tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-283826382024-03-17T21:52:29.286+00:00Prose and PassionMichael's blog about science, culture, and everything in betweenMichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.comBlogger2276125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-32628288517972359622024-03-17T21:51:00.000+00:002024-03-17T21:51:57.258+00:00vintage postcards<P>I got a bit obsessed with vintage postcards when I researched my <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/lostcities">lost cities series</a>, and word got out, so a generous Santa helped me build a collection of beautiful books with such postcards, covering some of the lost cities and some others too:
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<P>The books typically date from the late 1970s, but those of the two cities that are no longer part of Germany (Breslau and Königsberg) date from the 1990s. Hence they all qualify for my much-neglected <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/antiquarian">antiquarian tag</a>. I still haven't quite figured out the rules predicting which places got into the series and which didn't. Regensburg, for instance, didn't make it. There may be an element of luck in that too.
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-74039501272755543752024-03-16T16:17:00.002+00:002024-03-17T16:57:09.971+00:00instrument families revisited<P>When I discussed <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/08/goldilocks-instruments.html">instrument families</a> in August 2021, I used a wikipedia pic of recorders from sopranino to bass. As it happens, I now have all five sizes myself, so I guess it's time to revisit the issue with a new photo:
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<P>Bass: Thomann; tenor: Yamaha; alto: Triebert; soprano: Moeck; sopranino: Yamaha - <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2019/06/im-tenor.html">the tenor</a> came from the Allegro shop many years ago, all others from flea markets. All have baroque fingering, in addition I also have <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-question-of-fingering.html">my old school recorder</a> and a Moeck alto in German fingering.
<P>I also may need to revise my preferences. I have warmed to the tenor recorder since the last blog entry and now use it for certain tunes at sessions, and I love my new bass recorder, so the trend is towards bigger instruments in that family (does anybody have a sub-bass to sell?). In the strings department by contrast, <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-year-of-fiddle.html">I have taken to to the violin</a> and now also have a viola and a <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/double-bass-revisited.html">double bass</a> in the room, so I'm spoilt for choice. Oh, and I've also found a low whistle, so families are growing all around thanks to fleamarkets, charity shops and <a href="https://www.gumtree.com/search?search_category=music-instruments&search_location=oxford&distance=3">gumtree</a>.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq-5_N7J6U52eyk4hqJM9MZ5TZw0SjIqDv4_FHRMlvJkCtuIkrWuR4sAHUGvU7fixgFJjoXotmmB0Qu4KQ2vq6tECa9npbgNTZEIEbFGK0G9sgooBKLX5i8JlR2hA7TugI2QdgHUHKd-m_5iTrOhrNSonNxTOEPxrwi_8wq9f1r7Kl7JX0snVf/s2342/violin2537.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1773" data-original-width="2342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq-5_N7J6U52eyk4hqJM9MZ5TZw0SjIqDv4_FHRMlvJkCtuIkrWuR4sAHUGvU7fixgFJjoXotmmB0Qu4KQ2vq6tECa9npbgNTZEIEbFGK0G9sgooBKLX5i8JlR2hA7TugI2QdgHUHKd-m_5iTrOhrNSonNxTOEPxrwi_8wq9f1r7Kl7JX0snVf/s320/violin2537.JPG"/></a></div>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-90829761520967863822024-03-11T16:41:00.005+00:002024-03-11T16:45:40.836+00:00tipping over<P>Climate tipping points were once a hypothetical risk in a distant future. After humanity spent the first quarter of the new century not sorting out climate change, we're now at the point where shit gets real. Tipping points will tip, and it's only a question of when, and how they will interact with each other. For instance, the Greenland ice sheet may topple the North Atlantic's AMOC (and thus the Gulf Stream), which in turn may kill the Amazon rain forest. Interesting times.
<P>I remember very vividly a climate workshop back in 2012 where we were told that AMOC was safe. <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2012/10/atlantic-insights.html">I wrote a feature about it then</a>. Now there is mounting evidence that AMOC is no longer stable and could pass its tipping point at any time. So I had to write another feature to correct my record on that.
<P>This feature is out now:
<P><b>North Atlantic tipping point ahead</b>
<P>Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 5, 11 March 2024, Pages R175-R177
<P><a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)00228-8">Restricted access to full text and PDF download</a>
<BR>(will become open access one year after publication)
<P><a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ikiA3QW8S6Dpm">Magic link for free access</a>
<BR>(first seven weeks only)
<P>See also my <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/111722396242587397">new Mastodon thread</a> where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
<P>Last year's thread is <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109660210547152052">here </a>.
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<P>After recent rapid heating in the Arctic and accelerated melting of Greenland ice, the collapse of the Gulf Stream has become a real possibility. (Photo: Jennifer Latuperisa-Andresen/Unsplash.)
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-61629262837188364262024-02-27T14:26:00.001+00:002024-02-27T14:27:43.874+00:00urbanism now and then<P>I love writing about cities as a biological phenomenon, so I have already covered the evolution of cities, urban ecology, and urban evolution in dedicated features, as well as going on about continuing urbanisation of our species eg in the context of the 8 billion threshold in global population.
<P>The recent report of vast, previously unsuspected "garden cities" in the Amazon provided a good excuse and a new angle to revisit cities again. Ancient Amazonians managed to establish a civilisation and well-structured urban space in the face of extreme environmental conditions, so maybe we should study their example when we aim to make our cities more sustainable on the verge of the global climate catastrophe?
<P>The resulting feature is out now:
<P><b>Green cities past, present and future</b>
<P>Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 4, 26 February 2024, Pages R117-R119
<P><a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)00147-7">Restricted access to full text and PDF download</a>
<BR>(will become open access one year after publication)
<P><a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ifo63QW8S6Dd5">Magic link for free access</a>
<BR>(first seven weeks only)
<P>See also my <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/111722396242587397">new Mastodon thread</a> where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
<P>Last year's thread is <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109660210547152052">here </a>.
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<P>A LiDAR image from the study by Rostain and colleagues, who describe the largest settled area in Amazonia known so far. (Image: © LiDAR, A. Dorison and S. Rostain.)
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-28060966893162429992024-02-20T09:00:00.012+00:002024-03-02T20:06:20.234+00:00silence after the war <P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">One hundred years of cellotude</a> continued:
<P>Tenth and final part of
<P>Chapter 1
<P>A cello called Heinrich
<P>Previous section: <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/when-music-stops.html">When the music stops</a>
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<P><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrenchiemsee">Herrenchiemsee</a>, near Munich, 1950s. Heinrich Tiefenbach on the right, his wife must have taken the photo.
<P><b>Silence after the war </b>
<P>On April 16, 1945, advancing US troops took over Wuppertal without a fight. Mayor Heinz Gebauer formally handed over the city in the town hall. On April 21, the Ruhr pocket capitulated and Wuppertal became part of the British occupied zone. The city had suffered widespread destruction. Of 140,000 homes, 55,000 were completely destroyed, only 50,000 remained unharmed. Max Heinrich and Maria were lucky in that their flat in the Gronaustraße remained intact.
<P>On May 4, Max Heinrich filled in a questionnaire from the military administration about his activities during the Nazi era. On May 23 he was suspended from service in the city administration, effective at the end of the month. On the 26th, he was arrested by military police and interned at Camp Roosevelt at Hemer, in the Sauerland mountain region. Later he was moved back to be detained in the city’s own premises. Due to being classified initially as an “offender” he would not be able to return to work as a civil servant. Then again he was approaching pension age anyway.
<P>In the meantime Maria got involved in black market as a travelling grandmother. As I understand it, this involved carrying goods on the pretence of taking them for your grandchildren. Which wasn’t too far from the truth as she actually had two grandchildren who were aged six and almost four when the war ended.
<P>From 1946 to 1955 Max Heinrich worked as an accountant at the lawnmower manufacturer Brill in Wuppertal. I think that Robert Brill, born in 1893, whose birthday and address was noted in the pocket diaries, must have been the owner/boss of that company. Granddaughter Margarete recalled that the offices were provisionally housed on the corner Friedrich Engels Allee / Lohstraße and that Max Heinrich used to emphasize that after passing pension age he only worked there because Herr Brill was a close friend and he wanted to help him.
<P>The company had a good run but was sadly swallowed by a competitor called AL-KO in 2009, which explains why I can’t find a company history online. Since its foundation in 1873, it had been independent for more than a century and the name still survives as a heritage brand. At the beginning of the 20th century the brothers Brill introduced the newfangled idea of mechanical lawnmowers to Germany – although they had been patented n Britain since 1830. A quote widely cited in German histories of lawnmowers reveals how the Brills presented the innovation to the general public at a trade far in 1904 claiming that they were already widely used in aristocratic and communal parks alike.
<P>Meanwhile the reckoning with his tainted past continued. in October 1947 an initial examination based on the first questionnaire gave the result: „nicht tragbar“ which literally means not to be supported / carried which probably meant not allowed to stay in the civil service. In July 1948 his lawyer Dr Fechner filed an application for denazification submitting additional documents in December 1948.
<P>Fechner pointed out that Max Heinrich had joined all those Nazi organisations only because of social pressure to do so and that his activities were restricted to the area of welfare. The lawyer claims that Max Heinrich had not realised the extent of the persecution of Jews and the establishment of concentration camps and vehemently objected to these crimes as and when he became aware of them. However, as the lawyer notes bluntly, with his family in mind he was lacking the courage to resign from the party and his functions.
<P>In May 1946 a Jewish woman gave a witness statement in his favour saying that in the years 1940-1942 he had graciously and generously helped her with tax and private matters. “Mr Gross helped me even though he knew that I was Jewish” the witness confirmed.
<P>Sadly the Jewish quartet player does not get mentioned in this document. We don’t know if he survived the Holocaust.
<P>In January 1949 the verdict came in: Category IV, followers. This came with political sanctions and restrictions of movement, with the requirement to regularly report to the local police station,, but no restrictions on work, and no further detention. Denazification may have also been required for his pension to be paid out. Delays with that may have been behind his starting to work for Brill, although he certainly stayed there longer than would have been necessary.
<P>The local denazification committee checked a total of 35,000 citizens of Wuppertal, with 95% being categorised as either followers or exonerated.
<P>In the 1950s, life gradually normalised. Max Heinrich’s son Richard, thanks to his uncanny success in keeping a low profile throughout the Nazi times rapidly rose in the teaching hierarchy and became headteacher of a high school at Idar-Oberstein from 1950.
<P>In the summer holidays of 1951 and 1954, Max Heinrich and Maria hosted Richard’s son Jörg. In 1953 and 1955 they travelled to Idar-Oberstein to attend the Confirmation ceremonies of their grandchildren.
<P>They also went on holiday with the Tiefenbachs, a married couple who were close friends and had a VW Beetle. In July 1954, Max Heinrich and Maria had passports issued, which reveal that they travelled to Austria three times, in September 1954, 55 and 56. On the first trip, even the travel currency exchange had to be documented in the passport. In their photo album we find pictures of Kriml and Niederalpel (Steiermark) and Klein-Walsertal.
<P>At other times they also enjoyed trips to mountainous regions in Germany. Holiday snaps taken by one of the quartet tend to show the other three in places like Hinterzarten, Tiefenbach (Allgäu), Königssee, Berchtesgaden, and Herrenchiemsee. There is a photo from Titisee in the Black Forest which exceptionally shows all four of them, posing with somebody dressed up as a polar bear. There was a traditional inn named “The Bear” at Titisee at the time, which apparently took pride in the animal connection and boasted bears in decorations and furniture. My best guess is that the travellers stayed there and that the group photo with bear was part of the service,
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<P>Heinrich Tiefenbach, born 1899, was among the 53 friends and acquaintances whose birthdays Max Heinrich had meticulously written down in the 1943 pocket diary. According to this source, Tiefenbach’s address was in the Gewerbeschulstr., which today boasts 25 companies, but there is none named Tiefenbach.
<P>In the 1950s, the Tiefenbachs were neighbours, living diagonally opposite in the Gronaustr. Both couples met on Saturday nights to play cards and/or watch television at the Tiefenbachs’ flat. Looks like Max Heinrich found another quartet. The Tiefenbachs even joined them and provided Beetle transport for the family visits to Idar-Oberstein.
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<P>En route from Wuppertal to Idar Oberstein, Easter 1952.I'm assuming this was the car the friends had before the famous 1950s beetle, looks more like a pre-war model.
<P>When the grandchildren came to visit them at Wuppertal, Maria was in charge of entertaining them. Both recalled cinema visits, which weren’t on offer back home. At the gigantic Thalia theatre in Elberfeld. In his brief memoir, Jörg specifically highlights the summer holidays of 1951, just before he moved to high school, and 1955, when the world championships of motor-paced bicycle racing (Steher-Rennen) took place in Wuppertal.
<P>Max Heinrich, on the other hand, stayed home, the grandchildren reported. I wonder if he didn’t take part in the impressive cultural life of the aspiring metropolis at all. In February 1958, for instance, Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonics played in the Stadthalle, a venue which is often praised for its excellent acoustics.
<P>And in June 1955, the local Instrumental-Verein played Dvorak’s famous cello concerto with Paul Tortelier as the soloist. Which is significant because among the several LPs with this concerto I inherited from Richard there is one also starring Tortelier, first released 1950, so this could have been a purchase inspired by that concert. Even though he didn’t own a turntable, Max Heinrich could conceivably bought it for his son. We will never know.
<P>While Maria entertained the grandchildren, Max Heinrich played patience (card solitaire) and smoked numerous cigars. The children counted up to 30 a day. He may have started smoking in the army during the first war, not sure. We do know from the second world war that Richard, who never smoked, transferred the tobacco rations he received as a soldier. After the war, relatives used to give him a special 5-mark cigar as a present on special occasions if they couldn’t think of anything else. As his health began to show the strain, his doctor tried to persuade him to give up. He declared, however: “If he insists, I’ll find a doctor who also smokes.” He only stopped smoking three days before he died.
<P>In February 1958, his sister Gertrud died at the age of 77 years. On July 22 of the same year, Max Heinrich died aged 75. His golden wedding anniversary would have been on October 8 the same year. As mentioned above, the funeral featured a cellist playing Ave Maria (Schubert’s version I assume).
<P>In August, Jörg came to visit Maria, created the photo album from the photos kept in two shoe boxes, and undertook a day trip to the World Exposition at Brussels with Maria.
<P>In October 1960, after both children had started at university, Richard and Ruth moved to the house that they had inherited from Ruth’s aunt Johanna a few years earlier, which is in Hahnenbach, some 30 km from Idar-Oberstein. Richard now had to buy a car for the daily commute to his school.
<P>In April 1961, Maria celebrated her 80th birthday at Hahnenbach and expressed the wish to stay there, but kept the flat in Wuppertal for the time being. In the summer, she had surgery for a hernia at the local hospital of Kirn. In October, during a visit to her old flat in Wuppertal with her sister Anna, she died suddenly, presumably of a heart attack.
<P>Furniture and many personal items and documents from the flat were moved to Hahnenbach without much thought, which is why some rather unexpected things have survived to this day. Max Heinrich’s cello ended up in the attic of the Hahnenbach house for the next 20 years, again being stored under conditions that weren’t exactly
optimal for a venerable old cello.
<P>As far as I know, music didn’t happen in either household after the string quartet stopped playing. My aunt on the maternal side recalled she was shocked to find out that her brother-in-law's family didn’t even sing Christmas carols.
<P>At least one attempt was made, however. As I only found out in the course of this project, Richard organised private recorder lessons for his daughter. Her teacher was the husband of one of the teachers at his school. Margarete recalled that Richard also taught her some of the fundamentals and played a few notes himself to demonstrate things.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQD6Lzlho2FqjbLYU-KOdmZ0ewEdyc9Z7lloBoYQmdgQzG3uVJsUP9Xtw2k71t81KDppb-hJnSxTy3x__CS43q2O7I5mZYO9xG51VHKT0stQjFRXS6HDpA7SRKULrhw_fyyKdruyWjQfosCP6pJNKjIHHdek8I1Y1e1kPykvHJHb7SHXpaj8jZ/s1116/marg-blockfloete.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1116" data-original-width="982" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQD6Lzlho2FqjbLYU-KOdmZ0ewEdyc9Z7lloBoYQmdgQzG3uVJsUP9Xtw2k71t81KDppb-hJnSxTy3x__CS43q2O7I5mZYO9xG51VHKT0stQjFRXS6HDpA7SRKULrhw_fyyKdruyWjQfosCP6pJNKjIHHdek8I1Y1e1kPykvHJHb7SHXpaj8jZ/s320/marg-blockfloete.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>This father-daughter activity appears to have been immensely unpopular with the other half of the family, however. Margarete had to practice in the basement, and Jörg retained a life-long aversion to recorder sounds. On the occasion of his 80th birthday, also celebrated at Hahnenbach, he very nearly suffered an allergic shock when I unpacked a new alto recorder and gave it to my daughter to try.
<P>With the dramatic spread of radio and record players in the mid 20th century, much of the motivation for amateur music making had of course disappeared. As mentioned, Richard had LPs with classical music and also recorded some on cassette tapes from radio programmes.
<P>Note, however, that Maria’s nieces in Bruchsal raised a whole generation of professional musicians. Among the four grandchildren of Maria’s half-sister Anna we find a cellist, a gambist and a bass trombonist. Only one went against the grain and became a chef. Just how this clustering of musicians arose remains to be explained by science.
<P>The silence in the household of my grandparents may have to do with the genes of my grandmother Ruth, who used to speak of her musical in-laws as a curiosity, to swiftly add that one of her relatives was so amusical that he was barred from becoming a teacher.
<P>Specifically, the person in question was her great uncle Friedrich Kauer, born 1849 in Simmern, a younger brother of our Alsatian station master Christoph Gottlieb Kauer. He was really keen to become a teacher, but that would have required the ability to sing with the schoolchildren, which he couldn’t do. Therefore, he specialised in the newly emerging field of educating deaf children. He ended up being the head teacher of the Wilhelm-Augusta-Stift at Wriezen on the river Oder, one of the first special schools for the deaf. Although the building survives and today serves as the town hall of Wriezen, I have been unable to find any records of his activity there. This may be to do with the fact that the Nazis very swiftly disbanded this institution in 1934 and probably didn’t bother with archiving its records.
<P>However, Ruth’s Kauer ancestry also includes quite a few other teachers and vicars, all of whom must have been able to sing, Precisely who did and who didn’t sing carols for
Christmas remains to be explored.
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-88910495587479310802024-02-18T09:00:00.011+00:002024-03-03T10:20:44.700+00:00when the music stops<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">One hundred years of cellotude</a> continued:
<P>Ninth part of
<P>Chapter 1
<P>A cello called Heinrich
<P>Previous section: <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/an-amateur-quartet.html">An amateur string quartet</a>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvd1sJWWmS2-DLXD7npFSyTTqZNCp_tLQE3ZqqiL6jPJPiJa2EXmUO5cHi-biHIV_0Orig5lug41wYXd64jUlkcqoT9k17Y6PhKrqWs7099XMD5TlbKuHGlZW3VdllPrtXcN2GmGiDtXFiBPyiSCosGUXi2ghr9sM6LE8wk_WkeSJpt5dKfNE/s688/heinrichgross.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="portrait of Max Heinrich" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvd1sJWWmS2-DLXD7npFSyTTqZNCp_tLQE3ZqqiL6jPJPiJa2EXmUO5cHi-biHIV_0Orig5lug41wYXd64jUlkcqoT9k17Y6PhKrqWs7099XMD5TlbKuHGlZW3VdllPrtXcN2GmGiDtXFiBPyiSCosGUXi2ghr9sM6LE8wk_WkeSJpt5dKfNE/s320/heinrichgross.JPG"/></a></div>
<P align="center">A rare solo portrait of Max Heinrich possibly from Nazi times but I don't have a date for this one. The background looks vaguely urban so probably Wuppertal, and probably taken by Richard.
<P><b>A cello is silenced </b>
<P>While we were distracted by the shenanigans at the pawnshop, the Nazis had taken power on January 30, 1933, starting a new era which they claimed would last a thousand years. There were some protests in Wuppertal, but then the events unfolded very much the same way as elsewhere. In local elections on March 12, the NSDAP obtained 37 seats on the city council, only narrowly missing absolute control. On March 28, some 24 civil servants of the city administration were suspended on political grounds, to be fired later. After the law to “restore the German civil service” of April 7, 1933, there was another wave of dismissals. On April 1, books were burned outside Barmen town hall as elsewhere. SA men enforced a boycott of Jewish shops. In the first meeting of the newly elected city council, the delegates of the communist party were excluded, giving the NSDAP absolute control of the council. It promptly delegated decision making to a smaller committee. Just two months after seizure of power in Berlin, Wuppertal was also under Nazi control.
<P>Cultural life was also aligned with Nazi ideology. From 1935, Wilhelm Mühlhausen led the city’s office of cultural affairs. He made sure that composers with Jewish ancestry, such as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Jacques Offenbach, and Giacomo Meierbeer disappeared both from concert programmes and from the decorations of Elberfeld Stadthalle, its major music venue.
<P>As mentioned, Max Heinrich and Maria now lived in their new flat in Gronaustraße 35 – technically in Barmen, but in fact only about a kilometre away from their former home in Schleswiger Straße and the centre of Elberfeld. The house is on the southern slope of the Hardtberg, with the city’s botanical garden behind its back and the front looking out across the river Wupper and towards the green hills beyond the valley. It still looks very presentable and desirable today.
<P>Walking downhill one gets to the main road linking Barmen and Elberfeld, now named after Barmen’s most famous son, Friedrich-Engels-Allee. If Max Heinrich’s new position required him to work in Barmen town hall, which after 1929 became the main site of the united city administration, he will have taken the suspension railway to get there.
<P>According to a rental contract from 1960, the flat consisted of three rooms plus the kitchen and was located on the first floor. Granddaughter Margarete only recalls two rooms. Initially the family also had an attic room, where Richard could stay when coming home from university. The toilet was halfway up the stairs and shared between four flats. There was no bathroom, only the communal bath house. I assume that the
property has been updated since, but haven’t checked inside.
<P>Max Heinrich and Maria stayed in the flat for the rest of their lives. A rental contract dated 1954 comes with an entire brochure detailing the terms and conditions. Making music and singing was forbidden from 22h to 8h, and also from 13h to 15h. The landlord was a Mr. Goebel living in Eisenärzt, Upper Bavaria. At least he couldn’t hear from there if Max Heinrich ever broke the rules by playing his cello after 8 pm or at lunch time.
<P>Not that Max Heinrich was inclined to break any rules. In the new social order aligned with the Nazi ideology, Max Heinrich apparently thought he had to go with the flow in order to avoid suffering the consequences, especially because of his vulnerability after the recent criminal affair at the pawnshop. The following events are drawn from his denazification files at the state archive of Northrhine Westphalia at Düsseldorf. In the process, he was classified as category IV. Followers (Mitläufer).
<P>In November 1933, Max Heinrich joined the Stahlhelm, an association of former soldiers. Whereas this organisation had been regarded as the armed branch of the DNVP and hostile to the Weimar Republic, under Nazi rule it soon became the only organisation that wasn’t directly affiliated with the Nazi networks. Its independence of the new regime wasn’t going to last, however.
<P>On April 1, 1934, the Stahlhelm was merged into the SA, making Max Heinrich a reserve officer in the SA (until the end of 1937). According to his lawyer in the denazification process, he got involved as a cellist, in order not to get assigned more unpleasant tasks.
<P>He also joined various Nazi organisations including NS-Volksfürsorge and Reichsbund Deutscher Beamter from May 1933, and then NS-Reichskriegerbund, Reichskolonialbund, and Reichsluftschutzbund in 1935. After the war he said that the leader of the local NSDAP Ortsgruppe (local group), a certain Mr Voss, lived in the same house and pressured him to join such organisations. He believed he had to give in to this pressure but always chose activities related to general welfare and not obviously linked to the Nazi ideology. He hoped that this way he would be able to avoid having to enter the party itself.
<P>At the beginning of 1937 both Max Heinrich and Maria resigned from the protestant church. Henceforth, eg in the census of 1939, they gave “gottgläubig” as their religion, meaning, believing in God. In the denazification process he stated the reason for leaving the church was that he had no interest in belonging to a religious community. However, he still attended the baptisms and confirmation ceremonies of his grandchildren.
<P>The time and place of this resignation from church membership are problematic, although the denazification process didn’t pick up on that. In May 1934, the Synode of Barmen (where Max Heinrich happened to live) had clarified in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barmen_Declaration">“Barmen
Declaration”</a> that Christians were to trust and obey the word of God as personified in Jesus Christ rather than secular powers. This declaration was interpreted as the foundation of the Bekennende Kirche and the protestant resistance against the Nazi system. Perhaps in Wuppertal, specifically, as it was the birthplace of the Barmen Declaration, there was pressure on civil servants to turn their back on the church?
<P>In May 1938, Max Heinrich gave in to pressure from his superiors in the city administration and applied for membership in the Nazi party. His membership was backdated to May 1937. Both of these events were considered normal procedure at the time.
<P>Increasing pressure from the Nazi-aligned hierarchy also silenced the string quartet. One of the members was Jewish, and maybe that diligent neighbour, Mr Voss, had figured that out. Max Heinrich’s superiors in the administration told him not to spend his spare time with Jews.
<P>According to family legend, he then said (perhaps to family members rather than to the relevant supervisor): “If I can’t play with whom I want, I won’t play at all!” He wrapped the cello in its brown linen bag, stuffed it on top of the kitchen cupboard (we don’t recommend this kind of storage!) and never played again. Assuming that this happened in 1938 (as we heard that in 1937 he played cello at the SA as well). he spent up to 19 years playing the cello between the wars.
<P>Obviously, it was the honourable thing to do not to continue playing quartets with a Nazi-compatible line-up. On the other hand, I find it shocking that he fell silent for the rest of his life and left his poor old cello idle for decades. As an alternative kind of protest he could have played the Bach suites for solo cello for the duration of the Nazi period, that would have kept his musical mind exercised. In 1927, the year of the quartet photos, Pablo Casals played the suites in the nearby cities of Düsseldorf and Essen. Both cities were easy to reach by train, but sadly we don’t know whether Max Heinrich attended any of these concerts, or whether he knew the suites at all. Back then they weren’t quite as famous as they are today. After 1945, he could have continued playing with anybody he wanted.
<P>What I find even more shocking is that he didn’t talk about his past life as a cellist, at least not with my father. He had regularly visited his grandparents in Wuppertal and was 19 when Max Heinrich died. It was only at the funeral, when a cellist turned up to play Ave Maria, that my father found out that his grandfather had played the cello once upon a time. His sister, by contrast, recalled that her grandfather had mentioned his past life as a cellist and felt sorry that none of his three descendants was continuing the musical tradition.
<P>After the quartet stopped playing, the cello spent the next two decades on top of a cupboard while the family muddled through and remained relatively lucky in horrific times. Wuppertal suffered heavy bombardments but the house in Gronauer Straße was spared. Their son Richard, who had hastily taken his final exams in 1933 before his
(Jewish) professors were removed was able to complete his two years of practical teacher training (Referendarzeit) close to home in Barmen and in Düsseldorf.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXZ8pc1yUO7_JtEvYbDpSKvhuox-jYuEbil0Y1P0DjLzxWMbkKLDNvDF5AL3ohM6dA-URl52ghW05cnlyfgH0s60UySt1i-CSGWzNKfdycSNCMlpeQ-IZvKiVtyBJubfz_N_FKQHBWF6JRONsAu3z9Hrhf_MPZEBl9x5iypPx7fi0TER-Eot7/s1889/Richards-photos014.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="portrait of Richard as a young man" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1889" data-original-width="1377" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXZ8pc1yUO7_JtEvYbDpSKvhuox-jYuEbil0Y1P0DjLzxWMbkKLDNvDF5AL3ohM6dA-URl52ghW05cnlyfgH0s60UySt1i-CSGWzNKfdycSNCMlpeQ-IZvKiVtyBJubfz_N_FKQHBWF6JRONsAu3z9Hrhf_MPZEBl9x5iypPx7fi0TER-Eot7/s320/Richards-photos014.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Portrait of Richard in his 20s, from a negative found among his photography stuff.
<P>In November 1938, Richard married Ruth Düsselmann (1908-1993), whom he had met while they were both students of the natural sciences at Bonn University and passed their final exams at the same time. Her parents and maternal grandparents had been active in the Alsace-Lorraine region before 1918, as had Richard’s parents. The birthplaces of Ruth and Richard, Merlenbach and Dieuze, are less than ten kilometres apart. Ruth’s maternal grandfather, Christoph Gottlieb Kauer, had been a railway man like Richard’s paternal grandfather, and almost exactly at the same time. He also followed the construction projects, moving along the Alsatian line south to north until his final stop at Adamsweiler where he became the station master. Ruth’s mother Helene was the youngest of five daughters of the Imperial station master – I will tell their story some other time. Two of Helene’s sisters remained unmarried, however, and will turn up in this story again.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB2jeJiR9CFiGqA19dljfesKVE_9Qn7CTnuOb0COR7OiV0P603SkM9nUwXhxoEcohcHWVuSOkgZMKfhnOHz7FyigV_teGAxf8eRZWV-Wy3kRwFB8Sujps4f6C_ll1IKHfka6VuqlGa_LNj5sVsK43_selQpZWiaNp_SXUtM-q9bO3nyHxm78-w/s1669/Richards-photos013.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="portrait of Ruth" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1669" data-original-width="1264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB2jeJiR9CFiGqA19dljfesKVE_9Qn7CTnuOb0COR7OiV0P603SkM9nUwXhxoEcohcHWVuSOkgZMKfhnOHz7FyigV_teGAxf8eRZWV-Wy3kRwFB8Sujps4f6C_ll1IKHfka6VuqlGa_LNj5sVsK43_selQpZWiaNp_SXUtM-q9bO3nyHxm78-w/s320/Richards-photos013.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Portrait of Ruth in her 20s, from a negative found among Richard's photography stuff.
<P>Helene married her cousin, the adventurous merchant Julius Düsselmann from Krefeld with the intention of taming him and successfully talked him out of plans to emigrate to America. Still, his professional life was a bit of a rollercoaster.
<P>As Ruth and Richard were planning their wedding, Julius was busy setting up his own textile factory, Kleiderfabrik Ostland, in Königsberg, East Prussia. It was originally a spinout of a company in Rheydt (today part of Mönchengladbach) where Julius had started working as a salesman in 1932.
<P>After getting married, Richard transferred to East Prussia, meaning that his son, born at Königsberg in 1939, spent the first few years of his life as the little prince in the glamorous flat of the factory owner, attended by three women, namely his mother Ruth, her mother Helene and Helene’s sister Kätha.
<P>In 1942, Max Heinrich and Maria travelled to Königsberg to attend the baptism of their second grandchild, Richard’s daughter Margarete. Richard also was on holiday from his uneventful military service spent as a Gefreiter (second rank from the bottom of the scale) in Lapland.
<P>On this occasion, Richard and Julius could observe from the balcony of the flat (located centrally near Königsberg castle on the border of the lake) the very first tentative bomber attacks on the city. They understood that the city wasn’t safe and thus the family made arrangements to withdraw in good time.
<P>Back in Wuppertal, two pocket diaries give us an idea of Max Heinrich’s social network in 1943 and 1945. The very occasional dates don’t appear to point to anything of interest, but the birthdays of more than 50 people are marked in each of the calendars, often with the year of birth and current address, suggesting that Max Heinrich meticulously copied these details over from year to year.
<P>Most are men, many live nearby. I systematically searched for these people online in the hope of finding members of the string quartet, but couldn’t find any indications of musical activities.
<P>What is conspicuous, however, is the large number of names associated with local businesses, some of which have survived into the 21st century, although in some cases only as brand names. There is the producer of widely known lawnmowers, Brill – we will get back to that connection in postwar times. Of musical interest is the entry for Hermann Kluge, born 1885. An eponymous man (his father?) had in 1876 left the piano factory Ibach and started an independent factory for piano keyboards in Barmen. In the 20th century, the company established itself as a world-leading manufacturer. It produced the keyboards for the piano manufacturer Steinway & Sons, which eventually bought up Kluge. Since 2007, Kluge has moved production from Wuppertal to nearby Remscheid.
<P>Other presumed entrepreneurs in the birthday calendar include the founder of the gears factory Hugo Kautz, the ribbon maker Hackenberg, the engineering company Blasberg, and the printer Baak. The names Dürholdt, Homberg and Voß may also be linked to local businesses. There is also a teacher and a doctor of unspecified academic interests, but with the entrepreneurs alone, Max Heinrich could have filled a large table. The round would have been a bit subdued come 1945, as ten of the contacts had disappeared in the two years since the earlier diary.
<P>Read on:
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/silence-after-war.html">Silence after the war </a> (final part)
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-23069693338605390162024-02-12T11:00:00.018+00:002024-03-02T21:15:30.070+00:00an amateur string quartet
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">One hundred years of cellotude</a> continued:
<P>Eighth part of
<P>Chapter 1
<P>A cello called Heinrich
<P>Previous section: <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-civil-servant-at-elberfeld.html">A civil servant at Elberfeld</a>
<P> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivnETVo4DWCbTSxXvhknoM65E1UkqXLvaIrptlQs878p9wOtFNklSxdLkeBF3VbcrVMMzK3j--C9EOBb2oBgxZkYJyPFOaLoQbUv9k3i0cMjENbe59kTefD5uKYTy_XF7Fa0tB1jg9UTrhs5s7e5JghrW5mQi9nAJyiNLoUnY5Y1EAK_AeKw/s2444/heinrichquartet01.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1859" data-original-width="2444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivnETVo4DWCbTSxXvhknoM65E1UkqXLvaIrptlQs878p9wOtFNklSxdLkeBF3VbcrVMMzK3j--C9EOBb2oBgxZkYJyPFOaLoQbUv9k3i0cMjENbe59kTefD5uKYTy_XF7Fa0tB1jg9UTrhs5s7e5JghrW5mQi9nAJyiNLoUnY5Y1EAK_AeKw/s320/heinrichquartet01.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Group portrait of Max Heinrich's quartet dated April 1927, <BR>presumably taken by his son Richard, then 17.
<P><b>An amateur string quartet </b>
<P>After another examination at the end of 1924, Max Heinrich was promoted to the rank of inspector at the city’s tax authority, which also meant a lifelong job guarantee as a Beamter (civil servant). With such a position and status one can relax and start a new hobby such as playing in a string quartet.
<P>So I am guessing that at this point at the very latest, if not even after the end the military marches in 1920, he got involved in the string quartet. Young Richard had built his own camera and developed his own glass back negatives and prints. <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/05/quartet-times-three.html">Three of his photos</a>, one dated 1927 and the others undated, show the string quartet in a private home, with Max Heinrich playing the cello. At the viola, we have a white-haired man looking older than our 45-year-old cellist, with a wide-ranging white moustache. The two violinists by contrast, may be a bit younger than him, perhaps in their 30s. To this day we don’t know who the other members of the quartet were. However, we will have the opportunity to look at Max Heinrich’s circle of friends at a later stage. Conceivably, survivors of the quartet could be hiding among them.
<P>On one of the photos (below), a bit of contrast enhancing and zooming in reveals the name of the composer they were playing. At the top end of the cover of their music it says in huge capital letters: “B R A H M S”. Further sleuthing is facilitated by the fact that Romantic composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) only ever released three string quartets, published between 1873 and 1876.
<UL>
<LI>Streichquartett Nr. 1 c-Moll op. 51/1 (1873)
<LI>Streichquartett Nr. 2 a-Moll op. 51/2 (1873)
<LI>Streichquartett Nr. 3 B-Dur op. 67 (1876)
</UL>
<P> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dBkgAsSEcOQ/YKpuonAUCJI/AAAAAAAAFIU/VxH0kO-dgKIDf3ml6nIbEeyG5FFUHWLWwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/heinrich7065.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dBkgAsSEcOQ/YKpuonAUCJI/AAAAAAAAFIU/VxH0kO-dgKIDf3ml6nIbEeyG5FFUHWLWwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/heinrich7065.JPG"/></a></div>
<P align="center">The only photo we have of the quartet actually playing.
<P>Note that at the time of the photo, this music was only half a century old, so comparable in its freshness to the music of the Beatles we still hear on the radio today. When the composer died, Max Heinrich was 14 years old.
<P>I understand the composer spent some time messing around with the string quartet format and dismissed many attempts before he agreed to let the two quartets of opus 51 out into the world.
<P>The 1980s guide to chamber music on my shelf thinks that the effort and delay was worthwhile as even the first of the quartets shows mature mastery of the format. The c minor quartet in particular is described as a favourite of quartet associations. The second, although also in a minor key, doesn’t lead us to dark depths of combative passion like the first, apparently. Sounds fun. The third shows the composer from a more relaxed, happy side. Phew.
<P>On listening to all three in a row, I found the last one the most accessible. Ironically, the composer dedicated it to an amateur cellist, even though it doesn’t have any melody bits for the cello to play.
<P>Circumstantial evidence supporting the Brahms connection can also be found in the possessions of Richard, who remained Max Heinrich’s only child. His vinyl records were a decidedly mixed bag ranging from Dvorak to low brow singers such as Mireille Mathieu. There are a few LPs with chamber works, including Brahms’ string sextet Nr. 1 recorded by the Amadeus Quartet and guests, to which I hadn’t paid attention before I discovered the name of the composer in the photo. Other chamber works among the LPs with Dvorak’s American quartet together with Smetana’s quartet No. 1 as well as trios for piano, cello and flute by Hummel, Weber and Haydn. In the decades since Richard’s death I have listened to those trios a hundred times and even tried to play bits of the Hummel. The American quartet is close to my heart because it is adjacent to the more famous cello concerto and the New World symphony. But the Brahms had somehow managed to dodge my attention.
<P>I also recall a novel by Françoise Sagan, Aimez-vous Brahms, displayed prominently on my grandparents’s shelf (the copy has disappeared now, so I can’t check for musical annotations). So we have some Brahms memorabilia, but the sheet music shown in the photo hasn’t shown up yet.
<P>The Brahms quartets sound quite demanding and I would struggle to play any of the cello parts. Based on this and on the witness statement from Maria’s sister Anna, I’ll postulate that Max Heinrich must have played the cello for a while, maybe even in his musical training before he joined the infantry. In this case, Heinrich the cello could have been in the family since the 1890s.
<P>This scenario makes for a satisfying life story but throws up some challenges with the logistics. On leaving Dieuze with a child and just 30 kg of luggage, Maria can’t have taken the cello along. If it was in Max Heinrich’s possession before 1918, it must have spent the war years either with his relatives in Tangermünde and then in Magdeburg or with Maria’s relatives in Bruchsal. Always assuming that he couldn’t take it with him to the front. Even though the instrument does look like it’s been through the war, so maybe he did after all? This will remain a mystery.
<P>In any case we can tell that it has been played a lot. The bow has a lovely deep groove where Max Heinrich’s index finger used to rest. When I use the bow, I preserve this feature for posterity by using the underhand bow-hold which I learned as a young double bass player (see chapter 3).
<P><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lcLjIjBBCi4/YKpsrRsfkjI/AAAAAAAAFH8/SdIYdhJf5RAsLUG5aJFEM0Q31pOJpbgdgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2038/heinrich4500.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1622" data-original-width="2038" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lcLjIjBBCi4/YKpsrRsfkjI/AAAAAAAAFH8/SdIYdhJf5RAsLUG5aJFEM0Q31pOJpbgdgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/heinrich4500.JPG"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Another partial photo of the quartet which I rediscovered recently,
<P><i>Hausmusik</i> (home concerts) among family and friends was still a thing during the Weimar Republic. In 1932, the day of St. Cecilia (November 22) was declared the annual day of Hausmusik. Its popularity goes back to the 19th century, when members of an expanding middle class were keen to demonstrate their cultural status by pursuing activities previously reserved for the courts of aristocracy, including chamber music. The bourgeois Hausmusik set itself apart from the more popular music of the common people by its choice of instruments and classical repertoire. There were string quartets and sonatas for the flute or the piano solo. In the taverns by contrast, you would hear accordions or cithers.
<P>In the early 20th century, there was a growing criticism of this class separation, especially because the repertoire choices of ambitious middle class families may not always have matched their musical abilities. Thus, bourgeois families may have struggled trying to play Beethoven, only to set themselves apart from the folk songs and squeezeboxes of the lower classes. The combination of snobbery and lack of competence naturally encouraged derision. To avoid this problem, some critics made the interesting suggestion that middle class Hausmusik should revisit the music of the Renaissance, which generally is easier for amateurs to learn.
<P>In the Weimar Republic, there have been efforts to bridge the musical gap between the classes. The pianist, music educator and politician Leo Kestenberg (1882-1962) at the Prussian ministry for culture worked out a holistic concept which he published in 1923 as a memorandum for the entire cultivation of music at school and in the population („Denkschrift über die gesamte Musikpflege in Schule und Volk“). He could implement some of its reforms before he was pushed out of office in 1932.
<P>While the quartet seems to fit in this picture, Max Heinrich did not succeed in establishing musical activity as a family tradition. Richard only learned the fundamentals of recorder playing, although he appreciated classical music recordings, as mentioned above. Richard was already 10 years old when normal family life resumed after the war, and by that time he may have had other ideas of how to spend his spare time.
<P>Note also that having a professional musician as a parent can easily backfire if the child doesn’t immediately meet the standards expected. A cousin reports that Richard sang out of tune, and there are reports that during his military service his comrades banned him from singing. However, seeing that he was able to hear music and had the desire to sing, I am sure that a suitable intervention early in life could have helped him to learn to make music too.
<P>Apart from Richard’s chamber music collection mentioned above, he also had orchestral works on LPs, including several recordings of Dvorak’s cello concerto. They range from an early one released in 1950, which theoretically could have been Max Heinrich’s property, but probably wasn’t as I believe he never owned a turntable, to a late one from 1977. From this I conclude that Max Heinrich’s cello playing must have shaped Richard’s musical mind at least as a listener.
<P>Richard graduated from high school (Oberrealschule Nord in Humboldtstraße, Elberfeld, today Helmholtz-Realschule) in March 1928 and started studying mathematics and natural sciences at Göttingen. This traditional university was then a global leader in mathematics boasting David Hilbert (1862-1943) as one of its professors. A new building for the mathematical institute was opened in 1929. By that time, however, Richard had moved on to spend a term at Vienna and then to conclude his studies closer to home, in Bonn where he remained until he took his state examination in 1933.
<P>From January 1930, Max Heinrich’s story continues in the newborn city of Wuppertal, which at this point had 415,000 residents. In this year, Max Heinrich became the administrator of the city’s official pawnshop. Together with Maria and their dog, a German shepherd called Schluck (Gulp), and obviously with Heinrich the cello, he moved into a flat on the first floor of the pawnshop building.
<P><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvjslOXNSz6JQ2v9RD3Fv9RnMDcXjJn-7L1YchShZio5G28b_j5m7f2QsYgVyg2s7MpdD0gnrna9lfyCYaTRCUjZRSb5WlmloMk6v6yaq5DsyJPf1B_os8SSHXqp-V6URmS-4f3AwIJlfFsFz8VNjJ1m4GJsABYUvY_5hE1Mrtok_GqAkgGg=s1742" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1742" data-original-width="1354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvjslOXNSz6JQ2v9RD3Fv9RnMDcXjJn-7L1YchShZio5G28b_j5m7f2QsYgVyg2s7MpdD0gnrna9lfyCYaTRCUjZRSb5WlmloMk6v6yaq5DsyJPf1B_os8SSHXqp-V6URmS-4f3AwIJlfFsFz8VNjJ1m4GJsABYUvY_5hE1Mrtok_GqAkgGg=s320"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Maria and Schluck the dog.
<P>The trouble is I couldn’t find the address of this pawnshop online. It took me a visit to the city’s archives and some snooping around in their newspaper clippings and ancient address books on microfiche to track it down.
<P>I learned that both Barmen and Elberfeld had one of their own – they only merged in a new location in February 1940. Elberfeld’s shop is the one we’re after and it has a longer history going back to 1821. It started out in a slaughterhouse in Brausenwerth, and in 1888 it moved to the house in Obergrünewalder Straße 21, which was also the address when Heinrich and Maria moved in to live above the shop. In the 1932 edition of the address book we find under this address, eureka, the “Städtische Leihanstalt” – no wonder I couldn’t find it before, I wouldn’t have thought of giving it that name! Max Heinrich is listed as resident on the first floor, as a Stadtobersekretär (although we had already promoted him to the higher rank of Inspector above?!).
<P>I was very pleased to find that this address is in the very heart of the Luisenviertel which at least today is an extremely attractive neighbourhood with lots of restaurants. I think it is one of the buildings on the corner with today’s Friedrich-Ebert-Straße (then Königsstraße), although I am not quite sure which one, as the numbering on the buildings facing Obergrünewalder Straße is confused and only the numbers 17, 19, 24 (sic!), and 25 are in evidence on the odd-numbered side of the road. The building on the street corner next door to number 19 is old and very beautiful, so I’ve symbolically adopted that as a mental representation of the pawnshop, even though a map that I found later shows it on the opposite side of the road, next to today’s number 24. It’s all very confusing.
<P>Further files I consulted contained a detailed description of how the pawnshop worked – the staff members included three permanent helpers, a clerk responsible for the till, an apprentice and two magazine workers, so a total of eight people. Elsewhere, there is also a mention of experts for the valuation of specific groups of items. Max Heinrich is named in a document dated 1.12.1931. After that, however, the file goes dark and the next document dates from 1937.
<P>What I was hoping to find in the archives as well was information on events in early 1933. There was a minor scandal in that some items went missing from the site, and Max Heinrich launched an official investigation. Unfortunately, the investigation found that it was his wife Maria who had helped herself to some of these. An expert for the court diagnosed an underlying psychiatric problem for which she got some help, while Max Heinrich ended up in another office job in the administration of corporate tax matters.
<P>I was hoping to find newspaper reports or official documents on the scandal and its resolution but had no luck with that. However, with the address books I could confirm dates when Max Heinrich was recorded as living in that building, and the names of the people in the position before and after him.
<P>His predecessor in the flat and presumably in the job, was listed in the 1930 edition as Otto Drees, Leihhausverwalter. His successor in the pawnshop is named in 1935 as Karl Schwabe, Stadtass.
<P>According to my previous information, they moved to Gronaustraße 35 in June 1933. However, the address book Barmen 1934 still lists this street as Königsstraße. It was renamed after the merger because Elberfeld also had a street with that name – today known as Friedrich-Ebert-Straße, as mentioned above. In Königsstraße 35 he is listed on the first floor as a Reisender (travelling salesman) which seems to suggest that he was suspended from his position in the city administration for some time while the investigation was ongoing. I’m not sure if he actually worked as a travelling salesman or whether this was just a euphemism for unemployed.
<P>The first united address book for Wuppertal, dated 1935, has the new street name Gronaustraße and lists Heinrich as Stadtinspektor, which we think was his rank since 1924 (even though the previous address book listed him as Obersekretär). So he appears to have come out of the scandal unharmed, but I am wondering whether it left his position in the city administration weakened and forced him to keep a low profile as the Nazis took power.
<P>Read on:
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/when-music-stops.html">When the music stops</a>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-26393483842903339352024-02-05T16:23:00.004+00:002024-02-27T14:29:43.295+00:00running out of groundwater<P>I am rapidly running out of big topics that I have never covered in my CB features, but groundwater was one of them until now. With severe drought becoming a common problem associated with the climate catastrophe (and not helped by catastrophic flooding that doesn't do much to replenish the aquifers), there have been a few worrying reports of shrinking groundwater supplies from around the world recently along with a call to recognise the groundwater as a keystone ecosystem. I've also been very excited to learn about the underground aqueducts of ancient Persia (picture below) known as qanats, many of which still provide a much more sustainable access to groundwater than modern day wells.
<P>All of which is stitched together in my latest feature which is out now:
<P><b>Losing our groundwater</b>
<P>Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 3, 5 February 2024, Pages R75-R77
<P><a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00074-5">Restricted access to full text and PDF download</a>
<BR>(will become open access one year after publication)
<P><a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iYPX3QW8S6DRf">Magic link for free access</a>
<BR>(first seven weeks only)
<P>See also my <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/111722396242587397">new Mastodon thread</a> where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
<P>Last year's thread is<a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109660210547152052">here </a>.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvbvleIsssSPcG6NkvXyTsIY3rj-4rRqB071YSDUwsxHyCaRkDfnwbxf_o9gaNfvVOLUjpu8JwL1E3eOF5Qwf0Aau2jllsiQnlYLooWjaGKgZfG0Ojof4F70pc_25HnSvEXoCV7WSr5s4DMqZZ5XLBQAjXHYcxD_pscp5_rPbtpoWv0OoUzKuF/s507/groundwater.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="507" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvbvleIsssSPcG6NkvXyTsIY3rj-4rRqB071YSDUwsxHyCaRkDfnwbxf_o9gaNfvVOLUjpu8JwL1E3eOF5Qwf0Aau2jllsiQnlYLooWjaGKgZfG0Ojof4F70pc_25HnSvEXoCV7WSr5s4DMqZZ5XLBQAjXHYcxD_pscp5_rPbtpoWv0OoUzKuF/s320/groundwater.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>In ancient Persia, underground aqueducts known as qanats channelled groundwater to low-lying outlet points by gravity alone. Although some are still used in modern-day Iran, like the one shown here in Gonabad, many have been abandoned and replaced with deep wells operating less sustainably. (Photo: Basp1/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed).)Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-23995984980453629262024-02-02T11:00:00.013+00:002024-03-02T21:10:09.537+00:00a civil servant at Elberfeld
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">One hundred years of cellotude</a> continued:
<P>Seventh part of
<P>Chapter 1
<P>A cello called Heinrich
<P>Previous section: <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-wanderer-between-both-worlds.html">A wanderer between both worlds</a>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDe0ekERja3nAZVipzANl1IGOqeimQV78bm8hIDc2aCWAG3JK1fMC9qZR40kAuq2AVbQeWTuOVmBh-18ZeLi7VzfGC5uD1QTkI7iTTdVnGjUUGHO1nvb9FEVyqUFH_HARt68glPL-XvQBdCPI8FNUVzfOGSxClZRTmWIOauUrvyiEVsfDXvA5D/s1642/Elberfeld-Rathaus1913.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1060" data-original-width="1642" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDe0ekERja3nAZVipzANl1IGOqeimQV78bm8hIDc2aCWAG3JK1fMC9qZR40kAuq2AVbQeWTuOVmBh-18ZeLi7VzfGC5uD1QTkI7iTTdVnGjUUGHO1nvb9FEVyqUFH_HARt68glPL-XvQBdCPI8FNUVzfOGSxClZRTmWIOauUrvyiEVsfDXvA5D/s320/Elberfeld-Rathaus1913.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">New town hall of Elberfeld, postcard from 1913.
<P><b>A civil servant at Elberfeld</b>
<P>On June 16, 1919, Max Heinrich was hired by the city of Elberfeld for a 6-month probation period as a “Diätar”, meaning basically a civil servant with a fixed-term contract. His salary was 200 Mark per month. On the same day he also got his formal registration as a resident of Elberfeld. Note that on this date, he was technically still in the army, and the war wasn’t over yet, as the Versailles Treaty was only signed on June 28th.
<P>Elberfeld had emerged in the industrial revolution as a rapidly growing city with numerous textile factories, but it also had engineering and chemical industry, including the budding company of a certain Friedrich Bayer (1825-1880) who developed Aspirin in Elberfeld. Bayer has kept a presence there to this day, even though it moved its headquarters to the new town of Leverkusen in 1912.
<P>In 1838, just three years after the Adler famously travelled from Nürnberg to Fürth, the railway line between Elberfeld and nearby Düsseldorf was opened. At the end of 1919, Elberfeld had some 160,000 residents and its fair share of social problems linked to its rapid industrialisation. A certain Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) knew these problems well, as he was the son of a factory owner in the neighbouring city of Barmen and went to school in Elberfeld.
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2020/11/a-city-through-time.html">Postcards from the early 20th century</a> show a rather wonderful world, however, with the futuristic suspension railway linking Elberfeld to Barmen and the impeccable “Gründerzeit” architecture boasting elaborate art nouveau ornamentation. On August 1, 1929, Elberfeld and Barmen along with some smaller communities were merged to form the new city that was officially baptised Wuppertal in January 1930.
<P>Now it’s high time for a family reunion. Maria and her son Richard had stayed in Dieuze during the war, living in a small house with a garden. Richard visited his birth place in 1963 and found the house was still standing, but I wouldn’t know exactly where to look for it. Richard went to school there until the war ended – at which point he was nine years old.
<P>After the Armistice, Maria and Richard were ordered to leave Lorraine. They were only allowed to take 30 kg of luggage. They travelled to Bruchsal to stay with Maria’s stepmother and half-siblings. Richard had half a year of schooling there, before they moved on to Elberfeld to reunite with his father.
<P>The family rented a flat in Schleswiger Straße 45, in a quiet residential area called Ostersbaum in the Northeast of Elberfeld. It is roughly one kilometre to the North of Wuppertal main station, which back then was Elberfeld Hauptbahnhof. Walking to the Hauptbahnhof from his flat, Max Heinrich also passed the Döppersberg station of the legendary suspension railway, just before reaching the main station. The picturesque view in the opposite direction, coming out of the station and walking towards the historic city centre, can be admired on many postcards from the early 20th century (just search “Döppersberg” - see my favourte example below). It has changed dramatically in the hundred years since, and not for the better.
<P><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z470dAhgIpg/X6-tpuf69NI/AAAAAAAAE7o/fMBE_EUFnZQSknqXvlfNQkp3a44L06orwCLcBGAsYHQ/s999/Elberfeld1912.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="999" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z470dAhgIpg/X6-tpuf69NI/AAAAAAAAE7o/fMBE_EUFnZQSknqXvlfNQkp3a44L06orwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Elberfeld1912.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">My favourite view of Elberfeld, looking from the main station towards the city centre, with the suspension railway crossing the frame. The postcard dates from 1916 and still has the Schwebebahn station on stilts - at some point between then and 1926 a less futuristic house was built around it.
<BR><a href="https://ansichtskarten-lexikon.de/ak-61183.html">Source</a>.
<P>After passing the Döppersberg station, the way to Schleswiger Straße, now leads us through the pedestrianised shopping streets of Elberfeld towards the Neumarkt square with the fountain of Neptune and the “New Town Hall”, which Emperor Wilhelm II. inaugurated in 1900 along with the suspension railway. The neogothic fairytale castle with a spire 79 metres high replaced the previous town hall right in the middle of the historic centre, which today houses the Von der Heydt Museum.
<P>The neogothic castle must have been where Max-Heinrich worked in the first decade at Elberfeld, so we now follow his daily way home from the town hall to Schleswiger Straße, which is just a ten minute walk away. We follow a series of streets named ironically after very flat areas in Northern Germany, even though they have considerable slopes to climb and some of them are connected by stairs. One of the stairs is flanked by a mural depicting various musicians including a cellist. I read that as a sign that I was on the right track.
<P>The house where the family lived is a four storey block which may be historic but appears to have lost quite a bit of the historic details that other houses in the street still have, including the year of construction typically displayed above the entrance. I saw 1900 and 1910 shown nearby but no date on No. 45.
<P>In December 1919, Max Heinrich passed an exam to become an office clerk. His employment document comprises three pages specifically typed out with his details and the pay scale appropriate to his work. It outlines planned pay rises every two years for 20 years starting at 4,000 Mark, and rising up to 6,500 Mark in ten steps. Apparently they counted his military service as equivalent of ten years on this scale, so he started on 5,800 Mark.
<P>Meanwhile, the turbulent history of the Weimar Republic started to unfold and also touched Elberfeld. The Kapp Putsch of March 1920 threatened to become a civil war. Officers and members of the numerous free corps formed from dissolved military units under General Walther von Lüttwitz wanted to replace the democratically elected coalition government of Gustav Bauer with a military government under Wolfgang Kapp.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1970-051-65%2C_Kapp-Putsch%2C_Berlin.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="786" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1970-051-65%2C_Kapp-Putsch%2C_Berlin.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Soldiers of the Kapp-Putsch in Berlin, March 1920. <BR>Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1970-051-65 / Haeckel, Otto / CC-BY-SA 3.0
<P>Resistance against the coup originated in Elberfeld, where representatives of the communist, socialist and social democrat parties met and jointly called to resist the putschists by general strike and political means, and thus launched the Ruhr uprising which led to violent clashes between the Red Ruhr army and armed forces including the Freikorps. The conflict did not end when the Kapp Putsch collapsed. The striking workers who had saved the republic were then violently suppressed by the very same state they had rescued.
<P>Max Heinrich was member of the DDP (Deutsche Demokratische Partei), which was part of the coalition government targeted by the coup. So it is safe to assume that he will not have had much sympathy for the coup. On the other hand the armed resistance of the Ruhr workers wasn’t quite his kind of thing either, I would assume.
<P>Thus I thought that the whole episode won’t have affected him much, but then I discovered a list of monuments in Elberfeld including <a href="https://www.denkmal-wuppertal.de/2013/02/kapp-putsch-denkmal-der-blitz-von-unten.html">one for the “lightning from below” on the corner of Flensburger Str. and Paradestr</a>., close to Max Heinrich’s home and on his way to work. There we can read that on March 17 violent fights in this neighbourhood claimed the lives of 60 civilians, most of them poorly armed workers or collateral victims. At the end of that day, soldiers hastily retired and fled to nearby Remscheid.
<P>From the Kapp Putsch via the hyperinflation of 1923 through to the global economic crisis, the 1920s were a turbulent decade but we don’t know of any turbulences in Schleswiger Straße, where life carried on in its well-ordered paths and young Richard completed his high school education. For a time, Maria’s sister Anna joined the household. She had finished the standard school education in 1917, and now Maria wanted to help her get an additional qualification. There was a choice between a school for home economics and another one for commercial / business studies. “Anna had met another girl who signed up for the home economics school, the Bergisch-Märkische Frauenberufsschule, and she just went along with her. But she didn’t learn anything there,” as Anna’s daughter told me. Moreover, she had to leave the school prematurely, as her mother fell ill and she had to return to Bruchsal to look after her. There, Anna got married in October 1924, which leaves us with the timeframe of 1920-1923 for her stay in Elberfeld. Maybe the sisters had planned this when Maria was staying in Bruchsal after being evicted from Lorraine.
<P>Dating this stay is important for our musical subject, because Anna later told her daughters of Max Heinrich’s cello playing, and praised its quality. She said that Max Heinrich only played good music, not such stuff as others might have played. Whatever the stuff might be that he didn’t play, the compliment suggests that he must have acquired cello skills – and possibly the cello – long before then.
<P>Read on:
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/an-amateur-quartet.html">An amateur string quartet</a>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-46525764330653329872024-02-01T10:00:00.009+00:002024-03-03T11:11:23.645+00:00a wanderer between both worlds
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">One hundred years of cellotude</a> continued:
<P>Sixth part of
<P>Chapter 1
<P>A cello called Heinrich
<P>Previous section: <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/marches-and-veal-dumplings.html">Marches and veal dumplings</a>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQL6rFfr_T7j5Ejwwr5KlxIE524efWRfE2XXcbWJnbowASE2ntPmTY4ETEhKGcXsK2ID26eP1wdhX9WJ4Vk87GKhCwhK5cSkQYHTFEwMmkozN1f59yvwdq59o3ixyWsCiOtoqf9giUNECeW5oOUNlj9RQH2fziYwYOUjubEnOQ0bpqH29vl6_0/s1616/max1914war.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1020" data-original-width="1616" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQL6rFfr_T7j5Ejwwr5KlxIE524efWRfE2XXcbWJnbowASE2ntPmTY4ETEhKGcXsK2ID26eP1wdhX9WJ4Vk87GKhCwhK5cSkQYHTFEwMmkozN1f59yvwdq59o3ixyWsCiOtoqf9giUNECeW5oOUNlj9RQH2fziYwYOUjubEnOQ0bpqH29vl6_0/s320/max1914war.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">This photo shouting "1914 War" marks the beginning of the war in Max Heinrich's photo album. Next to his official portrait in uniform (shown below).
<P><b>A wanderer between both worlds</b>
<P>Max Heinrich left no record of his experience of the war, so we will just have to piece together the jigsaw. At Dieuze, his regiment was already stationed quite close to the French border, and it was swiftly moved into France and into battles at Lagarde and Nancy-Epinal.
<P>When the Western front became stuck in trench warfare, the regiment was moved to the Eastern front where it suffered severe losses in the Winter Battle of the Masurian Lakes in February 1915. The third battalion, ie one third of the regiment, had to be disbanded on February 20th and could only be reformed several weeks later, initially only as a half-battalion. In the last year of the war, the regiment was moved back to North of France, where it once more suffered devastating losses. Again, entire companies had to be disbanded and rebuilt.
<P>Lists of the casualties of IR138 are available online and paint a haunting picture. Max Heinrich’s first company had 206 fatalities (just among the soldiers, not including officers who have a separate list). This is roughly the nominal strength of the company, so on average the entire population was killed and replaced once. I’m trying to get my head round that but it is a struggle.
<P>As a musician in the band, also helping out with the medical service and the communications, Max Heinrich must have had better survival chances than the colleagues in the trenches. At least I couldn’t find any hoboist in the casualties lists. He also had the good luck of falling ill soon after the war began and staying that way for much of its duration.
<P>On September 13, 1914, after six weeks at war, he had stomach and gut problems (Magen- und Darm-Katarrh) which was treated in the field hospital in Fling for a year and a half, until April 3rd, 1916, according to his record card. Unfortunately I can’t find a place called Fling anywhere.
<P>On April 4th he returned to his regiment still at the Eastern front, which had just successfully stopped a Russian offensive at the Lake Naroch (today’s Belarus).
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<P align="center">Max Heinrich ca. 1916.
<P>Max Heinrich spent one month at the Eastern front. During that time, his mother died at Magdeburg on April 20th, the day before her 72nd birthday. On May 3rd, he became ill with bronchitis and was treated at an army hospital in Bruchsal – conveniently close to Maria’s family, so he will have been able to catch up with his wife and son during that time.
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<P align="center">Max Heinrich visiting family in 1916. The location has been seen in <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/family-reshuffle.html">previous family portraits</a> including one with his mother so it is likely to be either his parents' house in Tangermünde or his sister's in Magdeburg. As his mother is conspicuously absent from this one, the reason for the visit could have been her funeral.
<P>On July 7th he joined a reconvalescent company of his regiment, which I guess is where all the numerous soldiers injured in previous battles were brought back to fighting strength. On August 30th, 1916 he came to the 4th company of his regiment, later moving to the 1st company where he was originally. From this point to the end of the war, his itinerary must have been identical to that of the regiment.
<P>During his illness, the regiment witnessed a development that became a significant part of literary history. The young philologist and writer Walter Flex, born 1887 at Eisenach (also the birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach and 40 km from Max Heinrich’s birthplace), had forged a friendship with the theology student Ernst Wurche during officer training. At the end of May 1915, both joined IR138, each commanding a platoon of the ninth company. Their company was part of the third batallion which was severely decimated in the Winter Battle of the Masurian Lakes.
<P>On the Eastern front, Flex and Wurche experienced an intensive relationship which found a brutal end when Wurche died on August 23. Flex eternalised his memories of the time with him in the romanticising novella Der Wanderer zwischen beiden Welten (The wanderer between both worlds). The two worlds of the title can be read as life and death. Wurche is presented as a carefree adventurous type who valiantly faces the mortal risks of life at the frontline.
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<P align="center">Dustjacket and hardcover of Walter Flex's famous book. Sadly not the family edition (which has gone missing by the time its significance dawned on me) but a 1937 reprint (20th anniversary of the author's death) which I found in a street library.
<P>The novella was published in 1916 and made Flex famous overnight. Poems included in the story, expecially „Wildgänse rauschen durch die Nacht“ were set to music and further spread his fame. Today his work counts as a precedent for the successes of Ernst Jünger and Erich Maria Remarque. Flex was called to Berlin in 1917 in order to participate in a literary account of the war. After completing his contribution, he could have stayed in the safety of the PR world, but insisted on returning to his regiment and the Eastern front.
<P>On October 10, 1917, the regiment embarked on various ships to take part in conquering the islands Ösel and Moon in the Baltic Sea. Walter Flex suffered a shot wound on the island of Ösel on October 15 and died of his injuries the day after.
<P>Max Heinrich was with the regiment at this time, so he must have played his tuba when the band played the last march for Walter Flex. A copy of Flex’s famous book lived on my grandparents’ bookshelves well into the 21st century. By the time its significance dawned on me, it has sadly and mysteriously disappeared.
<P>The Russian Revolution began on October 25. The Bolsheviks had promised the Russian population peace, and thus a ceasefire between Germany and Russia came into force on December 15, leading to the peace of Brest-Litovsk the following year.
<P>For Max Heinrich’s regiment, this meant a return to France and another rendez-vous with death. In January 1918 his regiment took position at Pérenchies West of Armentières, near Lille. During the battle of Armentières, it crossed the river Leie and got involved in fighting near Doulieu and Merris. By August the regiment was so severely decimated that it was no longer fit for service and had to be reconstituted. Later, defensive engagements in the Champagne region brought further severe losses. Overall we get the impression that Max Heinrich had to play lots of funeral marches that year, but he managed to hang on with no further illnesses nor injuries.
<P>After the Armistice of November 11, the remainders of the regiment marched homewards through the Eifel mountans to Schupbach (Hesse). As their home barracks in Dieuze was out of bounds (reclaimed by the French), they marched onwards to Coswig on the river Elbe, where the regiment was officially disbanded. In May 1919, Max Heinrich was moved to an “Auflösungs-Kompanie” – a company with the purpose of managing its own dissolution, I love the absurdity of that – and at the end of October he was dismissed from the army.
<P>As the Versailles Treaty only allowed a German army of 100,000 men and the Lower Alsatian Regiment was disbanded, there was no question that Max Heinrich’s military career was finished. Instead, there was the prospect of the quieter life of a civil servant – and chamber musician.
<P>Read on:
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-civil-servant-at-elberfeld.html">A civil servant at Elberfeld </a>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-6922469332073612532024-01-31T10:00:00.011+00:002024-03-02T16:33:32.785+00:00marches and veal dumplings
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">One hundred years of cellotude</a> continued:
<P>Fifth part of
<P>Chapter 1
<P>A cello called Heinrich
<P>Previous section: <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/romantic-writings.html">Romantic writings</a>
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<P align="center">Dieuze, Lorraine. Postcard from 1913.
<BR><a href="https://ansichtskarten-lexikon.de/ak-235427.html">Source</a>.
<P><b>Marches and veal dumplings </b>
<P>That has been all we know about our romantic couple at Strasbourg. While we’re lacking evidence on the events of the next 18 months, I am guessing that all this romantic fervour must have take a while to dissipate.
<P>On April 1st, 1906, two years after the engagement, the happy times at Strasbourg came to an abrupt end as Max Heinrich’s regiment was relocated as a collective punishment. I haven’t been able to find out what they were punished for, but I imagine some may have found the entertainment on offer in the city irresistible. So the regiment moved to the small town of Dieuze in Lorraine. In that year, the town had precisely 5893 residents, including around 1000 soldiers. Dieuze, as part of a territory where the majority spoke French, kept its French name until 1915 and only fleetingly became “Duß” until it transferred to France in the Versailles Treaty. The barracks at Dieuze are still there and used by the French army now.
<P>Changing places with Max Heinrich’s regiment, the 4th Lorraine Infantry Regiment No. 136. moved from Dieuze to Strasbourg. Thus the geographic identity was lost, with the Lorraine regiment based in Alsace, and vice versa.
<P>This change of circumstances must have upset Max Heinrich and Maria as it involved times of separation. Being merely engaged they couldn’t just move in together, and it would have been hard to find a job and accommodation for Maria in the tiny town of Dieuze. She must have remained in Strasbourg until they got married more than two years later.
<P>On September 4th, 1908, Max Heinrich was promoted to the rank of Hoboist. As this is formally equivalent to his previous rank of sergeant, I guess this may just have been a lateral move from the normal infantry ranks to the position of musician in the regiment band. So at least now we can be sure that his role in the regiment was that of playing music. Seeing that a tuba mouthpiece is the only evidence we have that links him to a specific instrument, we’ll assume he played the tuba. As the military music in the infantry mainly involves wind and percussion instruments, there wouldn’t have been an opening for a cellist (nor for a violinist, in case this was his first instrument as the musical signature of HG may be suggesting).
<P>Every regiment in the army of the German Empire had its own wind band playing its own specific march for ceremonial marching around. Other occasions calling for music making included festivities as well as funerals. The size of the regimental bands grew in the course of history. Under Frederick William III of Prussia (1770-1840) it expanded to 26 men, in World War II it reached 37. In 1908 it must have been somewhere in between these two figures.
<P>The newly appointed hoboist swiftly moved on to get married on October 8th, 1908. The church ceremony took place in the gothic St. Stephan’s church in Tangermünde, where Max Heinrich had also received his confirmation. It was held as a double wedding jointly with that of his sister Gertrud.
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<P align="center">The other half of the double wedding: Max Heinrich's sister Gertrud and her husband Robert Goetzky.
<P>We have a copy of the nonsense “wedding newspaper” produced on the occasion, but unfortunately it contains very little useful information. Of musical interest, perhaps, the fact that it includes made up parody lyrics to be sung to well-known song tunes. Thus we conclude that the celebration may have involved some raucous singing. Sadly, we have neither a photo nor a list of the guests. As Maria was orphaned by then and her step family would have had a long way to travel from Baden, there may not have been all that many relatives to invite. Conceivably, the double wedding may have served to bring the numbers to a socially acceptable level.
<P>The newspaper called for the rapid production of offspring in no uncertain terms, to which Max Heinrich and Maria obliged. Nine months and six days after the event, their son (later to be my grandfather) was born in Dieuze and named after his grandfather Richard. If tradition had continued in the male line, I would be a Richard and my son another Heinrich, but we gave up on that so we have the cello as the only Heinrich in the family.
<P>The lifetimes of the two Richards only overlapped by a few years, as the grandfather died in July 1913 in Tangermünde. His widow spent some time living with Max Heinrich in Dieuze (as noted in his military records) and some in Magdeburg with her daughter, where she died in April 1916.
<P>Richard’s godparents were Max Heinrich’s half-brother and a woman named Henriette Seidensticker, about whom we know absolutely nothing. I am guessing that she was part of the couple’s social circle rather than a relative.
<P>The first photo of baby Richard shows him naked, lying on his tummy on a fluffy rug, and resolutely lifting up his head. The proud parents sent this as a postcard to a woman called Friederike Heinemann in Magdeburg. Again, I have no idea who she was – and how the postcard found it way back into my family.
<P>A glimpse into the daily life of our nascent family is provided by a hand-written book of recipes, which I found between my grandmother’s gardening books in March 2023. Maria had signed it as:
<blockquote>Marie Pfersching
<BR>Strassburg i. Els.
<BR>1908.
</blockquote>
<P>confirming my suspicion that she was likely forced to remain in Strasbourg until their marriage.
<P>In addition, there is also another inscription, possibly from a previous owner of the book, which is hard to decipher as it has been crossed out with a double line. As far as I can read it, it may have been:
<P>Mieze Reinecke 1905
<P>If this is the correct version it is a curious combination, with Reinecke being the name often used for a fox in fables as well as a common family name, and Mieze being a common nickname for cats as well as a somewhat disrespectful word for women. Conceivably, the nickname Mieze could be hiding another Maria.
<P>The book contains more than 200 recipes on 76 pages, of which the first 190 are listed in an alphabetical index at the back. The first date mentioned is 19.4.08, found under a recipe for veal dumplings. Just before that, the formatting of the headlines changed. At first they were aligned to the left and ended with an exclamation mark, while from this point onwards they are centred and end with a full stop. This change makes me wonder if the first 19 pages were perhaps written by the mysterious Mieze Reinecke. The handwriting also shows some very subtle differences.
<P>Therefore, for clues to the life of our young married couple, I am looking at the 98 recipes of the second phase in the book, covering 26 pages with occasional dates spanning from April 1908 to March 1909. These can give us an impression of what they ate and what household concoctions they may have prepared. After that point, the entries become rarer, with six pages mainly containing tips for household cleaning methods and home remedies, fizzling out at the end of 1909. Although Richard was born in July 1909, there are no recipes for baby food or anything else relating to him. Maybe she had a separate notebook for baby things that I haven’t found yet. After that, there is a gap of five years, and the records resume with “war recipes” in a less diligent handwriting.
<P>In 1908, the year of their marriage, there were plenty of cakes including Linzertorte, Sandtorte (with the remark added: very good!), yeast cakes filled with fruit, and Topfkuchen. Pastry recipes include Schokoladenplätzchen, Madeleines, Mandelhäufchen. The initial pages of the book were already offering quite a lot of pastry such as Muzzemandeln. Sweet casseroles were also popular, including the elaborately named Verschleierte Dame (veiled lady) and Arme Ritter).
<P>The favourite type of meat appears to have been veal, which comes in various shapes and sized. Just occasionally interrupted by mutton, or ox. We find instructions on how to marinate an eel, and recipes for whitefishes (Coregonus), carp and herring. There are dumplings of all sorts, as well as tomato sauce and mustard sauce.
<P>For my taste, there’s not enough about salad, but there is one “Russian salad” and an instruction on how to grow radishes in every season. That’s a start.
<P>For desert, there was jelly, cherry pudding, chocolate pudding, and vanilla ice cream. How she would have prepared the ice cream in 1908 without a freezer – and, in Dieuze, probably without any electricity? – isn’t quite clear to me.
<P>In May 1908, Maria wrote down a lovely recipe for a May punch with woodruff and four bottles of white wine. It doesn’t say how many people she meant to serve, but it sounds like quite a party. Maybe she had to host the whole marching band?
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<P align="center">Dieuze in 1912 - Max Heinrich and Maria's house must be in there somewhere, but I don't know where.
<P>In December 1913, Max Heinrich is promoted to the rank of Vizefeldwebel, a non-commissioned officer one rank up from the Sergeant. He remained listed as a Hoboist as well, so I am thinking that the promotion was just for the pay grade, and didn’t affect his musical activities. For instance, on January 12, 1914, he received an award for 12 years service in the army, where his rank is given as Hoboist. In later documents he is sometimes referred to with both titles, as Hoboist/Vizefeldw. It’s all a bit confusing but also reassuring to know that he remained with the marching band. Presumably, the place behind the tuba was safer than one in the trenches.
<P>Read on:
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-wanderer-between-both-worlds.html">A wanderer between both worlds</a>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-27041544444606811522024-01-30T10:00:00.014+00:002024-03-02T14:59:08.112+00:00romantic writings
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">One hundred years of cellotude</a> continued:
<P>Fourth part of
<P>Chapter 1
<P>A cello called Heinrich
<P>Previous section: <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/what-happened-in-orangerie.html">What happened in the Orangerie</a>
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<P align="center">Frontispiece of Max Heinrich's poetry album.
<P><b>Music in poetry </b>
<P>All in all the album contains 16,000 words, in 160 texts (some of them are aphorisms rather than poems). I believe this size is comparable to the known work of Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170 – c. 1230). After reading this work, one wouldn’t necessarily conclude that Max Heinrich identified as a musician. In terms of musical instruments, we have the minstrel’s fiddle, some jubilating violins at a festivity which our protagonist promptly leaves, and then, in the girl’s song the harp as a metaphor for sensitivity.
<blockquote>„Kann’s die Harfe meiden,
daß, berührt, sie klingt?“</blockquote>
<P>Keeping the instrument’s grammatical gender:
<blockquote>“Can the harp avoid
to sound when she is touched?”</blockquote>
<P>All other musical accompaniment is left to bells, birds, and roaring streams. The only composer referenced is Chopin. One of his songs floats through the silence at one point.
<P>One interesting musical aspect is the emotional power and long-distance effect of music, typically in the shape of songs. This is especially powerful in the ballad of a soldier who deserts his post after accidentally hearing a passing tradesman singing a song that reminded him of home.
<P>Variations of this story were widespread. One version, „Zu Straßburg auf der Schantz“, was set to music by Gustav Mahler in 1887. In that version, it is a Swiss soldier in the German army, at Strasbourg, who deserts after hearing the sound of an alphorn.
<P>Whereas the musically inspired deserters were executed in those songs, the consequences are less dramatic in the song of the minstrel with the fiddle. Remarkably, it is written from the pespective of a woman who is touched by the music of a passing musician and reminded of another who is far away.
<P>Plants are much more abundant than musical instruments, including roses following the clichés of love poetry, but also a few species that I hadn’t heard of before, such as saltbush (Atriplex). There is a lot about walking around in the green environment, with forests and streams and wild flowers. Which may have the advantage that an as yet unmarried couple can secretly share a kiss.
<P>Although the secrets have a life of their own, as one of the funnier poems elaborates. It outlines the lengths to which young lovers went to keep their relationship secret, with the punch line being that at the time of the carefully planned revelation, all their friends already knew.
<P>Overall, I feel that the poems are a little bit limited in their subject matter, but otherwise quite presentable. Many things that we today would regard as cliché would have been less so 120 years ago, before sound recordings and radio. The notorious example of rhyming the words Herz and Schmerz (heart and pain) is completely unacceptable today as it has been used in too many Schlager songs that have been heard too often, but back in 1904 I imagine that would have been just another rhyme between two words that, given the subject matter, were bound to come up from time to time.
<P>Even though the Romantic period in literature is already a thing of the past, our poet openly confesses that he is a belated Romantic, when he dedicates a whole poem to the mythical blue flower made famous by Novalis (1772-1801). The centuries-old quest for this romantic ideal finally comes to fruition. Our poet discovers the mythical treasure in the eyes of his beloved.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8HmidVz4OeH9hQBr5xpSJa9xnKFX-xjEKcimbRlUUliNL-9MA9P_yAa5Hn-0WjB5vraoPb-v_Yev5NZfsjUyDR8E0AhOhWvBE_FEZTW8jfHopH8m52Z84B1oVEpac7eC5dP1W1fCWab_XJbuRJzHkFfRbC2Dg6DrhRhaupZ3i5xg75AkxfSiG/s869/heinrich%20gedichte%20blaue%20blume.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="869" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8HmidVz4OeH9hQBr5xpSJa9xnKFX-xjEKcimbRlUUliNL-9MA9P_yAa5Hn-0WjB5vraoPb-v_Yev5NZfsjUyDR8E0AhOhWvBE_FEZTW8jfHopH8m52Z84B1oVEpac7eC5dP1W1fCWab_XJbuRJzHkFfRbC2Dg6DrhRhaupZ3i5xg75AkxfSiG/s320/heinrich%20gedichte%20blaue%20blume.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">The beginning of the poem "Die blaue Blume" (The blue flower).
<P>One could argue that the Romantic period in classical music was still ongoing when Max Heinrich wrote this, even though romanticism in poetry was obsolete. So I think we can forgive him this delay on the grounds that he was a musician as well as a poet.
<P>The poet presents himself as a good-hearted, maybe slightly dull character. Djingoism and testosterone-poisoned boasting are entirely alien to his personality. He writes several poems from a female perspective (perhaps in collaboration with Maria?) or from changing perspectives. He often pontificates on a morally irreproachable way of life. Several texts carry the title “Mahnung” (admonition). This general moralising may remind us of his Strasbourg contemporary Albert Schweitzer.
<P>The highest form of happiness our poet can imagine is an evening with his beloved at the home fire. A rare poem contributed by Maria describes the scene with both reading from the same book, hand in hand and cheek to cheek. No words were spoken and the desires have been put asleep. But what were they reading?
<P><b>An old book tells its story </b>
<P>Here we are very grateful for the book which both lovers have signed and dated, giving us some insight into their minds. As mentioned above, Max Heinrich signed it presumably upon receipt, thus:
<blockquote>Heinrich Groß Musiker
1. Oktober 1900
Bielefeld </blockquote>
<P>What first drew my attention to this inscription was the fact that it is the earliest evidence of Max Heinrich being a musician, just three weeks after his 18th birthday.
<P>His second notice tells us that he read the book within two months:
<blockquote>Gelesen 30. November 1900
Bad Warmbrunn
Im Rosenheim
</blockquote>
<P>In Strasbourg, he must have passed it on to Maria pretty swiftly after meeting her, as she signed it:
<blockquote>Gelesen Ende Oktober 1903
M. Pfersching </blockquote>
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-romance-of-rhine.html">The book in question</a> is volume 3 of the „Selected stories“ of W. O. von Horn (1798-1867), published posthumously in 1892 by J. D. Sauerländer’s Verlag at Frankfurt. The author’s real name was Wilhelm Oertel, a protestant vicar who hailed from the village of Horn in the Hunsrück mountains and used its name as his pseudonym. <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/09/five-priests-in-row.html">In a crazy coincidence, this puts the author within touching distance of some of my grandmother’s ancestors in the area</a>. His ancestors may well have conducted the weddings of some of mine. While these links to their future daughter-in-law have no relevance to Max Heinrich and Maria’s lives in 1903, they may explain why my grandparents kept the book on their shelves.
<P>Moving on to the contents of the book:
1. Soneck. Historisch-romantische Erzählung aus dem dreizehnten Jahrhundert
2. Aus dem Leben eines Vogelsbergers in Krieg und Frieden
3. Das Original. Ein Stücklein
4. Das Mühlchen in der Morgenbach. Eine Begebenheit aus dem Jahre 1716
5. Der Apostelhof. Eine Geschichte aus der Vorzeit Bacharachs. (12 Teile)
6. Die Elzer. Eine Geschichte aus dem Nassauer Land
<P>Three of the stories, namely 1., 4. and 5. are clearly classifiable as Rhine romanticism. All three are love stories against a backdrop of robbers, corrupt clerics and castles on the banks of the Middle Rhine. All three are written with an exquisite sense of place. It shows that the author, who worked at Bacharach for a time, knew his way around the ruined castles and wild rocky hills of the area.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9-cp6w2kbIzxzbsqca1iNmxLgTZ03k2CbMLCUdXA3oJprbBfHtP9YSEKLrpcrSNqNNIJEIKZSmgOl70MMDYP6cd6qkYkPfoYVVj-Ppp1EmpYIrQ8IyeO9dZqnVQVr7fPN004qlsFOl4SBhMC57GnJVWta9a6FuXmNRVkzcDSA5wwSmBUjXuEz/s800/Sooneck.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="584" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9-cp6w2kbIzxzbsqca1iNmxLgTZ03k2CbMLCUdXA3oJprbBfHtP9YSEKLrpcrSNqNNIJEIKZSmgOl70MMDYP6cd6qkYkPfoYVVj-Ppp1EmpYIrQ8IyeO9dZqnVQVr7fPN004qlsFOl4SBhMC57GnJVWta9a6FuXmNRVkzcDSA5wwSmBUjXuEz/s320/Sooneck.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Steel engraving from "Views of the Rhine" by William Tombleson (around 1840): Ruins of Sooneck Castle <BR><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burg_Sooneck#/media/Datei:Tombleson_Sooneck.jpg">source: Wikipedia</a>
<P>One may wonder what all of this meant to a young musician born in Thuringia of Silesian descent. The castles on the Rhine must have been an exotic subject to him when he first read the book in 1900. But maybe an interest in these faraway lands moved him to sign up with an Alsatian infantry regiment in romantic Strasbourg?
<P>An alternative interpretation is provided by the one and only page that has come loose in the book. It is the first page of the last story, and the following pages also show some signs of wear. This last story is about the people from the town of Elz. Allegedly many of the residents of this town responded to the wave of mass poverty triggered by the Industrial Revolution by earning their living as travelling musicians. To this day, there is the tradition of Elzer Musikanten.
<P>According to von Horn’s novella, the musical history of the town started with a resident named Steffen who got drunk on the eve of his planned wedding and ended up being drafted into the war against the Turks. In the first of two love stories in this novella, his bride-to-be, Mariechen, patiently waited for him until he hobbled back home on one leg and married her. He had funded his return journey as a travelling organ player and remained in the music business after his marriage. This allegedly inspired other people from Elz to do the same, setting avalanche of Elzer Musikanten going.
<P>Love story number two still in the same text concerns Mechthild, the daughter of Steffen and Mariechen, who grows up to become a gifted singer and harp player. Her love interest is an aristocrat with a precious Amati violin who wanted to join the French Revolution and narrowly escaped the guillotine. Returning from France, he took on a false name and made his living as a violin teacher, until he saw young Mechthild performing and fell in love with her. I am getting the impression that female harpists had a bad reputation at that time (around 1800), as every mention of the instrument is backed up with a justification against prejudice.
<P>In this novella there’s music and musically induced romantic entanglements aplenty, so it is easy to imagine that our young couple enjoyed reading this, quite possibly more than once.
<P>Read on:
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/marches-and-veal-dumplings.html">Marches and veal dumplings</a>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-36499178936432990282024-01-29T12:00:00.034+00:002024-01-29T12:54:38.150+00:00imagining extraterrestrial life <P>For somebody writing about astrobiology, I haven't read much science fiction, even though there are obvious parallels and connections. Thus the book
<P>The possibility of life
<P>by Jaime Green
<P>came in handy to fill me in on some of the relevant books that I should have read. As in astrobiology, the author ponders the deep questions of how to find, recognise and deal with extraterrestrial life, but mostly from the perspective of the imaginary encounters of the sci-fi world.
<P>More about it in my long essay review now out:
<P><b>Imaginary aliens</b>
<P>Chemistry & Industry Volume 88, Issue 1, January 2024, Page 34
<P>access via:
<P><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/cind.10221">Wiley Online Library</a> (paywalled PDF of the whole review section)
<P><a href="https://www.soci.org/chemistry-and-industry/cni-data/2024/1/imaginary-aliens">SCI </a>(premium content, ie members only)
<P>As always, I'm happy to send a PDF on request.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIQVUNwTN5vpmr6NHaCh9TjPmS3tJhgF2GmgJpD69ANXlIL8t4g0-QgFLeehaBrUb0pMKkJ2NdNCDtalBt-tgUDuJHY7RQ3VXwqIsTYtF5OnnGUlSeMwQbjsJsbdAAURCTJMCcDIg-VVcl-RqxC4ZqGTUfTGUgPsbWTx_nhQDrBlhHI9RJEGEc/s1500/possibility%20of%20life.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="975" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIQVUNwTN5vpmr6NHaCh9TjPmS3tJhgF2GmgJpD69ANXlIL8t4g0-QgFLeehaBrUb0pMKkJ2NdNCDtalBt-tgUDuJHY7RQ3VXwqIsTYtF5OnnGUlSeMwQbjsJsbdAAURCTJMCcDIg-VVcl-RqxC4ZqGTUfTGUgPsbWTx_nhQDrBlhHI9RJEGEc/s320/possibility%20of%20life.jpg"/></a></div>
<P><a href="https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Possibility-of-Life-by-Jaime-Green/9780715654811">Blackwells </a>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-41955391783407858722024-01-28T10:00:00.079+00:002024-01-29T22:42:16.206+00:00a battered old violin<P>After successfully restoring <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/11/an-old-family-fiddle.html">my late aunt's violin</a> and playing it for a few months, I started thinking I'd like to do some more <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/pirate%20luthier">pirate lutherie</a> and put up a <a href="https://www.ilovefreegle.org/message/99295228">call for broken string instruments on the local Freegle group</a>. This was first posted in May 2023 and gets auto-reposted regularly - and sometimes I update it.
<P>Now, for the first time I have actually obtained an instrument from somebody in response to this post, a battered old violin: <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4KV7Euueir13lsVWRlMUPk70sa0LkgwgU1eHoEdCnqVBfZ0X5uRZRd0hy78vigVC5jvgiWVE8Ilapty__Z-bpaEP46EHAYPk-yzgZCfgHiAqoVnUg1nRBnlTUk9izRwAIScaF9s1Cnf-nms7QW1PIHpzH5ypaY0t-lI74pni4c81MWQI_Y7yb/s2419/violin2554.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1741" data-original-width="2419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4KV7Euueir13lsVWRlMUPk70sa0LkgwgU1eHoEdCnqVBfZ0X5uRZRd0hy78vigVC5jvgiWVE8Ilapty__Z-bpaEP46EHAYPk-yzgZCfgHiAqoVnUg1nRBnlTUk9izRwAIScaF9s1Cnf-nms7QW1PIHpzH5ypaY0t-lI74pni4c81MWQI_Y7yb/s320/violin2554.JPG"/></a></div>
<P>There wasn't much background info available. The person who kindly replied to my Freegle call had inherited from their late uncle who was a pianist, and they weren't sure why he had a violin at all, as he wasn’t known to have played it. Other relatives had it looked at by Oxford Violins who said it is not valuable. Judging by the case (woodpulp/cardboard lined with felt, see <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelgrr/53493826080/in/dateposted-public/">photo</a>) it could be from the 1930s like my aunt's but in a higher price bracket. No mark or label of any kind. The bow (hair cut out) is by Herrmann , a known maker family in Vogtland, Germany.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcVKiuYZvlrvGWLqeFVi8co019mC5i6CLewzaTZTLOuANuHhEqRJQ0fMWqu5xIhTDm2wyTuhNGHN1zF5g8ZWm85KqvQZ2p1RSbsRZokP39RHLIz3A2b0SUHbeFGA2n-AlJa8H6qWkC-jcrQFRggU7O3CMoUcy6oP7Du6x4MJRu4x1nTYeEB7-/s2414/violin2581.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1803" data-original-width="2414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcVKiuYZvlrvGWLqeFVi8co019mC5i6CLewzaTZTLOuANuHhEqRJQ0fMWqu5xIhTDm2wyTuhNGHN1zF5g8ZWm85KqvQZ2p1RSbsRZokP39RHLIz3A2b0SUHbeFGA2n-AlJa8H6qWkC-jcrQFRggU7O3CMoUcy6oP7Du6x4MJRu4x1nTYeEB7-/s320/violin2581.JPG"/></a></div>
<P>Intriguingly, the case contained an itemised luthier’s bill from Dec 1985 for
<blockquote>rehair £ 12.65
<BR>repair to violin
<BR>shoot fingerboard, new bridge
<BR>clean & polish, glue seams, tailgut £ 103.50
<BR>set strings £ 10.33
<BR>4 adjusters £ 2.05
<BR>total cost £128.53, </blockquote>
<P>which is almost £400 in 2024 pounds. Extrapolating from today’s cost of bow rehairs would even suggest £ 700. The bill is from <a href="https://www.beares.com/">John & Arthur Beare in London</a>, who have a reputation as specialists in old violins according to their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_%26_A_Beare">Wikipedia entry</a>.
<P>After them, somebody less qualified must have messed with the instrument, as I found all four strings attached to wrong pegs. At least the soundpost solidly in place and the bridge was kept separately in the case, so I was able to set it up in less than one hour.
<P>The body is battered and scarred with various repairs but solid. The instrument settled in within 24 hours and sounds lovely to my not very demanding ears - even with the old strings which may well date from 1985 - notably better in the lower register than the other violins I've played so far. The old school tailpiece is fitted with 4 adjusters (as per the luthier's bill). The chinrest has an awkward shape with a rather steep edge. It has no cork,just glued paper on the clamp side and two felt tabs on the chin side. The case contained two packs of rosin: one Hiddersine unused, one Sonella in fragments, also a mute made of horn. And three unidentified spare strings.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTq94uWGLRuH9fldDvknTltCRwGk0ql7HOfhJdEeTr8DDHfTWTTGSGkEIT30ks1_nd26hxd6HNCONK48P2mCsXBYoBseVeqqb9WCNV6iP3cQM1Du1v8H7K6pu2rzx82rmUa3md8r07s54ahbKnJh-lwRREf2kjLGBCplzuiSNHnuh07ey_04us/s2481/violin2558.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1406" data-original-width="2481" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTq94uWGLRuH9fldDvknTltCRwGk0ql7HOfhJdEeTr8DDHfTWTTGSGkEIT30ks1_nd26hxd6HNCONK48P2mCsXBYoBseVeqqb9WCNV6iP3cQM1Du1v8H7K6pu2rzx82rmUa3md8r07s54ahbKnJh-lwRREf2kjLGBCplzuiSNHnuh07ey_04us/s320/violin2558.JPG"/></a></div>
<P>Only one moan so far. Taking off the chinrest to look at the seam underneath it (which was ok), I discovered that somebody appears to have renovated (presumably sanded and re-varnished?) the top without taking off the chinrest. Like wallpapering around a small item of furniture. I think the appropriate pirate luthier response to this is: Arrrrrrgh. I'm slightly worried now that the same person may have effed up other things I haven't discovered yet, such as using the wrong kind of varnish or glue. Then again, can't complain about a gift horse and all that. I am aiming to keep this one to play it myself, but have already lent out <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/07/fiddling-with-fiddles.html">another one that I restored</a> to a young musician. If and when I am able to rescue more stray instruments the general plan is to make them available to players on a non-profit basis.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZmqYMANe05vA1HaqFucb3IOstjV0CQ-LBhzGaFwyKJOJtTar-GwZQNnLqNxDepGLEgW5jvVLHqO1eHdl3-lYjq1va56pVs1b-l8BrYxYkCoaYGa3FUAogCT6FGnfBl2EgtiOnHa2wJUWhf3q22-Zuqs44NmTxFsgvmJ-C8qIAtUBRFakHvfU/s2210/violin2572.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1809" data-original-width="2210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZmqYMANe05vA1HaqFucb3IOstjV0CQ-LBhzGaFwyKJOJtTar-GwZQNnLqNxDepGLEgW5jvVLHqO1eHdl3-lYjq1va56pVs1b-l8BrYxYkCoaYGa3FUAogCT6FGnfBl2EgtiOnHa2wJUWhf3q22-Zuqs44NmTxFsgvmJ-C8qIAtUBRFakHvfU/s320/violin2572.JPG"/></a></div>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-26544953160525927902024-01-27T11:00:00.016+00:002024-03-02T14:53:55.748+00:00what happened in the Orangerie <P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">One hundred years of cellotude</a> continued:
<P>Third part of
<P>Chapter 1
<P>A cello called Heinrich
<P>Previous section: <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/strasbourg-in-belle-epoque.html">Strasbourg in the Belle Epoque</a>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEickMZi6DBcDa5fYw7OBheOxhORsrcEoLXE28uVw18PZcIctmb_P_J47y2sbssFh5teeZpeX8nwS3rUN-7EHeKXJ-qs9LdpWpiYE4ohQDJNDUIBIbybgfwp3fNirXSI6pNBhMcGNITlyW4ogO8G7LS23iJbytHQyb89KorslsPPLGBPmSd6ys7e/s1000/orangerie.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="1000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEickMZi6DBcDa5fYw7OBheOxhORsrcEoLXE28uVw18PZcIctmb_P_J47y2sbssFh5teeZpeX8nwS3rUN-7EHeKXJ-qs9LdpWpiYE4ohQDJNDUIBIbybgfwp3fNirXSI6pNBhMcGNITlyW4ogO8G7LS23iJbytHQyb89KorslsPPLGBPmSd6ys7e/s320/orangerie.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Strasbourg: Orangerie, postcard from 1902
<BR><a href="https://ansichtskarten-lexikon.de/ak-59039.html">Source</a>
<P>
<b>What happened in the Orangerie </b>
<P>After I had finished writing up the very first version of this chapter believing that we couldn’t know much about the private lives of Max Heinrich and Maria at the time they met and became engaged, a shock discovery changed everything. A small art nouveau decorated manuscript book with guilt edges turned up in a rather unexpected place, namely on the shelf between my late mother’s poetry books. (Note that she was not related to Max Heinrich and Maria and successfully divorced from their grandson.) It contains more than 150 poems, written by Max Heinrich for his beloved Maria, within just one year (November 1903 to Christmas 1904). It very nearly knocked me over.
<P>The poems are of acceptable quality as far as I can tell as a layperson in these matters. Our musician clearly had a sense for meter and rhythm, and sometimes he also had original ideas. What I was hoping for but didn’t find, however, is usable biographical information. Among all the glowing hearts and rolling tears flooding the poems, it is rather hard to find any connections to the real world. The most interesting findings in this respect are in the meta-information, ie the dates and occasional references to places. Based on these, here’s the short lyrical guide through a very eventful year:
<P>The earliest date linking Max Heinrich and Maria is in the above-mentioned book of novellas by W. O. von Horn, which he had signed with „musician“ behind his name back in 1900. It must have impressed him as he gave it to Maria to read in the year they met. Under his note she wrote that she read it in October 1903. We’ll come back to the content of the book later.
<P>According to the poetry collection, significant events happened a few weeks later, on November 18 1903. So significant that Max Heinrich commemorated the day with a special poem called Jetzt und immer (now and forever) pondering the timelessness of his eternal love.
<P>Then we get an atmospheric description of Christmas 1903, which he seems to have spent quietly gazing into her dear blue eyes. Note that her passport details list her eyes as grey.
<P>Obstacles show up in the next poem with nameless people advising the poet to steer clear of his love interest and giving many reasons – we don’t get the specifics though.
<P>An entry signed Strasbourg 4/2 1904 is in a different handwriting, probably Maria’s and signed Souvenir de Marie Vogel. Not sure what the bird is doing there. The poem is all about flowery metaphors for love and friendship.
<P>On April 18th 1904, the pair became officially engaged. The occasion was celebrated in Tangermünde with a professional family portrait with Max Heinrich’s parents, sister and half-brother. The two young men in their uniforms stand there like guard posts gazing intently towards the future. Maria manages the same gaze even without a uniform. Meanwhile, the old folks sitting in the middle are looking rather grumpy. Max Heinrich’s sister is sitting as well and holds an album on her lap with a photo of a child that doesn’t appear to belong to the family. I was told the album was probably a prop from the photographer’s studio.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcXwj_GqE6n7gPo-4mKnkwmxNOg7r68KkAuJMAA7cyfyRtrbSIkBOEvyW-7MwYTB6bylRAuHKgOARuvvqI-vZhQBlQR7Vm1ceOoF6r_ZxQK54yK9q-ZN2UWPGrwF6RJe2Xcn4qRsMgysY9QOmeAgZ90vPEqTTJGeUj0tYjX1PC_dPW3fMs7h38/s2864/richardheinrichfamilie.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="2032" data-original-width="2864" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcXwj_GqE6n7gPo-4mKnkwmxNOg7r68KkAuJMAA7cyfyRtrbSIkBOEvyW-7MwYTB6bylRAuHKgOARuvvqI-vZhQBlQR7Vm1ceOoF6r_ZxQK54yK9q-ZN2UWPGrwF6RJe2Xcn4qRsMgysY9QOmeAgZ90vPEqTTJGeUj0tYjX1PC_dPW3fMs7h38/s320/richardheinrichfamilie.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Max Heinrich (left) and Maria (standing) visiting his family in Tangermünde after becoming engaged.
<P>There is also a studio portrait of the couple made in Strasbourg by the studio of F. Mehlbreuer (located in the East of the city close to many of the barracks, so they may have done lots of portraits of soldiers and their sweethearts). We don’t have a date for this one, but it appears plausible that it was also made in celebration of the engagement. As on the big family portrait, Max Heinrich wears round, frameless glasses, and his hairline has already moved upwards to the zenith of his skull. The date of the engagement was also engraved into a pair of rings, which are still in the family.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXazFUh5LyVwxztA9IXWc0dAtY34vDPCN3bUhN35omg-jg83mWZ8Ta_8_rIVaE4jyh0qyhcY0OEu1Zl_cLYOOARD9xUsBDRkI4prYOeT5y7Q5aqjzr5XSb_50JlSaMfXvJJa1VoIzFZRC3HQFxpTuns1DQF_ypqrJucLedvxQ8IxYbN0ir3Sq/s1360/maria-heinrich1904-verlobung.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="912" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXazFUh5LyVwxztA9IXWc0dAtY34vDPCN3bUhN35omg-jg83mWZ8Ta_8_rIVaE4jyh0qyhcY0OEu1Zl_cLYOOARD9xUsBDRkI4prYOeT5y7Q5aqjzr5XSb_50JlSaMfXvJJa1VoIzFZRC3HQFxpTuns1DQF_ypqrJucLedvxQ8IxYbN0ir3Sq/s320/maria-heinrich1904-verlobung.JPG"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Engagement portrait, Strasbourg 1904.
<P>In the poetry album, the date of the engagement, which was also Maria’s 23rd birthday, is linked to the Orangerie in Strasbourg, today known as Parc de l’Orangerie. It is to the Northeast of the city centre, where we now also find the European Parliament. As it happens, I have a Brockhaus Encyclopedia from 1903 from the other side of the family (to be visited in chapter 2), with a map of the Orangerie, showing: a large restaurant on the shore of a lake, a kiosque and an Alsatian farmhouse, as well as an Octroi at the edge of the park which may have something to do with raising the eponymous community tax.
<P>The poems suggest that Max Heinrich popped the question during a visit to the Orangerie, although there is no more specific information on the precise location. The 18th was a Monday, but not Easter Monday – as our poet has left us with an Easter poem on Sunday 3rd.
<P>There is a poem about popping the question which carries two dates, namely:
„Straßburg, Orangerie, 18.4.04“ as well as the earlier date of 9.2.04. So I am assuming that he wrote the poem on the earlier date and then performed it as part of the engagement ritual.
<P>Further poems come with notes referring back to the place and time of the engagement, so there is no doubt that the question was popped then and there, and the portraits were taken after that date.
<P>At the end of May, there seems to have been a painful farewell, linked to the address Schwendistraße 6. This street is today known as rue Schwendi, named after a village on the other side of the Rhine. It is the easternmost of the three small streets that lead towards the front facade of the barracks.
<P>We don’t get any further information on the significance of the address. We can admire the house on archi-wiki – like much of the Neustadt it looks quite lovely. There is no obvious indication that it was a restaurant, bar, or meeting point of any kind. A plan dated 1891 suggests that a painter/decorator called Oswald had his workshop on the ground floor.
<P>There is the possibility that Maria lived at that address – close to the barracks but a bit far to commute to the Hopital Civil. However, we know another address where she lived at one point, but without a date. In any case, Schwendistraße 6 appears to have witnessed mutual oaths that the lovers would only kiss flowers, not people, for as long as they had to be apart. Apparently, purple coloured flowers were densely crowded around Maria’s house – not quite enough to pin down its location 120 years later – whereas Max Heinrich was the one who had to leave Strasbourg and would be restricted to kissing roses that reminded him of her. The handwriting in this poem is clearly rattled by emotion making it harder to decipher than most of the others.
<P>After this tearful departure, the next poem is dated July 8th, so it appears the lovers may have had to survive separately for five to six weeks.
<P>In an undated entry after July 10th, we find – finally – something about music, namely a minstrel’s song. It is mostly about the longing produced by separation, we’ll come back to its content later.
<P>Some poems are explicitly marked as songs in their titles. Thus we have an evening song, a spring song, a lullaby and several bridal songs, a girl’s song and three love songs bundled up together. The latter are dated November 18th, the first anniversary of the date when the whole thing started. Like several other poems, the middle one of the love songs includes an example of telepathic communication between the lovers which I find touching.
<P>We find a bonus poem on a postcard that came with the album. Unfranked and undated, the card does carry a useful address:
<blockquote>Fräulein Marie Pfersching
<BR>Straßburg / E.
<BR>Steinstr. No. 54
</blockquote>
<P>This road, today Rue du Faubourg de Pierre, leads from the city centre to the Steintor (stone gate), which is in Neustadt, between the barracks and the main station. Still on the other side of town from the Hopital Civil, but there will have been a tram going down this road, so it would have been feasible.
<P>The poem on the card is signed with two musical notes, the first sitting underneath one ledger line, the second under two. If these ledger lines live under the treble clef, the notes would in German nomenclature spell out H G, so (Max) Heinrich Groß’s initials. One of the poems in the album also contains this musical signature, I just hadn’t understood it while I was transcribing the poems. As they weren’t normally signed with anything, I had seen the notes just as a kind of illustration.
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<P align="center">The young poet's musical signature.
<P>Maybe the notes also tell us something about the instruments Max Heinrich learned to play. As a cellist, one would preferably use the bass clef. A flautist uses the treble clef but can’t play those two notes under the staff. A pianist can play them of course but wouldn’t need the ledger lines, as there would be a second staff below the first ledger line. To me this looks suspiciously like the work of somebody who learned music with a violin – although a few other instruments such as clarinet would also qualify.
<P>Read on:
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/romantic-writings.html">Romantic writings</a>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-25219441275646733012024-01-26T11:00:00.028+00:002024-03-02T13:22:05.466+00:00Strasbourg in the Belle Epoque <P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">One hundred years of cellotude</a> continued:
<P>Second part of
<P>Chapter 1
<P>A cello called Heinrich
<P>Previous section: <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-hundred-years-of-cellotude.html">A railway family</a>
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<P align="center">The Sängerhaus (today Palais des Fetes) on a postcard sent in 1905. <a href="https://andreas-praefcke.de/carthalia/france/f_strasbourg_palaisdesfetes.htm">Source</a>
<P><b>Strasbourg in the Belle Epoque </b>
<P>At the beginning of 1901, 18-year-old musician Max Heinrich signed up with the infantry – voluntarily. Although military service was compulsory in theory, only half the male population coming of age was drafted. Entering as a voluntary recruit rather than being drafted had the advantage for the recruit that he could choose which branch of the military he wanted to join.
<P>I’m not quite clear whether Max Heinrich had a musical role in the infantry from day one. His military record card notes promotions to the ranks of Gefreiter, Unteroffizier (both 1903), Sergeant (1906) and Hoboist (1908). Although Hoboist literally means oboe player, and we spent some time thinking that Max Heinrich must have played oboe, we later found out that all musicians in the infantry were given titles based on this word, from the Hilfshoboist through to the Stabshoboist, regardless of which instrument they were playing. In the cavalry they were all trumpeters and in the pioneer brigades they were hornists. Very weird. The only piece of evidence we have regarding his instrument is a tuba mouthpiece. Based on this, let’s assume that from 1908 onwards his main job in the infantry was playing the tuba. Until then he may have had to muddle through as a common or garden infanterist, not sure. Based on this assumption, I’ll come back to the hoboist life later.
<P>On April 25 1901, Max Heinrich started his service in the infantry regiment No. 138 (IR138), which one year later acquired the regional name of Lower Alsatian regiment by decree from the emperor. The regiment was based in the Manteuffel barracks in Strasbourg, at the time an exemplary modern building quadrangle with all bells and whistles. Even today it is still presentable. Under the name Quartier Stirn it serves the French military as an army education facility. The bicolour facade in brick and sandstone was then the biggest (of many) barracks in Strasbourg, and the only one equipped to modern hygiene standards. It had been erected after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 and the annexation of Alsace Lorraine as part of a comprehensive urban development plan.
<P>In a large-scale concept inspired by Haussmann’s reinvention of Paris in the 1850s and 1860s and executed from 1880 onwards, a new quarter shot up northeast of the historic town centre with large boulevards, a new central railway station, university buildings, administration, residential blocks, theatres and shops.
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2020/11/a-whole-new-city.html">This quarter known as Neustadt</a> (new town) became a complete new city designed to show of the capabilities of the empire – even though the central government shifted the burden of the costs for the works back to the city itself. The built surface area of Strasbourg tripled between 1871 and 1914, and the number of residents rose from 80,000 to 180,000. New arrivals included numerous civil servants, as well as lots of soldiers.
<P><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WjpYXwf3Kh8/X8JsBrIkNjI/AAAAAAAAE9M/wE_x1J36KQ0UpnP1DYEA2wB91lniWM0ewCLcBGAsYHQ/s999/strassburg04.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="999" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WjpYXwf3Kh8/X8JsBrIkNjI/AAAAAAAAE9M/wE_x1J36KQ0UpnP1DYEA2wB91lniWM0ewCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/strassburg04.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Postcard sent in 1917, showing the view across the Neustadt with the neogothic church (inspired by the Elisabethkirche in Marburg), towards the medieval core of the city with the gothic cathedral. <BR><a href="https://ansichtskarten-lexikon.de/ak-64346.html">Source</a>
<P>When young Max Heinrich first arrived in Strasbourg in the spring of 1901, the Neustadt development was mostly completed, even some small parts remained unfinished even until 1914. As of 1900, the city had 151,041 residents. including 90,000 native to the Alsace-Lorraine region, 56,000 from the rest of the German Empire, and fewer than 4,000 from abroad. For the wide-eyed young recruit from the remote provincial town of Tangermünde, this modern model city must have been an impressive experience. We can imagine that he didn’t get bored in his spare time. There were cultural activities and entertainment aplenty. And he found his future wife.
<P>Maria Pfersching hailed from Bruchsal on the other side of the river Rhein, so she had a much shorter route when she came to Strasbourg to train as a secretary. Both her parents came from families associated with the wine growing traditions in the area. Her father Heinrich Pfersching (1850-1905) was a cooper and her mother Mutter Barbara Klundt (1847-1886), who had died very young, was from a long line of wine growers at Godramstein, near Landau in the Palatinate. Two separate family vineyards in the area still trade under the family name, but the exact connection to Anna Barbara’s ancestry remains unresolved. Both parents had interesting migration stories in their background including <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2014/10/klundt-clan.html">emigration to the Odessa region</a> and <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-huguenot-connection.html">Huguenot ancestors</a> (plus some <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2015/11/more-huguenots.html">more Huguenots</a>) on the Klundt side, as well as <a href="http://michaelgross.info/migrant.html">lots of Swiss ancestors</a> on the Pfersching side.
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<P align="center">Portrat of Maria Pfersching undated. Taken by the atelier of Fritz Rühl, official court photographer of the King of Bavaria, at Landau (Pfalz) where Maria's maternal relatives, the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/klundt">Klundt clan</a> lived.
<P>Maria’s godfather (no idea who he was - maybe one of the Klundts?) had financed her training as a secretary at Strasbourg – presumably this opportunity would otherwise not have been within her reach. Her niece remembered stories from her childhood suggesting that Maria worked for „Professor Lederhose“ (professor Leather Trousers), which the children then found hilarious. In fact it is only one typo away from the truth.
<P>At the medical faculty in Strasbourg we find the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/08/professor-leather-trousers.html">surgeon Georg Ledderhose (1855-1925)</a>, with just the doubled-up letter „d“ setting him apart from the word for a garment. Like Maria, he had arrived from the other side of the Rhine, coming to Strasbourg as a medical student and staying on as a professor until 1918. He even has a morbus Ledderhose to his name, a benign swelling in the sole of the foot.
<P>We can even figure out where Maria and the professor worked. The official hospital for academics of the University is the Hopital Civil, which has a long and distinguished history going back to the Middle Ages. After several moves it was established in its current location in 1398, just south of the main island where you find the old town and cathedral. It evolved as a loose settlement with separate buildings for distinct functions, originally including a bakery and a wine cellar, and with the diversification and specialisation of medicine, each discipline had its own building. This principle was only abandoned in 2008, with a large new-built block designed to house everything.
<P>During the German Empire, the Hopital Civil (then known as Bürgerhospital) became a showcase project like the Neustadt on the other side of the city. New buildings were erected for surgery (1881), psychiatry (1885), gynaecology and obstetrics (1887) and eye health (1891). Professor Ledderhose was a surgeon, so I assume that the surgery building from 1881 was their workplace, as the second surgery department was only opened in 1914. Sadly, the 1881 building is no longer there – it has been replaced with a car park.
<P>To recap: Maria was working south of the old town in the hospitals quarter, while Max Heinrich was stationed north of the centre in the Neustadt. We don’t know how and why Maria from Baden and native Thuringian Max Heinrich found each other, but I suspect that music may have played a part, if only in the shape of dance events. Although we can’t prove any musical activity for Maria herself, we know that her half-brothers were musicians playing at local events like fairs, and there are several professional musicians among the offspring of her nieces.
<P>Musical entertainment will have been plentiful in Strasbourg. In 1905, for instance, the city hosted the first Alsace-Lorraine Music Festival, which in the spirit of understanding between nations presented a programme alternating between German and French music. Highlights included works by César Franck and Gustave Charpentier, conducted by Camille Chevillard. The composers Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss came from Vienna and Berlin, respectively, to conduct their own works as well as those of Beethoven, Mozart and Wagner.
<P>The event took place in the Sängerhaus (singers’ house), a very beautiful Art Nouveau venue which opened in 1903 as part of the Neustadt development (see the postcard above). It is now known as the Palais des Fetes and still hosts cultural events to this day. You can find it in rue Sellénick (named after the French musician Adolphe Sellenick (1826-1893)), just one block away from Max Heinrich’s barracks. Back then the street was unoriginally named “Beim Sängerhaus.” We could almost speculate that he and Maria witnessed the performances of some of those illustrious guest musicians.
<P>From 1904/05 the Sängerhaus also hosted the regular subscription concerts of the city of Strasbourg led by Franz Stockhausen (1839-1926). The first season already featured stellar soloists including cellist Pablo Casals. I hereby decree that they must have heard Casals play – no excuses will be accepted.
<P>I <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/08/mahler-and-strauss-in-strasbourg.html">took up the trail of musical events in Strasbourg</a> after I read in <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-crazy-history-of-germany.html">Simon Winder’s book „Germania“</a> that Strauss and Mahler had jointly performed Strauss’s freshly written Opera Salomé in a piano shop in Strasbourg in 1905 – just a factoid the author dropped without further details or references. I found out that the shop in question was Musikhaus Wolf, which in June 2020 was forced to close after 195 years in business. Press reports on the closure of the shop note that Strauss played his new oeuvre for Mahler, his young wife Alma and some baffled customers of the shop. Clearly impressed by this sneak preview, Mahler wanted to premiere the work at Vienna, but was blocked by the censors due to the content of the libretto based on Oscar Wilde’s work. The actual premiere then took place in December 1905 in Dresden.
<P>Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) also resided in Strasbourg after finishing school and until he took up working in Africa. Max Heinrich and Maria may well have heard him playing the organ and/or delivering a sermon in the St. Nicolas church where he held the Strasbourg sermons between 1898 and 1913. The church is south of the old town, near the Hopital Civil. Although he already had a habilitation (post-doctoral degree as qualification for a professorship) in theology and held a teaching position, Schweitzer chose to study medicine at Strasbourg from 1905 to 1913. He thus will have had things to do at the Hopital Civil. During his Strasbourg time, Schweitzer also made his name as an expert on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
<P>Read on:
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/what-happened-in-orangerie.html">What happened in the Orangerie </a>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-47720352429224045932024-01-25T10:00:00.083+00:002024-03-03T10:52:49.521+00:00one hundred years of cellotude<P>During the plague years I have been writing up <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-cellos-century.html">a musical family memoir built around the biography of our venerable old cello</a>. After completing a draft version in German (some chapters accessible through the link above), I have now started translating it into English, so here comes chapter 1, introducing Heinrich the cello and its eponymous owner, as a short blog series - one entry for each of the sections of the chapter (this entry also includes a very brief introductory passage before the first subheading). There will also be a few old photos with each entry.
<P>All ten parts are now live, click the link at the bottom of each part to move on the the next one.
<P>Table of contents:
<OL>
<LI>A railway family
<LI><a href="Strasbourg%20in%20the%20Belle%20Epoque">Strasbourg in the Belle Epoque</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/what-happened-in-orangerie.html">What happened in the orangerie</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/romantic-writings.html">Romantic writings</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/marches-and-veal-dumplings.html">Marches and veal dumplings</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-wanderer-between-both-worlds.html">A wanderer between both worlds</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-civil-servant-at-elberfeld.html">A civil servant at Elberfeld</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/an-amateur-quartet.html">An amateur string quartet</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/when-music-stops.html">When the music stops</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/02/silence-after-war.html">Silence after the war </a>
</OL>
<P>UPDATE 2.3.2024. I've added some extra photos to each entry, in addition to the one that each already had at the top. And a few more links.
<P>"One hundred years of cellotude" is one of various title ideas I have been kicking around. I'll also use this as a <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/100%20years%20of%20cellotude">tag</a> to link the instalments of the English text, such as not to swamp the more general tabs with this content. Instruments of time and truth would be perfect - but there is already an early music ensemble by that name.
<P>
<P><b>Chapter 1 </b>
<P><b>A cello called Heinrich </b>
<P>Heinrich came into our family roughly a century ago, and definitely before 1924, but we don’t know exactly when and how. We know that Heinrich is a cello made in the tradition of Saxony in the late 19th century. The young cellist in my family baptised the instrument Heinrich after their great-great-grandfather in the name line, who was the earliest known owner and player of the instrument. To avoid confusion, I will refer to him as Max Heinrich, even though in real life he only used his second Christian name.
<P>Before we come to Heinrich the cello, let us first get to know Max Heinrich the cellist and his family. Their lives were decisively shaped by the key innovation of the 19th century, the railways.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilyCqwI_s4WO4mM6pPWislnrGg0Hg3v8HUCgxudUs18W_4X4FBbZ52ezMmZEifuapJHkc2g79cV1iKOkjLz3-DQge-UsMtCXe8A9tzwuz92Luyn3QX7O8-FjXUC5Fbo2HlTxH8sgJlDNqhxyYZjv0fYt6qqTzY7126RYdcLvJ6zdNqFX0f_4wg/s1122/tangermuendebhf04a.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1122" data-original-width="1122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilyCqwI_s4WO4mM6pPWislnrGg0Hg3v8HUCgxudUs18W_4X4FBbZ52ezMmZEifuapJHkc2g79cV1iKOkjLz3-DQge-UsMtCXe8A9tzwuz92Luyn3QX7O8-FjXUC5Fbo2HlTxH8sgJlDNqhxyYZjv0fYt6qqTzY7126RYdcLvJ6zdNqFX0f_4wg/s320/tangermuendebhf04a.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Staff at Tangermünde Railway Station, 1889.
<P><b>A railway family </b>
<P>On December 7, 1835, the steam locomotive Adler (Eagle) travelled from Nürnberg to Fürth and thereby opened the age of railways in the German Confederation (a patchwork of principalities that lasted from 1815 to 1866). German engineers followed the lead of the British pioneers of railway technology and copied the details like the gauge and the propulsion technique that had already been proven in passenger services since 1825. Within half a century, the expansion of German railways overtook the British role model, At the beginning of 1885, the German Empire had the world’s largest network with 39,000 km of track, with Britain following in second place with 31,000 km. Today both networks are significantly smaller.
<P>Initially, railways in the German Confederation emerged from a colourful mixture of state and privately-funded initiatives. In Prussia, however, and then after 1871 in the newly founded empire, the state took the lead and only left smaller local endeavours to private companies. One key reason for state leadership on long distance rail development was that Prussia’s rulers had recognised the importance of railways for rapid troop movements. For the same reason, the entire network has been more strategically planned than the British one, much of which has grown out of wild races between competing investors.
<P>The advent of railways facilitated travel in ways that had been unimaginable a generation earlier. In 1839. a young pianist called Clara Wieck suffered some serious discomfort travelling from Leipzig to Paris on a stagecoach. Just ten years later, and then known as Clara Schumann, she could play concerts between Paris and St. Petersburg using trains to cross the continent at ease.
<P>The dramatic expansion and efficient running of a vast railway network that in many respects surpassed the one we have today required countless employees in roles that hadn’t existed before, and thus couldn’t be inherited in the old feudal style of bygone times. Thus they brought opportunities and social mobility to many, along with the geographical mobility and the chance to see the world beyond your native area.
<P>People in four separate branches of my family tree used these opportunities independently of each other, including the parents of Max Heinrich the cellist. Richard Heinrich and Maria Louise married at Breslau (today Wroclaw, Poland) between 1877 and 1880. Maria was eight years older than Richard and had been widowed twice. She brought a son from a previous marriage into the family. They had a daughter in April 1880, and then Max Heinrich was born September 11 1882, completing a patchwork family that stayed relatively small for the time.
<P>Richard, born in 1852, was spared military service in 1874 because of knock-knees and height. He was assigned as a “second-class reservist” meaning that in peacetime he had no military obligations of any sort, but until his 31st birthday he could be called up if there was a war. He was lucky, as the peace lasted more than forty years. He didn’t even live to witness the war that was to end the empire.
<P>We don’t know much about old Richard, but we do know that he worked for the railways as an office clerk. At about the same time, another great-great grandfather of mine worked with the Reichsbahn Elsass-Lothringen where he eventually became a station master, and yet another one was a railway worker at Gütersloh. The daughter of that last one, travelled along the line to find herself another railway man, whom we will meet in the next chapter.
<P>Like the other railway employees in the family tree whom he never met, Richard came from a modest background that soon gets lost in the mist of time. His father was a carpenter, apparently, and we’re already struggling with the identity of his paternal grandfather, who may or may not have been a coachman. Maria’s father was a shepherd.
<P>As an office clerk (Bureau-Ass.), I imagine that Richard was kind of a precursor to the 20th century’s ubiquitous secretaries. Not the most glamorous social ascent, but his workplace was clean and dry, and his work didn’t ruin his health, in contrast to the many who signed up with the flourishing mining and steel industries. And he got to see a bit of the world.
<P>Three times Richard and his family moved to an entirely new town, in a different area. Looking at the dates when these places were connected to the railway network, they match his moves. I conclude that he was involved more with the setup of new rail links than with the operation of existing ones – until he found his personal terminus.
<P>Following his tracks one move at a time: His daughter Gertrud was born in 1880 in Neurode, still in his native Silesia. The railwau links from Neurode to Glatz opened in 1879 and in the other direction to Waldenburg in 1880. The latter required the construction of a bridge across the Schwarzbachgrund which at the time was the highest railway viaduct in Germany. Neurode was just a small town of 6,000 inhabitants but there were significant mining activities in the area, so I assume the transport of freight must have been the economic driver motivating the investment in the line with that spectacular bridge. Neurode was still reasonably close to home, only 60 km from Breslau.
<P>Two and a half years later, when Max Heinrich was born, the family was already further away, in Thuringia, specifically in Zella St. Blasii, now part of Zella-Mehlis. There, the lines to Erfurt and Meiningen were built in 1881-1884 enabling onwards travel westwards to Schweinfurt, Würzburg and Stuttgart. Today, this track forms part of the shortest link from Stuttgart to Berlin.
<P>Musically, Max Heinrich’s birthplace may have been touched ever so gently by the genius of Johann Sebastian Bach, who was born in Eisenach, just 40 km away, and lived in the district capital Ohrdruf, only 20 km away, from 1695 to 1703, while he served an apprenticeship with his older brother Johann Christoph and also played the organ for the local church.
<P>We know that Max Heinrich stayed at Zella for more than a year, because he was vaccinated there just after his first birthday. The smallpox vaccine was the only vaccination that existed at the time, so the certificate doesn’t mention what disease is targeted, only that the legal requirement for vaccination has been fulfilled. In Prussia, vaccination was mandated since 1815, and in the German Empire since 1874. The certificate notes that the vaccination was successful in the first attempt, meaning that a pustule formed at the site of the cut. From the small print on the back we learn that the procedure is to be carried out up to three times if the first and second attempt don’t yield a visible result. Eleven years later, Max Heinrich received the second vaccination, also with immediate success – by then the family had moved on to Tangermünde.
<P>Some time between 1883 and 1888 the family moved from Thuringia to Saxony-Anhalt (in today’s nomenclature of federal states), first to Stendal and then to the nearby town of Tangermünde. At around the same time, a short branch line of 10 km length linking these two towns was built,
<P>Planners had originally considered Tangermünde as a stop on the mainline from Berlin to Lehrte, but it lost out to Stendal. Only in 1888 travellers from Tangermünde could travel down the branch line to catch long distance trains from there. The branch line was developed by a shareholder company mainly to serve freight from the sugar factory at Tangermünde, but it carries passengers to this day.
<P>Tangermünde was the last stop in the journeys of our railway clerk, thus we have to assume that he had a permanent job there, not limited to the duration of the development project. <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/09/tangermunde-railway-station-1889.html">A group photo of the entire staff of the line taken in 1889</a> outside Tangermünde station (a slightly cropped version appears above) shows 25 people including one woman. Richard is one of those wearing a uniform with shiny brass buttons. I guess this was the prerogative of those who didn’t have to do dirty work. He is standing nearly in the middle, below the station clock.
<P>The station master on the other hand keeps a low profile in the background, standing in the entrance of his office, with the big sign “Stationsvorsteher” above the door. He wears a tie and a hat and manages to look modest while also making his important role unmistakably clear.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1HYhCW8TT9Vs5uuAtcIbTIma_vu5nac8_X37CfGNci317Ffn7YggWWORAgbLZooGYYEyi2S9U6KKeXiJLFbhlDJap8_T0jJ-1zH6-7Y56i9Hkj4numepjk1294z50Uspz52Y-OLJ6ZX_er5cxIDxy_X97FP2Yvq0z5vgLth861WQBf-_a9Q/s2592/GrossRichardMariaca1900.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="2592" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1HYhCW8TT9Vs5uuAtcIbTIma_vu5nac8_X37CfGNci317Ffn7YggWWORAgbLZooGYYEyi2S9U6KKeXiJLFbhlDJap8_T0jJ-1zH6-7Y56i9Hkj4numepjk1294z50Uspz52Y-OLJ6ZX_er5cxIDxy_X97FP2Yvq0z5vgLth861WQBf-_a9Q/s320/GrossRichardMariaca1900.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Max Heinrich's parents, Johann Friedrich <u>Richard</u> Groß (*1852 in Breslau), left, and <u>Maria</u> Louise Mentzel (*1844 Skronskau), atanding on top of the boulder. Photo dated 1900.
<P>Tangermünde flourished as a member of the Hanse trade network in the 15th century, but was then bypassed by most historical events, including the construction of the main railway line. Its numerous historical buildings including the town hall, gothic church, the city wall and several of its gates are impeccably well preserved. The wall owes its survival to the fact that much of it also serves to prop up the city on the slope leading down to the river Elbe, and to protect it from floods.
<P>In the summer of 1888, Max Heinrich visited the Volksschule (people’s school) in Stendal, and from the Bürgerschule (citizens’ school) in Tangermünde. In 19th century Prussia, Bürgerschule was almost as good as the Gymnasium, but without the last two years leading to the Abitur qualification, and it only offered Latin but not Greek. His reports from 1894 and 1895 show good marks in drawing, history and singing, with all subjects apart from singing sliding from the first report to the second.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA5La4JXTDolmoyqB4rRUKQh3celeiQEjS70PaNV6g12bYgIlzkuM7hlS6PEONJ2YDR-5ZGGi96kDuR0lP5nR0WW8GoMK4XYb5jFkhrBfOPwo08z1VGAj2XjDefKGd444NlrPA-4iAZqe6MXOuzdbgFKgymvT0UZxPECYzNl6C-5VGiPu5RGJ_/s2978/Heinrich-schulphoto.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="2278" data-original-width="2978" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA5La4JXTDolmoyqB4rRUKQh3celeiQEjS70PaNV6g12bYgIlzkuM7hlS6PEONJ2YDR-5ZGGi96kDuR0lP5nR0WW8GoMK4XYb5jFkhrBfOPwo08z1VGAj2XjDefKGd444NlrPA-4iAZqe6MXOuzdbgFKgymvT0UZxPECYzNl6C-5VGiPu5RGJ_/s320/Heinrich-schulphoto.jpg"/></a></div>
<P align="center">Heinrich at school around 1892- second row from front 3rd from the left.
<P>The reports also offer us samples of Richard’s signature. Acknowledging the impressive results of 1894 he signed as „Richard Gross / Eisenb. Bur. Ass.“ A year later, the less glamorous results were only signed with his last name. In both cases, the name is framed in an oval shaped garnished with a flourish at the bottom – I am still not sure whether that is purely decorative or has some hidden meaning.
<P>Max Heinrich received his confirmation in 1896 in the very beautiful Stephanskirche in Tangermünde. Not just from any old vicar but from the superintendent and head vicar named Fenger. In the relevant almanac for the clergy of the province Saxony dated 1903 he is listed as Franz Heinrich Leopold Fenger with the note: „Rother Adler-Orden IV. Classe“. The same source also gives us an overview of the school system in Tangermünde and the distribution of faiths among the 11,500 residents of the town (1,152 Catholics, 41 Jews, 24 of the Apostolian community, four Mennonites, three Dissidents).
<P>April 1896 marks the end of Max Heinrich’s education at the Bürgerschule. According to his police records, he remained at Tangermünde until 1897 and was then registered at Stendal from 27.12.1897 until 24.10.1899/, but we don’t know what he did there during that time. Conceivably, he may have started an apprenticeship there and left without finishing it? There is a sewing table that he allegedly built, so I imagine he may have been a carpenter’s apprentice, which would make sense in that his paternal grandfather was a carpenter as well. On the other hand, I also heard of a similar item bought after 1918 as a kit for self-assembly, so the legend that he built the piece may only refer to assembly rather than building from scratch.
<P>Within his teenage years he must also have acquired or improved his musical skills as he later signed up with the army as a musician. Stendal today has a music school, but I can’t find any trace of a more advanced institution like a conservatoire. Then again, these institutions have a habit of disappearing. Sadly we may never know if he already played the cello then.
<P>What we do know though is that in November 1900, just after turning 18, he identified as a musician. He signed a book he read with: „Heinrich Groß Musiker, in Bielefeld.“ And no, I haven’t the foggiest idea what he was doing in Bielefeld. We have strictly no connection whatsoever to that city apart from this one inscription. The book is a collection of novellas by W. O. von Horn (1798-1867), and we will get back to its content later. A second note reveals when and where he read it – sounds like a holiday or spa break: „Gelesen 30. Nov. 1900 in Bad Warmbrunn im Rosenheim.“ This book will be an important piece of evidence later on.
<P>Read on:
<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/strasbourg-in-belle-epoque.html">Strasbourg in the Belle Epoque </a>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-24742927687686542902024-01-22T17:15:00.005+00:002024-01-22T17:16:39.105+00:00the long history of elephants' suffering<P>I've been going on a few times about how human hunters expanding out of Africa wiped out most of the megafauna on the other continents. (Big beasts in Africa had co-evolved with humans so had less of a surprise when they started throwing spears.) Recent research shows now that even Neanderthals successfully hunted and butchered elephants. As they left Africa before modern humans did, this widens the time range for human-caused megafauna extinctions.
<P>With the last three surviving species of elephants still endangered, I used this as an excuse to look at the long history of humans bothering elephants. The resulting feature is out now (Note that the figure captions 1 and 3 in the html version are currently switched around, this will be fixed later this week - the PDF version has them in the correct order):
<P><b>Of elephants and men</b>
<P>Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 2, 22 January 2024, Pages R37-R40
<P><a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00001-0">Restricted access to full text and PDF download</a>
<BR>(will become open access one year after publication)
<P><a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iTUX3QW8S6DGA">Magic link for free access</a>
<BR>(first seven weeks only)
<P>See also my <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/111722396242587397">new Mastodon thread</a> where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
<P>Last year's thread is<a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109660210547152052">here </a>.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsyCcK0SlRrU_2iE6XLt3742Jtd9Xu2iM7mzQKzH-OnqIXQvr9UdlHF1_TLhk6Ny9sjH8u5tcaTUFS9A5SGRyysL2emSMXayJOC6mmNQb888mgvDcMcYgei0kJvgzH6h1EyX4fSgqlIyJd_At8Sx26RCWcpo11trCekqjMs9jqj9sbkc_hR-T/s506/mammoth.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsyCcK0SlRrU_2iE6XLt3742Jtd9Xu2iM7mzQKzH-OnqIXQvr9UdlHF1_TLhk6Ny9sjH8u5tcaTUFS9A5SGRyysL2emSMXayJOC6mmNQb888mgvDcMcYgei0kJvgzH6h1EyX4fSgqlIyJd_At8Sx26RCWcpo11trCekqjMs9jqj9sbkc_hR-T/s320/mammoth.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), which became extinct around 4,000 years ago, has become a key species in studies of megafauna extinction. (Photo: Joseph Martinez/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0 Deed).)
<P>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-18637363516206504052024-01-18T10:00:00.046+00:002024-01-18T10:00:00.126+00:00streets of Hamborn <P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/every%20picture">Every picture tells a story</a>, season 3, picture 14:
<P>Auguste from the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-patchwork-family-in-east-prussia.html">East Prussian patchwork family</a> lived at <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-short-lived-city.html">Hamborn</a> (now Duisburg) most of her life, spending more than 40 years at <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/06/neighbours-at-hamborn.html">Knappenstraße 43</a> from the late 1920s to around 1970. We have seen the front door of that building <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/03/a-semi-mysterious-aunt.html">here</a> and <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/06/open-doors.html">here</a>. To get a better sense of the place, here is Auguste looking out of her window (street side I think):
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<P>and here is a view of her garden with her son Erwin:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv_OoG1gYFL2MrbCsSYv_Ewe7nSJMwuF47ak87iLgzJ6aYUSP0aiwrebVlD76pYWMdOEonPyz-QEzxj2L4JWygWc0CLcoFLQYKX2JzHOD6F6l72ugy2CHdS7Gca-9ZxLnAw7ee-tFlUNCf1xi0JdHgMhXHkaf33j3nOT2ttqKn715sJUQSMb1t/s2241/knappenstrasse02.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1535" data-original-width="2241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv_OoG1gYFL2MrbCsSYv_Ewe7nSJMwuF47ak87iLgzJ6aYUSP0aiwrebVlD76pYWMdOEonPyz-QEzxj2L4JWygWc0CLcoFLQYKX2JzHOD6F6l72ugy2CHdS7Gca-9ZxLnAw7ee-tFlUNCf1xi0JdHgMhXHkaf33j3nOT2ttqKn715sJUQSMb1t/s320/knappenstrasse02.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>Before moving to Knappenstraße, she and her family briefly lived in Kampstraße, where we see her looking out of the window (marked with a pen):
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2KI0dppsZ2Do1qftCNkF8i4lJawTZXhjBt_BNoHHsL2jml3FTGCKEOwnkLonyV-pD_TK2wzsDx0q38Pa9yv5RWN9pOpSm0TtuaY2zBtdtMlxzhDYTHF5XUxrFS94Ih1aFzEDeycmGbB6TrbJUzkMCpV-uMOwjeLqtjAX73t2j7AZmED5kIzzI/s1548/hamborn-kampstr.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1548" data-original-width="1028" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2KI0dppsZ2Do1qftCNkF8i4lJawTZXhjBt_BNoHHsL2jml3FTGCKEOwnkLonyV-pD_TK2wzsDx0q38Pa9yv5RWN9pOpSm0TtuaY2zBtdtMlxzhDYTHF5XUxrFS94Ih1aFzEDeycmGbB6TrbJUzkMCpV-uMOwjeLqtjAX73t2j7AZmED5kIzzI/s320/hamborn-kampstr.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk
<P>Navigation tools:
<P>Season 3 so far:
<OL>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/family-holiday.html">family holiday</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/play-time.html">play time</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/fashion-show.html">fashion show</a>
<LI><a href="http://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/bakery-to-butchers-shop.html">bakery to butcher's shop</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-hamborn-brotherhood.html">the Hamborn brotherhood</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/all-grown-up.html">all grown up</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/sisters-in-snow.html">sisters in the snow </a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-last-holiday.html">the last holiday</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/village-life.html">village life</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/family-reshuffle.html">family reshuffle</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/push-bike.html">push bike </a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/mystery-trio.html">mystery trio</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/confirmation-at-hamborn.html">confirmands at Hamborn</a>
<LI>streets of Hamborn
</OL>
<P>The Mastodon thread for season 3 is <a href="https://mastodon.social/deck/@proseandpassion/111301563205983159">here</a>.
<P>You can find Season 2 entries in this <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109359296662267824">thread on Mastodon</a> (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-house-johanna-built.html">last entry of the season</a> (and also at the bottom of the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/family-holiday.html">first entry of this season</a>).
<P>The twitter thread for season 1 is still <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelgrr/status/1451563824511950857">here</a>. Alternatively, visit the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/06/open-doors.html">last instalment</a> and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-3924739683657772772024-01-14T10:00:00.097+00:002024-01-14T14:23:27.929+00:00sorting the ToynbeesAfter reading and reviewing <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-radical-family.html">Polly Toynbee's excellent family history memoir</a> I was still a bit hazy about the Toynbees so I had to sort them into a format I can understand:
<P>Descendants of George Toynbee (1749 - abt. 1810) and Sarah Starkey (1753 - Jun 1829)
<P>1. George Toynbee jr. (1783–1865) ~(<a href="https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Toynbee-47">wikitree</a> has his ancestors back to
his great-grandfather John Toynbee or Toyneby (bef. 1672 - 1740)). George's first wife was Elizabeth, née Cullen, (1785–1820). They were married at Bracebridge, Lincolnshire, on 21 May 1811, by Licence.
<blockquote><P>1.3. (third son, not sure how many girls were ignored there) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Toynbee">Joseph Toynbee (1815-1866)</a>, otolaryngiologist, married Harriet Holmes (1822-1897), daughter of Nathaniel Holmes. The couple had nine children:
<BR>1.3.1. Gertrude (b.1848),
<BR>1.3.2. William (b.1849),
<BR>1.3.3.Lucy (b.1850),
<BR>1.3.4.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Toynbee_%28historian,_born_1852%29">Arnold (1852-1883)</a>, married <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Toynbee">Charlotte Atwood (1841-1931)</a>, college administrator at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, no children
<BR>1.3.5.Rachel (b.1853),
<BR>1.3.6.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paget_Toynbee">Paget Jackson (1855-1932)</a>, Dante scholar,
<BR>1.3.7.Mary H. (b.1856),
<BR>1.3.8.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Frankland">Grace Poleridge (1858-1946)</a>, bacteriologist, married Percy Frankland
<BR>1.3.9.Harry Valpy (1861-1941), charity administrator, married Sarah Edith Marshall (1859-1939)
<BR>1.3.1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_J._Toynbee">Arnold Joseph (1889-1975)</a> universal historian, married <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Murray">Rosalind Murray (1890-1967)</a>
<BR>1.3.1.1.Antony (1914-1939)
<BR>1.3.1.2.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Toynbee">Philip </a>(1916-1981)
<BR>1.3.1.3.Lawrence (1922-1902), painter
<BR>1.3.2. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyn_Toynbee">Jocelyn (1897-1985)</a>, professor of archaeology at Cambridge
<BR>1.3.3.Margaret (1899-1987)</blockquote>
<P>1.6. (sixth son, not sure how many girls were ignored there) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Toynbee">Henry Toynbee (1819-1909)</a> was an merchant sailor and an early meteorologist, whose career was dedicated to passing on his expertise. He introduced local weather-forecasting to the British Isles. On 22 December 1854 Henry, aged 35, married 25-year-old Ellen Philadelphia Smyth (July 1828 – 1881), a daughter of Admiral William Henry Smyth. No children.
<P>2. Eleanor married Bettinson - see <a href="https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Toynbee-8">wikitree</a>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcAc4MhNprq_6YVigwpgtt8YFE82Bso31TjNf_xUyKKHFFUTbO5w3T7DRAt3dB0ClQUUi3ykG8UiM_cdTtFzojPzdF2Yv7jmyu2YLxu7ANQn-DZqfpYkxqwCyXNi4lJvlCyehX6iTCXV3VXSB6sO1TGwf3OeXvfqW3CZIWfooxFp6eTkPtJF8/s1067/Joseph_Toynbee.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcAc4MhNprq_6YVigwpgtt8YFE82Bso31TjNf_xUyKKHFFUTbO5w3T7DRAt3dB0ClQUUi3ykG8UiM_cdTtFzojPzdF2Yv7jmyu2YLxu7ANQn-DZqfpYkxqwCyXNi4lJvlCyehX6iTCXV3VXSB6sO1TGwf3OeXvfqW3CZIWfooxFp6eTkPtJF8/s320/Joseph_Toynbee.jpg"/></a></div>
Joseph Toynbee (1815-1866). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Toynbee#/media/File:Joseph_Toynbee.jpg">Source</a>
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-23306555617391499692024-01-11T10:00:00.031+00:002024-01-13T16:25:20.484+00:00confirmands at Hamborn <P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/every%20picture">Every picture tells a story</a>, season 3, picture 13:
<P>Let's have a game of "Where is Wally?" Below is Werner, the youngest of the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-hamborn-brotherhood.html">Hamborn brotherhood</a>, on the day of his confirmation, which happened at the <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Sakralbauten_in_Duisburg#/media/Datei:Lutherkirche_Duisburg-R%C3%B6ttgersbach.jpg">Lutherkirche, Obermarxloh</a> (which was part of the city of <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-short-lived-city.html">Hamborn</a> while it existed - even if today the church stands in R&oum;ttgersbach) in 1951. Funnily enough, everybody else is there too. Catholics tend to get individual portrait of each kid with a candle (eg <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/12/desperately-searching-wilhelm.html">young Willy here</a>) - protestants get the group photo. Wonder if that's just protestant penny-pinching? Then again, I shouldn't moan because I love this group photo with the low light and the crumbling classicistic church (built 1913, restored in the 1950s, listed monument since 2012) as the background:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRXuU6nIzVedY6afK2M4JuXKZFO42Xl6dEarfR0Ak6YzNWjt9IDAmkApoNyYD6WnD0p3f5bxPPCELxvaLDPpJG_NYkuFBlENn9c1d0gajHCSWbHZh84NA4oe1_M8afAsYZRBjpizMLchhmBoW0s6aXxTphGtxp9MiWZzpTIZKT_qMs7gKeovwZ/s1978/hamborn101.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1386" data-original-width="1978" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRXuU6nIzVedY6afK2M4JuXKZFO42Xl6dEarfR0Ak6YzNWjt9IDAmkApoNyYD6WnD0p3f5bxPPCELxvaLDPpJG_NYkuFBlENn9c1d0gajHCSWbHZh84NA4oe1_M8afAsYZRBjpizMLchhmBoW0s6aXxTphGtxp9MiWZzpTIZKT_qMs7gKeovwZ/s320/hamborn101.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>To make it easier, I offer you another group photo, this one is from Werner's school a couple of years earlier, and he is marked with a pen.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicgcaT9FYC4AYdWGSbT-nb5m72VpAevjNO2xVvEQ1niei9PdQhl8gs4CSe6DrwoKqGEBR4sc3QeGgK21S7FAF9Gqw7NzX87VIX5lZaCvWqQKz4hhD4Q7-ItMCB0tbZ3oBeFYOiViqMiPtKxkVfLE-EhF37fSwWs_ho0ymfKbe2G7s5hsrE3x__/s2804/hamborn102.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1926" data-original-width="2804" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicgcaT9FYC4AYdWGSbT-nb5m72VpAevjNO2xVvEQ1niei9PdQhl8gs4CSe6DrwoKqGEBR4sc3QeGgK21S7FAF9Gqw7NzX87VIX5lZaCvWqQKz4hhD4Q7-ItMCB0tbZ3oBeFYOiViqMiPtKxkVfLE-EhF37fSwWs_ho0ymfKbe2G7s5hsrE3x__/s320/hamborn102.jpg"/></a></div>
This one has a rubber stamp on the back saying:
<blockquote>Foto-Kempken
<BR>Duisburg-Hamborn
<BR>Alleestra&szllig;e 93
<BR>18. Mai 1949
</blockquote>
<P>NB I have now created a <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/hamborn">Hamborn tag</a>.
<P>Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk
<P>Navigation tools:
<P>Season 3 so far:
<OL>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/family-holiday.html">family holiday</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/play-time.html">play time</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/fashion-show.html">fashion show</a>
<LI><a href="http://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/bakery-to-butchers-shop.html">bakery to butcher's shop</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-hamborn-brotherhood.html">the Hamborn brotherhood</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/all-grown-up.html">all grown up</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/sisters-in-snow.html">sisters in the snow </a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-last-holiday.html">the last holiday</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/village-life.html">village life</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/family-reshuffle.html">family reshuffle</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/push-bike.html">push bike </a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/01/mystery-trio.html">mystery trio</a>
<LI>confirmation at Hamborn
</OL>
<P>The Mastodon thread for season 3 is <a href="https://mastodon.social/deck/@proseandpassion/111301563205983159">here</a>.
<P>You can find Season 2 entries in this <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109359296662267824">thread on Mastodon</a> (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-house-johanna-built.html">last entry of the season</a> (and also at the bottom of the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/family-holiday.html">first entry of this season</a>).
<P>The twitter thread for season 1 is still <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelgrr/status/1451563824511950857">here</a>. Alternatively, visit the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/06/open-doors.html">last instalment</a> and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-88008749101240107902024-01-08T21:10:00.002+00:002024-01-09T10:03:53.570+00:00highway to hell<P>The first time I wrote something along the lines of we need to stop pumping so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was in 1989 - so that will have a 35th anniversary some time this year. But does anybody listen? Year after year it gets more and more depressing to see all these climate summits going by that effectively don't address the problem. COP28 happening at a petrol state for the petrol states was probably the most depressing one so far, but I'm sure Azerbaidjan is poised to beat that record.
<P>In the final days of the summit, I channelled all that rage into another climate feature, and I borrowed Antonio Gutierres's lovely quote from last year for the title:
<P><b>On the highway to climate hell</b>
<P>Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 1, 8 January 2024, Pages R1-R3
<P><a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)01734-7">Restricted access to full text and PDF download</a>
<BR>(will become open access one year after publication)
<P><a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iOZX3QW8S2TM3">Magic link for free access</a>
<BR>(first seven weeks only)
<P>See also my <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/111722396242587397">new Mastodon thread</a> where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
<P>Last year's thread is<a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109660210547152052">here </a>.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTtGpk4nbo7LMOZ3OgNFPfOgOyQapQDM7KliV7NEpTv7uxBNXbc4DLsyT1ylUayQoPwqhNznkIGxGJkvN8nSXMdle9FIGcp4Ab9ktzNQC0mCuHQbYoHkOW-8VsJJxwMnR9wX1aErQp-S_we75lttfMmO60cPNCvfkm8rS9HdtjNDKsgFOmGqRT/s507/dubai.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="507" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTtGpk4nbo7LMOZ3OgNFPfOgOyQapQDM7KliV7NEpTv7uxBNXbc4DLsyT1ylUayQoPwqhNznkIGxGJkvN8nSXMdle9FIGcp4Ab9ktzNQC0mCuHQbYoHkOW-8VsJJxwMnR9wX1aErQp-S_we75lttfMmO60cPNCvfkm8rS9HdtjNDKsgFOmGqRT/s320/dubai.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>Dubai, UAE hosted the COP28 climate summit, which called for a “transition away” from fossil fuels but did not show a way to make it happen. (Photo: © Jen Houston.)Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-26644347614995572952024-01-07T11:00:00.056+00:002024-01-07T11:00:00.136+00:00a radical family<P>some thoughts on
<P>An uneasy inheritance - My family and other radicals
<P>by Polly Toynbee
<P>Atlantic Books 2023
<P>I remember reading <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/pollytoynbee">Polly Toynbee's columns in the Guardian</a> for more than 20 years. I clearly recall her warnings not to topple Blair because if we were to let the Tories back they would destroy everything. Well she was right on that prediction.
<P>Sometime between then and now I looked up her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Toynbee">wikipedia entry</a> either because I wondered about her strange name or because she had mentioned one of her ancestors in one of her columns. Actually, I think it may have been that she mentioned the <a href="https://www.heritageoflondon.org/projects/toynbee-fountain">Toynbee Fountain</a> in Wimbledon, that rings a bell of sorts. I clicked my way through five generations of Toynbees <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Toynbee">back to Queen Victoria's ear doctor</a> and came away impressed.
<P>Remembering bits and pieces of that, I was keen to read her more coherent account of her family history which came out last year. Hers is really quite a remarkable family tree, not just in the name line. There are equally famous Victorians in the family of her paternal grandmother. Amazingly, all the famous ancestors fit the "radical" tag in the title - lefties, atheists, reformers, teetotallers, champions of lost causes, and all against the Tories. There are a couple of conservatives too, but they never amounted to much and were horrible people according to the author.
<P>To me this is worthwhile reading for the simple pleasure of discovering lots of humans wo went against the grain and often changed their society a little bit by disagreeing with the mainstream. Obviously, gloating about your ancestors isn't allowed, especially not in leftie circles. so the framing superimposed on this is Polly's embarrassment at the apparent contradiction of being leftwing while comfortably off and socially secure due to being born into the middle class, i.e. champagne socialists. While I find that angle less interesting than the radical Victorians, there are a few insights to be drawn from these reflections on class as well. (There was also a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/polly-toynbee-what-my-privileged-start-in-life-taught-me-about-the-british-class-system">Feature in the Guardian</a> consisting of edited extracts from the book and making this the main issue.)
<P>One assertion I have to protest as a family history person is when she claims (repeatedly) that there are no working class people in her ancestry. The family tree provided only goes back to her great-great-grandparents (see the family tree <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Toynbee#Toynbee_genealogy">here</a>, almost identical to the one in the book), and even those aren't all known (There should be 16, but only six are named in the book). I am sure that with a more probing look at those missing in the tree and their ancestors, some common people such as farmers, shepherds, servants etc. would turn up at one point. Give it another four generations and you're at 256 ancestors. They will have a much wider spread of origins from rich to poor.
<P>The truth in her assertion is, however, that her ancestors, like most of mine, will have skillfully avoided the trap of the Industrial Revolution. I'm happy to believe that there are no industry workers in the tree, because industry only existed for a couple of hundred years, and when it started hoovering up workers the ancestors already had better things to do than becoming part of the industrial proletariat.
<P>So I am sure there must be some stories of social ascent just beyond the horizon of this book - maybe waiting to be discovered in the next one.
<P>PS Looking for an image of the book cover (which I don't like particularly, hoping for an improved paperback cover), I found another Toynbee-related book, which has been (re)published just after this one:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzYGaLTMf6Fnsv_LHQKacQcaZGJ65sxXC6C6IqvsBo_RACDt_zAK3usJ_42FIZN77r0uymavTkTpXweSK_Cz301dcwZy6J0VxcEg8s9i1gPviB5MArk0x5ZCNeTdq6CCw0kgyPjEmEuBH52GeM5Wv9YITwhNa1zPnBXhv-ARtp2DDbZcSP-tLL/s425/toynbee.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzYGaLTMf6Fnsv_LHQKacQcaZGJ65sxXC6C6IqvsBo_RACDt_zAK3usJ_42FIZN77r0uymavTkTpXweSK_Cz301dcwZy6J0VxcEg8s9i1gPviB5MArk0x5ZCNeTdq6CCw0kgyPjEmEuBH52GeM5Wv9YITwhNa1zPnBXhv-ARtp2DDbZcSP-tLL/s320/toynbee.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>Reminiscences And Letters Of Joseph And Arnold Toynbee. Edited By Gertrude Toynbee (<a href="https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Reminiscences-And-Letters-Of-Joseph-And-Arnold-Toynbee-Edited-By-Gertrude-Toynbee-by-Toynbee-Joseph-1815-1866-Toynbee-Arnold-1852-1883-Toynbee-Gertrude/9781021549945">Blackwells</a>)
<P>In which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Toynbee">Joseph (1815-1866)</a> is Polly's great-great-grandfather, the pioneering otolaryngologist, Arnold (1852-1883) is his older son, and Gertrude is Joseph's oldest daughter - not Arnold's wife asthe blurb below seems to think. Arnold's wife was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Toynbee">Charlotte Atwood</a>. (All nine children are listed <a href="https://fromthehandsofquacks.com/2014/01/27/toynbee-mrs-valpys-ear/">here</a> in a blog entry about one letter to Gertrude.)
<P>Publisher's blurb:
<blockquote> <P>This book is a collection of the reminiscences and letters of Joseph and Arnold Toynbee, two prominent British intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The book provides a unique insight into the life and work of the Toynbee family, including their views on education, social reform, and politics. It is edited by Gertrude Toynbee, Arnold's wife, who herself was a writer and social reformer.
<P>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
<P>This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
<P>Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</blockquote>
<P>Well, now, I might be a little bit tempted by that ...
Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-67805367137809530652024-01-04T10:00:00.059+00:002024-01-04T10:00:00.137+00:00mystery trio <P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/every%20picture">Every picture tells a story</a>, season 3, picture 12:
<P>I love it when a group of people takes turns to photograph each other. We have seen elements of that in the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/04/pursued-by-bear.html">holiday snaps from Heinrich and Maria</a>, and in the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/05/bakery-kids-united.html">sibling photos of the Geppert family</a>. Here comes a perfect example of a trio arranged as three duos all snapped on the same spot. Trouble is I don't know who they are and where the photo was taken. I think these are linked to the Silesian families, and they look more like Gepperts than like <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/09/two-weddings-in-silesia.html">Gellrichs</a>. The lady with the conspicuous six buttons could be <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/fashion-show.html">Emma Geppert</a>. At a push, the tallest of the three could be her cousin <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/09/could-be-cousin.html">Lotti Geppert</a>, or another cousin that we don't know of?
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNCnRFLecnez3MGwCcM6MQkwUzJEuw3e-N9GyU3RoZqfeX5mxheYACkBgGJDuX9mjHh9WhFm9D1O7ziz7NfH5iyTxuDHe_kZL97GV8R4ucN2PS1yoGXlUugjIMmzZVHxRUb0YNU5sni3Syk5IyVvirTo7s_m6Nav-TFaEKmn4r92svu_HehkYi/s1893/trio01.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1893" data-original-width="1231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNCnRFLecnez3MGwCcM6MQkwUzJEuw3e-N9GyU3RoZqfeX5mxheYACkBgGJDuX9mjHh9WhFm9D1O7ziz7NfH5iyTxuDHe_kZL97GV8R4ucN2PS1yoGXlUugjIMmzZVHxRUb0YNU5sni3Syk5IyVvirTo7s_m6Nav-TFaEKmn4r92svu_HehkYi/s320/trio01.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>I've put this photo first as it's the only one showing the building in the background. It was clearly taken in an urban environment, rather than in the village of Dörndorf where the Gepperts came from. It could be Breslau or even Berlin, where both Emma and Lotti lived at one point. Note also that the shortest photographer naturally has the most upwards directed angle, hence we see more of the building, while the other two show more of the flowers in the foreground:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFl4Py8mqde0uEOatU7CwrnGBZoOgtPONC84gzT72aI21P7JX5MuI5d3lh4Fh8r62HGp8mvRbYLqvAjo3Wb8Vm9SafYEVwFre2PrS5PS5NDI11Ifre6KdU5VDPxMmNkMtr1TEMz4GKdNAJX-wWaMWR2qMrMV-Xod0AbpHbBjlwbH4LEfTfMWbm/s1908/trio02.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1908" data-original-width="1252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFl4Py8mqde0uEOatU7CwrnGBZoOgtPONC84gzT72aI21P7JX5MuI5d3lh4Fh8r62HGp8mvRbYLqvAjo3Wb8Vm9SafYEVwFre2PrS5PS5NDI11Ifre6KdU5VDPxMmNkMtr1TEMz4GKdNAJX-wWaMWR2qMrMV-Xod0AbpHbBjlwbH4LEfTfMWbm/s320/trio02.jpg"/></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5dH5brnTDHMsMzE108zh5VedDGSAQY07XBzKCR6rryLSZeHzdnU_O3g9ordGVfJohirwtTPyXlbsRj6bqOb4m0ufXVZETOfT82Jdvw9cexzFgwRHUTsSr4-muJT2WD5ZVeEABfV5FNknOYoaHy8ADq9hxCt7pOmS0B9tMco9dnHPnzs4e6W2O/s1910/trio03.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1910" data-original-width="1244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5dH5brnTDHMsMzE108zh5VedDGSAQY07XBzKCR6rryLSZeHzdnU_O3g9ordGVfJohirwtTPyXlbsRj6bqOb4m0ufXVZETOfT82Jdvw9cexzFgwRHUTsSr4-muJT2WD5ZVeEABfV5FNknOYoaHy8ADq9hxCt7pOmS0B9tMco9dnHPnzs4e6W2O/s320/trio03.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>On the issue of identifying the location, I was intrigued to read in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/23/geoguessr-world-championships-2023-inside-story">recent feature in the Guardian</a> that people playing geoguessr, a game that involves guessing the location of google streetview images, can also help with identifying locations in old family photos. I think the ones above would be too hard, but I will do a a round of guess where at some point.
<P>Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk
<P>Navigation tools:
<P>Season 3 so far:
<OL>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/family-holiday.html">family holiday</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/play-time.html">play time</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/fashion-show.html">fashion show</a>
<LI><a href="http://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/bakery-to-butchers-shop.html">bakery to butcher's shop</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-hamborn-brotherhood.html">the Hamborn brotherhood</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/all-grown-up.html">all grown up</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/sisters-in-snow.html">sisters in the snow </a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-last-holiday.html">the last holiday</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/village-life.html">village life</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/family-reshuffle.html">family reshuffle</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/push-bike.html">push bike </a>
<LI>mystery trio
</OL>
<P>The Mastodon thread for season 3 is <a href="https://mastodon.social/deck/@proseandpassion/111301563205983159">here</a>.
<P>You can find Season 2 entries in this <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109359296662267824">thread on Mastodon</a> (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-house-johanna-built.html">last entry of the season</a> (and also at the bottom of the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/family-holiday.html">first entry of this season</a>).
<P>The twitter thread for season 1 is still <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelgrr/status/1451563824511950857">here</a>. Alternatively, visit the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/06/open-doors.html">last instalment</a> and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28382638.post-52394990399040919782023-12-28T10:00:00.024+00:002023-12-28T10:29:37.955+00:00push bike<P><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/every%20picture">Every picture tells a story</a>, season 3, picture 11:
<P>We have seen various <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/11/horses-for-hedwig.html">horses</a> in this series and some cars, but not very many bikes. So I'm very grateful for this rural idyll with mother and daughter (<a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2021/10/bei-wilhelm-geppert.html">Martha Stephan</a> and <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/01/gone-milking.html">Hedwig Geppert</a>) pushing one. As they got separated on eviction from Silesia and were only reunited in 1953, this must be in the mid-1950s in Westphalia, near the village of Vardingholt, where Martha had landed in 1946 and Hedwig joined her later.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-K-eyotwXHJ2WuJwcs-XUf87UmJDxMfLLke95MkdVubym2IfgROk2WKI9P38pa2BOzL8OQvRgNd7sanmdlJFtEKujn5Yh1wlaOj2TD8VadcymX4d8ZurXn0apR6iJESbZpHkfcpqNf_-vzEVbTU2Dnfl55LEOEZSVTYBezMWmJKDq8YIRxA6/s1900/gepper-hedwig-martha-fahrrad.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="1900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-K-eyotwXHJ2WuJwcs-XUf87UmJDxMfLLke95MkdVubym2IfgROk2WKI9P38pa2BOzL8OQvRgNd7sanmdlJFtEKujn5Yh1wlaOj2TD8VadcymX4d8ZurXn0apR6iJESbZpHkfcpqNf_-vzEVbTU2Dnfl55LEOEZSVTYBezMWmJKDq8YIRxA6/s320/gepper-hedwig-martha-fahrrad.jpg"/></a></div>
<P>Note that both women were quite short (Hedwig measured 160 cm, Martha 147 cm, according to their ID cards), so the bike appears too big for either of them to ride, maybe it belonged to whoever took the photo? We know that Hedwig started using a moped late in life.
<P>Should anybody have any answers to some of the many questions I am raising in this series, please leave a comment here (I'll need to vet it, so it may take a few days before it goes public) or contact me at michaelgrr [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk
<P>Navigation tools:
<P>Season 3 so far:
<OL>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/family-holiday.html">family holiday</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/play-time.html">play time</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/fashion-show.html">fashion show</a>
<LI><a href="http://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/bakery-to-butchers-shop.html">bakery to butcher's shop</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-hamborn-brotherhood.html">the Hamborn brotherhood</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/all-grown-up.html">all grown up</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/sisters-in-snow.html">sisters in the snow </a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-last-holiday.html">the last holiday</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/village-life.html">village life</a>
<LI><a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/12/family-reshuffle.html">family reshuffle</a>
<LI>push bike
</OL>
<P>The Mastodon thread for season 3 is <a href="https://mastodon.social/deck/@proseandpassion/111301563205983159">here</a>.
<P>You can find Season 2 entries in this <a href="https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109359296662267824">thread on Mastodon</a> (complete now!) or via the list at the bottom of the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-house-johanna-built.html">last entry of the season</a> (and also at the bottom of the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2023/10/family-holiday.html">first entry of this season</a>).
<P>The twitter thread for season 1 is still <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelgrr/status/1451563824511950857">here</a>. Alternatively, visit the <a href="https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2022/06/open-doors.html">last instalment</a> and find the numbered list of entries at the bottom. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05799091632134885626noreply@blogger.com0