Prizes for scientific achievement were awarded to one of the Erlebnisgeneration (survivors of the expulsions) for his work at the polar icecap, in mapping the development of global warming. Prizes were also given out for cultural endeavour and music, and finally a prize was awarded to two courageous Czech gentlemen who had made it their life’s work to protect and restore the architectural legacy of the Egerland regions — especially in the Spa Triangle between Karlsbad, Marienbad and Franzenbad — irrespective of the ‘political correctness’ of Czech authorities in Prague. At the ceremony, I met an enthusiastic and energetic young man whose Sudeten parents had been kicked out into the Soviet zone of Germany, and who now runs educational seminars and cultural exchanges between young Czechs and Germans, at a state-funded institute in Bad Kissingen and a beautifully restored castle in the border town of Burg Hohenburg, where groups of young Germans and Czechs come together to look at their countries’ difficult histories. He told me that he often had more difficulty in getting young German students to attend than Czechs. The 50 per cent of place settings for Czech students were always taken up first. He also told me of the work of a young group of Czechs called ‘Antikomplex’ who are trying to break down barriers by writing up and filling in the gaps in the history of the Sudetenland, and of others who are helping to restore out-of-the-way German cemeteries that escaped being bulldozed. One of Vaclav Havel’s old literary companions has also been beating the authorities over the head about their refusal to come clean about the expulsions, and the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, who is not famed for his Germanophilia, has also now sanctioned the University of Aussig (Ústí nad Labem) to research the German history of Bohemia. These were all positive signs that I had not seen much of, even less heard much of, from educated Czech colleagues during my visits to the Czech Republic, one of whom, a Doctor of English Literature, was still happy to tell me: ‘Getting rid of the Germans was the best thing we ever did.’
The Possibilities for the Egerland-Euro Region
This part of the Sudetenland, the most westerly outcrop of the Czech Republic, is still depopulated and derelict. Why not encourage some of the former residents who hold the region in their hearts to come back? Why allow buildings to rot and land to remain unused? At the very least give them the first right of refusal, as former Italian residents of western Slovenia were given the right of first refusal on their old properties according to an agreement made between the Italian and Slovenian governments in 1994. About the only tourist income that comes to the Egerland comes from Germans, many of whom have family connections to the region. They are the only ones likely to invest in helping to regenerate the region, when all the other tourists and their dollars and euros continue to head for Prague. A new Euro-region could be created, with funding, and tourism support from Bavaria, Thuringia, Saxony and the Egerland. There is already one transnational cross-border tourism project between Germany and the Czech Republic, ‘The Castles and Palaces Route’, which is a start, but much more could be done to help transform the region and give it back some of the lustre of its former glory.
Possibilities for Stettin and Pomerania
Pomerania, on both sides of the modern day border, was one of the regions worst affected by the fighting in the Second World War, its flat open plains making it ideal tank country and it lay in the path of the advancing Red Army’s drive towards Berlin. Many Pomeranian towns and cities were hard fought over, or became Hitler’s ‘fortresses’.
The region is an ancient territory with a chequered history; part of the Holy Roman Empire since 1181, it has been occupied by Poland, Sweden and Prussia, and was also home to many Slavic Wendish noble families such as the von Krockows, the Lettows, the von Strelows, the von Peglows, and the von Zitzewitzes, who married into German noble families — particularly from Brandenburg. This ancient geographic territory is now unfortunately divided to a point where the region has lost both its core, and its regional identity. Stettin (Szczecin), its most important city, straddles both sides of the Oder river, which was supposed to be the demarcation point between Germany and Poland after the war. The Poles wanted the city, which is now Poland’s largest port, as the vital harbour controlling the Oder river. This would be the ideal place to start a meaningful rapprochement between Poland and Germany and to open the area as a Euro-region of special significance for trade and commerce. From the time of Frederick the Great, Stettin was the main port to supply Berlin, and it could only benefit both countries to make this a region of special importance again. One of old Pomerania’s most famous residents was the Iron Chancellor, Bismarck, whose family residence and landed estates (where he pondered many of his decisions on war and peace) was at Varzin, in the eastern part of Pomerania near the city of Stolp (Słupsk); this would certainly be a tourist attraction were it ever to be renovated and its history recognised.
Possibilities for Silesia
There is much discussion on the state of Silesia in earlier chapters, so I will not labour the possibilities here. However, the fact that there is still a sizeable German minority in the region, and the fact that the region is now divided between Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic (not to mention Austria’s historical interest in the territory), means this region could also benefit greatly from the cooperation of these countries on a Euro-region project. Changes in Wrocław (Breslau) are heralding a change of thinking that might lead this way.
Possibilities for East Prussia
Königsberg (the Kaliningrad Oblast) is an area jealously guarded as Russia’s only territorial souvenir taken from Germany after the war. The German government has shown precious little interest in the former royal capital of Prussia, unlike Poland and Lithuania, who would dearly love to swallow up this überbleibsel (remnant) of East Prussia. Nevertheless, the area has great prospects for Russo-German cooperation for many historical and cultural interests, but above all for economic reasons. German-Russian trade has been growing significantly since the fall of the Wall, running now at some 45 billion dollars annually; Germany is not only Russia’s largest trading partner, but also remains a vital strategic partner representing a potential bridge in troubled times between Russia and the EU and US.
There is no prospect of Russia joining the European Union and it would be an opportunity for German-Russian cooperation if East Prussia were to gain a special status or some kind of shared sovereignty. The region would then hold a unique status and become Russia’s only quasi-EU territory, which would give the former northern part of East Prussia a much-needed economic boost. If the historic centre of Königsberg was rebuilt (as the Poles rebuilt Danzig) and the region’s incredible UNESCO natural World Heritage Sites promoted in terms of tourism, it could be a huge shot in the arm for the region as a whole, and could set a precedent that the Poles and Lithuanians might eventually come to follow in their parts of East Prussia, once they saw the benefits. An East Prussian Euro-region, including participation from Russia, Poland, Lithuania and Germany could only benefit from what is a now a largely desolate and ruined stretch of territory. Riga and Tallinn have benefited enormously from the renovation of their old towns, and with the arrival of cheap flights, tourism has boomed. Why not Elbing, Königsberg and Memel?cccxx
The Possibilities for Saxony
If one were looking for a flipside or reciprocity on the German side, then why not consider Polish influence in Germany? Dresden could focus on Saxony’s role in Polish history. King Augustus the Strong (famous as the man who fathered the most children in history — over 300!) was King of Saxony and Poland from 1697–1733; the two kingdoms having unified to make common interest against the rising might of Prussia.
EURO REGIONS: THE RELATIVE SUCCESSES
Signposts to the Alsace/Elsass
There is an old saying in the region, which goes, ‘An Elsasser is an Elsasser. A good Elsasser is a Frenchman but a really good Elsasser is almost German.’ And akin to the English expression that says there is no point in taking a sandwich to a picnic, in France they say there�
��s no point in taking a sausage to Alsace! On a recent tour of Elsass I witnessed positive and negative scenes, but overall saw a strong regional identity that is not afraid of drawing on its distinctive past and upon its German and French history. A colourful region, it has become a true blend of what is best about many aspects of French and German culture; above all, its inhabitants value and preserve the rich cultural and architectural heritage of the region. The food and wine of the region have also become a wonderful Franco-Germano blend. The major difference here, of course, was that there was no mass expulsion of the region’s German-speaking inhabitants. Only the most vocal collaborators of the Nazi regime were expelled, along with their families — around 200,000 people in all. The overwhelming majority of Elsassers still have German names and there has been no mass hysteria to try and erase every trace of German inscriptions on statues and public buildings; quite the opposite, they surround you wherever you go, even though the language on the streets now is French. Only in border towns, or among the older generation (those over fifty), do you still hear use of the Alsatian German dialect, Elsassisch, but they switch easily from German to French, a gift grandparents passed on to their children at home, even when the use of German was banned after the war. I’ve read that Arsène Wenger apparently spoke German Elsassich at home as his first language until he was seven. Perhaps this has helped him communicate with the German players Arsenal has purchased in more recent years; who knows? I’ve also been told that Wenger’s generation have found it more difficult to pass the gift of bilingualism on to their own children. Now that the Franco-German tug of war for Alsace is a thing of the past there are efforts to try and revive and retain Elsassisch, not least so that the young Alsacers can understand the meaning of their own names and those of their towns, villages, streets and surrounding countryside. German names all generally have a meaning, which can be easily discerned. At the very least, German is certainly alive and well, in terms of being a definite second language for everyone in the region. I only came across one person on my trip who did not speak the language to a high standard.
When I visited Strasbourg (Straßburg) in the late 1980s, I felt the city was still in the grip of the centralising Francophonisation from Paris that had prevailed since the end of the war, when the region had been 90 per cent German speaking. On this more recent visit, I saw many more shiny new blue bilingual signs in the streets and squares, true signs of progress. The official tourist guide to the city was also fairly even-handed, talking honestly about the long German heritage the city enjoyed as part of the Holy Roman Empire right up to the late seventeenth century.
The ancient ‘chocolate box’ medieval heart of the city is ironically called ‘Petite-France’ and is particularly stunning at night, when the waterways and clever lighting bring out the splendour of the area. Amusingly, the name does not allude to an example of French cultural assimilation, quite the opposite; since the sixteenth century there was a hospital in the area that specialised in treating sexually transmitted diseases. In neighbouring countries syphilis was known as the ‘French Pox’, or simply the French disease. The area was subsequently named after ‘the French Pox hospital’, and the name has stuck. The look of this area is certainly still very German; it is full of typical timber-framed houses, with most of the buildings dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth century pre-French era. The same is true of the cathedral, admired by no less than Goethe as a sublime and uplifting example of German gothic architecture, which dates back to 1277, the building of which was started by Konrad von Lichtenberg; Erwin von Steinbach completed the portals in 1300, and his son completed the famous rose window in 1340. Work continued over hundreds of years; Johannes Hültz completed the tower in 1439, making it the highest building in western Christendom at the time, with a view that reached east into the Black Forest and west to the Vogesen (Vosges) hills.
As you move out of the old centre you come upon large wide-open boulevards and larger state buildings, such as the Palais Rohan, from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which are unmistakably French. The Wilhelmian quarter, built after the region was ceded to Germany following the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, again has a number of classical German imperial style buildingscccxxi in the university district; the university was once one of the most prestigious universities in German-speaking Europe where the likes of Goethe, Heine and Metternich studied;cccxxii not to mention that Gutenberg invented the printing press in Straßburg and no one credits that invention to France. I walked through the ancient streets on a sunny evening in May, surrounded by German inscriptions and ancient place names, but only hearing French spoken on the streets. The atmosphere in Place Kleber was unmistakably Latin, with couples canoodling on benches and by the fountains. What struck me as I kept walking was the extent to which the two cultures had merged to form a unique Franco-German blend. No better example of this was the Charcuterie of Frederique Lutz, established in 1854, specialising in both sauerkraut (Chacrute), and foie gras. Every bar and restaurant was a French-German amalgamation, for example ‘Le Gruber’, ‘Chez Tante (Aunt) Liesel’ and ‘Maison de Tanneurs — Gerwerstub’. Baeckeoffe is a local speciality which literally means oven-baked, and in the restaurants it was Spargel (asparagus) season, a vegetable with which the Germans can do remarkable things, and here they seem to have added a whole new variety of exotic variations in which to serve it. To eat/drink you really have two types of places to choose from: either a Weinstub or Bierstub; the German has not been translated into chambre du vin or de la bière.
Western Europe could accommodate what the east felt it had to destroy. The French were adamant that their language would predominate, but, as for the rest, they were not so insecure about their culture as to expel all the German-speaking citizens from Alsace, or to try and obliterate all inscriptions or traces of the region’s German heritage. It was as if they were saying, ‘one day we think you will like being French’. That, and the ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ for the Alsacers to come out on the winning side as victims of the Second World War rather than feeling like guilt-ridden pariahs, was something which aced the choice for those who loved their beautiful home region of Alsace. France has had no less enmity or experience of war with Germany, but unlike the Poles, Czechs and Russians, she did not sink so low as to ethnically cleanse her Germans. Instead she sought to assimilate them, which was not ideal, but certainly preferable.
I met a couple from Mülhausen (Mulhouse) in southern Alsace, at a Weinstub, who spoke to me in their Elsasser German with its French lilt, about the fate of their parents’ generation who had lived through the war and the changes from German to French, back to German and then French again between 1918–1945. There was naturally a fatigue at all the constant emotional tugs of war, with families having divided emotions and in some instances members fighting on both sides.cccxxiii But they told me there is now a much more easy-going attitude amongst most people in the region to its bilingual and bicultural history. Many Germans do business and socialise in French Alsace, and many Elsassers work in Germany. People on both sides of the Rhine are, after all, Allemands, which is the French word for Germans, derived from the Roman Alemans, the name they gave to the Germanic tribe that settled the region of the Rhine valley.
However, there is still the ‘spook’ of nationalist propaganda in the air in certain quarters, with some inscriptions alluding to the so-called ‘liberation’ myth.cccxxiv The talk of liberation for Kolmar (Colmar) in 1673 or Straßburg in 1681 is a strange twist on the meaning of ‘liberation’. Although it was a military occupation and annexation by the French army of Louis XIV, the king was wise enough to allow the league of the ten largest towns of Elsass to maintain their privileges and special status as Reichsstädt (imperial towns). There was no forced cultural assimilation at this stage, which explains why the German language and culture survived in the region until it was annexed by Prussia in 1870. The next ‘liberation’ by France in 1919 was so popular that the Alsatians voted for independence rath
er than continue to be pawns in the never-ending Franco-German poker game.cccxxv Charles De Gaulle once said Germany and France were like two exhausted wrestlers, who were propping each other up. Nowhere were the effects of this epic struggle more felt than in Alsace. The independence movement of Alsace-Lorraine struggled on well into the 1920s when, in 1928, the French courts took exception to the activities of these autonomists and their fight against the centralising policies of Paris during the ‘Colmar Trials’.
I drove south on a scorching, beautiful day, with the Rhine Valley unfolding to my left and the Vogesen (Vosges) hills to my right, heading for Colmar to see what the atmosphere was like there today.cccxxvi The town and surrounding area saw heavy fighting during the final stages of the Second World War, with fanatical German resistance. However, Colmar is a picture postcard town again today, as well as being the capital of the local wine region. In the part of the town called ‘Little Venice’, I was approached by a swarthy-looking gentleman, who spoke to me in the local German dialect and asked if I wanted to hop on the sightseeing tour. He told me I could get on and off whenever I liked as the tour just kept circling the town. I switched between the English and German versions of the tour on my headset. In the English version, I was somewhat taken aback to hear that the Germans had only arrived in the region in 1870; which seems odd when all the inscriptions, street and place names in the medieval town date back to the fifteenth century and all happen to be in German! I heard the English couple sitting behind me saying, ‘It all looks very German doesn’t it?’ There was no pulling the wool over their eyes!
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