Poachers in Austria

During the 50's and 60's in Germany and Austria were made sentimental movies in idealized sentimental settings - the life in the mountains, were is always a young girl who is falling in love with a young men and somebody is against that love and at the end they will always have a happy end or in Austria we made a lot of movies who are showing the good old time when we had the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy like the Sissi-Movies with Romy Schneider.

Thoose movies were made after the Second World War that the people remember how good the Monarchy was and some movies are really lovly and funny to watch so that people forget the hard life after the war.

In some of thoose movies the young maid of the Alps is falling in love with the poacher of the region and he brings her in dangerous situations when she is giving him shelter in her Alpine Chalet - I always thought that this is happening just in romantic movies of that time BUT my father told me a story:

In 1982 a poacher called Pius Walder (the second pic shows his grave) went one night into the forest and wanted to shoot some animals. His face was blackened with soot, at his shoulder a gun. He was not a poacher because he wanted to show his trophies, no in his opinion the forest is common property. The people in his little village knew all that he doing poaching for years but some of the huntsmen there were against it. Poaching is prohibited in Austria for a long time! Especially in time of poorness and hunger poachers were heroes for the poor peasant population - a kind of Robin Hood.

At the end Pius Walder was found by some huntsmen that night and they chased him and tried to shoot him 8 times - the 8th bullet killed him - it was a shot into the back part of the head and the sad thing is that the killer was just juged for 1,5 year for prison!!! The court said that it was not a precision shot he wanted to make just a warning shot. The family of Pius Walder is still fighting for their right.

The Palace of Charlottenburg

The Palace of Charlottenburg is biggest palace in Berlin and was built at the end of the 17th century. Sophie Charlotte of Hanover, the wife of the first Prussian King, Frederick I., gave her name for the building.

I have to say that the interior of the Palace reminds me very on my old working place in Vienna - the Schönbrunn Palace.

The New Palais in Potsdam

This is my absolute favorite! The so called New Palais in Potsdam at the end of the Sanssouci Park. I don't know why but I felt in true love with that wonderful building which was built as a guest house in the 18th century under the time of Frederick II. the Great.

The problem with that building is that Frederick didn't want to spent a lot of money and thought making a wood construction would be a good thing but nowadays the owner (Stifung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg - Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg) have huge problems! First of all in some rooms with the statics as the wood is mold-infested and at the other hand there is the woodwarm which causes problems. Therefore we were not allowed to go inside with our normal shoes we had to overdrew huge feltslipper which was looking very funny.

Sanssouci

The Palace of Sanssouci is in Potsdam - a city next to Berlin and the capital of Brandenburg. I love Potsdam but I have to say that I am not that big fan of Palace of Sanssouci like all the others. I like the New Palais at the end of the park more - I will write more about it in a little blog.

Sanssouci was buildt under the reign of Frederick II of Prussia (german: Friedrich II. der Große von Preussen). He was not just a King he was as well a freethinker, a musician and a writer and invited the French philosoph Voltaire to his Palace but Frederick's wife Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern (german: Elisabeth Christine von Braunschweig-Bevern) never saw that palace as Frederick was not interested in his wife and so she had to live in Exile in an other Berlin Palace for about 50 years. Her husband had no interest in her.

I have as well here a pic of his graveyard next to the palace. He is buried together with his dogs and you will see that there are potatoes on his grave. People still lay them down as he brought potatoes to Prussia and people are still thankfull for that. But he was the only one who didn't like to eat them :))

Memorial of the German Resistance

I visted as well the Memorial of the German Resistance (german: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand) at the so called Bendlerblock. Nowadays and during the Nazi-Regime it was/is the Ministry of Defense.

At the pictures you can see the place were Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, Ludwig Beck, Friedrich Olbricht, Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim and Werner von Haeften were executed after the failed assassination of Hitler on 20th July 1944 at the Führer Headquarter Wolf's Lair (german: Führer Hauptquartier Wolfsschanze).

After that visit I was really very oppressed. The problem nowadays is if a german or an austrian something is saying about the problems we have in our countries with some foreigners people are calling us Nazis - but I didn't live at that time!

For example at the airport we have most of the time problems with blacks because they always have a lot of luggage and then they have to pay for the overweight like all other passengers as well - we don't care if somebody is black or white or chinese or US-american or european or what else - in that case is just the weight of the bag important. But if you tell them they have to pay for the overweight they always, always, always call us Racists and Nazis!

Berlin Cathedral

I can't find the right words for that building! I was standing in the center of the Cathedral and just starred to the top of that outstanding cupola! I never saw something like that before! The present building was buildt in 1905. On of the reasons was to buildt a respectable burial crypt for the Hohenzollern family as the old crypt had the problem when the Spree river was having too much water the coffins into the crypt where all under water and it destroyed the coffins and it was not acceptable for the rest in death of the bodies. I would say it is really dishonorable for the death ones beeing buried like that. So during the last 30 years the city of Berlin began to restore all the coffins and since the 90's one could visit the crypt. Parts of the Cathedral were destroyed during the World War II but if you visit the Cathedral you don't think about that as it is not to be seen.

During the Cold War the Berliner Dom as we say in german was part of the GDR, the German Democratic Republic (DDR, Deutsche Demokratische Republik).

Unter den Linden & Brandburg Gate

Those 3 pics are showing the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor in german) and the boulevard Unter den Linden.

The Brandenburger Tor - I decided to write just once the english name and will continue with the german name - was buildt between 1788 and 1791 and is the National Symbol of Germany. If you come to Europe and have a coin with that symbol on it's backside you will definitly know that your coin is from Germany. The gate was buildt because it should remember of the Wars of Frederick II. the Great of Prussia (1712-1786), the most well known King of all Prussian Kings.

During the Cold war in the 2oth century it was a symbol for the devided city. When US-President Kennedy visited Berlin in the 1960's he was not able to see the whole building as it was behin the Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer). Nowadays it is a symbol the german-german reunion.

Berlin and Potsdam

Hello my dear ones,

as I said I will visit Berlin, the german capital, for a few days and now i take the opportunity to show you some pics of that wonderful city and write about the history of what is to be seen at the pics. Well, the thing is that the pics are very huge and I don't know to make them smaller, that means that I will not make just a big Berlin-Blog, I am going to do now some little Blogs :) So enjoy Berlin and it's outstanding history!