Teriolis ≠ Tirol

Posted on January 23, 2015 by kcosumano

Continuing in the looking-up-one-thing-and-finding-the-tip-of-the-iceberg vein, I recently began looking into an assumption I had made a while back — that the name Tirol was derived from the Roman fortress Teriolis (from which the village of Zirl takes its name). It turns out that this is completely unsubstantiated, and that the name Tirol came to these lands by being ruled by the Earls of Tirol, who in turn took their name from their home, the castle Schloss Tirol, by around 1141.
Whence the castle got its name remains a mystery. Wikipedia mentions that tir meant territory or land in both Latin and Old Irish (Celtic), and that earlier written versions of the name include de Tirale and de Tyrols.

Ah, that mysterious “y” which one finds in the name when written in English! I had always wondered about that.

Then, poking around for anything on the internet concerning the origin of the name, I came across this interesting treatise (de). (I am not sure what to make of it, exactly — it reads a bit like Tolkien’s backstory in the appendices of “The Lord of the Rings”. It also shares some word-for-word passages with this.) The author (if he is the author) postulates that the rocky hill on which the castle sits had been taken in the early middle ages by conquering Germanic tribes, who named it in honor of the Germanic god Tyr (en) (aka Ziu*, both connected in turn to Zeus deus, deva, and our Tuesday). He adds that before the castle there had been an early Christian church on the site, and it is known that those early Christian churches often were built right atop pre-Christian holy sites. So it’s possible that the name Tirol (or Tyrol) is a very old, pre-Christian one.

The first Earls of Tirol were apparently Bavarian (Bavaria was running the place at the time) but they adopted the name of their castle rather than their family name, which lends a little credibility to the theory that the place name had some ancient meaning. Which nobody would have remembered by the 12th century.

The author also mentions a very curious book called Das erfundene Mittelalter (“the invented middle ages”) by a “chronology critic”, who claims that all the years between 614 and 911 didn’t exist, that everything purported to have happened in that time, didn’t, because of some sort of massive calendar jump. Scientists and archaeologists have debunked this theory.

And, completely unrelated to these places: the name Tauern, given to the Alpine mountain region of Salzburg and Carinthia, is evidently connected to the name of its earlier inhabitants, the Taurisci. After the Battle of Telamon in 225 B.C.E., the beaten Taurisci were allowed to resettle further southwest at what is now called – wait for it — Torino, or in English, Turin.

*Ziu and Zirl sound suspiciously alike. Is it not possible that, the Romans perhaps having latinized an already-given Raetian name for that hill there (now the Martinsbühel), the two names might indeed be related, by way of Ziu? The Roman name for Wilten, Veldidena, is thought to have come from a pre-existing name. Did the Raetians share any linguistic origins with their northern neighbors? One might assume yes, as Germanic and Celtic were both Indo-European. And gods are completely transferable, as history shows us.

A Stone Marker on the West Bank of the Ammersee

Posted on January 9, 2015 by kcosumano

Sometimes the act of looking up one thing takes me to another things, and then something else altogether. This post, for example.

This is a path on the west bank of the Ammersee between Utting and Schondorf. The stone column seen on the left bears information about a Roman-era bath house with living quarters, which stood here between the 2nd and 4th centuries C.E.
The building was made from volcanic tuff, brick, wooden posts and mosaic, and its walls were painted with frescoes. It had living quarters and bathing facilities, including a changing room (apodyterion), and baths with hot (caldarium), warm (tepidarium), and cold water (frigidarium), achieved with an underfloor heating system (hypokauste).

This home-spa belonged to a very nice villa and farm (villa rustica) which once stood a little further up the hill. Situated conveniently near both the east-west Via Julia (Augsburg – Salzburg) and the north-south Via Claudia*, the villa had access roads leading to connecting roads on high ground west of the lake and to the Lech valley further west. It would have provided impressive views of the lake and the mountain range beyond.

According to the plaque, the foundations were excavated in 1924 by one Dr. Blendinger along with his students. Dr. Heinrich Blendinger was director of the nearby boarding school Landheim Schondorf. In 1934 he took over the über-elite Schule Schloss Salem (Salem Castle School) in Baden-Württemberg, just north of Lake Constance. That school has kind and grateful words about Blendinger on their website, giving him credit for the school’s survival through the Third Reich years. A scholarship is given in his name.
According to other sources, Blendinger was not so much “keeping Nazi influence at bay” as he would have one believe from his published memoirs, but an excellent educator who also had impeccable Nazi credentials, and who took over direction of the school after Hahn’s very Nazi successor made a mess of things. All in all one gets the impression he was, if not quite Oskar Schindler, something like that. Former students remembered that under Blendinger’s administration, the school had no racial-idealogy studies, no mandatory wearing of the swastika, and they greeted each other with “Guten Tag” and not “Heil Hitler”. That alone says much about the climate in the school, constantly under threat of being dissolved and turned into a military school.

Somewhat related to the topic: Christoph Probst, member of the resistance group White Rose, attended Landheim Schondorf at age 17 in 1936. As did (around 12 years earlier) Helmuth Graf von Moltke, who had assisted the White Rose in getting flyers to the Allies for distribution over Germany. Another White Rose sympathizer, Jürgen Wittenstein, attended Salem Castle School during Blendinger’s tenure there. He is living in the United States.

*The plaque mentions the Via Claudia as being the road “to Brenner”, which is not clear. The actual Via Claudia ran further west of here along the Lech River and over the Alps at the Reschen Pass. The road now called Via Raetia, which is much closer to this place, does go over the Brenner Pass but was built around 100 years later, and seems to have had no name at the time. It is possible that the new road then took over the official route name, much like highways do today, but I haven’t seen that before in connection to these two roads.

Forgotten Bavaria: St. Johannes auf der Bergerin

Posted on November 25, 2014 by kcosumano

(What’s left of a few signs which may have once indicated the original site./ Was von den Resten übrig blieb, die einmal den ursprünglichen Standort angedeutet haben könnten.)

Many centuries ago, west of the Ammersee in southern Bavaria, the main road from Diessen to Entraching crossed the road from Utting to Dettenschwang about right here in this forest. It was more meadow then, with a hermitage and a cemetery near the church.
Vor vielen Jahrhunderten kreuzte sich westlich des Ammersees in Südbayern die Hauptstraße von Dießen nach Entraching und die Straße von Utting nach Dettenschwang ungefähr hier, in diesem Wald. Damals war es eher eine Wiese, mit einer Kapelle und einem Friedhof daneben.

According to this article in the Augsburg newpaper, a local priest named Karl Emerich is credited for rediscovering the site of the church in 1916, a good hundred years after it had burned down in a fire and been forgotten. Father Emerich posited the theory that the place had been held sacred in pre-Christian times. “It is well known that the German Pagans liked their sacred sites in forests and groves.” The early Christian missionaries “preferred to convert pagan holy sites to Christian ones, and as there was a splendid spring nearby, which may have had religious significance,” they would have found it convenient to build a church here where the local people were used to coming, wrote Emerich.
Nach diesem Artikel aus der Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung ist die Wiederentdeckung des Standorts der Kirche im Jahre 1916, gut hundert Jahre, nachdem sie abbrannte und vergessen wurde, einem örtlichen Priester namens Karl Emerich zu verdanken. Pater Emerich vertrat die Theorie, dass der Ort bereits in vorchristlicher Zeit heilig war.”Die heidnischen Deutschen hatten bekanntlich ihre Heiligtümer gerne in Wäldern und Hainen”. Die christlichen Missionare hätten mit Vorliebe “heidnische Heiligtümer in christliche umgewandelt, und da sich eine prächtige Quelle vorfand, die vielleicht schon im heidnischen Kultus Bedeutung hatte, so lag für die Missionäre wohl nichts näher, als diesen Platz zu einer christlichen Kultusstätte und zwar zu einem Tauforte einzurichten, denn hier strömten die Umwohner ohnehin aus alter Gewohnheit zusammen zu ihren heidnischen Opfern (…)” – so Emerich.

Just down the main road is the rebuilt Johannesbrunnen with some information about the church and its spring. In 1718 the water was declared to hold healing powers. In the mid-eighteenth century it was reported that poachers kept breaking the the church windows and stealing the lead, in order to make bullets from it, and in 1759 Bavarian Elector Maximilian III Joseph arrived with his entourage and stayed around to hunt wild boar. By the end of the century the hermitage was down to just one hermit, and in 1802 the structures were destroyed in a fire.
Gerade am Ende der Hauptstraße steht der wieder errichtete Johannesbrunnen mit einigen Informationstafeln über die Kirche und ihre Quelle. Im Jahre 1718 wurde diese als Heilquelle anerkannt. In der Mitte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts wurde berichtet, dass Wilderer die Kirchenfenster zerbrachen um die Bleifassungen zu Gewehrkugeln zu verarbeiten. Im Jahre 1759 weilte der bayerische Kurfürsten Maximilian III. Joseph mit seinem Gefolge dort, um Wildschweine zu jagen. Am Ende des Jahrhunderts war die Kapelle bis auf einen verbliebenen Einsiedler heruntergewirtschaftet, und im Jahr 1802 wurde das Gebäude bei einem Brand zerstört.

Now only the fountain remains, and a pretty forest of beech and spruce trees behind it. The site where the church once stood is now occupied by oak trees, which took root there there after the fire.
Heute zeugt nur mehr der Brunnen davon – und ein hübscher Wald aus Buchen und Fichten dahinter. Der Ort, an dem die Kirche stand stehen heute noch Eichen, die nach dem Brand dort aufkamen.

Licus

Posted on September 22, 2014 by kcosumano

A beautiful late-summer Saturday afternoon walking along the Lech River, south of Landsberg. The river was full of swans, dozens of them, and as we walked an enormous flock of honking wild geese came in over the trees and landed in the water. The Lech gets its name from the Celts who lived here and who were known to the Romans as Licates. Over the years it’s been referred to as Licus, Licca, Lecha, and finally Lech. According the the German Wikipedia, the Welsh word llech (stone slab) and the Breton word lec’h (gravestone) point to a Celtic origin, as the river is unusually gravelly.

Spaziergang an einem schönen Spätsommersamstagnachmittag den Lech entlang, südlich von Landsberg. Der Fluss war voll von Schwänen, Dutzende von ihnen, und während wir da gingen kam laut schreiend eine enorme Schar Wildgänse über die Bäume geflogen und landete im Wasser. Der Lech hat seinen Namen von den Kelten, die hier lebten. Diese waren bei den Römern als Licates bekannt. Im Laufe der Jahre ist er als Licus, Licca, Lecha und schließlich Lech bezeichnet worden. Nach der die deutsche Wikipedia, weisen die walisische Wörter Llech (Steinplatte) und die bretonische Wort lec’h (Grabstein) auf einen keltischen Ursprungs, zumal der Fluss ungewöhnlich viel Geschiebe führt.

Reading the Tabula Peutingeriana

Posted on September 10, 2014 by kcosumano

The Tabula Peutingeriana is a 13th century copy of a Roman road map from around the 4th or 5th century CE, judging by the place names on it. It is named for Konrad Peutinger, a man of letters from 16th-century Augsburg, who had bequeathed it to his great-nephew Markus Welser (the Welser clan was a famous banker family in Augsburg, and had an Innsbruck representative in Philippine.) It is a very unusual map in that the road lengths are consistent (“längentreu”) but not the areas between them. In this way it resembles a subway map, where all the rail lines extend in directions beneficial to the space of the map but not true to actual geography. The lands on the Tabula extend from the British Isles to the Ganges Valley in India. // Die Tabula Peutingeriana ist eine im 13. Jhdt. N. Chr. angefertigte Kopie einer römischen Straßenkarte des 4 oder 5 Jhdt. N. Chr, wenn man von den verwendeten Ortsnamen ausgeht. Sie wurde nach Konrad Peutinger, einem Gelehrten des 16. Jahrhunderts in Augsburg, der es seinem Großneffen Markus Welser vermacht hatte, benannt (die Welser-Clan war eine berühmter Bankier-Familie in Augsburg, und hatte in Innsbruck einen Vertreter in Philippine). Es ist eine sehr ungewöhnliche Karte, da die Straßenlängen konsistent sind (“längentreu”), nicht aber die Gebiete zwischen ihnen. Auf diese Weise gleicht sie einer U-Bahn-Karte, in der alle Eisenbahnlinien so gerichtet sind, dass sie ins Papierformat der Karte gut passen, aber nicht tatsächliche Geographie abbilden. Die Länder auf der Tabula erstrecken sich von den Britischen Inseln bis zum Ganges-Tal in Indien.
I recently obtained a copy of Via Claudia Exkursionsführer (Via Claudia Excursion Guide) by Hermann J. Volkmann. It’s a rather academic booklet, put out by scholars of geography didactics, but not difficult to follow. To my delight, it shows with modern maps the presumed route of the Via Claudia from Augsburg to Füssen, almost to the meter, including information on where it is still accessible and where one has to detour. Volkmann says some interesting things about the famously straight Roman roads and their representation on the Tabula Peutingeriana. On the map below you will see that they are drawn as straight lines with kinks. According to Volkmann, these kinks represent stages or segments on the journey, and each joint was probably recognisable by landmarks (grave mounds, viereckschanzen, rivers, lakes) or guesthouses, found at regular intervals along the road and offering bed and board, stalls and supply depots. // Ich habe vor kurzem eine Kopie des Via Claudia Exkursionsführer (Via Claudia Wanderführer) von Hermann J. Volkmann erhalten. Es ist eine eher akademische Broschüre, die von Wissenschaftlern der Geographie erstellt wurde (Lehrstuhl für Didaktik der Geographie an d. Univ. Augsburg), aber nicht schwer zu folgen. Erfreulicherweise zeigt es mit modernen Karten die mutmaßliche Route der Via Claudia von Augsburg nach Füssen, fast auf den Meter, einschließlich Informationen darüber, wo sie noch zugänglich ist und wo man einen Umweg machen muss. Volkmann sagt einige interessante Dinge über die berühmte geraden Römerstraßen und deren Darstellung auf der Tabula Peutingeriana. Auf der Karte sieht man, dass sie als gerade Linien mit Knickstellen gezeichnet werden. Nach Volkmann, stellen Knicke Stufen oder Segmente auf der Reise dar, und jedes Gelenk war wohl erkennbar ein Wahrzeichen (Grabhügel, Viereckschanzen, Flüsse, Seen) oder Pensionen, in regelmäßigen Abständen entlang der Straße, die Unterkunft,Verpflegung, Ställe und Depots bieten.

Only two travel segments of the Via Claudia can be found on the Tabula Peutingeriana; from Augusta vindelicum (two towers near the top left corner, above) to Da novalis, and from there to Abodiacum. After that there seems to be a detour somewhere* over to the Via Raetia**, which was built later and runs through Innsbruck and the Brenner Pass. Volkmann posits that the Via Raetia was the more important route at the time, so it would have made sense to include it and not the older, longer route.
Here are the stops between Augusta vindelicum (Augsburg, Bavaria) and Tridentum (Trento, Italy). I have included the names on the Tabula Peutingeriana, a known Roman name (if different), and the modern name for that place. // Nur zwei Reise Segmente der Via Claudia konnten auf der Tabula Peutingeriana gefunden werden; von Augusta Vindelicum (zwei Türme in der Nähe der oberen linken Ecke, oben) nach Da Novalis, und von dort zu Abodiacum. Danach scheint es eine Umleitung irgendwo über der Via Raetia zu geben **, die später gebaut wurde und die durch Innsbruck und über den Brenner * verläuft. Volkmann geht davon aus, dass die Via Raetia zu der Zeit eine wichtigere Route an der Zeit war, so dass es sinnvoll war auf die Darstellung der alten Route zu verzichten. Hier sind die Rastplätze zwischen Augusta Vindelicum (Augsburg, Bayern) und Tridentum (Trento, Italien) zu sehen. Ich habe die Namen auf der Tabula Peutingeriana, bekannten römischen Namen (falls abweichend), und modernen Namen für diesen Ort gegenübergestellt.

Augusta vindelicum — Augsburg
Da novalis — possibly Obermeiting
Avodiaco — Abodiacum— Epfach
Coveliacas — “Köchel”, at Murnauer Moos***.
Tartena — Parthanum — Partenkirchen
Scarbia — Klais, where Scharnitz Abbey once stood. (The story of the name Klais is connected to the Via Raetia.)
“Vetonina” — Veldidena — Innsbruck – Wilten
Matreio — Matreium — Matrei am Brenner
Vipiteno — Vipiteno (Sterzing)
Sublavione — Chiusa (Klaussen)
Pentedrusi — Pons Drusi — Bolzano (Bozen)
Tredente — Tridentum — Trento (Trient)

*An east-west Roman road from Salzburg to Kempten connected Epfach, on the Via Claudia, with Raisting, south of the Ammersee and on the Via Raetia. Possibly one simply detoured there. // Eine Ost-West-Römerstraße von Salzburg nach Kempten verband Epfach, an der Via Claudia, mit Raisting, südlich des Ammersees und an der Via Raetia gelegen. Möglicherweise wurde sie hier einfach umgeleitet.

** The name Via Raetia is a later invention, the Roman name for this road is forgotten, if indeed it had ever had a name. // Der Name Via Raetia ist eine spätere Erfindung, der römische Name für diese Straße ist vergessen, wenn es denn jemals einen Namen hatte.

***Other researchers point to the Echelsbacher Bridge near Bad Bayersoien, but this doesn’t make sense to me. // Anderer Forscher weisen auf die Echelsbacher brücke bei Bad Bayersoien hin; mir leuchtet das aber nicht ein.

Der Hofstetter Frauenwald

Posted on August 28, 2014 by kcosumano

A few months ago I quickly photographed a field of grave mounds along the main road from Hofstetten to Pürgen. / Vor ein paar Monaten habe ich schnell ein Feld von Grabhügeln entlang der Hauptstraße von Hofstetten nach Pürgen fotografiert.

The Wikipedia entry for the nearby community of Pürgen mentions a Totenstadt; that there once were said to be 200 grave mounds, and that by 1908 that number was down to 63. / Der Wikipedia-Eintrag für die nahegelegene Gemeinde Pürgen erwähnt eine Totenstadt; dass es einmal um die 200 Grabhügel gewesen sind, und dass um 1908 diese Zahl auf 63 gesunken war.

Today I took a tour of a large patch of woods, called the Hofstetter Frauenwald, across the road from that field. I don’t know why it’s called a “Ladies’ Forest” but postulate that the land had once belonged to a convent. I suspected that there may be many more grave mounds inside the forest. / Heute habe ich eine Tour durch einen großen des Waldes gemacht, dem so genannten Hofstetter Frauenwald, gerade jenseits der Hauptstraße dieses Felds. Ich weiß nicht, warum es eine “Frauenwald” genannt wird, aber nehme an, dass das Land einst zu einem Kloster gehörte. Ich vermutete, dass viele weitere Grabhügel im Wald sind.

And indeed, from the path alone I counted 28 of them. A visit in the winter, when one can leave the trails (too much thorny underbrush growing there right now) will surely lead to more. With the ten visible in the field across the main road, that’s 38 at least. / Und tatsächlich – vom Weg aus zählte ich bereits 28 von ihnen. Ein Besuch im Winter, wenn man die Wege verlassen kann, wird sicherlich zu mehr führen (zu viel dornigen Gestrüpp dort wächst dort im Augenblick). Mit den zehn sichtbaren Grabhügeln im Feld gegenüber die Hauptstraße sind es dann mindestens 38.

A dozen photographs of x-thousand-year-old grave mounds eroding in the woods might bring to mind Monty Python’s tree slide show, especially since they all look more or less alike… / Ein Dutzend Fotos von x-tausend Jahre alten Grabhügeln in den Wäldern Erodieren erinnert an Monty Pythons Baum Dia-Show, vor allem da sie alle mehr oder weniger gleich aussehen …

…and so I’ll spare you from any more! Suffice to say that I am very pleased to have found the Bronze Age necropolis in the woods just outside our village. There are no signs at the site and very little information online, but once you know where to look, they are all around you… / Und so erspare ich ihnen mehr davon! Es genügt zu sagen, dass es mich sehr freut, die Bronzezeit-Nekropole in den Wäldern vor den Toren unseres Dorfes gefunden zu haben. Es gibt keine Hinweise auf dem Gelände und sehr wenig Informationen online, aber wenn Sie wissen, wo sie suchen müssen, steht man schon mittendrin.

Cambodunum – Kempten

Posted on August 25, 2014 by kcosumano

An artist’s rendition of the stone layers of an inside wall in the kleine Therme.

Kempten, in the Allgäu region, is one of Germany’s oldest cities. Earliest mention appears to be by the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, who called it Kambodunon and wrote that it was a town of the Celtic Estiones. When the Romans invaded in 15 BCE, they built a classical Roman city on the plateau overlooking the current modern town. Cambodunum‘s buildings were initially made of wood, and after a fire destroyed the town in 69 CE, it was rebuilt in stone, and it is these remains which the visitor sees at the Cambodunum Archaeology Park (g).

Above, the remains of the Temple District (top). The population of Cambodunum consisted not only of Romans but of assimilated (“romanized”) locals and immigrants, and each group had their own set of gods to worship. In Cambodunum, the temples of local gods and Roman gods existed side by side. The low stone walls define the excavated walls and foundations, as for example the Forum in what is now a large lawn.

The kleine Therme (“small bathhouse” — I was unable to figure out it there was a large one as well, possibly reburied for conservation purposes or lost to centuries of urban construction) is on display inside a protective building. It was built for the town’s chief magistrate, his staff and guests, and featured hot and cold baths, a steam room, and latrines. When Rome abandoned its transmontane colonies and eventually went down itself with the invading hordes, it unfortunately took its knowledge of its infrastructure maintenance with it. In a 2007 interview for Salon, historian Katherine Ashenburg explains why the following centuries of life in Europe were filthy ones.

Random piles of building stones within the park. Not everything can by reconstructed.

Those Damn Socialist Roman Roads

Posted on June 2, 2014 by kcosumano

Just poking around the internet for information on the Via Raetia (the Roman Road from northern Italy to Augsburg) and exactly where it would have joined the Via Julia (the Roman Road from Salzburg to Augsburg). I found this, and normally would not repost an image if I could otherwise manage to go there myself and take my own photo. But … can you find the reason I posted this?

Agenda 21! The UN “plot to destroy private property rights and force upon us all a one-world government of ‘the elites’ through radical environmentalism“. Also, the plot to shut down all American golf courses. If you don’t understand me, be thankful you’ve been spared exposure to that nonsense.

Clearly Agenda 21 has plans to shut down the Autobahn and force us to ride bicycles to work on the Roman Roads. The horror.

Image found here.

Why One Cannot Cycle The Roman Road in Bavaria

Posted on June 1, 2014 by kcosumano

It’s the faint line running diagonally through the fields, between the villages of Wielenbach and Raisting.

Image from this informative collection of Via Raetia images from Mittenwald to the Ammersee. (In German, but the photos are nice.)

Two Roads in Utting

Posted on May 27, 2014 by kcosumano

On a small, wooden sign posted along a dirt road outside of Utting am Ammersee, not far from the Celtic Schanze in Achselschwang:

Nach der Eroberung des südbayerischen Raumes 15 v. Chr. enstand zunächst dessen neue Hauptstadt: Augusta Vindelicorum, das heutige Augsburg. Sie wurde Mitte des ersten Jahrhunderts n. Chr. durch die Via Claudia mit Rom verbunden, die über den Reschenpaß führt und am Lech entlanglief.
Die Trasse über den Brenner, den Zirler Berg, Mittenwald, Partenkirchen, Weilheim wurde erst zu Beginn des dritten Jahrhunderts ausgebaut und führt hier durch (den) Flur.
Da sie direktere Verbindung darstellte, wuchs ihre Bedeutung rasch.
Später wurde sie von den Germanen genutzt, die von Norden einfielen und sich unter anderem im Bereich der Straßen, auch hier in Utting, niederließen. Auch im Mittelalter wirde die Trasse noch für die nach Italien ziehenden kaiserlichen Heere benutzt, die sich in Augsburg sammelten.

It tells of the Roman Roads from Italy to Augsburg, and that second of the two (the Via Raetia) passed by here. After the fall of the empire it was used by the Germanic tribes who came down from the north to settle here, and then by imperial armies traveling to Italy in the Middle Ages.

Da die Straße sehr einfach gebaut war — sie war lediglich ein ungepflasterer Kiesweg — verwischten sich ihre Spuren nach und nach wieder in der Landschaft, so daß heute nur noch wenig zu sehen ist. Die Spuren und der angenommene Verlauf auf Uttinger Flur sehen Sie auf der obenstehenden Karte.

Well, the Romans put a lot of engineering and resources into their roads, but perhaps not so much here, probably because the landscape didn’t require it. Here they’d made a gravel road and left it at that, apparently. The sign is not clear as to whether the road did come through right here, or whether it’s assumed to have come through here.

The second road is not really much of a road at all, but rather a short paved way that connects two other streets over a stream. This, as the sign reads, is Bert Brecht Way, and it is so named because Brecht once lived, briefly, around the corner.

Sieben Wochen meines Lebens war ich reich.
Vom Ertrag eines Stückes erwarb ich
Ein Haus in einem großen Garten. Ich hatte es
Mehr Wochen betrachtet, als ich es bewohnte. Zu
verschiedenen Tageszeiten
Und auch des Nachts ging ich erst vorbei, zu sehen
Wie die alten Bäume über den Wiesen stünden in der
Frühdämmerung
Oder der Teich mit den moosigen Karpfen lag, vormittags,
bei Regen
Die Hecken zu sehen in der vollen Sonne des Mittags
Die weißen Rhododendrenbüsche am Abend, nach dem
Vesperläuten.

Brecht wrote that for seven weeks of his life he was a rich man. He’d bought a house with a large garden, not far from the banks of the Ammersee. He’d observed the house for far longer than he’d actually lived there, passing by to gaze upon the house, the pond, the trees, the rhododendrons. In late 1932 he moved in, but by the following February he was forced to flee Nazi Germany. The house remained in the family until 1953.

Licus Translation

German to English translation, ATA-certified

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