Before you get too far, I would like to make a short disclosure: This post is about the color blue, not the soulful music. (If you are interested in the role of Germany in Blues music… check out “Monika’s Blues: On the Trail of the German Harmonica and African-American Blues Culture” by former German Ambassador Herbert Quelle.) And now back to Germany’s Blues.…
Category: German History
Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift Washington DC
On May 21, 2024, I was honored to represent the Berlin Airlift Remembrance Alliance at the Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. The event took place in the shadow of the imposing towers of the US Air Force Memorial in Washington DC. Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift Washington DC The Ambassador of the…
Friedenssaal and the Peace of Westphalia – Münster Germany
Through the Arches, up the front steps, and inside the Historic Rathaus along Münster’s Prinzipalmarkt, you’ll find the Friedenssaal, Hall of Peace. The room has remained essentially unchanged for the past 375 years, from the time when envoys across Central Europe arrived to debate and hammer out details for the Treaty of Westphalia and Peace of Münster, which ended the…
Remembering the Poesiealbum – A Book of Friendship and Verse
On one of my childhood trips to Germany, my cousin showed me her Poesiealblum. I remember it had a horse on the cover, and short verses and pictures covered the pages inside. Some were hand-drawn, but Glanzbilder, shiny pictures, decorated most of the pages. All of the girls in her school owned one. Only your closest friends would be allowed…
Francis Daniel Pastorius- The Pennsylvania Pilgrim
The name Francis Daniel Pastorius probably didn’t come up in your American History classes, and he’s probably no more than a footnote in most German history classes… but Pastorius plays a major role in early American history, in German-American immigration history, and even has a role in the Abolitionist Movement. So who was he? A polymath, lawyer, writer, teacher, a…
What was the Malleus Maleficarum or Hammer of Witches?
Witches have long been part of Germanic culture. You’ll find witches in Fairy tales, in legends, in songs and poetry. The Gingerbread house Witch in Hansel and Gretel, the flying witches on Walpurgisnacht, even the Kitchen Witch flying above your stove. Today we look at witches as a bedtime story or cute tale, like Die Kleine Hexe. But in the…
Reformationsbrötchen Recipe- Luther Rose Reformation Rolls
On October 31st, bakeries in Leipzig bake up a special treat, Reformationsbrötchen or Reformation Rolls. The rolls with five petals and a blob of red jam in the center represent the Luther Rose, the symbol Martin Luther used to sign all his documents. So what are they exactly? Reformation Rolls are semi-sweet yeast rolls filled with raisins (or cranberries), chopped…
Seiffen Church- History and a Tour of the Bergkirche Seiffen
Seiffen is not known for its architecture. The town in a far corner of the Germany began as a mining town, and over time evolved into a sort of Christmas Village or Spielzeugdorf, filled with shops creating toys and decorations. Yet, if you go up the hill from the Buntes Haus… past the giant Christmas Pyramid, and around the bend…
Who are the Volga Germans? Holding their Tradition across 3 Countries
My introduction to the Volga Germans came through food—specifically, Kuchen. One of my readers contacted me looking for a recipe for Kuchen, like the one her Volga German grandmother made. In my experience, Kuchen is cake, and there are thousands of cake recipes. I love German food history, so it was time to do some digging, starting with who ARE…
A Tale of Two Schalmei – What is a Schalmei?
In our Saturday German School, we sang the same verse over and over, overlapping in far from perfect harmony, while our teacher jumped back and forth across the front of the classroom, pointing to groups when it was their time to join in the round. “Es tönen die Lieder…” Es tönen die Lieder Der Frühling kehrt wieder Es spielet der…