Europe Revisited 50 Years Later: Part I, Germany
/The Filipino participants, including myself, were generally older than the Americans and Europeans. Among my colleagues were UP alumnae Amy Besa and Elena Samonte, and La Sallite Tony Espejo who, like me, had already graduated from college (the Americans were high school students). Host parents expecting callow teenagers must have been surprised to receive university graduates with Spanish names from a far-flung Southeast Asian country, who spoke English with an American twang and were far from any need of reconciliation from their hosts for WW II conflicts. The one-year program assigned us to various places in Europe, from Paris to Vienna, but also to such hitherto unknown places as Bielefeld (my city of assignment) and Wuppertal.
Since that year coincided with the Munich Olympics, I had hoped that I might at least be able to participate in its opening festivities. That event had been planned by the Federal Republic of Germany to be its entrée into the postwar world, which had marveled at its Wirtschaftswunder or marvelous economic miracle. Alas, like the rest of the Exchange students, we were confined to the television sets of the language school where we were sent for three weeks for orientation and speed courses in German. Like the rest of the world, we were shocked to witness the assault on part of the Israeli sports contingent, who were also taken hostage. This tremendous security breach in which Israelis perished cast a dark shadow on what should have been a flawless Teutonic achievement that would have salved memories of the earlier 1930s Berlin Olympics under the auspices of the Nazis. Worse, it evoked memories of the elephant in the room, the Holocaust. To the credit of the organizers, the Olympics succeeded despite this dreadful act of terrorism.
[Read: https://www.britannica.com/event/Munich-Massacre]
In what I consider a supreme coincidence and wonderful stroke of luck, I landed with a Lutheran pastor’s family with five children mirroring the ages of my own family back home. Bielefeld City was in the Federal State of Northrhine-Westphalen, whose Mittelstand industries, efficient city and transport system and sparkling new university were an illustration for Germany’s current economic success. The patience with which the family of Pastor Martin Kienecker and his wife, Berta, listened to my initially babbling basic German, later polished in night school and supplemented by courses at the University of Munich, explains my attachment to both this language and my continued friendship with them after 50 years. That was one of the main motives of my visit to Europe from 15 October to 15 November 2022, which was to be not only nostalgic, but also instructive on how the world has changed since 1972.
Pastor Martin Kienecker with wife, Berta, in a library with a depiction bend them of Martin Luther and his spouse, Katerina, who pioneered the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Luther’s Bible became the basis for Hochdeutsch, or Standard German, in the following years from its publication.
I now understand why Dr. Jose D. Rizal in the 19th century published his El Filibusterismo in Berlin, sought contact with such experts as Rudolf Virchow and Ferdinand Blumentritt (though the latter was in the Austro-Hungarian empire) and asked the flowers of Heidelberg in his poem to bring a message of freedom to his homeland.
The Dr. Jose Rizal statue in Wilhelmsfeld, Germany (Photo by Brady Eviota/Mindanews)
On an earlier visit to Germany in 2019, my Gastbruder (or host brother) Ulrich Kienecker had accompanied me to the Rizal shrine in the town of Wilhelmsfeld near Heidelberg, which duly recorded the intersection of Filipino, Hispanic, and German threads of knowledge and culture through Dr. Jose Rizal. Rizal had worked on his Noli Me Tangere in Wilhemsfeld, while staying with—yes--a pastor’s family. In hindsight, it is both tragic and amusing that Rizal was accused by the friars and Spanish reactionaries in Manila of having been a German spy when all he had been was a Germanophile.
The author Virgilio A. Reyes Jr. (center) with Ulrich Kienecker and sister Dorlein at the famous Herrenhauser baroque garden fronting the Hannover Castle, from which emerged the reigning British royal family, descendants of Hannoverian Queen Victoria.
In 2022, I decided to see two other famous German cities as well, Aachen and Trier.
Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle in French) is supremely associated with Charlemagne or Karl der Grosse, Holy Roman Emperor who is claimed by both the current-day French and Germans as having rebirthed the idea of Europe in the year 800. Though much destroyed in the Second World War, Aachen’s most important structure—the Dom or the Cathedral—still manifests the glory of Europe’s founding father. Its architecture is more reminiscent of a Byzantine building, with round arches and imposing mosaic images rather than the pointed angular supports of later Gothic edifices. Charlemagne’s throne is in a plain stone chair reflecting simple but impressive power. He was crowned here in the year 768 AD, as were 31 Holy Roman Emperors. The Charlemagne Prize has been given since 1950 to personalities of outstanding service to the unification of Europe, such as Pope John Paul II, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and President Bill Clinton.
The Cathedral of Aachen in which 31 Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were enthroned beginning with Charlemagne, who reinvigorated Europe in the 8th century.
The oldest wooden and gilded depiction in Germany of the Madonna with the Christ Child, dating from the year 980 AD, located in the Cathedral of Essen in Germany’s later-to-be industrial region.
Trier is regarded as Germany’s oldest city since, while founded by the Celts, it became a significant Roman City known as Augusta Trevorum. It served as one of Rome’s four capitals during its later period of the tetrarchy, and the Emperor Constantine’s father, Constantius, and mother, Helena, stayed for periods in this northernmost Roman city in this area. The Porta Nigra, the city portal, dates back to almost 2,000 years while the Cathedral dating to Roman times preserves the purest aspect of an imperial basilica when it still served as a court of justice and meeting place. In the 19th century, Karl and Jenny Marx both lived within the center of the city, which still preserves the House of Karl Marx with some of his personal belongings and exhibits of his works and his influence on modern Western ideologies and philosophies.
The tallest and oldest Roman structure in Northern Europe, the Porta Nigra, survived nearly 2,000 years because it was converted to a church in the Middle Ages.
Aachen and Trier border neighboring countries to the West such as France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Berlin, Germany’s capital since its modern unification under the Hohenzollern dynasty and the Iron Chancellor Bismark, lies far to the East and nearer to the present area of conflict in Europe, Ukraine. Located squarely in the middle of Upper Europe, Germany has always been in the center of European events, as in the religious wars of the 17th century and in the two World Wars of the 20th century. The unification of the two Germanys upon the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 brought it back into a leading political/military role that the current Bundeskanzler Scholz has named a Zeitenwende, a time change.
My visit in 2022 did not include Berlin, although my 2019 visit had allowed me to witness changes that unification had brought about not only to Berlin, but also to Dresden, a city in East Berlin formerly behind the Iron Curtain. Federalism is a key to Germany’s success, illustrated by these two cities, both influential in their own respective ways. Dresden was once the seat of a nobleman who was also King of Poland and has magnificent Northern Baroque buildings restored after the massive bombing of WW II.
Though Berlin is the capital, other cities such as Dresden, Hamburg, Hannover, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Dusseldorf, Munich, etc. retain their distinct traditions while the Federal States have their own particular approaches to education, culture, and lifestyles. Hence, unlike in neighboring countries, its capital maintains equilibrium with its other centers, lending diversity and encouraging local pride. Known for its citizens’ discipline and thoroughness, Germany nevertheless is not a one-size-fits-all-society. It leaves room for the individual. This may account for the Germans’ continued creativity in music, dance, theatre, literature, and design. A venerable city like Essen, housing the oldest Madonna image in Germany, is also known in modern times for producing a world-famous dancer and choreographer, Pina Bausch.
The oldest wooden and gilded depiction in Germany of the Madonna with the Christ Child, dating from the year 980 AD, located in the Cathedral of Essen in Germany’s later-to-be industrial region.
Certainly, Germany has its problems, too, but having gone through a turbulent past, it appears to have found a formula that will carry it through the challenges of the 21st century.
Postscript:
Though the ICJE Filipino participants ended their term in 1973, some of them went on to succeed in careers in their different disciplines. Amy Besa became a food writer and culinary expert who, with her husband Romy, Dorotan, established pioneering Filipino restaurants such as Cendrillon and Purple Yam in New York with a branch of the latter in Manila. Elena Samonte, PhD, became a Psychology professor and Registrar of the University of the Philippines. Tony Espejo studied further at the Royal Academy of Drama and Arts in London and was the Artistic Director of the Metropolitan Theatre in its first restoration in Manila. For this writer, German (as well as English and French) was an essential tool for entry into the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna in 1975 and useful in his career as a Foreign Service Officer for 35 years. Who would ever think that a youth exchange program 50 years ago would lead to such paths?
A career diplomat of 35 years, Ambassador Virgilio A. Reyes, Jr. served as Philippine Ambassador to South Africa (2003-2009) and Italy (2011-2014), his last posting before he retired. He is now engaged in writing, traveling and is dedicated to cultural heritage projects.
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