2004 Europe

Man's Chocolate, Germany



June 6 – For our morning break we stopped at a highway plaza for the WC and I found the most interesting chocolate bar (above). It’s called “Schwarze Schokolade for Herren” or “Dark Chocolate for Men.” I loved it. Chocolate too strong for women, what a concept! It’s great to be in the Fatherland! It was very good by the way. Then it was on to Koblenz, Germany



One additional observation. The Europeans, especially the French, are making a big deal out of the USA’s contribution to WWII. They are welcoming our veterans and GW with open arms and can’t stop talking about the fact that we bailed them out completely. One commentator actually said, “Without the contributions of the USA we would all be speaking German today!” Yikes!! And that was on CNN Europe, a network that makes CNN in the US look somewhat conservative if you can believe that! I am very pleased to report this. You all know how skeptical I am of mainland Europe’s socialistic tendencies. I’m still waiting to see if this gratitude and acknowledgement translates into any change of general attitude or behavior. But for right now, D-Day’s sixtieth anniversary is a very positive thing.



Our next stop was in Bingen, Germany to board a riverboat for a trip on the Rhine. We’re in the best part of the river for castles and small towns. The castles in this area were all started between 1100 and 1400AD. Many are in disrepair but some have been restored and one, Marksburg, was never conquered or successfully attacked and is in pretty good shape. The cruise was very relaxing and provided good views of many castles. It seemed like they were often not more than a mile apart. Pfalzgrafenstein Castle (below) is the model for the Pfaltzgraff stoneware logo. King Lewis the Bavarian built the castle on an islet in the middle of the Rhine River in 1326/1327. It stands 6 stories high, and was originally built as a toll collection station. The dungeon was a well with a raft floating on the water at the bottom. Merchants who would or could not pay the toll to pass the tower were lowered down onto this raft by a heavy rope. They remained there until someone came to pay the toll and redeem them. There were 20 toll collectors and one supervisor. General Prince Field Marshall Von Blucher crossed the Rhine River with his troops at this tower during the night of New Years Eve 1813-1814. In the first week of 1814 over 60,000 soldiers, 15,000 horses and 200 cannons crossed on a pontoon bridge built by Russian pioneers in pursuit of Napoleon. Blucher supervised this operation from the Pfalzgrafenstein castle. Must have been a sight to behold.



Just behind the tower of Pfalzgrafenstein you can see Gutenfels Castle at the top of the ridge. The castle was built around 1200 and is now a luxury hotel. There were several sights along the river that were memorable for a wide variety of reasons.



Please forgive me, but I have to get this one out of the way right up front. We saw what I believe to be the birthplace of the world’s first proctologist. He was born in Assmannshausen, Germany on the Rhine River (below). Sorry, I just couldn’t resist. The city name is real and I have a picture to prove it. How would you like to put that down as your birthplace on every application you have to fill out. We went past the Loreley (German spelling) Massif, the huge rock outcropping that inspired Henrich Heine to write his famous poem that was later set to music by Silcher. The story is of a beautiful maiden who lured sailors to their doom on the large rock.



On arriving in St. Goarshausen we left the boat and rejoined our coach for the drive up to Marksburg Castle (below). It was built in the 1100s and has the distinction of being the only intact castle on the Rhine. As with all the old cities and castles we’ve visited on this trip the bus can only go so far and then you hike the last part of the hill. Marksburg is on a 480-foot high hill overlooking the Rhine. As you can see the central keep is surrounded by scaffolding and undergoing renovation.



It’s located in the Palatine area of Germany. A place dear to me as the area from which many of the so-called “Pennsylvania Dutch” came to the USA in the 1600s, including my ancestors on my Mom’s side. Mom was born Bessie Mae Laible (rhymes with Bible), daughter of Lucretia Butz (rhymes with puts, not buts) and Henry Laible. The Laible’s are hard to trace, but the Butz’s were a prominent family and their history is well documented. In fact, Butztown, PA is named for them and the museums of early PA history have many Butz artifacts in them.



As you probably already know, the PA ‘Dutch’ are actually Germans and were called Dutch because the English couldn’t properly pronounce ‘Deutch’. (Note to Joe: I guess the English in Europe aren’t the only ones who change names they can’t pronounce.) My ancestors were Lutherans who were forced out of the predominantly Catholic southern area of what is now Germany. Mostly uneducated farmers, they migrated east in Europe and were largely not well received until William Penn offered them sanctuary in his colony, Pennsylvania. My relatives came to PA in the mid 1600s with the name Butz. They were one of the families who formed the New Jerusalem Lutheran Church in 1683 in Salisbury Township outside of Bethlehem, PA. The PA Dutch account for the fact that many places in central eastern PA have Biblical names. Bath, Bethlehem, Emmaus, Egypt, Nazareth, Paradise and the list goes on. As you also know, Penn, being a Quaker himself, welcomed other groups that adopted Protestant beliefs, the Mennonites, Moravians, Reformed, and Amish as well as the Lutherans. They all came from Europe during this era. They are lumped together under the title PA Dutch because many of them spoke a peasant version of German commonly called ‘low German’.



We arrived in Koblenz, Germany in the early afternoon, checked into the hotel, and then reconvened for our tour of Marksburg Castle. The tour of Marksburg was really great. Seeing a castle in pretty much its original shape was very interesting. The castle was under siege several times but was never overrun. It’s the only castle on this area of the Rhine that is intact and never destroyed or damaged. The view of the Rhine from the castle was magnificent. You can see why they chose this position to build; they can see people coming for miles. Very important when the next castle down river may have hostile intentions.

(c) 2004 Rod Longenberger