GAWA Day #49A: Whatever Happened to All the Artworks and Treasures Plundered by the Nazis?

We are now on the Rhine and there are a lot of castles from Rudesheim to Cologne.  I'm tempted to end there, but tomorrow I'll delve into some of them and maybe even music boxes.  However, what intrigues me is the race to find $30 billion in fortune hidden by the Third Reich.  It is unclear if this is the 2015 value or not, and if not, the sum zooms up to $400 billion. Keep in mind, though, that the Manhattan Atomic Bomb Project cost $2 billion then, or $25 billion in 2015 dollars.

Some of you might have kept up with the Nazi Ghost Train packed with gold and gems supposedly found in Poland.  What about all those gold bars in the lake near Hitler's mountain hideaway or the Amber Room (below), said to be the Eighth Wonder of the World, stolen from Russia?  In addition to gold and jewels, the room contained 6 tons of amber.

Let me start with this room, for in 2003, donations from mostly corporate Germany helped reconstruct the entire room at the Catherine Palace near Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and Leningrad.  The original goes back to 1701, which was deconstructed by Nazis in 1941 and brought to Koenigsberg, now called Kaliningrad.  Yes, that's Comrade Putin in the new version.

However, there is a claim that the last time anyone saw what might have been the Amber Room was in the port of Gdynia on board the Wilhelm Gustloff on 30 January 1945.  On the other hand, a 2004 investigation came to a conclusion that everything was destroyed when Koenigsberg Castle was bombed by the Royal Air Force in 1944, or maybe it was in 1945 during the Battle of Koenigsberg.

Ah, but in March of this year, Karl-Heinz Kleine, a retired German, and his bowling friends (No kidding, would I make this up?) said the $385 million priceless treasure is still in crates in bunkers under the city of Wuppertal, a city of nearly a third of a million near our next stop, Cologne, or Koln, if you live in Germany.  This geriatric team began some preliminary drilling, but the sympathetic company took back the equipment.  Hey, if you take life too seriously, you'll miss out on a few laughs.

Then, of course, you've been keeping up with the announcement of bounty hunters "confirming" that a trainload of gold worth $300 million was found in Walbryzch, Poland.  They only seek 10% the value of the haul.  Doubt remains, though.  First, digging won't start until next spring.  Why?  Even Mayor Zygmunt Nowaczyk has been quoted to say all he had really seen was an old map.  You lose some credibility, too, when stories have surfaced that one of the reasons the Nazis built this underground network was to hide any evidence of flying saucers.  Anyway, here to the left is Tadeusz Slowikowski, who has been searching for more than half a century, showing a photo of the tunnel entrance.

They cite this evidence:

More so, Polish authorities, seeing this proof, say they are 99% sure that a football length field long train is, indeed, located under the surmised hill below Kslaz Castle.

Edyta Nawrocka, who was born in Walbrzych, even has a gold train song.  What more do you want?  Well, actually, one rumor is that the Amber Room might well also be here.  The local economy, in particular, has been stimulated by this Loch Ness effect.

Okay, so when is this movie coming out?  You've seen at least two recent ones:  The Monuments Men (Rotten Tomato, 31%/44%) with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, et al, and Helen Mirren's Woman in Gold (RT 52%/81%):

The world is only beginning to catch up with the 100,000 or so items still in various stages of provenance, review, obfuscation and pursuit.  You can read all about Nazi plunder and the current state of redemption, but an even larger question has to do with all the artifacts and "plunder" in our art galleries and museums from ancient Egypt, Cambodia, China, India...the world over.  Three-fourths of the Louvre came from Napoleon's pillaging.  Even George Clooney says, return the Mona Lisa to Italy.

Should the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum be returned to Egypt.  Doesn't the Winged Victory of Samothrace deserve to be repatriated to Greece?  International conventions have been held, countries have passed laws and good intent seems to be at the surface.  The reality is that, as in the return of Nazi loot, further analysis and legal tactics to delay are prevailing.  Russia for one lost 2.5 million works of art and ten million manuscripts, just from the second world war.  Their attitude is whatever they plundered is justified reparations.

I suspect more and more,  more and more will be returned to the country of origin.  But this could take another millennium.

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Cyclone Chapala is dissipating over Yemen, dropping at least a year of rain in a few hours.

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GAWA Day #48: Christmas Market and Wine

I should have titled my Grand Around the World Adventure Day #48:  Rothenburg and Wurzburg.  My Tauck Budapest to Amsterdam River Cruise visited both cities today.  But who cares about them, and Rothenburg is not even a city, with a population around 10,000.  To indicate how important it is, though, this tiny location is prominently included in the major cities of Bavaria.   In case you did not know:

• hamlet:  less than 100
• village:  100 to 1,000
• town:  1.000 to 20,000
• large town:  20,000 to 100,000
• city:  100,000 to 300,000
• large city:  300,000 to 1 million
• metropolis:  one to three million
• conurbation:  3-10 million (Bet you did not know this!)
• megalopolis:  more than 10 million

So, anyway, we caught a bus ride to Rothenburg that took us two hours, for the autobahn had a problem.  There is no speed limit for more than half of this speedway, but sometimes accidents happen.  Here are some fascinating facts:

• in Germany, autobahns carry 31% of the road traffic, but only account for 13% of traffic deaths
• fatality rates:
• autobahn:  1.9 deaths per billion kilometers
• urban streets:  4.7
• rural roads:  6.6
• there are around 10 countries with traffic death rates/100,000 under 5, including Germany
• the USA is at 11.6, China 20.5, Thailand 38.1 and Eritrea 48.4 (the worst)

I joined, from right, Kim, Jan and Alan from Sunnybank, Australia for lunch and had another weiner schnitzel with a salad and pilsner beer:

The one-pager provided by Tauck on Rothenburg goes up to the year 1900, and much of the attraction has to do with Medieval architecture and their restored past.  Here is where Christmas markets are legendary and my blue bar led me into one of the largest Christmas stores:

However, here is what interests me about Rothenburg:

• Considered to be the epitome of the German Home Town, representing all that was quintessentially German.
• The local citizenry strongly supported Hitler sending his organizers on day trips to see the most German of German Towns.
• In October 1938 all Jews were expelled.
• Other population areas in the country began to emulate what was happening here.
• They were bombed on 31March1945, but only one part of the town was affected.

• U.S. Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy (the civilian) was aware of the importance and beauty of Rothenburg, so he sent six men led by a first lieutenant into town with a white flag to negotiate the surrender of the town.
• Ignoring the order of Hitler, the local military commander accepted the offer and Rothenburg was spared.

Surely sounds like a movie.  In any case, this is an important reason why throngs of tourists flock here, including us, for Rothenburg, indeed, is worth a quick stop.

According to our tour guide, there is no historical significance to any of these buildings, but the setting makes for a fine postcard, not unlike the Eiffel Tower for Paris.

We then were driven to Wurstburg for wine tasting at the former home of the Prince Bishop:

The long day ended with an Oom-pah-pah band:

I thought I'd sneak in a couple of boasts as who gets this far on my postings?  First, if you've been reading this blog, I did indicate that Hawaii football coach would soon be fired.  He was.  Second, I picked the All Blacks from New Zealand to win the Rugby World Cup.  They did.  I smartly avoided making any prediction regarding the Baseball World Series, and wisely so, for I would have selected the Mets, who were largely embarrassed.

Incidentally, Regensburg has now won four straight baseball championships in  Germany.  When we toured the city I noticed a sign for Baseball Stadium (above).  You ask, what, baseball in Europe?  Yes, apparently this is one those legacies left by our military.  There is a rather large Army Garrison located at Hohenfels, just outside of Regensburg.  Interesting that I asked a couple of local citizenry what they thought of American troops still here 70 years after World War II.  They both said there was no U.S. military presence anymore.  They all left a long time ago.  Pardon me, but 37,000 active soldiers are still here in Germany (right), and nearly 50,000 in Japan.  In fact, 150,000 active duty personnel are deployed in 150  countries.  But this is just another one of those matters I'll again carp on in the future.

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Tropical Cyclone made landfall over Yemen today, predicted to bring anywhere from one to twenty years of rain:

While at least three deaths have been  reported, the good news is that this is the part of Yemen that is controlled by ISIS. 

Okay:  Yemen 1 versus Florida 0.  What do these scores stand for?  Over the past decade, Yeman has had one hurricane make landfall, and maybe the first hurricane-strength storm ever.  Florida has had NO, ZERO, hurricanes since Wilma on 24October2005.

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GAWA Day #47: Bamberg and Beer

This is our final day of beer, for we are moving out of Bavaria and into wine country.  Today, a quick tour through Bamberg (pronounced bom-berk--berg means mountain and burg is castle), one of those German towns you'd never bother with if the river cruise did not spend a day here.  You can't even find it on this map, but it's in the direction towards Bayreuth.  Reminiscent of Medieval times with churches and a river, it has been here for more than a millennium.  Their Bamberg University was founded in 1647.  The population is 72,000 and Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

They are recognized for having smoked beer, and Tauck provided a lagniappe, an unexpected treat,  at a local beer  hall:  three kinds of beer, plus two sausages and pretzel:

We returned to our ship for lunch and, against my better judgement, I actually ate a full lunch not more than an hour after that beer feast, chicken curry with another beer.  Then, we had a full hour of introduction to beer by Kati, in a dirndl (By the way, did you know that lederhosen, those leather pants, worn by men, are never washed?) one of our tour guides, who is from Germany:

Okay, that's not Kati, but someday soon, my photo will replace the above.  Incidentally, if the apron bow is to her left, it means she is available.  Right, taken.  In the middle and she's either open or a virgin.  Bow on back and either a widow or a waitress.  The latter two get a bit hazy.  Where's the bow above?  Not sure.  Anyway, no one takes this too seriously.

• Germany has over 1200 breweries with 5000 different labels.
• 80% of all European breweries are in Germany.
• However, only #3 in per capita consumption at 28 gallons/year (to Czechoslovakia and Austria)
• U.S. is #14 with 77 gallons
• China consumes twice the volume of the USA, which is #2 in total amount of beer drunk
• Germany passed the first food and beverage law in history, in 1516, dictating the use of only 4 ingredients for beer:  malt, yeast, hops and water.
• Beerology
• dark beer uses malt dried at high temperature
• pale lager is pale
• wheat beer uses wheat
• 5% alcohol, although some spring beers exceed 7%

My biggest surprise was that the shape of the glass determines type of beer drunk and origin.

I previously associated glass shapes only for wines, and tomorrow, we enter wine country.

By the way, a comment yesterday provided a link to the adventure of 26 year old travel blogger Sam Huang, who spent only $300 and cashed in his Alaskan Air points (not by flying anywhere, but by using 15 credit cards to quickly accumulate 100,000 miles) for an around the world first class journey on Emirates, although he actually only went 21,000 miles.  The loophole is that Alaskan Air did not have any routing rules and you could nest layovers.  Not anymore, of course.  I wonder how he spent 5 days in Dubai, for there is a 24-hour limit to these stops.  Says he usually flies coach if his money.  Anyway, absolutely fascinating, and here is his blog site.  

Notwithstanding that fabulous adventure, I think My Ultimate Global Adventure (MUGA) in First Class two years ago was a lot more satisfying.  Why am I showing a gold koi?  Well, you need to go to my MUGA Day #28.   Actually, there was even a follow-up a year later on My Ultimate Fantasy Adventure Day #12.  Then, of course, on my GAWA Day #11, Pearl's Gold Koi again.

Anyway, the point I want to make is that while the flying part of an around the world journey can be memorable with those incredible First Class lounges where you get shuttled by Rolls Royces to the plane, plus all that outrageously awesome service in the air, it is what you do when you get there that makes a grand away the world adventure worthwhile.  Each stop can be another flight into fantasia limited only by your imagination...and, perhaps, money.

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Tropical Cyclone Chapala is still at 120 MPH, but should weaken into a Category 2 and crash tomorrow into Yemen, over Bir Ali, as the first hurricane strength storm in history:

They could get 8 years of rain with one storm.

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GAWA Day #46: Germany, the Nazi Years and the Main-Danube Canal

There are three parts to my posting today:

1. Germany versus the USA.
2. Tour of Nazi Nuremberg
3. The Main-Danube Canal

Everyone already knows a lot about Germany.  Here's a comparison of our two countries:

                                             USA                      Germany

Age of consent                     18                             14

Drinking age                         21                             16

Chief Executive         Barack Obama           Joachim Gauck (huh??)

#2                                  Joe Biden                Angela Merkel (hmmmm..)

GDP                            $16.8 trillion               $3.73 trillion

Military as % of GDP       3.8%                          1.3%

Population                   316 million                    81 million

Homicides/100M               4.7                                0.8

Life expectancy                 79                                 81

CO2 emission/capita         18                                  9

If you lived in Germany, another comparison with the USA:

• 89% less likely to be in prison
• 82% less likely to be murdered
• 84% less likely to have AIDS
• consume 50% less oil
• spend 47% less on health care
• use 41% less electricity

Germany is 85% the size of California, and here is a comparison with Japan, which has a population of 127 million (USA 319 million, Germany 81 million):

Want more?  Click on this.

My big tour of the day was to Nazi Nurnberg, or Nazi Nuremberg.  The city has long been pivotal in history, for this was the the center of the German Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries. Martin Luther founded the Protestant Reformation in the early 1500's, and the Peace of Nuremberg came in 1532, unlinking to Papal Supremacy.

The Holy Roman Empire was the First Reich (empire or kingdom or realm--flag to the right), from 926 to 1806.  Then came the Second Reich, 1871 to 1919.  After the 2nd World War, the Weimar Republic was not a reich, but Hitler founded the Third Reich in 1933, and selected Nuremberg as the headquarters.  This was also the major production site of airplanes, submarines and tanks.  Why it took so long is written in  history, but on 2August1945, this medieval city was totally destroyed in one hour by Allied bombers. The Third Reich also came to an end.  You'd never notice, but there is no evidence of war here, for everything was not only rebuilt, but replicated.

For a variety of reasons, one being a central location away from Berlin (too complicated with too many nations involved) and Munich (too south), and another because of the fact that the major courthouse survived the bombing, the first Judgement at Nuremberg of German officials involved with the Holocaust, occurred here.  Rotten Tomatoes gave this 1961 film 90%/93% ratings.  Here are before and after shots of Courthouse 600:

All the leaders, Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels, of course, had already committed suicide before this military tribunal, and the 24 war criminals included Herman Goring and Rudolph Hess (although in 1941 he had flown to Scotland to broker a peace, was imprisoned then and sentenced to life in prison at this trial).  The deliberations began on 20November1945, judgments were made by 1October1946 and the ten of the twelve sentenced to death were hanged on 16October1946.  Martin Bormann had already committed suicide before the proceedings and Hermann Goring committed suicide the night before the execution. Two were acquitted.

We made two additional stops.  Here is Hitler's Nazi (which, by the way, comes from the early part of his party's name, which sounds like NAZI) gesamtplan for activities just outside of Nuremberg:

Below, the Zeppelin field, the grounds where Hitler held all his major public rallies, the site of the ultimate propaganda film, Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (here is a 100 minute version with English subtitles):

See way in the background where you can imagine Hitler is standing?  This is a photo I took today of half that staging area:

There was a huge swastika, which was blasted off after the war:

The swastika has had a 5000 year Hindu history, and Himmler probably had most to do with selection as the Nazi symbol, interpreting the Sanskrit word "arya" as supreme resembling Aryan, and supreme race:

The third stop was close by, something prosaically called the Documentation Center.  Hitler had begun to build a huge coliseum to seat 400,000, but the war brought construction to a halt.  Attempts have been made to convert this structure into a shopping complex or a stadium, but the prevailing sense is to leave it alone as a testament of Nazi hubris.  The Center is located in a portion of this giant building.

This is a fascinating tourist attraction that provides a comprehensive history of how Hitler rose, World War II details, and the aftermath, including the Nuremberg Trials.  I think it's free (Tauck pays for everything), but it's possible non-Tauck visitors had to pay 5 Euros for an excellent listening paddle.  I could have spent many hours here, something I could not have survived in all those churches, old palaces and castles we've thus far endured.  (I might later add a couple of photos anyway.)

Finally, focusing on the canal that connected the Main and Danube Rivers, allowing cruises of this sort from Budapest to Amsterdam to occur, Charlemagne first tried 1200 years ago, but quickly failed after one year. A ten-year effort by King Ludwig I succeeded in 1846 with a 110-mile canal between Aschaffenburg and Bamberg.  However, ships had to navigate through 100 locks on the 110-mile, 47-hour journey.  By 1850 trains made this canal largely obsolete.

A whole new project was nevertheless initiated in 1922, and after 40 years, finally finished in 1962.   Then in 1992 the 106 mile long Europa (also known as the Rhine-Main-Danube, etc.) Canal connected the Danube to the Main at Nurnberg and on to Kelheim.  Now good-sized ships could navigate from the North Sea and Atlantic to the Black Sea and back.  I asked what did this final link cost, and a figure of around $10 billion in 2015 dollars was mentioned.

This was not only a dredging operation, for the rivers were at different elevations.  The high cost had to do with building locks:

Our ship was traveling upstream until we reached that peak yesterday, and it will be all downstream now into Amsterdam.  River ships have problems when it rains too much or not enough.  We had to accelerate our schedule to pass through a certain point, for this October was very dry.  We will pass through 68 locks from Budapest to Amsterdam.

You ask, how do locks work?  Well, consider sailing to a waterfall.  How do you go up or down safely?  First you construct a chamber into which the ship can enter, with sliding doors so that you can raise and lower the water level, sort of like an elevator for humans. You  might also build hydroelectric power plants to regain back some energy, and supplemental side chambers to conserve water.   Individual locks go up and down as much as 82 feet. That second Panama Canal now close to being finished uses the technology utilized here.

Tomorrow, the modern Nuremberg and a lot info about beer.

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Tropical Cyclone Chapala is now at 120 MPH, but weakening, and will pass south of All Mukalla in Yemen.  The rainfall should be so significant that a year or two worth might fall just in a few hours.

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