Category Archives: German literature
The Dark Days
It’s late autumn in the Rheinland-Pfalz, and the days are foggy, frosty, and short. Even the kestrel, the little cinnamon-colored hawk who hunts in the fields next to my house, can’t seem to keep his eyes open, and the fiery …
Die Beiden Schwestern
While flipping through the Wilhelm Busch storybook Heidi loaned me, I came across this illustration, and I think we all know what’s going on here. (See my earlier post about this literary star whose stories paved the way for the …
The Friedrich Kellner Diaries: “From the Darkness into the Light of a Better Future”
Friedrich Kellner, shown above in his World War I uniform, was a young man when Germany became a democracy, and he had high hopes that his nation would become a place of free speech and personal liberty. Unfortunately, the young …
The Grandfather of Comics
My friend Heidi recently loaned me her childhood copy of the Wilhelm Busch stories. Wilhelm Busch created Max & Moritz, the devilish duo who came on the scene in 1865 and inspired the modern comic book. Combine the morbid satire …
Flowers and Books
What did Joe and I find at the Koblenz National Garden Show? Well, we found flowers, of course. According to the brochures, there were 6,000 square yards of roses alone (5,000 square meters). Everywhere we looked, we saw fabulous combinations …
Whimsical Germany
From an American point of view, German culture often exhibits a streak of whimsy. My introduction to this came before I arrived in Germany, back in 1999. I was paging through a coffee table book on Hanover and encountered the …