Southern Germany Summer 1950 with Brigitte

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Gelnhausen

We set out from Gelnhausen pushing our bikes into the Spessart mountains to the south, Brigitte in a quite impractical sky-blue dress with big white buttons which I will never forget. Behind Neustadt on the Main we set up my pup-tent on a hill below the cemetery; a perfect site: a beautiful view of the river, a spring near the road, the sun from the east would warm us in the morning. While I cooked dinner she went for a swim in the river - I still could not swim well.... Next day we pedaled to Wertheim, climbed to the castle and stopped for lunch at an old mill. Within minutes my fish-woman had stripped completely and waded into the mill race beckoning me to come too. Reluctantly I followed. Supporting my back she tried to teach me to swim in the cold water.... In 1949 a kind man near Bad Mergentheim had given me a glowing description of a Grünewald Madonna in the pilgrimage church in Stuppach, a few kilometers west. We found the painting in a holy shack. We did not have a camera, and the postcard below gives only an inkling of the otherworldly beauty of the painting. The night camping under a few trees at the edge of a field was cold and restless. A flock of crows cawed in the trees for hours...

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Stuppach near Bad Mergentheim

Grünewald, Madonna in the pilgrimage chapel

The following day was hot and the road dusty. We spent the noon hour before the glorious Riemenschneider altar in the cool

Herrgottskirche in the Cemetery of Creglingen on the Tauber

Tilman Riemenschneider, Mary's Assumption

When we left the church an elegant lady, who had watched us with a smile, wishing us happiness presented me with the above photograph of the altar, an enlargement too costly for us. Just below Rothenburg in the village church of Dettwang Brigitte knew of another Riemenschneider altar, its figures mounted on plain wood boards. I love it because of its austere simplicity.

Dettwang near Rothenburg

Village parish church, Riemenschneider, crucifixion altar

In Rothenburg Brigitte wisely decided that we should spend the night at the youth hostel, where boys and girls were confined to separate quarters - she needed a peaceful night's sleep....

Rothenburg on the Tauber

Rothenburg the Hegereiterhaus

I discovered the youth hostel directly behind the Hegereiter House an etching of which had hung in my mothers room in Habelschwerdt. My parents had been here in the twenties on one of their Wandervogel trips.... We walked into town and inspected the photoshops for postcards. In those days the profusion of guide books of today was non-existent, and I had devised this way to find out what was beautiful in town. This is how We discovered a third large Riemenschneider altar in the Church of St. Jacob. Unfortunately its bare wood is stained very dark and it smells strongly from this treatment., but it has the beautiful Gothic-filigree setting and a moving Gethsemane scene in its right wing.

St. Jacobs Church, Riemenschneider's Last Supper

Dinkelsbühl, a day's ride further south, appeared much lovelier than Rothenburg, and I still like it better. Here - in those days - one encountered horse-drawn haywains, and heard the ringing of hammers from a smithy. There were many fewer tourist buses. The youth hostel was in a huge, barn-like Renaissance storehouse, where we met a tall girl of overpowering, radiant beauty. Brigitte was less impressed, she argued that such beauty would be very hard to bear, she would be pursued by everyone - her radiance couldn't last. What did Brigitte know? I had the impression the girl was almost unaware of her effect on other people.... After a long day through Schwäbisch Hall, where from my father believed the earliest Grosses came - he never found them, and I doubt this genealogical hunch - we reached Maulbronn, which I had discovered with Helmut and Hermann a year earlier. We let the custodian lock us into the monastery for an entire day. We were completely alone with the singing of the water of its fountain

Cistercian Monastery Maulbronn

The fountain in the cloisters

Rosette window in the cloisters

The ride back to Gelnhausen through Wimpfen - where we got tipsy on a mess-can of “Appelwein” (fresh, effervescent apple cider) - the Odenwald, and the western Spessart brought us back to Gelnhausen. Tante Magda had a surprise suggestion: In Wiesbaden ran a special exhibition of the paintings of the former (Prussian) Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin which had been "liberated" from their hide-out in the salt mines of Middle-Germany by the Americans and been taken to the US in 1945. They had just been repatriated to Germany. We rode an entire day in murderous traffic through the burned-out ruins of Frankfurt to completely undestroyed Wiesbaden - the headquarters of the American Forces in Europe. It was the first large exhibition of paintings I saw - 220 carefully selected pictures from the treasures of the Collections of the Prussian State Museums. - The impression was very strong - I can still see the room of Rembrandts before my eyes. Overwhelmed - I had hardly any systematic education in art beyond the books in my father's library - my favorites were conventional: Rembrandt's "Man with the Golden Helmet" and because of its light-effect the strange La Tour in the Museum's possession.

Wiesbaden

The repatriated paintings of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin