7/14 - Eisenach & Wartburg

Today we practiced packing our bags, for this is our last full day on the Lutherland Tour, and we have a lot of stuff we need to get home. We bid goodbye to the beautiful city of Erfurt, and journey our way to Eisenach.

In Eisenach we learned more about Bach, for this is his birthplace. We has the privileged of touring the museum here, as well as listen to a brief live musical demonstration on five instruments, some of which came from the time of Bach.

Much of the exhibit was interactive, so we were able to enjoy samples of his music in these listening pods.

They had a sample of a bronze cast of his skull (weird, right?) coupled with renditions from many different artists who captured Bach when he was alive. The combination of these give us a cross sample of Bach's living image with his poor dental health. All the same, it was impressive.

During the mini-concert, our fellow tourist participated in the concert by manual working a pedal to feed air into one of the two pump organs.

In addition to the instruments whose names I cannot repeat without offending Lenore or Craig (organists as North New Hope and Faith, respectively), there was an instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin called the Glass Harmonica.

After the concert, we may our way to the Lutherhaus, or Luther House. It was in this house Luther stayed while he attended our equivalent of Jr. High and High School. Outside is planted an apple tree, in homage to a quote I won't repeat because the earliest record of this phrase document comes as late at 1949, but the legend has been so strong that this apple tree stands.

Just up the hill, or rather the correct term is mountain, is Wartburg Castle. It is in this location that Martin Luther, after having been secretly kidnapped by Frederick the Wise to ensure his safely, was keep hidden after standing firm in his theological conviction before the emperor and the church at the Diet of Worms. While in safety, he translated the New Testament from the original Greek to German. As I mention prior in this blog, it was Martin Luther's translation that brought together all the varying dialects of the German people, 18 differs ways of speaking, into a single and common language we know today as German. Luther's translation of the Bible was so accurate that 60% of it still makes us today's German translation.

 For what it's worth, in the past several decades, 78 people have died making the climb up to Wartburg castle. They have minivans now...also, donkey rides to which our guide objected to due to their fragrant nature.

 The chapel.

Backstage view of the jester's court.

Wartburg Castle has about 900 years of history in it, but I cannot go into all of his here. The castle has been recovered and restored in the past 100 years, reclaiming much that has been damaged over time and neglect. However, there is still the preserved room in which Luther spent 10 grueling weeks translating Greek into German.

 The hallways were a bit cramped, but people were shorter then.

From here, we concluded our tour with a 3 hour bus ride to Darmstadt, where we stayed our last night in Germany.

7/13 - Weimar & Buchenwald

We boarded the bus and head to Weimar. Weimar holds the origins of German cultural, hosting the homes of the German authors of Goethe and Shiller. The city is rich in museums dedicated to architecture, music, art, and literature.

It is also the home of the the last piece of artwork by Luther's friend and artist Lucas Cranach the Elder at the Town Church of St. Peter & Paul.

The main part of the day, one that I was personally preparing for, was Buchenwald. Buchenwald was the chief or lead camp of all the concentration and death camps under Hitler's rule. It was Buchenwald that set the model for all the other camps inside and outside of Germany.

Note the time. That was when the camp liberated itself when the Nazi's abandoned the camp as the Americans approached.

 

I really don't have much to say about this. The story of the Holocaust has been told again and again and still it will never be enough. There are very few examples in recent history of this clear and distinct failure of the human race. If someone tells you that the German people new nothing of the camps, the Germans here will be quite swift to correct you on this - they knew. This camp, though in the woods, was visible as it was cleared on top of a hill. If the wind was blowing the right direction, the smell of human waste and decay would have been strong enough to taste the air. The area zoo, frequented by children and families from the neighboring villages and Weimar citizens was literally across the road from the crematorium. Laundry was not hung on the line outside for it would be colored gray from the ash falling from the sky. In the few events of prisoners who escaped, the farmers who found them hiding in their barn phoned the camp saying "come pick up your guy." They knew, but did nothing. They were complicit.

This is the site of the zoo, directly across from the crematorium. 

These are monuments and placards for those who survived the camp.

These are the urns they would place the ashes of the deceased into. In reality, the urns contained the ashes of many, not the ashes of a only single person.

I'll tell you the words they told us - "come back again, and bring your children. They need to know about this." They do. Frankly, this is a shitty story about humanity's failure that needs to be told, again and again, so that we don't repeat it - ever. All school children in Germany are required, as part of school curriculum, to tour these camps because they need to know what happen, so that it may NEVER be repeated.

There were two notable pastors incarcerated here, Revs Paul Schneider and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. They were friends who worked together in the Confessing Church (a break away church after the German church gave itself to Hitler's government) and in the Resistance against the National Socialists and were arrested for their work.

Paul Schneider was called "the Pastor of Buchenwald", always preaching the Gospel and giving words of encouragement for his fellow inmates during morning and evening counts.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer you've heard me mention before. He was housed in the basement of other quarters off the main prison barracks, but incarcerated none the less. He was a personal prisoner of Hitler, and was therefore treated with a bit more care. Information about this day sat Buchenwald are limited for thing from Bonhoeffer survived his time from here, but accounts of his final days survives, noting his formidable faith and fervent dedication in caring for his fellow prisoners, and to another degree, his captors.