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One of the legacies of the Holy roman empire is that Germany does not have just one place where everything happens, where politicians, entrepreneurs, bankers, artists, and actors travel on the same underground trains and eat at the same restaurants. Berlin is the capital with its political class of members of the Bundestag, journalists and lobbyist and at the same time a major gathering place for artists, musicians and thespians of all stripes and home to many tech startups. But the bankers are in Frankfurt, the headquarters of the major companies are in Stuttgart, Munich, Düsseldorf and spread around everywhere. Several of the major publishing houses are in Hamburg, the private TV stations in Munich, but none of these places have a monopoly on any of these activities. There are banks headquartered in Munich and major corporates in Frankfurt, there is great theater in Düsseldorf, Dresden and Schwerin, there are world leading companies headquartered in tiny towns like Künzelsau.
And that cuts through to the major cultural sites. Though the quip that there were 365 states in the Holy Roman empire is vastly exaggerated, there were once a hundred capital cities, from splendid Dresden to tiny Hohenzollern-Hechingen, each with its princely residence, cathedral, grand monastery and theater. The great artists either travelled from court to court, leaving behind their works here or there, or stayed in one of the free imperial cities, operating large workshops.
Therefore what you cannot do in Germany is to go to one city and see all the major treasures the country has “collected” over the centuries, as you can do in the Louvre or the British Museum and the National Gallery. In Germany you have to move around, see one thing at the time, always in the knowledge that its significant counterpart is a few hundred miles north, south, east or west of you. This is one of the legacies of the medieval empire that Germany has in common with Italy.
And hence we are going through each of the Bundesländer trying to pick out one absolute must-see and one place where you are likely to encounter fewer people. And as we have covered 9 Bundesländer up to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern already, the next location we will have to get to is Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany’s most populous state.
★ Support this podcast ★A narrative history of the German people from the Middle Ages to Reunification in 1991. Episodes are 25-35 min long and drop on Thursday mornings.
"A great many things keep happening, some good, some bad". Gregory of Tours (539-594)
So far we have covered:
Ottonian Emperors (# 1- 21)
- Henry the Fowler (#1)
- Otto I (#2-8)
- Otto II (#9-11)
- Otto II (#11-14)
- Henry II (#15-17)
- Germany in 1000 (#18-21)
Salian Emperors(#22-42)
- Konrad II (#22- 25)
- Henry III (#26-29)
- Henry IV/Canossa (#30-39)
- Henry V (#40-42)
- Concordat of Worms (#42)
Early Hohenstaufen (#43-69)
- Lothar III (#43-46)
- Konrad III (#47-49)
- Frederick Barbarossa (#50-69)
Late Hohenstaufen (#70-94)
- Henry VI (#70-72)
- Philipp of Swabia (#73-74)
- Otto IV (#74-75)
- Frederick II (#75-90)
- Epilogue (#91-94)
Colonisation of the East (#95-108)
The Hanseatic League (#109-127)
The Teutonic Knights (#128-137)
From the Interregnum to the Golden Bull (#138 -185)
- Rudolf von Habsburg (#139-141)
- Adolf von Nassau (#142)
- Albrecht von Habsburg (#143)
- Heinrich VII (#144-148)
- Ludwig the Bavarian (#149-153)
- Karl IV (#154-163)
The Reformation before the Reformation
- Wenceslaus the Lazy (#165)
- The Western Schism (#166/167)
- The Ottomans (#168)
- Sigismund (#169-#184
The Empire in the 15th Century
- Mainz & Hessen #186
- Printing #187-#188
- Universities #190
- Wittelsbachs #189, #196-#199
- Baden, Wuerrtemberg, Augsburg, Fugger (#191-195)
- Maps & Arms (#201-#202)
The Fall and Rise of the House of Habsburg
- Early Habsburgs (#203-#207)
- Albrecht II (#208)
- Friedrich III (#209-#215)
- Maximilian I (#215-
Hello and welcome to the
second part of your Christmas bonus,
my entirely subjective list of
places to visit in Germany today.
We'll cover the remaining
Bundeslander, namely Nordlein, Westphaln,
Rhineland, Pfalz, Saarland,
Sachsen, Sachsen, Anhalt, Schleswig
Holstein, Thuringen, and two
more places that I have chosen entirely
because I can now.
One of the legacies of the
Holy Roman Empire is that Germany
does not have just one place
where everything happens.
Where politicians,
entrepreneurs, bankers, artists and
actors travel on the same
underground trains and eat at the
same restaurants.
Berlin is the capital with its
political class of members of the
Bundestag, the journalists and
lobbyists, and at the same time a
major gathering place for
artists, musicians and thespians
of all stripes.
And home to many tech start ups.
But the bankers are in Frankfurt.
The headquarters of the major
companies are in Stuttgart, Munich,
Dusseldorf and spread around everywhere.
Several of the major
publishing houses are in Hamburg,
the private TV stations in Munich.
But none of these places have
a monopoly on any of these activities.
There are banks headquartered
in Munich and major corporates in
Frankfurt.
There is great theatre in
Dusseldorf, Dresden and Schwerin.
There are world leading
companies headquartered in tiny towns
like Kunstelsau.
And that cuts right through to
the major cultural sites.
Though the quip that there
were three hundred and sixty five
states in the Holy Roman
Empire is vastly exaggerated.
There were once maybe about a
hundred capital cities from splendid
Dresden to tiny Hohen Solern
Hechingen, each with its princely
residence, cathedral, grand
monastery and theatre.
The the great artists either
travelled from court to court, leaving
behind their works here or
there, or stayed in one of the free
imperial cities operating
large workshops.
Therefore, what you cannot do
in Germany is to go to one city and
see all the major treasures
the country has collected over the
centuries, as you can do in
the Louvre or the British Museum
and the National Gallery.
In Germany you have to move
around, see one thing at a time.
Always in the knowledge that
that its significant counterpart
may be a few hundred miles
north, south, east or west of you.
This is one of the legacies of
the medieval empire that Germany
has in common with Italy.
And hence we are going through
each of the Bundeslander trying to
pick out one absolute must see.
And one place where you are
likely to encounter fewer people.
And as we have covered nine
Bundeslender up to make Limburg Fourpommen
already, our next location we
will have to get to is Nordrejn Westphalen.
Now if we talk about must
sees, Aachen is where every upstanding
listener of the history of the
Germans will go, and it is undoubtedly
the right thing to do.
The Imperial Chapel, with its
Roman columns brought across from
Rome and Ravenna and
Barbarossa's magnificent chandelier
provides suitable surroundings
for the coronation since Otto the
Great.
And if you happen to go there,
take a look at the treasures in the
Dom Museum worth absolutely
every second of it.
And do not forget to listen to
the ghoulish opening of Charlemagne's
grave by Otto III in episode
14 just before you go.
A close second place you
should not miss is Cologne.
The city has been mentioned
500 times already in the show, and
there are likely another 500
incidences to come.
Germany's most venerable and
for a long time largest city has
been the stage for events from
the prologue episode to the Siege
of Noise we discussed in
episode 214.
As the seat of one of the
seven Prince electors, a major pilgrimage
destination and the main hub
in the trade between the Empire and
England, Cologne often played
a decisive role.
Its history is so varied and
significant it warrants its own podcast
the History of Cologne by
Willem Fromme.
Of the things to see in
Cologne, the cathedral and its shrine
of the Three Wise Men is unavoidable.
I would also recommend the
Rmisch Germanische Museum that displays
items related to the long
history of Roman presence in Germany
and specifically in Cologne.
And do not miss the remains of
Cologne's history as a free imperial
merchant city and senior
member of the Hanseatic League.
There's the Overstolzen house
from the 13th century and the town
hall with its 16th century porch.
There's the Gurzenich, or
banqueting hall of the merchants
of the city, which dates from
1441 and the 16th century arsenal.
All are reconstructed on the
outside, though the interior has
sadly been lost to war damage.
These alone would justify a
visit, but what makes it a must see
are the 12 great Romanesque
churches, including Sangerion Ursula
Sanct Maria M. Capitol, Sankt
Kunibert Sanct Pantaleon, Sanct Apostolen
and Gross Sankt Martin.
Few cities in Europe can boast
such a density of sacral architecture
built between the 4th and the
13th century.
Once you have survived the
marathon of Romanesque art, head
down to Fruys or Zuna im
Valfish or Sion for refreshing Kolsch
and the unique atmosphere of a
classic Cologne beerhouse.
And if you do that, you have
to then take the S Bahn down to Cologne's
eternal rival, Dusseldorf, and
taste their Altbier in one of their
traditional beer houses like
the Fuchsjen the sifjen or the 18
million people spread over
34,000 square kilometers, making
Nord Rhein Westphaln one of
Europe's most densely populated areas.
In particular, the almost
continuous urban landscape between
Dusseldorf and Dortmund,
otherwise known as the Ruhr.
I would love to say that the
Ruhr is pretty, but that would be
pushing it.
There are pretty places
though, like the Bredeni lake and
its park with the villa of the
Krupp family, or the Schwebebahn
in Wuppertal.
And several of these cities
are actually very old.
Assen Abbey boasts an ottonian
Westwerk and 10th century artworks.
And Dortmund had been a member
of the Hanse and still retains some
vestiges of that time, whilst
Mercator famously established a cartography
business in Duisburg.
If people travel there from
afar, it is very rarely for these
cultural artifacts, but it's
usually related to football or soccer
for our American friends,
given the region hosts some of the
most successful and the most
storied clubs.
But there is another way to
get an understanding what made this
state where almost one fifth
of Germans live, and that is to visit
the Seche Zollfein, a coal
mining industrial complex that counts
amongst the largest of its
kind in Europe.
It operated from 1847 to 1986
and has now been turned into a museum.
Or to be more precise, one of
the many buildings on the sites is
now the Ruhr Museum, providing
an insight into how this region turned
into one of the largest
industrial agglomerations in the
world.
But what impressed me more
than the exhibits is the sheer scale
and awesome beauty of the structure.
It comprises two large
complexes, the main with its shaft
12, built in the Bauhaus style.
That is the basis of the claim
that this is the most beautiful coal
mine in the world.
And then there's the nearby
coking plant, a 600 meter long Baymot.
The canal that ran alongside
once held water to cool down the
coke.
Today it is used in winter.
It's one of the coolest ice
rinks I can imagine.
Now, Secher Zollverein, as I
said, has a museum, but it is not
a museum.
It is a vibrant center with
150 startups and corporations using
the space, a range of cultural
institutions, a branch of the university
and shops.
Since opening in the 1990s,
Seche Zollfein has become a weekend
destination for people from
all around, including my cousin who
took me there and left me speechless.
Now that is unfortunately all
we can cover in Nordre and Westphalen,
leaving such gems as paderborn.
See episode 19 and Munster for
later exploration.
It is time to head down to
Rheinlandfals, the state created
in 1946 from chunks of
Prussia's Rhine province, Rhinehessen
and the Bavarian Palatinate.
This is the land of the
Archbishops of Mainzentrie, the Counts
Palatine on the Rhine, the
Counts of Nassau, and most significantly,
the various barons on their
castles overlooking the Rhine River.
Which gets me to the must see
in Rhineland Pfals, and that is the
Rhine Valley, namely the bit
between Mainz and Bonn.
I know it is on everybody's
bucket list for a visit in Germany,
but so is Heidelbergen.
We covered that as well.
What is most fascinating is
the gap between its perception and
what it actually signifies in
German history.
Turner and Bayern had made the
Rhine Valley into one of the main
destinations on the Grand
Tour, and many a milord traveling
along citing these stances
from Childe Harrod's pilgrimage.
The castled crag of
Drachenfels frowns over the wide
and winding Rhine, whose
breast of waters broadly swells between
the banks which bear the vine
and hills all rich with blossom'd
trees, and fields which
promise corn and wine, and scatter'd
cities crowning these, whose
far wide walls along them shine,
have strew'd a scene which
eyes should see with double joy.
Wert thou with me.
The river nobly foams and
flows the charm of this enchanted
ground and all its thousand
turns Disclose Some fresher beauty
varying round the haughty's
breast Its wish might bound though
life to dwell delighted here
Nor could on earth a spot be found.
To nature and to me so dear
could thy dear eyes in following
mine still sweeten more these
banks of Rhine.
And as the boat floated
between the Lorelei and Katzen Ellenbogen,
the representative of Thomas
Cook, would then sell the tourists
steel engravings of Burg Katz,
the Moiseturumen Bingen or Stolzenfels
Castle, which they would hang
on their walls to dream of grim robber
barons and helpless prelates
and damsels in distress.
All these images and dreams of
the romantic Rhine ended up in the
rubbish bin when the Germans
and Brits faced each other across
the trenches in World War I.
That romantic yearning for
crumbling castles, picturesque towns
and, to quote Byron again,
peasant girls with deep blue eyes
and hands which offer early
flowers was not an exclusively British
obsession.
The Germans were at it too.
Goethe, Hulderlin and Kleist
started the literary tradition that
peaked with Heinrich Heine and
Clemens von Brentano.
Schumann and Liszt composed
piano pieces, symphonies and lieder
Wagner's Ring of the
Nibelungen takes place on the Rhine
before we get into the less
salubrious world of the Wacht am
Rhein and Carl Zugmaier's
famous wine, women and song.
During the 19th century, rich
industrialists and the Prussian royal
family turned the castle ruins
into what a fairy tale Gothic castle
was supposed to look like.
The whole place is so drenched
in narratives, myths and anecdotes,
it is a dream world made real.
A dream world that obfuscates
its real significance.
Because the Rhine had been the
backbone of the European economy
for centuries, the main
transmission line that connected
the Low Countries and Italy,
its castles were toll stations funding
princely ambitions.
May they have been
territorial, political or religious.
All through German history,
its cities were centers of trade
and innovation as ideas and
technologies moved south to north
and north to south.
All through them, its villages
made the world's favorite white wine,
etc, etc.
And its gorges take a trip
down the river, either on the train
that follows the banks of the
river or on a ship or boat.
Going from one of the absolute
top destinations in Germany, we now
go to one that is quite
incomprehensibly overlooked, and
that is Trier.
Trier may not formally be
Germany's oldest city, but it certainly
is the one that holds more
ancient Roman buildings than any
other and could easily compete
with the better known places in France
or Spain.
Augusta Treverorum became one
of the four capitals of the Roman
Empire in 293 AD and grew to
between 75,000 and 100,000 inhabitants.
It retains its famous city
gate, the Porta Nigra, from this
period.
The Aula Palatina, the
basilica that once served as the
throne room of Emperor
Constantine, was preserved as a church,
making it the largest extant
hall from classical antiquity.
Its cathedral goes back to a
church commissioned again by the
Emperor Constantine and
retains much of the old structure
with later additions in the
10th, 11th and 12th century.
Trier obviously comes with the
usual complement of amphitheater,
ruins of a Roman bath and a
still functioning 2nd century bridge.
The Rheinische Landesmuseum
holds more exhibits from Roman times,
including the famous wine ship
of Neumagen.
That explains a lot about the
trade on the Moselle and the Rhine
and Roman navigation.
And it also holds the largest
treasure of Roman gold coins ever
found.
And if you have time, drop
into the city library of all places,
because that holds the Codex
Ecberti, one of the great Ottonian
illuminated manuscripts.
A reminder that Trier was not
just important in Roman times, but
had been a crucial
Archbishopric throughout the Middle
Ages and and into the early
modern period.
Who could forget Baldwin of
Luxembourg, brother of Emperor Henry
VII and Eminence Grise of the
Empire for most of the 14th century.
Now that is of course only a
small section of the delights of
Rheinland Pfalz.
You will almost certainly want
to go to Speyer as well and marvel
at its great cathedral we
described already in episode 25.
Or spend some time in Mainz,
home to the most senior of prince
electors and as well as of
JOHANNES Gutenberg, episode 186 to
88.
Or follow the river to Worms,
original home of the Salian Empress
and site of the Nibelungenlied.
Fortunately, our next
destination is not far.
The smallest of the
territorial German states.
The Saarland is where we go next.
And I have to make a grave admission.
I have never done more than
just drive through.
I will of course remedy that,
but what it means is that I cannot
really offer any personal recommendations.
Amongst the things I have
found that could entice me to go
to the Saarland is first up
the Saar Schleife, a gigantic bend
of the river Saar caused by
this stream hitting a hard quartzite
rock.
It looks definitely very cool.
The other location would be
the Folklinger Eisenwerke, the only
fully intact steelworks from
the 19th and 20th century.
There are visiting tours and a
museum explaining how this enormous
facility operated, as well as
special exhibitions.
So if you decide to skip the
Sechet Zollfehein in Essen and you
want to better understand
Germany's industrial past, this might
be a suitable replacement.
Our next Bundesland is almost
due east from here.
It is Saxony in all its splendor.
When we talk about Saxony, as
in the kingdom and now Bundesland
or Saxony as opposed to the
stem duchy of Saxony, we are talking
about a state created by and
for the House of Vittin.
For much of the 17th and 18th
century this principality outshone
Prussia, its neighbour to the north.
Augustus the Strong and then
his son Augustus III were both electors
of Saxony and kings of Poland.
They maintained two capitals,
Dresden and Warsaw, where they made
a credible attempt at
competing with the Versailles of
Louis xiv.
This expenditure relegated the
dynasty back to the second League,
but left behind some of the
grandest and most impressive baroque
architecture on German soil.
So in other words, Dresden is
a must see.
Several of the structures had
been heavily damaged, even wiped
out by the bombing of Dresden
in Florida February 1945.
But much has now been reconstructed.
In particular, the
Frauenkirche has become a symbol
of reconciliation and rebirth.
The whole process had,
however, started long before under
the GDR government, with the
reconstruction of the Semper oper
in the 1980s.
And it continued later on with
the almost complete rebuild of, for
example, the Taschenberg
Palais and the Residenzschloss.
I worked in Dresden in 1991
and I had the chance to visit the
building site of the Residenzschloss.
Seeing the concrete walls of
what is today the audience chamber
of Augustus the Strong was one
of the weirder experiences I ever
had in sightseeing.
But whilst much of the city
centre had suffered horribly, there
are several absolute gems of
the heyday of Baroque Dresden that
have survived at least unaltered.
There's the Alte Gemelde
Gallerie, that houses the collection
of Italian Renaissance art put
together by the otherwise hapless
Augustus iii.
And the Groenege Wohlbe, the
treasury of the House of Wetin that
had been made accessible as a
museum as early as 1729 as a means
to project the immense wealth
of the family.
Going a bit further afield,
you may want to see Meissen, where
the principality started, and
its castle, where Johann Friedrich
Boetscher established the
famous Meissner porcelain Manufaktur,
the first place where
porcelain was produced in Europe.
Porcelain was an obsession
amongst aristocrats in the 17th and
18th century, but had gone
into total overdrive amongst the
German princes.
Everyone had a porcelain
collection, usually housed in a small
Chinese room full of mirrors
and golden wall shelves.
In Dresden, you had an entire
palace to house the collection.
The Japanese palace in the Neustadt.
Today the collection is shown
in the Zwinger, once part of the
city's defenses, but
repurposed by Augustus the Strong
as well.
A party palace, orangery
garden, just something very unique
and strangely wonderful.
A Japanese palace was of
course, not enough exoticism for
the spendthrift Saxon rulers,
so they had a Chinese palace too.
In Pilnitz, just a few miles
upriver, Pillnitz is of course, not
just one small Chinese villa,
but three.
Three separate buildings.
One on the water, one on the
hill and one in the middle.
And there's Moritzburg, the
fairy tale castle in a lake full
of hunting trophies.
And, and, and, and, and I'm
going to shut up now.
And if you go to Dresden, just
spare a few days for Leipzig too.
Where Dresden was, where the
money was spent, Leipzig is where
it was made.
And today Leipzig is arguably
the more vibrant of the two cities.
When it comes to overspending,
the two Augustuses are hard to beat.
But it can be done.
The man who achieved that
sheer impossible feat was Hermann
Frst von Puckler Muskau.
He is today mostly remembered
for first puchlar ice cream, a mix
of chocolate, vanilla and
strawberry flavors.
He did not even invent
himself, but was just named after
him in his honour.
He was a famous dandy who kept
a team of white stags to pull his
carriage.
But his true achievement was
as a gardener.
His two parks, one in
Badmuskau in Saxony and the other
in Brenitz in Brandenburg, are
absolute high points in European
garden architecture.
Laid out in an English style,
The park stretches 5.6 square kilometers
across what is now the German
Polish border.
As you would expect, this is
an artificial landscape of lakes
and hills dotted with various
follies in pavilions.
The sheer scale of the project
pushed the man who was born as one
of the richest noblemen in
Germany, deep into debt.
In a desperate attempt to
raise funds, he and his wife divorced
so that he could go to England
and find a wealthy heiress.
That scheme turned out to be a
touch too obvious and the British
press made a mockery of the
German prince's attempt to woo an
English rose.
Puckler described events in
hilarious letters to his now divorced
but still very much loved wife.
She then published these
letters to rustle up more cash, which
turned into a best seller.
And like a modern day sailing
YouTuber, Puckler embarked on a new
career as a travel writer.
He journeyed across the
Ottoman Empire, even made it to Ethiopia
and Sudan.
One of the souvenirs he
brought back from his trip was an
11 year old Ethiopian enslaved
girl that he installed in Bad Muskow,
where she promptly succumbed
to the inclement climate and probably
just utter misery.
Money eventually ran out
completely and Pukler had to sell
his castle and gardens in
Badmuskau in 1845 and move to Brenitz,
where he could not stop
himself and got gardening again.
He died in 1871.
Like his lifestyle, his
religious convictions were very much
at odds with the conservative
world of 19th century Germany.
Since cremation was not yet
permitted, he went round the problem
by having his heart dissolved
in sulphuric acid and ordered that
his body should be embedded in
caustic soda, caustic potash and
caustic lime.
The granular remains were then
buried underneath a pyramid in his
garden.
His life really cries out for
its own episode.
Moving swiftly, or in fact,
not so very swiftly.
On we come to Sachsen Anhalt.
This is the land of Otto the
Great, who is buried in Magdeburg
Cathedral and his father,
Heinrich de Fowler, whose grave is
somewhere underneath the abbey
church of Quedlinburg.
Even Barbarossa squeezed
himself in.
Or the Kiffhauser, which is
shared between Sachsen Anhalt and
Thuringen.
The must see place here is
also linked to these early medieval
days.
It is the Cathedral of
Naumburg, or more specifically the
Stifterfigurun, the sculptures
of the founders of the church.
These include the famously
alluring Uther von Ballenstedt, but
Also the other 11, each carved
by an absolute master of the craft
in the 13th century.
If you are following me on
social media, you can find a post
going through every single one
of the 12 figures and their histories.
The second destination in this
state is Dessau.
This is again another one of
these tiny capitals, in this case
the seat of the Dukes of
Sachsen Anhalt, Dessau.
Not much of the old city of
Dessau is left, unfortunately, apart
from a ducal palace.
But halfway between Dessau and
Wittenberg, famous for Luther's theses,
is the garden landscape of
Desaux Verlet, a set of interwoven
palaces and parks that covers
an impressive 142 square kilometers.
But that is not really the
reason why I would suggest you go
there.
The real attraction is the Bauhaus.
You can visit the original
building where the Bauhaus school
moved to after it had been
more or less expelled from weimar
in the 1920s.
It is a fascinating structure
that, like much of the other ideas
of the Bauhaus, had enormous
influence in the way the world looks
everywhere from Texas to Tokyo.
The Bauhaus museum is by the
way, not in the actual Bauhaus building,
but in the center of Dassau.
And also worth seeing.
Time to take our last trip up
north and have a look at Schleswig
Holstein.
As a sailor, this is my place
along with Mecklenburg Vorpommern.
It is just stunningly
beautiful if you have a soft spot
for hard winds and sandy beaches.
Culturally, the must see place
is of course Lubeck, the queen of
the Hanse.
We did a whole series on the
Hanse and the role of Lubeck within
it.
We talked about the art and
the culture that is in the main centered
here.
That's episode 127, so I'm not
sure what I can add in this episode.
Maybe take a marzipan safari.
Whilst Niederager has become
the leading brand of German marzipan,
there are four more
manufacturers in Lubeck and true
aficionados prefer either Mast
or Martens or Karstens or Lubecka
over that better known fare.
So there's lots to discover.
As for the second location in
Schleswig Holstein, there are of
course the islands, namely
Syltic, which provides a uniquely
German summer holiday
experience, and of course any kind
of water sports in the Fjorde
on the Baltic shore, including but
not limited to sailing.
But I would like to break a
lance for the city of Schleswig,
the seat of the Dukes of
Holstein Gottorb, who occasionally
ruled Denmark, Sweden and
Russia, though not all at the same
time.
There's an impressive palace
here, with gardens and the like.
Beyond that, there are three
unique and compelling things here.
The first are the remains of
Hedeby or Haithabu, a Viking settlement
that dominated the trade in
the Baltic between the 8th and the
11th century.
You can see reconstructed
Viking houses and a Viking museum
explaining the significance of
the place in international trade.
And in the seventh century,
the Danes built a line of fortifications
from Haithabu on the Baltic to
the North Sea shore, and which remained
the main Danish line of
defense against invasions until the
Schleswig Holstein War of 1864.
The Great Wall of China, begun
around the same time, is admittedly
more impressive, but had lost
its military function in the 17th
century already.
And then you have the
Cathedral of Schleswig itself, a
lovely Gothic church with an
impressive carved main altar.
The funky bit is in the cloisters.
Like so many churches and
monasteries, Schleswig too was given
a massive makeover in the 19th century.
The creative renovation work
here included the discovery and then
enhancement of a frieze
underneath the Massacre of the Innocents.
The frieze depicted various
animals, including some quickly identified
as turkeys.
This caused some confusion,
given the original decoration dated
back to 1320.
The only viable explanation
was that the Vikings must have been
to America before and had
brought the motif of the Turkey back
from their journeys.
That rapidly turned into a
whole narrative of brave Nordic sailors
spreading out to the American
continent long before any Spaniard
had ever held a compass under
the Nazis.
The story that men from
Schleswig had discovered America
and traded with it for a long
time and became canon.
It wasn't until 1948 that Kurt
Wildte used X rays to prove that
the turkeys were indeed a
turkey placed there by the 19th century
restorers.
Congratulations.
We have made it to the last
Bundeslan in alphabetical order,
but by no means the least.
If you look on a map of the
Holy Roman Empire, say after the
Peace of Westphalia, you see
several large entities, Austrian
and Spanish, Habsburg,
Bavaria, Brandenburg, Prussia, Saxony,
wurtemberg, Hessen, Brunswick, etc.
And then in between, all These
tiny places.
And Thuringia is one of the
regions where the chart says things
like various Saxon duchies or
unmappable micro territories.
And here in Thuringia is
probably the most famous of these
duo Dietz principalities.
These 12 square mile
principalities, Sachsen, Weimar.
This tiny state, whose
political position was so insignificant
they did not even have to
contribute their own soldiers to
the Imperial Reichsmartrickel,
but simply paid an equivalent tax,
managed to attract Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller,
Martin Wieland and Gottfried
Hera to its court.
And they came here and lived
there during the absolute height
of their fame.
There is no real equivalent,
unless you were to assume that Charles
Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas
Hardy and Jane Austen all decided
to live together in the
grounds of Belvoir Castle.
Very pretty, just a bit off
the beaten track.
Weimar retains much that
reminds one of these days when the
country's greatest writer was
also the Prime Minister of the state
and walked across the park to
have tea with the Duchess in her
court of local baronesses.
Weimar is of course also the
place where the national assembly
hunkered down to write the
constitution of the Republic in 1919.
Since Berlin was simply too
dangerous, Thuringia has many more
of these smaller state
capitals, including Gotha, home of
Prince Albert, and Meiningen,
the capital of the Duchy of Sachsenmeiningen
until 1918, complete with
theatre and one of the oldest orchestras
in the world.
And of course, Erfurt,
beautifully restored to its late
medieval glory.
I could go on, but the other
place I would suggest you see in
Turingen would probably be on
most people's must see list anyway.
But again, I actually do make
the rules, so I can break them if
I want to.
Perched high above the town of
Eisenach, Wartburg Castle offers
sweeping views over forested
hills that immediately justify the
journey.
This is where Martin Luther
found refuge and translated the New
Testament into German, an act
that shaped the language and transformed
European religious life.
Walking through his modest
room gives you an intimate connection
to the ideas that changed the world.
Beyond the Reformation,
Wartburg is also a cradle of German
identity.
Medieval legends of
competition between singers, the
courtly life that disgusted
St. Elizabeth of Thuringia and 19th
century nationalism all
converge within a its walls.
The architecture itself is
striking, blending Romanesque foundations
with later restorations that
reflect the changing artistic ideals.
Equally compelling is the setting.
Wartwork sits amid hiking
trails and quiet woodlands, allowing
you to combine cultural
discovery with nature.
It's everything with
everything on it.
And that is where I called, or
maybe I should End it.
But no, I promised you two
more places than are purely subjectively
my favorites amongst the must
sees and the not so well known and
top of the pops.
The place to be that others
also go, at least for me, is Bamberg.
And if you go and you see one
piece of art in Germany, make it
the Bamberger Reiter.
Yes, I know the Nazis used him
as an archetype of the Nordic race
and national ideal, but which
makes it even more ironic that he
may or may not depict a
Hungarian and was likely made by
a French artist.
But put all this away in a box
and just look at it.
The serenity of the figure,
the elegance of the shapes, the mystery
of its meaning, and the
unusual position of an equestrian
statue inside a church all
makes this wonderfully bewildering
and captivating.
And the dome is full of other wonders.
The marble sarcophagus of Pope
Clement II that appears more Roman
than medieval.
The stunning carvings of
Tilman Riemenschneider on the grave
of Henry II and Kunigunde.
And the modest box that holds
the remains of Conrad III stuffed
into a corner of the crypt by
his ungrateful nephew Frederick barbarossa.
And more 13th century
sculptures that take your breath
away.
The city below too is stunning.
The of the few that survived
intact, including a town hall on
a bridge across the river,
there's an episcopal palace by Walter
Saar Neumann, not as
breathtaking as the one in Wurzburg,
but still impressive and beautiful.
And in the Bamberg Museum, you
can see what may be the absolute
pinnacle of Ottonian
illuminated manuscripts, the Bamberg
Apocalypse.
Since you are in the area, nip
across to Bayreuth, not necessarily
for Richard Wagner, but to see
the theater built for the wedding
of a daughter of the Maggraf
in 1750 and still standing almost
unchanged in its epic gold and
red splendor.
An absolutely unique survivor.
And now for the very, very
last place, Vicarsheim.
If we talk about tiny states
with artistic architectural ambitions
far beyond its resources,
Vicarsheim must take the biscuit.
The state its capital had once
been, Hohenloh Vikersheim, literally
ended on the borders of the
princely park.
But still they built
themselves a palace in the finest
16th century style.
Its great hall sports a 40
meter long ceiling decorated with
hunting scenes by Balthasar
Katzenberger, whose skill lay more
in colouring in than actual
painting on the walls.
Count Wolfgang II ordered his
hunting trophies to be displayed
as part of plaster reliefs of
the actual animals they once belonged
to.
Once seen, you will never
forget the Vicarsheim elephant.
In the 18th century, another
count of Vicarsheim remodeled the
castle again.
This time it was brought up to
the latest fashions of aristocratic
living, complete with a defile
of rooms for him and her, and a mirror
cabinet to show off their
collection of Chinese porcelains.
What makes the visit so
spectacular is that literally nothing
had been changed inside and
out since the line of Hohenlohe Weikersheim
died out in 1760.
The house became a secondary
residence for another branch of the
family, and remained that
until they had to sell it to the
state of Baden Wurttemberk in 1967.
And one consequence of 200
years as a secondary residence was
that the place was literally
never heated in winter.
The furniture and artworks
have become so used to the seasonal
changes in temperature and the
relative humidity that heating the
castle now would result in the
destruction of the decorations.
So when you visit in winter
very much, keep your coat on for
me.
Weichersheim epitomizes so
much about Germany.
The fragmentation into so many
smaller entities that led on the
one hand to political
insignificance, followed by overcompensation
in the 19th and 20th century,
but at the same time had massively
enriched the country.
A place the size of Vikersheim
in France or Britain would not harbour
quirky works of art of the
17th and 18th century and a history
all of its own.
I hope my droning on about
places, gardens, cathedrals and coal
mines has given you an idea of
how diverse Germany is, and maybe
you find something you feel
you want to visit.
In case you cannot, join me on
this year's History of the Germans
tour and glide down the Main
in Rhine river this summer.
There may be another tour in 2027.
Thanks so much to all of you
for listening, supporting the show
and all you do to make this
work Usual service will resume on
January 8th, when we will find
out how Maximilian of Habsburg fared
as King of the Romans.