From Worms to Rothenburg, and back to Worms.
Located near the entrance to Worms’ old Jewish cemetery are gravestones of two important figures in medieval Jewish-German history. The cemetery is also called “Holy Sand”1, and is one of many places of interest in the medieval ShUM league of Jewish cities. The gravestones for Rabbi Meir ben Baruch (centre) and Alexander ben Salomo (right) are shown in the picture below.
When threats of destruction to property and life follow and linger over a group of people through no fault of their own over centuries, there’s something to be said about an eternal need to keep a watchful eye. Words like Verfolgung, Vernichtung, and Vertreibung1 have been etched into memory. I have all this in mind as I explore Jewish history in Germany as part of my need to answer the following question:
How did a nation of people which fostered composers Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Strauss; and writers Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, Heine, Hesse, Heinrich and Thomas Mann, and Schiller sink to the worst depths of human atrocity and depravity in the first half of the 20th-century?
It’s easy to forget Jewish people have lived in what is now Italy and southern Europe since the middle of the 2nd-century BCE and inhabited southern Germany from the late 10th-century AD/CE2. During the High Middle Ages, three important bishopric (and cathedral) cities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz along the Rhine river formed an important league or federation of Jewish communities (Kehillot) from the end of the 10-century to about the mid-to-late 14th-century. The word שו”ם or ShUM (SchUM in German)4 is an acronym consisting of the first letters of the Hebrew names for the three cities:
• Shin (ש), Sh for Shpira (שפירא) → present-day Speyer;
• Waw or Vav (ו), U for Warmaisa (וורמש) → present-day Worms;
• Mem (ם), M for Magenza (מגנצא) → present-day Mainz.
The ShUM cities became centres for learning, training, religion, culture, and trade within medieval Germany (Ashkenaz3) and throughout Europe. Today, the three ShUM cities establish key destinations for historical travel, provide rich examples for continuing research on medieval Jewish life, and add up to a comprehensive project in recognizing an important chapter of the history of Jews in Germany.
The ShUM/SchUM was inscribed as World Heritage Site by UNESCO at the 44th meeting of the World Heritage Committee in July 2021. ShUM is Germany’s 1st all-Jewish world heritage site, a big acknowledgement to the centuries-long presence of the Jewish community along the Rhine river.
Above/featured: Karlsruhe Palace.
You won’t likely find another German city in the shape of a fan.
Sitting pretty near the Rhine river in southwest Germany, Karlsruhe is known as the “Fächerstadt” (“fan city”) for its very specific shape.
On 17 June 1715, Margrave1 Karl Wilhelm (Charles William) of Baden-Durlach celebrated breaking ground and the first laid stone for his new residence, palace, and seat of power. The story goes that after a vivid dream, Karl Wilhelm decided to build his new home of “rest and relaxation” (“Karls Ruhe”) in the middle of a nearby forest. A planned city would surround the palace, an appropriate symbol for the question of “who ruled whom.” The palace sat at the central hub of 32 “rays” or streets radiating outwards: 9 streets to make up the new city, and 23 for the palace gardens. Emerging from the palace was the “Via Triumphalis,” the north-south central axis road into the city. Karl Wilhelm moved the margraviate seat from nearby Durlach to the “new shiny city” of Karlsruhe upon completion of the new palace in 1718.
In the spring of 1788, Thomas Jefferson, while serving as America’s chief of mission (Minister Plenipotentiary) in France, embarked on a tour of Holland and the Rhine river in what is now Germany. He stayed in “Carlsruh”2 on 15 and 16 April 1788. Impressed by what he saw throughout his trip, he sent a letter and sketches3 to Pierre Charles L’Enfant4 who was charged by George Washington with the design and construction of a new American capital city. Jefferson wrote to L’Enfant on 10 April 1791:
“…in compliance with your request I have examined my papers and found the plans of Frankfort on the Mayne, Carlsruhe, Amsterdam Strasburg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyons, Montpelier, Marseilles, Turin and Milan, which I send in a roll by this post. They are on large and accurate scales, having been procured by me while in those respective cities myself. …”
With copies of European city plans in hand, these plans provided inspiration for L’Enfant’s eventual design for Washington, DC.
The Badisches Landesmuseum has occupied the palace since 1921, and the city of Karlsruhe celebrated its 300th anniversary5 in 2015.
Dated between 1739 and 1779, the following four maps from Stadt Karlsruhe city archives would have been representative of the young city at the time of Thomas Jefferson’s 1788 visit.
1739 city view with south at top; coloured copper engraving by Christian Thran.
1739 city view with north at top; the “fan” consists of 9 streets; coloured copper engraving by Christian Thran.
Map dated 1745 of “Carlsruhe” (Karlsruhe), Durlach, and surroundings, with west at top, towards the Rhine river (Rhein Fl.).
1779 city map: north at top, Schloss (palace) at circle’s centre. Note how palace “wings” extend south into a “fan” of 9 streets into the young city.
Even in the dreary days of late-fall and early-winter, there are sweeping views of the city and surrounding area from the top of the Schlossturm (Palace Tower); even the tower’s stairs are themselves a highlight of geometry. It’s also important to realize 14 kilometres to the German-French border isn’t far at all.
Up the palace tower (HL).
South view, along Via Triumphalis through Schlossplatz (palace square). The hills in the background are about 10 kilometres distant (HL).
Wide south view with the Via Triumphalis north-south axis at centre. Note palace “wings” at far-left and -right, making the “fan” into the city (HL).
Southwest, to Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) at centre-right, just beyond the palace (HL).
Northwest, towards Majolika Manufaktur Karlsruhe at upper right (HL).
North-northeast to Schlossgartensee (palace garden lake) at centre-left and Wildparkstadion (stadium) at right (HL).
Northeast: Wildstadion at left, Grossherzogliche Grabkapelle at centre in the distance (HL).
Facing east; Grossherzogliche Grabkapelle at far left in the distance, Kirche St. Bernhard at right to the southeast (HL).
Facing southeast; Kirche St. Bernhard at left, and beyond Schlossplatz at centre is Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Campus Süd (HL)
Return to the south-facing view of Schlossplatz, or palace square (HL).
Down the palace tower (HL).
1 A “margrave” was a hereditary title for a prince in the Holy Roman Empire; their territory was called a “margraviate” (Markgrafschaft). Margraviate Baden-Durlach and neighbouring Margraviate Baden-Baden reunited in 1771 to form the Margraviate of Baden. After dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Grand Duchy of Baden was created as a member state within Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine.
2 “Notes of a Tour through Holland and the Rhine Valley, 3 March–23 April 1788,” Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-13-02-0003. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 13, March–7 October 1788, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956, pp. 8–36.]
3 “XII. Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Charles L’Enfant, 10 April 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-20-02-0001-0015. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 20, 1 April–4 August 1791, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, pp. 86–87.]
4 More about Pierre Charles L’Enfant appears at the US Library of Congress.
5 Wulf Rüskamp wrote this article for the Badische Zeitung (in German).
Thanks to Karlsruhe Tourismus and Hotel Rio Karlsruhe for a warm welcome and access to venues and services. Old city maps are from Stadt Karlsruhe’s archives. I made all remaining photographs on 17 November 2015 with a Canon EOS6D mark1. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-8Cv.
These photographs are a set of personal observations outlining places I’ve been and places where I want to be. The people appearing in these photographs are essentially proxies in my exploration of isolation and urbanity, and the universal concept of home. Over many years, I’ve wrestled against many demons, and in the present age of social media, the race to the most “looks, clicks, and likes” isn’t providing a healthy solution. Ultimately, what I dream is that a destination will offer some finality for the simple requirements of understanding and acceptance.
Detachment and atypicality have always been personal benchmarks carrying me from one location to the next. The privilege of living in Europe and South America have provided a palette of colour and flavour variations throughout my time as research scientist. Rationality and creativity always competed for supremacy, until I realized they could feasibly share the same stage. When I traveled around the world for a full year after leaving science behind, I hadn’t stopped running from research, from my birth-city, or from the person I had become. While running suggests an escape from something, running also implies there’s some endgame which is how writing and photography have helped shape my ongoing journey.
Above/featured: Mural of the Helios structure, Köln Ehrenfeld, 9 Jan 2013 (450D).
Why is there a lighthouse located in the middle of the city? That makes no sense!Did the Rhine river once flow here? Is that why there’s a lighthouse?
Is the structure some kind of forgotten remnant of the past?
Maybe that’s not a lighthouse, but rather a beacon that lets people know about a fire somewhere in the neighbourhood.
These are some of the questions and statements posed by Cologne residents when asked if they know anything about the lighthouse in their midst.
Located in the Ehrenfeld1 borough of Cologne is a red brick 44-metre (144-foot) high lighthouse. But why is there a lighthouse at all in the “middle” of Cologne? The Rhine river flows through the city, but the river is hardly visible from the lighthouse at a distance of about 3 kilometres (2 miles). The structure is not an actual operating lighthouse; it’s a symbol of early 20th-century enterprise from what was once one of the most important companies in Europe and marking the location of a big factory that once manufactured electrical equipment including maritime lights.
Founded in 1882, Helios2 established their presence in the town of Ehrenfeld before the latter was incorporated into the greater city of Cologne in 1888. The company once boasted a staff complement of over 2000 people, with products sold in Germany and Europe ranging from electrical generators and transformers, light bulbs, light fixtures in public spaces, and electrical streetcars. Helios also built light towers for the North and Baltic Sea coastlines, including ones at Roter Sand (Weser river estuary), Borkum and Wangerooge (East Frisian Islands), and Sylt. The onsite lighthouse in Ehrenfeld was constructed as a testing facility and never used as a navigational aid or marker. The company overextended its financial reach until Berlin’s AEG3 purchased Helios in 1905. Manufacturing operations in Ehrenfeld ceased in 1930, bringing a final end to Helios’ business presence in Cologne.
The present-day buildings which remain are used as office- and art-space. As historical landmark, the “Helios Leuchtturm” remains as part of the urban heritage in Ehrenfeld and Cologne. If the people in both borough and city have any final say in the matter, the lighthouse will never have to go out.4
Fotoeins Fotografie 