The Speyer Tower

This is one of my travel and history essays.

One of the top five things to see in Speyer is the old tower.  It is often referred to as the "Old Gate".

Most German cities, for the benefit of Americans, were built with walls and entry points.  This was to ensure the protection of those who lived within the walls.  If you didn't have walls....you typically were over-run by invaders of various types, burned, and left as dust.  Walls mattered.

Somewhere around 1250, there was a entry point on this side of Speyer, which was mostly in ruins.  The Lord-Mayor at the time issued the order for the entry to be rebuilt, and a simple gate erected.

So a basic gate was built, and by 1511....the tower itself was formed over the gate.

Two hundred years would pass, and a roof was added (early 1700s).

The tower was supposed to have been destroyed during an invasion by the French, in the War of the Grand Alliance.

Explosives were put into it and things were set up for the destruction sequence.  Locals came to warn the French that destroying the tower would also result in the the local monastery and the French military headquarters in town being destroyed by the explosives as well.

The French didn't really buy off on this, but the entire group from the monastery came and begged for mercy on destruction idea....convincing the French to allow the Tower to stay.  It worked, but most of the rest of Speyer was destroyed instead (to include the Dom).

The curious thing attached to the tower?  Well.....Calibration Shoe lengths existed for a long period of time, which was the local standard for length and size.  Somewhere within the gate....was a iron-rod.  It measures 11.37 inches or 28.89 cm long. It was sub-divided into 12.  For decades, if you had some issue arise in the city over size.....someone would go and fetch the Calibration Shoe and settle the question with the official measurement of Speyer.

You can imagine two gentlemen discussing property and a potential sale to occur, and questions arise over how big the store or shop might actually be.  They'd go and fetch some guard-house guy with the Calibration Shoe and settle this with the measurement.

New Routes

For several weeks in Germany, they've been hyping up via the state-run news media how the routes that immigrants and asylum seekers have been shut down.  Spiraling numbers gets mentioned daily.  Yes, thanks to Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungry, and Austria.....it's all working.

Well, I noticed last night a new and fresh map up.  The smugglers have customers, and they will not be denied.

So three new routes have been quietly developed.

Route one: Turkey, through Bulgaria, onto Serbia's corner, and into Hungry.  There's no fences on these edges.

Route two: Greece, through Bulgaria and Romania, and onto Hungry.

Route three: Greece, onto Albania, then by ship to Italy.

No one says much over numbers..  My humble guess is that by the end of May, we will be back to standard regular numbers that we saw in 2015 (50,000 to 100,000 per month).

The obvious German question will be....can we pay off Albania, Romania, and Bulgaria.....like we paid off Turkey.....to hinder or stop the refugees?  The answer is obviously yes, but then how much?  Turkey got three-billion Euro and a waiver on visas.

At some point, the naive German sitting at home will ask some pretty stupid questions, and get to a point where he's just laughing because it's all a big joke.

"103" The Bohmermann

Years ago, the Germans wrote up a law, which referred to as the "103-law".  It basically says that no German can insult the head of a foreign state or government.  The sentence on the max side is five years.

The satirist Jan Bohmermann (from the public-run NEO channel) is in hot water over his commentary of Turkey's President Erdogan.  To make the Turks happy, it would appear that the German government will have to prosecute Bohmermann, and risk some public hostility.

What to anticipate?

Several legal folks have commented that a court case would run very negative for Merkel's handshake deal with the Turks.....make Erdogan look fairly negative....cause public anger against the present government of the CDU and SPD....and the anticipated outcome would be a conviction against Bohmermann of less than a year but a hefty fine (certainly not 250,000 Euro but at least 20,000).

I've sat and read the law.  It's fairly brief and concise.  What bothers me about this is that various German satirists and comedians went out and insult George Bush on a thousand occasions, and never once did anyone attempt to "103" the guy.  Even state-run news organization (not humor-related) insulted Bush.  Never once did 103 get brought up.

How many times did German satirists and comedians insult Putin over the past five years?  Literally thousands of times.  Never once did 103 get brought up.

My humble view is that this will go forward and some court case will occur.  Bohmermann will ask which parts of the dialog were deemed in violation of the 103-law.  The prosecution will be in a bad position because he said a lot of things in his commentary, and some were fairly truthful but would make Erdogan angry as well.  The end will be some judge reading off a conviction, with a fine of some type, and maybe three months in some jail.

All this would do is display Turkey's Erdogan having some power over German citizens....blow more negativity over the CDU-SPD government, anger the general public a little extra, and give Bohmermann a couple o months of peace to write some book while in jail (some Austrian guy did that in 1924.....serving eight months of a five-year sentence).

Democracy has both a sword and shield, and depending on interpretation.....you might get both, just the shield, or get poked with the sword occasionally.

A Day in Speyer

 I spent the day in Speyer (an hour's train-ride from Mainz) at the Technology Museum.  Note, you can walk from the Speyer train station to the middle of town in twelve minutes, and another ten minutes to the museum.  Rough cost for railway tickets from Mainz is around 20 Euro one-way (second-class).

Ten observations.

1.  If you were looking for an interesting park to spend four hours, this is one of the better ones in Germany.  Most kids enjoy the place, and geeks will get some fascination out of the displays.

2.  They feature a number of aircraft (US, German, French, Soviet, English, etc).  They have an AN-22/COCK on display, along with a F-4.  

3.  They offer a chance for you climb upon a German submarine, and go through the entire boat.  If you've never been on a sub, it's worth 15 minutes to walk through it.

4.  The operation also offers a couple of IMAX movies.  Check on the internet for the times and if of the titles might interest you.

5.  Parking used to be free.  That apparently has stopped.  Here's the thing though....there's the Dom about five minutes walking from the display area.....so you might as well leave your car in the parking lot and tour the city during the period that you are there.  I'd budget six hours for the park, the Dom, and the city itself.

6.  Most of the displays are indoors except for the larger aircraft.  I would consider going there in the winter months...at least if the temperature is above freezing.  In the heat of the summer, you'd best put a pause in the middle of the walk because of possible heat.

7.  There is a cafe connected to the operation, that offers coffee, ice cream, and snacks.  For lunch or dinner, I'd suggest recommend the Speyer walk-platz area where there are a dozen great places to eat.  There's also a dozen-odd places in town for coffee or ice cream.

 8.  Map-wise, the museum is off B-39....easy to find.  Hotel Domhof is in the local area, which is a combination brewery, hotel and restaurant.  I know, it's an odd combination.....but this is Germany.

9.  Trains are on display (interior and exterior).

10.  For trains, cars, and aircraft, this is one of the finer places in Germany to see such items.  The new museum in the back features a number of motorcycles.  I will admit.....it's an older display building and it's kinda bandaged together as a display unit, but they run this off donations and fees-to-enter, without any state funding.

The Pirates

Around the beginning of 2006, a Swedish guy named Rickard Falkvinge established a new political party which no one really expected to amount to much......the Pirate Party.

If you asked most people about the key features to this political party.....it's mostly about emphasizing civil rights, a short citizen-to-government democracy and participation by the general public in the various platforms of the govenrnment.

I should note, they want major reforms in copyright and patent laws.   They also harp a great deal about information privacy.  And they talk a great deal about transparency in government.

Oh, and they are absolutely dedicated to anti-corruption.

I bring all of this up because the Panama-papers episode has created this fascinating episode in Iceland.

I know....it's rare that Iceland gets brought up in the news.  In this case.....after they found out their President had accounts in Panama and may or may not have paid taxes.....the public got infuriated with the guy.  After the 2008 economic stumble, there's not much patience in Iceland with economic events.

So, according to the poll people....43-percent of the public is leaning toward the Pirate Party, as elections are going to be held within the next three or four months.  It wouldn't take very much for the Pirates to actually move up another ten-percent and have a majority of people vote for them.

The curious thing about the party?  I spent a fair amount of time researching the Icelandic Pirates.  The Icelandic guys did something unique with their political party.....the whole structure is flat.  No hierarchy.  There's just an executive committee with seven folks, seven back-ups, and a rotating  President.

The thing is.....this is like a group of folks who meet down at some pub....talk over issues and reach a better-than-fifty-percent solution on a problem, with no fake agenda, no fraudulent political chatter, and they don't spend weeks hyping over things that have no connection to reality.

In some ways, this has to scare the normal political parties because the public might actually get a couple of regular people who successfully run a government.  

The R3 Bike Trail

If you live in the Hessen area, we have this bike "road"....the R3.

From Rudesheim to Tann, a total of 258 kilometers.  It wanders along the Rhine River for a good bit of the trip, going along Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, and Fulda.

What is said about the road is that it's mostly concrete or asphalt (maybe 90-percent of it).  The literature for the road says the last 40-odd kilometers is the climb of the whole trip....after you pass Fulda and get closer to Tann.  The bulk of this trip is all flat territory.

At some point, you have to pass through the Milsenburg Tunnel....a old railway tunnel which has been paved and has some lights to illuminate the way as you bike through the tunnel (1173 meters or almost 4,000 ft).

The R3 is laid out in a fashion....that if you had seven days....you could ride this trail fairly easily (30 km or 18 miles a day) and see a dozen sites along the trail (castles, towers, cafes, rivers).  You'd of course use bed and breakfast operations along the route as your nightly stopping points.

Odd Things That You Might Come Across in Germany

I was out walking in Wiesbaden today....along the Rhine River, and in the Schloss Park.  So I come around a corner, and there is this flagged item standing there.

Having worked around DC, and noticed various nuke-detection devices.....I kinda assumed it might be something related to that.

For about 30 seconds, I'm standing there and trying imagine what the heck this is.  It's got a finger-print device on the very top and some battery device hooked to something that looks like a flash-drive.

Then, this jogger comes around the corner with a map and he's looking hard for something.....sees the flag, and runs up to put his finger-print on the device, and off he goes.....running.

It's some type of data-collection device for a jogger club.  I sat on a bench in the middle of the park for 30 minutes and probably observed forty-odd people jogging in, with maps, and making their way to the flagged item.

The Term Kaiser

This is one of my history essays, which touch on a common German term used.....Kaiser.

In simple definition....Kaiser translates purely to 'emperor'.

There is a long and drawn out process which connects the Roman empire, Caesar (the original emperor) and Germany.

Kaiser, at least in the modern sense, relates to the Prussian and Hapsburg Empires (Germany and Austria).

For most of Prussian history.....the term emperor is used....at least from the late 900-era to 1806....as most saw their reign as simply a continuation of the Roman Empire connection to Prussia.  It's not until 1871, when Kaiser Wilhelm I assumes the title.  Seventeen years will pass, and Wilhelm I will pass on......his son....Fredrich (the 3rd).....will pass on in a hundred days, thus bringing the third and final Kaiser (Wilhelm II) to the top.

For Austria.....the terms start to being used around 1804 with Franz I.  Four of the Hapsburg Empire will use the term, with Karl I being the last one.

What remains of the Kaiser family today?  The Prince of Prussia is Georg Fredrich, and has the title to show.  But these days, he's a business analyst and has little time for the 'profession'.

If you stand around Germans and the term 'Kaiser' gets brought up....it's usually a trivia game or a quiz show.  Most will be able to identify the last Kaiser (Wilhelm II) but rarely go past that point to know that there were only three of them in Prussian history.

Most Germans would also let you know that royalty all costs money and it's a thing that you don't need.  Oddly, these are the same folks who beg for funding to pay for the upkeep of their local castle, palace, or fortress from the state government tax pot, and go all weepy-eyed when Queen Elizabeth shows up.  These ancient relics of an era long-gone.....are the corner-stone to tourism in most German regions today. And oddly enough, there are probably more statues in Germany existing today of Wilhelm I or Wilhelm II.....than any other German figure in history.