The "X" Map

I have a bad habit....wherever I travel....I collect maps.

I've been collecting maps since 1977, to be precise.

The other day....I was directed to kinda clean out my map drawer....so I checked it out....yep, they are ok, and put them all back in.  I just couldn't bring myself to throw any of the three hundred-odd maps away.

So, I have this one odd map that I came to.  It's a simple Germany map....except it's from around 1988, when "the wall" was still up.

Yeah, I opened it up and checked it entirely.....nice "X"-marks to note the East German border and a division of Berlin marking.

It's kind of a collector thing now.  Most all Germans threw their old DDR-West Germany maps away years ago.  Some folks will still drive up to a certain point, and note for the pleasure of folks in the car....we've crossed over into DDR. Some folks don't take it as a joke though.

I've had this great fictional story in my mind, for a book.  Some Germans desperate to build up a tour company.....advertise to some older-minded Americans....a tour into DDR.  They fly the naive Americans over....pretend the wall is still up, and spend ten days driving them around the countryside of the communist republic (Yeah, it's hard to convey a republic being associated with a communist area).

Maybe one day....it'll be worth something....well....maybe worth a donut and a cup of coffee.

The ESWE Building

This little glass-like building is at the main bus stop by the Wiesbaden train station.

Inside, you will find one gal who will give you tons and tons of information about the bus system, the various cards, discounts, and ways to get from here to there.

Most of the ladies have a fair ability with English.

So if you are a permanent resident around the Wiesbaden area.....you might want to stop in....get a free map...and ask some stupid questions.

Note: about two hundred feet behind the stand is a fine outdoor beer-garden for summer thirst situations.

Blitz Cameras

The two odd poles in the picture?  Blitz cameras (speed cameras).  They are down on the Mainzer Strasse in Wiesbaden.  They are arranged to catch you going and coming.

Germans over the past decade have gotten around to permanent cameras....mounted in a way that you can't destroy them....if you got kinda peeved.

You could drive this route every single day, and after a while....not even think about it....except to keep your speed a couple of 'clicks' under the max.

The Little Medal

Weeks ago, my wife dragged out a bunch of stuff and we gleaned the items for garbage or to save.

So in the middle of this batch....is this German medal of sorts.

The only thing my wife knew....from her family (Germans)....this had been passed down, and stored in some cabinet in the basement.  No one knew much of anything, and didn't care to know much of anything.

Well.....I'm never one to pass by a possible story.  So I dug into the medal.  Thirty minutes of research came to a couple of brief facts.

This is a German military medal from brief war of 1864 between Denmark and Prussia (with their friends at the time....the Hapsburg Empire).

The war was fairly short....starting in March of 1864 and winding up in October 1864.  For the Danish people....it was a fairly messy adventure, with Prussia easily winning.  The outcome brought two major areas of Denmark's control....over to Prussia and the Hapsburg Empire.

It's best to note this while on the topic....whatever property the Hapsburgs won in this adventure.....was a momentary thing.  Within a short period of time.....Germany triggered a war with the Hapsburgs, and took the former Danish property over.

The medal?  It came years later.  It's a curious thing, but it was a artillery medal given to the members of some unit from Brandenburg.

It was German custom for a fair number of wars....to come up twenty to thirty years after the event, erecting monuments and statues and awarding older guys medals.

In this case, I can only imagine that some younger member of my wife's family....went off in search of an adventure of sorts, drafted himself into this artillery unit, and rode the train up north to participate.  He made his way safely home after the war, and probably sat there for years and years....telling the war stories over the great defeat of the Danes.  It may be....after a while....everyone in the family was sick of the war stories, and thus no one really cared much for the medal business.

Anyway, I convinced the wife to keep the medal.  It is worth some minor cash on the medal market....but frankly....who remembers this stupid Denmark-Prussia-Hapsburg one-year war?

The Little Drink

It is gluehwein season, and I'll pass on some advice to Americans who notice gluehwein and wonder about it.

First, gluehwein is basically regular wine, with a fair amount of sugar added, and heated to the temperature of coffee.

Second, it's generally only sold from October to March.  Most folks only buy it around November and December.

Third, you typically drink it in out-door situations.  It's sold by the coffee cup.

Fourth.  If you have a problem with high doses of sugar....DON'T drink gluehwein.

Fifth.  Because it's heating you up in a cold outdoor situation.....you finish  up a cup in typically twenty minutes, and want a second cup.  Not a smart idea.  This stuff gets into your system fast....because of the heat, and three cups within an hour....WILL make you drunk.  Don't drive with more than one cup in your system....and at least thirty to sixty minutes after you finish the one cup.

Sixth.  There's a couple of versions of it.  This is cherry flavored, and fairly sweet.

Seventh.  Yes, it is a Xmas drink and very acceptable for folks to come over to your house, and you can serve it to them.  No, it can't be served cold....it must be heated (in a pot) and poured into a regular coffee cup.

Eighth.  If I didn't emphasize it enough.....you can get fairly stupid drunk with this stuff, in a shopping district, and buy crap you didn't intend to buy.  So, drink only after you finished shopping.  You really need to limit yourself to two cups max in a day.  Anything beyond five cups, and you are wasted.

(Not intended as advice for Germans)

The Art Saga

This Munich art episode continues to amaze Germans.

First, the old guy who was questioned on the train going into Germany from Switzerland....with vast sums of money?  Cops came to his house and found roughly 1,500 paintings.....most of them rolled up and just sitting there.  The art historians say everything is in good condition....no issues.

Then after three days of tagging and removing the art (over a year ago)....the old guy just suddenly leaves.  No one has seen the guy since then.  It's a total mystery over where he went, or if he just went off into the woods to commit suicide.

What the authorities will say.....they figure the current count at 1,500.  They aren't exactly sure what the original number was, and won't take guesses on this.  Who knows.....maybe there were 2,500 to start with?

Where this mess goes next?  Well....that's an interesting piece.  One gets the impression that once they tag and identify each single piece.....some art museum in Munich wants to display everything, at least for a while.  The confidence rate for returning the items to the original owners?  From last night's TV news....I'd say some attempt will be made....but don't put much confidence in the outcome.  If fifty of the paintings get back into private hands....you will be lucky.

The rest of the collection?  It ends up as Bavarian state property....my humble guess.  Some folks will be peeved and disagree on this angle.  But the Bavarians aren't going to waste tons of time and resources on finding dead people, and their dead descendents (again, my humble opinion).

Then we come to this interesting piece of the story.  What intrigued the cops to a great degree about this old guy?  He'd never paid taxes....ever.  Other than having a passport, and registered in the city....there's virtually no record of this guy.  No pension, etc.  No one ever came to visit the guy in his apartment.  He was a virtual unknown character.  They can't even say how he spent his money over the last couple of decades.

Germany is this nation of order.  Everyone has records.  Everyone is noted in some book.  Everyone has a trail.  This guy?  Nothing to really say of any trail.  It does not even appear that he had a credit card, and that he moved around strictly on cash.  I'd have doubts that he even had a phone in the apartment, or had any mail sent to him.  Traveling outside of Europe?  I'd have doubts that he ever made such a trip.  Big-spender?  No....absolutely no evidence of that.

What did he do with the profits of the sales that he made from the art?  No one knows.

There's a brilliant five-star movie sitting here and waiting to be written.  The trouble is.....you have no ending....and the art?  It just gets shuffled around and in ten years....quietly absorbed into some Bavarian state collection.

Just Another NSA Day

Every single day....there's a new twist to the Snowden---German---NSA---spying business.

Today?  Someone is strongly suggesting via a British newspaper....the Independent....that the British Embassy in Berlin....just a stone's throw from the Bundestag....was also on the collection side in business dealings.

Factual?  Well, you just don't know.  These days...you could take an ounce of truth and stretch it a good bit.

I pulled up the embassy map of Berlin and looked at everything with a mile of the Bundestag (the German Parliament).  There's around eight embassy operations there.  The possibility of the Russians, or the French...spying as well?  Well, it's best not to bring this up.

The Romanians?  Well...yeah....they are about a mile away.  The Greeks?  Maybe a bit over a mile.

Could there be a dozen-odd countries in Berlin collecting on Chancellor Merkel's cellphone?  It's best not to suggest that.

And those evil Chinese?  Well....they are roughly two miles to the east of the Bundestag, and safely beyond the 'net'.  Course, they are on the river Spree, and the Chinese submarine fleet might be parked there and quietly move up the river to be within yards of the Bundestag at appropriate times.

The sad thing is that there's no end to this spy business.  Just a guy standing in the field in front of the Bundestag....with hot-dog cart....could have a radio-receiver device and be collecting cellphone transmissions.....reporting them back to Tonga.  And tomorrow, it'd be reported as factual in some German newspaper.

The Art

This is one of those Paul Harvey-type stories.

So this older gentleman was traveling on a train from Switzerland into Germany, and for some reason....something stuck out.  His clothing....his shoes....his briefcase....whatever.

So the German customs folks pulled him and did an intensive search.  In Germany, you can do things like this with no judge's permission.

What they find is a substantial amount of cash....way over what you'd say was acceptable to carry.  The authorities won't say the precise amount....I'd take a pretty good guess at something between 50,000 and 150,000 Euro ($60,000 to $200,000).

He's an older guy....but this explanation of the cash doesn't ring true.....and he's coming in from Switzerland.

So an investigation starts.  Days pass, and the cops show up in his Munich apartment. He could have cleaned out the mess....but he's an older guy with no real enthusiasm left in him.

So the cops walk in and what they find....is roughly 1,500 paintings.  It's a big huge apartment but it's like to be in the 150 to 200 square meter range.  The place is mostly ratted out.....garbage and newspapers.  He hadn't obviously cleaned it in months or years.

The paintings?  Well, that's the funny thing.  It's the kind of stuff that guys dream of. Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall.  Then there's noted German painters from before WW II....Nolde, Marc, Beckmann and Liebermann.

The story unfolds.  Before WW II....the Nazis were pouring over the Jewish elite in Germany, and taking their art.  The Nazi leadership reached some point where they decided a significant amount of the art was unfit stuff....at least by their opinion....so they hired a German to sell the stuff on the market.  This guy started the act, but kinda rolled this along slowly.  The war came to an end.....with him claiming to the authorities that much of the art was destroyed in bombing raids.

This guy quietly disappears and the art stays with him.  He passes away, and his son takes up the collection.

The son grew up in the 1950s and 1960s.  He's in his 80's presently. Whatever charges they want to dream up....this guy doesn't care.  He's lived a good long and decent life.  He took a painting or two each year and sold them on the market outside of Germany.  No one ever asked questions, and he simply took the cash payment and went back to his apartment.

The value?  No one can clearly say for sure.  You see....they are still in the identification stage and trying to find the owners.   Most of the owners are dead.  Then you look for relatives of them.  On and on.

The authorities won't dare say it in public....but this 1,500 piece collection could take ten years to clear up and finalize on the ownership side.  The value is kinda tossed around and they've given it a billion-dollar number.....mostly because it's so unusual and no one can be sure what any of this will bring on the market.

This brings one to this odd observation.  No one says this of course.  All this art....seems to be believed by the media....to be owned officially by Jewish families and stolen from them.  Well.....it might well be that ten percent or twenty percent.....were stolen property items that Jewish families came across in the early 1900s, and simply added to collections.

You might find a fair number of these were actually sold by Jewish families when they knew time was running out and they needed cash in a hurry.

For me....there's this curious alternate ending.  If the customs police hadn't suspected the guy....he would have continued on, and likely died in five to ten years.  There are no relatives.  So someone would have walked into this apartment, and felt a bit of shock over a bunch of art.  They might have even backed up a truck to the building, and hauled the stuff off to some dump.....thinking it was all garbage he'd picked up at flea markets.

A strange story, if you ask me.