Willkommen in Deutschland, in ThŸringen, in Jena!

The weather was typical for Germany in April: some rain, some sun, morning chill and afternoon warmth. Students arrived by bus around 3 pm on the afternoon of Friday, April 27.

First stop for our tired students was the Deutsches Schullandheim in Zšthen, a community about 22 km north of Jena. Begun in the GDR as a school for horse trainers and converted after 1989 into a kind of animal and nature preserve (along with a riding school), the Schullandheim provides a retreat atmosphere where students can settle in and start adjusting to their new environment.

Saturday morning started right in with an intensive language course, taught by Frau Bettermann, one of the four teachers who will sharing teaching responsibilities for our students.

 

Sharing the Schullandheim with us was a choir from Ilmenau, a town south of Jena in the ThŸringer Wald. Aside from sharing their music with us, the choir also shared their free time on Saturday evening: playing ping pong, soccer, chess, and other games with our group.

• Megan at work -- Students got to work on readings early to prepare for the Sunday field trip to one of the most renowned cathedrals in eastern Germany in Naumburg.
• Andrea and Matthew look for the moon outside during a soccer match.

Naumburg

The students seem to be particularly fond of walking, which is very good for Germany, and they went out to explore the nearby towns and countryside on Saturday. This was good preparation for our trip on Sunday to Naumburg and duly impressed our German guide from jenakolleg (shown telling us about the medieval city wall).

Naumburg was once considered one of Germany's most beautiful and distinctive: the city of Naumburg. Around the year 1000, Naumburg was literally eine neue Burg--that is "a new fortress" (Nuwenburg became Naumburg) built by the markgraves of Meissen, a town outside of Dresden now renowned for its exquisite porcelain. During the 11th and 12th centuries, the city gained wealth and prestige through trade in wine and beer, grains, spices, and textiles. An outward sign of this wealth was to be the cathedral, Dom St. Peter, begun around 1210/1213.

The cathedral shows evidence of several styles of architecture, an example of the late Romanesque and the early Gothic the transition from the early to the high and even late Middle Ages. The cathedral is renowned for its almost life-sized figures of the donors, carved in the 13th century by the "Naumburger Meister." (The famous figure of Uta is shown on this page on the City of Naumburg website). The group is shown in front of the Cathedral below.

The central part of Germany Mitteldeutschland experienced a Golden Age as an area alive with culture and art as well as business in the 13th century. The classic stories of German vernacular literature (later "adapted" by composer Richard Wagner) were written at this time and in this area-troubadors and MinnesŠnger frequented the court of Hermann of ThŸringen, among them Wolfram von Eschenbach and even perhaps Walther von der Vogelweide. Along with poets like these, Goethe and Schiller later helped create the German culture that we have inherited as students of the liberal arts and as Americans of German descent.

Naumburg has sustained heavy damage at various times in its history: from fire, from war during the Thirty Year's War (1618-1648); it was also bombed by British and American planes in April of 1945. Naumberg was eventually handed over to the Soviets with the rest of ThŸringen in July of 1945. After the Wende in 1989, Naumburg was targeted as one of the cities most in need of repair and restoration after 40 years of communism. Although one can still see that there is much rebuilding to be done in Naumbug, it remains a model for plans of Stadtsanierung and intensive renovation.

As we have heard it has become a tradition for Goshen students to sing in the cathedral crypt, which is one of the oldest parts of the church (about 850 years old) and which has incredible acoustics. We did so as well. "Amazing Grace" was the hymn of choice, and all accounts are true: the sound was intense.

Joining host families

Monday was devoted to class, packing up, and meeting host families, who made the trip out to Zšthen to pick up the students. By about 5 pm, everyone was off to new adventures and new acquaintances, dictionaries and gifts in hand. May 1 is an official holiday (Tag der Arbeit), which students spent with their families. We were invited by Dixie's host parents to coffee and dinner.

We will be taking two excursions in the first two weeks of our time in eastern Germany: In a sense, students will get to stop at three 'stations' as it were and experience centuries of German history during the first 10 days: Our first trip was to the city of Naumburg and to its cathedral, which is a model of Romanesque architecture and which is renowned for the sculptures in the sanctuary done almost 800 years ago by the Naumburger Meister. Then "home" to Jena, which was the center of German Romantic poetry and philosophy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as well as a city known throughout the 20th century (incl. the GDR) for its science and optical technology (Carl Zeiss). On 6 May, we are off to Berlin. Berlin is Germany's largest city, the inspiration for Fritz Lang's 1927 film metropolis, and a place where history and its contradictions leap out at the visitor from every street corner.