Comments on: Trip part 3: Lübeck

By: John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:34:03 +0000

John, thank you very much for your touching comments. I very much appreciate hearing from you.

By: John Dinwiddie

John Dinwiddie — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:22:14 +0000

Oh, yes, reading other comments. To us, to my wife and
her family who went through that air raid, RAF means
Royal Air Force. I doubt that any who lived through WWII
would make the other association. We also have relatives
in Wuerzburg and Cologne. In March, 1945, 90 percent
of Wuerzburg was destroyed by Harris in his last raid. It
took 20 minutes.

By: John Dinwiddie

John Dinwiddie — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:16:21 +0000

I should add this; Thomas Mann started the restoration of the Marienkirche through fund raising from New York. The dwelling that was the model for the Buddenbrooks residence is across the street. At the beginning decade of the 18th Century, Dietrich Buxteheude had been the music director of the Marienkirche for decades, and no less than the young Johann Sebastian Bach walked over one hundred miles from where he lived in order to study with the North
German master church composer and organist. This building is history, and it has history. It is the largest brick
gothic cathedral in Europe. Try building one of those. Once
I was on the catwalks above the domes over the nave, and
they looked like kilns, the keystones small and vulnerable
looking. That is what you walk under. Bomber Harris’s blockbusters shattered them without even a direct hit. Then
came the incendiaries that ignited the wooden frames
of the copper towers, burned the lintels supporting the
bells, dropping them. The next day it started raining and
the flying buttresses, now having no resistance from the
thrust vectors of the domes, started the process of imploding
the building. Resistance beams were rigged, and canvass
was foraged from all over the district to cover the naked nave
in a shroud that remained in place until 1950 when the
reconstruction, which my wife watched from her school
window, began.
f

By: John Dinwiddie

John Dinwiddie — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:02:05 +0000

I was stationed in Luebeck from 1960 – 1962, remained
there for another year, married a Luebecker who had been an infant when the air raid occurred. I photographed three years of the reconstruction of the Dom, Petrikirche, and Marienkirche, taking some chances in fenced off areas as I did so. One of the most astounding moments of my life was the first day that I entered the Marienkirche. It was late afternoon, low sun under black clouds, and the red brick columns were lit like flames. And I saw the bells. What you
saw, and how it affected you makes us brothers. We are
going back for a month in June, and I’ll think of what you wrote here when again I look at those bells, which I do
every time I am there, just for grounding. reality. They have
never stopped their ringing.

By: Face to Face With Destruction | The Changelog

Face to Face With Destruction | The Changelog — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 04:26:58 +0000

[...] Seeing these church bells in Lübeck wasn’t easy for me. They melted and fell to the ground after an air raid in 1942, and have been left exactly as they fell. [...]

By: k

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:31:39 +0000

Hey,
a post about my home town on d-planet: yay!
I am happy you enjoyed your trip and looking forward to read the Berlin Part.
’cause thats where I am living now ;)
Lübeck feels very old compared to B., the cities are *really* different.
Oh, part 4 is already there, off I go…

By: Cùran

Cùran — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:47:23 +0000

The Deutsche Bahn AG considers a train late if it’s five minutes behind schedule. On the other hand the official statistic for punctuality claims, that 90% of the trains are on schedule (meaning they’re less than 5 minutes behind schedule), so it might just be, that I have bad luck and the delays are due to the routes I use most often.

By the way: if a train in the European Union is 60 minutes late you get 25% of the ticket price back and if the train is 120 minutes (or more) behind schedule you can claim 50%. That’s due to a regulation by the European Parliament (). Just in case you might need it someday. ;)

Cheers,
Cùran

P.S.: Can you make the “reply” links work without ECMAScript? Would be great!

By: Trip part 4: Berlin | The Changelog

Trip part 4: Berlin | The Changelog — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:00:51 +0000

[...] this was a walk of about a mile. We had been introduced to excellent German bakeries during our time in Lübeck. So, since we hadn’t had breakfast, when we spotted a bakery along the road, we went in. [...]

By: John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:08:48 +0000

That is also interesting with your comment about the “sense of history.” It wouldn’t have occurred to me, but I understand where you’re coming from — if every city is like that, what’s notable about yet another one? The relative newness of Kansas — it wasn’t permanently settled in large measure until the 1800s — means the *none* of our cities are like that.

By: John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:41:21 +0000

Heh — I suspect you might not be aware that in the USA, a train in the northeast is officially late if it is 10 minutes late, and in the rest of the country, if it is 45 minutes late. Nevertheless, being an hour or two late is not uncommon. Something tells me that DB is more punctual than that, perhaps?

By: Cùran

Cùran — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:50:17 +0000

Even though this remark was more a general statement about me liking to read other peoples views on things, in this particular case I thought it interesting that the “sense of history” or the age of the various parts of a city struck you as something special. I’m more or less used to it (not only from Germany but also many other European countries), that you don’t note it as something particularly outstanding. Sure, when I visit a city it’s interesting to see their history, but I seldom felt awed by the age of a city.

Then you remarked on the punctuality of the ICE, which made me laugh, because if you’re travelling regularly with the Deutsche Bahn you’re accustomed to delays and see punctuality as what it is: almost an exception.

Cheers,
Cùran

By: John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:04:19 +0000

Thanks — I’ve expanded that abbreviation.

I’m curious what things I mentioned struck you as long-forgotten or unnoticed.

By: Cùran

Cùran — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:47:14 +0000

Just a short note: you shouldn’t use the abbreviation “RAF” for something concerning Germany unless you mean the “Red Army Faction”, which wasn’t operational in 1942. Most of your German readers will first think of the Red Army Faction when they read RAF. So maybe another abbreviation or the full text would be best.

Apart from that: I always enjoy it to read about my country as seen by foreigners. It adds to the perspective. It makes you remember and see things you didn’t notice before or have long forgotten because it’s quite normal for yourself.

Thanks,
Cùran