The Brocken
Written on Monday and Tuesday, May 26-27, 2014
It is Asparagus (Spargel) and Strawberry Season here in
Germany, and every single restaurant and café has a special menu of their Spargel
Gala: meals based around asparagus, and desserts using fresh strawberries. We
are, like the Germans, eating asparagus at at least one meal each day,
sometimes, as happened today, at both lunch and supper. The entire country must
have asparagus pee. You know what I mean.
The last few days have been wonderful!! IN our rental car we have been driving between Berlin and Bielefeld. Germany
is a very large country; can someone please explain to me why on earth they
thought they needed all of Europe to spread out in? I’m just sayin’…
We have been in a couple of places now that we are told rarely see
Americans or even Brits, for that matter. They are primarily tourist
destinations for Germans. As I posted, the first was the beautiful, adorable town of
Quedlinburg, just south of the Harz Mountains and just inside the old East
Germany (FYI, the towns nearest the border were the most policed, the most
restricted). Uh-oh, now I’m going to go immediately to the whole Iron Curtain
thing. Again, I can’t help it; being in what was East Germany for a week gets
to me.
Go to this website for a detailed and horrifying description
of what the enforced border was like:
By the way, it is incredible to me that the GDR government
justified—to its people and to the border guards—the erection of The Wall and
the rest of the horrific border system as being to protect East German from
NATO military aggression. With no
physical evidence that anyone was trying to get IN with tanks or jeeps, the
East German people could see that their own compatriots were being killed in
the “death zones,” and that the soldiers had “shoot to kill” orders for anyone
caught in those death zones. You’d have to be an idiot to believe it was to
keep anyone out. The GDR government
itself knew its primary reason; before the erection of The Wall in 1961, over a
million East Germans had fled the GDR.
Okay, back to the more light-hearted tourist
stuff:
Sunday we drove north to the Brocken, the highest mountain
in Northern Germany, at 1141 meters. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark certainly don’t
have anything this high, so it is the highest point all the way north to the Baltic.
Because of that fact, at about 3700 feet, it is similar to the White Mountains
in New Hampshire in that it “behaves” more like mountains elsewhere that are
twice as high. The top of it is above the tree line, because the winds and
storms are so fierce, and it gets so cold for so long (normal snow cover is
from mid-autumn until May), that the plants that live there-lichens and mosses- are Alpine.
We joined much, it seemed, of the German population on this
sunny Sunday in reaching the summit one way or another: by horse-drawn
carriage, on foot, or, as we did, by narrow-gauge coal-fired steam-powered
train.
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| Looking down toward the narrow-gauge coal-fired train that chugs up the mountain. I understand the historical fun of continuing to use coal to power the cute engine, but geez.... look at that dark and smelly smoke in this gorgeous place. |
The Brocken and the entire Harz Mountains region are very popular hiking
areas, for many reasons. They are quite beautiful, and are a national park,
with waterfalls, deciduous and coniferous forests, and deep valleys. They are
also the setting for myths dear to the German heart, and the setting for
Goethe’s Dr. Faust selling his soul to the devil (no, I’m not going to start
talking about the Nazis again, I promise). The Harz Mountains and particularly
the Brocken are part of ancient stories of witches, trolls, and dwarves, and
the focus of annual May Eve (Walpurgis’ night) witches’ celebrations.
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| Sign discussing the "Hexenaltar", the "Witches' Altar" |
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| Me in front of the "witches' altar" |
The
Brocken was probably a sacred mountain to both the Celtic people and to the
Germanic tribal groups that replaced them. When it was just inside East Germany
(the GDR), it became completely closed to anyone except the military and Stasi;
on top of it remains the listening station that was built there, used to listen
in on Western Europe and West Germany.
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| The television tower and the Soviet listening station on top of the Brocken. |
Soldiers patrolled the mountain and nearby peaks, and they were mined
and fenced. When the Communist era ended, the Brocken was visited by thousands
of German visitors in just the first few days, celebrating its return to the
German people. At the top of the mountain is a stone with a plaque that
proclaims it, like the East German people, “free again.” The Brocken became a
symbol of reunification.
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| Looking down the mountain to, I think, the north. |
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| Looking up the mountain towards the listening station. Note the concrete paths for hiking. |
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