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| Neues Rathaus, Hanover |
Mannheim was apparently a beautiful city before World War II but, rather as in Stuttgart, its centre was rebuilt in functional style. Again like Stuttgart, it is perfectly pleasant and historic buildings are to be found if one looks carefully. There is an interesting water tower (not open to the public) just outside the centre and the city's pride and joy is Mannheim Baroque Palace, parts of which are open to the public whilst others are used by the University of Mannheim. It is known as the "city of squares", due to the unusual grid pattern formed by its streets. I was glad that I'd been there. After fifty-odd years, my curiosity had been assuaged!
Mainz: This was my one excursion west of the Rhine and the one place also visited on our Rhine Cruise. On this stretch of the Rhine one gets two Land capitals for one's money: Mainz is the capital of the Rhineland Palatinate whilst Hesse's capital, Wiesbaden, is on the opposite bank.
History repeated itself. On our cruise we had run through pouring rain to get to one of the city's prime attractions, the Gutenberg Museum.Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor in Europe of the printing press, was born in the city though Strasbourg also claims him as a son. Now it was raining once more. Fortunately it was not as heavy as last time - though this would have to be virtually the one place on my itinerary where the city centre was some distance from the station, with signage not all that good! The rain did ease off, giving a chance to look round this historic city in the dry. No time second time round to go to the Museum but I did revisit the magnificent Cathedral.
Wiesbaden: At last a double-deck train! But for a journey lasting all of twelve minutes. Most cruise vessels sail past Wiesbaden, on their way to or from Mainz, but it is a city well worth visiting, an elegant spa town where hot springs flow to this day. During the Cold War period it was the HQ of the forces in the American Zone, one of the four, along with the British, French and Russian, that were carved out in occupied Germany. The troops arrived as occupiers but stayed on as allies. Apparently Elvis Presley was a frequent visitor to the city during his time in the army.
Dresden: I pressed on into former East Germany for my next two-night stop, Dresden. Whilst there is a direct train link from Frankfurt Airport to that city, there isn't, curiously enough, one from Frankfurt itself. So a change of train in Leipzig is necessary. We headed eastwards through the town of Fulda. In the Cold War it had been thought that the most likely route of any Soviet attack on Western Europe would be through the Fulda Gap. I was curious as to when we would be crossing what had once been the interzonal border or Iron Curtain having, unusually, not brought a map with me. I was assuming, as we'd been travelling for a while, that we had crossed it but I checked on my phone and found that we were still in Hesse. The line in this area turns north, paralleling the former divide before turning east at Bad Hersfeld. Thereafter one soon crosses the divide, thus entering the Land of Thuringia.
Today there is no trace whatever of what had once been termed the 'Ugly Frontier': the countryside on one side looks pretty much the same as on the other. I have a book of that name, dating back to 1970, in which the author, David Shields, travels along the entire interzonal border, from the Baltic to the Czech frontier. The frontier fortifications at that time were, on the eastern side, multi-layered, stretching from the actual border past barbed wire, ploughed strips, guard dogs and watchtowers to the barrier cordoning off the hinterland. The author describes how the border, on its Hessian section, ran through one house in the village of Philippsthal. The family lived in the West, cut off from the decaying part of the building in the East.
Thuringia, it might be said, got unlucky after World War II. If one looked at a map of present-day Germany, not knowing where the border had once run, one might assume that it was a western Land, lying as it does due north of Bavaria. It was, though, liberated by the Americans who continued east through Leipzig to their rendezvous on the Elbe with the Red Army. But after a few weeks they pulled back to the agreed interzonal border, the quid pro quo being that western allies occupied their zones in Berlin. Thuringia thus became the westernmost outpost of the Soviet empire, just a hundred miles or so from the Rhine.
The train continued through the Thuringian capital, Erfurt, by all accounts a nice place to visit, and the historic city of Weimar, which gave its name to the short-lived democratic republic created after World War I. In Leipzig an unpleasant surprise awaited: there were no trains going to Dresden. Back home one is resigned to the fact that railway services can't be counted on to run 7/7 but at least engineering works usually take place at weekends. Here they were taking place on a Monday. So instead of reclining in a first-class carriage, I was shepherded into a crowded coach. It was an enjoyable journey nevertheless for I was sitting next to a charming German lady, Andrea. Her English was somewhat better than my schoolboy German so we mostly spoke in English. Andrea was from Stuttgart, heading for a conference in Dresden.
I was planning to return to Leipzig the next day for a look round and fretted that there might again be no trains. I wanted to see more of that city than a backwards glance at its station as our coach headed out to the motorway. But Andrea thought the line was closed just for the one day and this was confirmed by the information office when I got to the station in Dresden. I had wondered as well how I would get to my hotel, the Kempinski, since this was the one place where it wasn't near the station. A different information office put me right. There was a tram that went straight there.
My hotel lay in the heart of historic Dresden, with the Zwinger Palace and Semper Opera House just across the road. But this was the one city where I did not get to look round the main shopping centre, which is centred on Prager Strasse, a stop on the tram route and some distance away. I was feeling rather tired and, though I did go out for a while, did not feel that I was doing the city justice. So the bulk of my exploration was undertaken the next day, after I got back from Leipzig.
The bombing of Dresden in the closing stages of World War II remains controversial. I do not feel I can second-guess those who thought that the bombing of this strategically located city would shorten the war against Hitler. The Communist regime, to its credit, did a good job of restoring the city, known as 'Florence on the Elbe', and it is beautiful once again. But it was an atheistic regime and there was one big gap that was unfilled. The magnificent church, the Frauenkirche, was finally rebuilt after reunification. Movingly it contains a cross of nails from Coventry Cathedral. The visitor to the historic centre of Dresden should make a point of crossing to the other side of the Elbe. Here there is the Japanese Palace (which from the outside does not look at all Japanese). The reason for coming here is the fantastic view across the river to the centre.
On my first night I dined in the Kempinski. It was a good meal but somewhat pricey and there wasn't a lot of choice. Just three mains - and I can't eat fish and don't want to eat vegetarian. So the next evening I hunted round for somewhere else to have dinner. I stumbled across, of all things, an Australian restaurant where I dined al fresco, enjoying a kangaroo steak, not somehow something I'd expected to be eating during my travels around Germany!
Leipzig: With the trains once again running, I had an unadventurous journey to Leipzig. The Haupthahnhof was completely refurbished after reunification and is the world's largest railway station if measured by floor area. Leipzig was the largest undivided city in East Germany. But its spirit was never crushed and it came to be known as the 'City of Heroes' for in 1989 it was the epicentre of the peaceful demonstrations against the regime. These were centred on the Nikolaikirche (St Nicholas Church) in the city centre. Here there were demonstrations every Monday, swelling as the year went on to tens of thousands of people. The regime gave serious thought to imposing a 'Tiananmen Square solution' but they knew they would not get the support of Gorbachev's Soviet Union. The ageing leader, Erich Honecker, was forced to stand down and was replaced by Egon Krenz, who was also a hardliner but who hastily re-clothed himself in reformist garments. Within weeks the Berlin Wall had fallen.
On my way into the city, I passed the Opera House, a functional Communist-era building. The centre itself is picturesque and in places just a bit quirky. Naturally I particularly wanted to see the Nikolaikirche, one of the most beautiful churches I have been to anywhere. Outside a memorial commemorates '1989'. Somewhat counterintuitively, this former Communist-ruled city was ranked in 2013 as the most liveable city in Germany and one of the three European cities with the highest quality of living. This sort of praise is nothing new. Benedikt Carpzov the Younger, an eminent citizen in the seventeenth century who is regarded as the founder of criminal jurisprudence in Germany, declared: "[T]o live outside Leipzig is to live miserably."
Hanover: It was on to Hanover for the fourth of my stays. The journey was through the three Saxonies: Dresden and Leipzig are in Saxony itself; one continues through Saxony-Anhalt, also in the former East; then one crosses the former interzonal border into Lower Saxony, of which Hanover is the capital. For some of the journey I shared the carriage with a retired civil servant who was heading back to his home on the North Sea coast. I don't think he wanted a long chat but there was a bit of polite conversation. There was evident disapproval when I told him that I had commenced my travels in Munich. His problem was that it's in the South. Worse, it's in Bavaria.
The old border was crossed at Helmstedt. In the Cold War this was the location of Checkpoint Alpha, where travellers on the Autobahn to West Berlin crossed into East Germany. When they reached Berlin, they had to pass through Checkpoint Bravo. The most famous/infamous of the crossing points was of course in Berlin itself: Checkpoint Charlie, where one passed through the Wall into the eastern part of the city.
My base in Hanover was the Central-Hotel Kaiserhof, conveniently located opposite the Hauptbahnhof in Ernst-August Platz. This family run establishment has four stars but initially I wondered why. However I came round to the view that they were merited. I had a lovely large room, complete with 'his' and 'her' washbasins. And the meals were excellent.
Both evenings I ate in its restaurant, seated al fresco so observing the busy life of the city passing by in the square outside. I ate, both times: a meaty goulash soup followed by the 'Kaiserhof Pan', a mix of pork, beef and turkey served with béarnaise sauce and vegetables.
My visit coincided with the tercentenary of the personal union of the monarchies of Britain and Hanover. This commenced in 1714 with the reign of George I and endured until 1837, ending only because Queen Victoria, being a woman, could not ascend to the Hanoverian throne. The Royal Family to this day retains its Hanoverian origins. During the twentieth century Britain and Germany were bitter enemies in two horrendous wars but it should not be forgotten that before that friendly relations were the norm, above all with Hanover. The event was being marked in five different venues, four in Hanover itself and the fifth in nearby Celle. I spent an interesting hour or two at the main exhibition in the Lower Saxony State Museum, an impressive building that overlooks the green expanses of Masch Park.
Lonely Planet is not very kind to Hanover: it reputedly has "Germany's most boring parties" and "when an Expo was held here... even its spokesperson mused aloud about whether anyone would travel here if they had the choice." I would concede that the main shopping centre is somewhat functional in appearance, rather as in Stuttgart and Mannheim, but the visitor, exploring a little further, will find a city of great charm and interest (I couldn't possibly comment on the partying!) An aid to exploration is Der Rote Faden or 'red thread', literally a painted red line around the city. An accompanying booklet can be purchased for a nominal sum at the tourist office in Ernst-August Platz.
Over the course of my stay I completed the 'red thread'. The first section takes one past the Opera House and the Holocaust Memorial. One discovers just how green a city Hanover is, with its extensive and attractive parkland and lakes. There is a historic, though admittedly small, Old Town and a 'must do' is to ascend the magnificent Neues Rathaus or 'new town hall'. This is newish (1913) but traditional in style, offering fine views over the city. The ascent is via a curving lift, described by the city authorities as unique.
Wuppertal: I confess to being something of a transport nerd. As such, I had long entertained two ambitions in continental Europe: to travel on (a) the Belgian Coastal Tramway and (b) the Schwebebahn or Monorail in Wuppertal. A year or so previously I had done the first. Now, from my base in Hanover, I fulfilled the other ambition.
When I was growing up monorails were seen as futuristic - though Wuppertal's dates back to 1901 - and sketches of the 'city of the future' would often include one. But today one can count more or less on the fingers of one hand the number that exist. We have been on those in Seattle - a journey lasting all of nine seconds - and Sydney and seen, but not been on, Shanghai's Maglev system, which really does look futuristic. Wuppertal is in the Ruhr but I was surprised on my way there how much countryside there was around the industrial centres of Dortmund and Hagen. Wuppertal itself boasts of being one of the greenest cities in Germany. It has existed only since 1929, the product of a merger between several different communities. It was originally going to be known as Barmen-Elberfeld after the two main constituent towns but in a referendum it was instead named after the river that flows through it hence Wuppertal or 'Wupper Valley'. The Schwebebahn serves the Hauptbahnhof and extends several miles in either direction. One can get a day ticket giving limitless travel. Mostly it is suspended above the Wupper but at one end it is over a street, at eye level with the upper floors of people's homes.
It was necessary at one point to break off for lunch, so I went into the city centre, just a few minutes' walk from the Hauptbahnhof. I was pleased to find a Galerie Kaufhof. Problem of where to have lunch solved. Or rather it wasn't. There was no fourth floor, I discovered, only two - and there was no restaurant. I ended up with a pasta dish in a rather odd place in a nearby shopping mall. I would hazard a guess that, were it not for the Schwebebahn, not many tourists would find their way to Wuppertal.
Hamburg: My final two nights were spent in Germany's second largest city (the largest in former West Germany). There is a direct train link from Hanover but I selected a slightly longer one that goes via Celle. This is said to be a town of great charm and even from the railway station it looks nice. In Hamburg I was staying at another Kempinski hotel, the Atlantic. In the 1913 edition of Bradshaw's, popularized of late by Michael Portillo, there is an advertisement for this hotel, which at that time was new.
Hamburg has a distinctive geography, built as it is around two lakes, the Aussenalster and Binnenalster (Outer and Inner Alster) with the latter flowing into the Elbe. They are joined by the Kennedybrücke (Kennedy Bridge). My hotel was close to the station on one hand and the Aussenalster on the other. I had a look round on my first day and on the second, after my visit to Lübeck, went on a circular bus tour, here as elsewhere a good way of seeing a city. We circumnavigated Aussenalster, where there is some serious wealth, and continued into the centre. Here I alighted, partly so I could go inside the impressive Rathaus (Town Hall) and partly in the hope of having a guide who would offer a livelier and more interesting commentary. I was fortunate in this regard as I now had a charming young lady who engaged with me and others.
I was to see a very different aspect of Hamburg once we'd passed St Michaeliskirche; this baroque church is getting on for 450 feet high and is one of the city's best known landmarks. We came to the Reeperbahn. As we approached it we passed Davidstrasse, which is apparently off limits to all females (not much of an honour for us Davids to have this street named after us!) The Reeperbahn, centre of the red light district, is unlovely, its saving grace being that it is where the Beatles cut their teeth, before they became famous. I think that it is because of this aspect of sleaze that I didn't take to Hamburg as much as I did the other cities I stayed in. True, all cities have their sleaze. But they generally stay quiet about it whereas Hamburg unashamedly publicizes it as one of its main attractions.
On my first evening I dined in the hotel restaurant. A booking was made by reception who then rang me to confirm. Yet, when I arrived, there was no record of my reservation. But the amiable restaurant manager quickly found me a table and we conversed about, of all things, football. As was evident from the sound of car horns outside, Germany had just won another match, on its way to winning the World Cup, its fourth such achievement... or technically its first since on the previous three occasions it was West Germany who won. The manager was suitably diplomatic given he was talking to an Englishman whose team had been, not to mince words, a bit rubbish: the German team, he said, had been very lucky. As Gary Player once said, the harder one practises, the luckier one gets!
On my second evening, and my last in Germany, I switched to the hotel's bar where I had, yes, a hamburger in Hamburg. This may be sad but I like having dishes in their eponymous cities so it's been Beijing duck in Beijing, wiener schnitzel in Vienna, Zurich veal in Zurich and steak bordelaise in Bordeaux. But not Frankfurters in Frankfurt - I don't like them.
Lübeck: On my last full day in Germany I visited one of Germany's loveliest cities, Lübeck. To my delight the trains were double-deck. It was still a fairly short journey but somewhat longer than the previous one lasting twelve minutes.
In the Cold War era Lübeck was in the West but right on the Iron Curtain: from its historic centre one could walk in an easterly direction for about three miles, then no further. Lübeck has a fairytale centre but even this was heavily bombed in World War II. It has since been meticulously restored and the visitor, unless primed otherwise, would assume himself to be in a city unchanged since medieval times.
I stumbled across a museum dedicated to one of Lübeck's most famous sons, Willy Brandt, an anti-Nazi who fled after Hitler seized power, in his case to Norway, moving on to Sweden when the Nazis occupied his adopted country. I did make time to look round this since I am interested in Cold War history. Moreover it was free. It was a fascinating visit. After World War II Brandt returned to Germany and entered politics. He was the Mayor of West Berlin when the Wall went up, and stood alongside President Kennedy when he declared "Ich bin ein Berliner". Later Brandt became Federal Chancellor, in which capacity he instituted Ostpolitik, the establishment of diplomatic relations with East Germany and other satellite states. He had to resign in 1974 as a result of a spy scandal but had a distinguished political afterlife. He chaired the Independent Commission for International Developmental Issues, hence the Brandt Report in 1980, which called for drastic changes in the global attitude towards development in the Third World. He died in 1992, having lived long enough to see his country, and his adopted city, reunited - one of the great statesmen of the twentieth century.
First published in VISA 132 (April 2017)
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