged, and newly opened Kremlin State Archives , diaries and personal journals of who they were. We see Lenin the petit bourgeois, from a small noble family whose father was a Tsarist bureaucrat, Lenin who was absolutely convinced that in 1919 the world was going to fall into an orgy of blood and revolution, who believed that the people were with him, totally delusional. When he realized that nothing of the sort was happening, he turned to absolute violence against the very people he claimed to be wanting to free. As he said quote Change will come through total terror. Something Mao in China and Pol Pot in Cambodia years later will copy.

Trotsky the Jewish intellectual despised by all for his grandeur and aloofness, forced into exile and later assassinated in Mexico City on Stalin’s orders.

Stalin the Georgian street urchin, low birth and next to no education raised in a violent family background dominated by superstition and blood feud typical of the Mountains he came from, ready to kill for any reason. Stalin’s second wife Nadya, an unstable self-centred egoistical schizophrenic who after a party in 1932 will go to her bedroom in the Kremlin palace and shoot herself. Followed by the horrible vengeance of Stalin on his own family and all his close friends who he will blame for her death. Stalin himself is paranoid and violent, though highly intelligent and manipulative, always suspicious and ready to believe in conspiracy against him. A man who has no scrupules about exterminating, his own word, millions of innocent people simply because they do not fit into Bolchevik ideology. The mass starvation in the Ukraine where 10 million peasant died to satisfy the Five Year Plan for grain export to the rest of the Soviet Empire. The life of luxury on special trains taking the entourage and their families on vacation in the Crimea or to Sochi, the lavish banquets and constant drinking binges while the whole country is in flames gripped by a Civil War and then the purges 1936 of entire families, the old revolutionaries Stalin came to despise and fear, they knew too much. What the author shows us is that the entourage of Stalin who were rough necks of low birth and little education enabled him to become the Boss. He dominated them with his quick grasp of events. But also Stalin’s children how they did not fare very well, his first son Yakov from his first marriage, died during the Second World War a prisoner of the Germans in 1943, Stalin refused to save him for political reasons. He second son Vasily who will become a general in the Soviet Air Force drank himself to death unable to cope with such a father. Svetlana his daughter will fare a little better, but just, she will escape to the West and finally return to Russia to a life of oblivion, the crimes of her dead father followed her everywhere. The only one who appears to have done relatively well is Artyom his adoptive son who became a general and wrote two books about his adoptive father Stalin. He died in Moscow in 1981.

Lenin and others had no plan for the new promised Proletarian society, Bolchevism led to a dead end and Communism and Karl Marx mere shiny objects of little meaning used to retain absolute power over the masses. Stalin with the help of people like Beria, Molotov and others developed a State Secret Police to maintain a system of constant terror, creating the infamous Gulag. Even during the Second World War which again caught the Bolcheviks by surprised, so certain they were of their pact with Hitler to divide the world, Stalin would spy on his own troops at the Front and shoot here and there soldiers on the mere suspicion that they might not be faithful to him. He signed order 270 condemning as traitor any Soviet soldier who surrendered to the enemy or was made a POW.  Some 28 years in power and the total destruction of a society is the legacy of Stalin and his henchmen.

Stalin lived like a Tsar using Palaces and Dachas surrounding himself and his cronies with opulent luxury while the people had nothing. A sad commentary on a revolution that was not and almost 70 years of rule by one ideology. It explains a lot about Russia today and the many problems it faces. If you love history this is a great book.

Cities and place are not how they are presented

Tags

art., Berlin, Brandenburg gate, Festival, Germany, life, Music, Prussia, Renewal, Tiergarten

Some years ago we took a two week tour with our car of the Island of Sicily, we visited many cities and small towns. None of what we saw corresponded to the image we had seen in films of Sicily or its people. We found a lovely island and nice people, yes they have been scared by the plague of the Mafia but it is certainly not how Hollywood had portrayed it.

Same for Berlin, Capital of a unified Germany from 1870 until 1945 and then again since 1989. Often the Berlin one imagines is what you are presented in movies of the Second World War and of the Nazi Dictatorship 1933-1945 or the divided city of the Cold War, which in movies are largely simplistic commercial stereotypes. Many tourists still visit Berlin today hunting to find sites connected to the Nazi and the infamous wall only to come up empty handed. That was 80 years ago and no longer exist, the Berliners of today were not born then and have memories somewhat different more linked to a divided city and a country finally re-united and free from military occupation.

What I discovered about Berlin in my numerous visits since 1997 is a garden city surrounded by forests, lakes and parks everywhere. Very modern architecture, a stylish lifestyle, good restaurants and a diverse population. Arts, culture, festivals, music, the world comes together in Berlin, a very vibrant and imaginative city.

All that green everywhere, oasis of peace in and around the city and a city of efficient public transportation where a car is not really required.

Brandenburg Gate with its quadriga to Peace, this gate built in 1791 on the order of King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, marks the Official entrance to Berlin. Ambassadors would come to the gate and would be taken down the avenue Unter den Linden to the Imperial City Palace to meet the Sovereign. The gate is modelled on the gate of the Acropolis in Athens. It faces the large Tiergarten Park. Photo is taken from the roof of the Bundestag (German Parliament) formerly known as Reichstag.

In the background is Potsdamer Platz until 1989 was in no mans land a empty field since 1945, today it has once again become the heart of commercial Berlin.

The new Office of the German Chancellor in Berlin on the Spree River across from the Bundestag. All government architecture is in this style, light, lots of glass emphasis on transparency.

The Tiergarten in central Berlin, a giant park, once a Royal Hunting ground for the Prussian Kings and Princes. It is very pleasant to walk in this vast park.

Pic-nik on the banks of the Spree River in the City.

Berlin at dusk, the large dark area in the centre is the Tiergarten Park.

The Tiergarten looking East

One of the many swimming areas in the City.

Semi-Urban neighbourhoods

Beach along one of the many lakes in and around the city.

Free movie night in central Berlin between the new National Gallery and the Berliner Philharmonie and another beach on the Spree river facing the old Imperial Palace stables.

Bet you did not know that Berlin was so green, so relaxed, so pleasant, so surprising. Not that Old Berlin anymore.