German Language Blog

When people have had a stressful workweek they are usually yearning for a calm and restful weekend to relax and recharge their batteries. Of course, you can stay at home, lie on the sofa, watch TV, listen to music or read a book but this doesn’t sound like a good recovery, does it? What about diving into nature and enjoying the great outdoors? The Spreewald offers such a welcome change.

The Spreewald is located in the southeast of Brandenburg and belongs to one of the most fascinating regions of Europe. The landscape is, of course, dominated by the Spree, which is a tributary stream of the Havel River. Thus, the Spree invites you to activities like fishing, boat trips and canoeing. Very often you can see older people and families in punts sailing on the Spree. Punts are similar to Venetian gondolas. There’s always a steersman on it moving the boat with a long wooden pole. Younger people prefer canoeing on the Spree.

The Spreewald also offers outdoors activities onshore like cycling, hiking, and horse-riding. I find it quite difficult to describe the natural surroundings of the Spreewald as trees and bushes do not sound exciting. Therefore, you can find some videos below to get an idea of this impressive and powerful region.

The landscape took shape in the glacial period as well as the whole state of Brandenburg. In order to protect the landscape it was announced a biosphere reserve in 1990.

The Spreewald is not only know for its nature but also for its gherkins and inhabitants. The fertile soil and the climate foster the growth of the cucumbers, which are later pickled and seasoned with different spices. Spreewald gherkins are available with different flavors. They are sour, sour-sweet, hot, salty or seasoned with garlic. There is even a so called Gurkenradweg (cucumber cycle track), which leads trough the whole Speewald region.

Last but not least, the Spreewald is known for its inhabitants: the Wends and Sorbs. The Wends immigrated to the Spreewald around 500. The were West Slavic peasants from an areas which is is now Belarus. The Sorbs immigrated to the Spreewald around 1400 from the south. Most people mix these two cultural groups. The Sorbs inhabited the Oberlausitz (Upper Lusatia) and the Wends inhabitated the Niederlausitz (Lower Lusatia). Both the Wends and Sorbs are very well know for their garb, which is nowadays a festive costume. It probably developed from a working dress, which older woman in some parts of the Spreewald still wear. Especially the bonnet of this garb is very eye-catching. Actually it is a headscarf that consists of several embroidered cloths.

Last week we had the so called “Hundstage” (Dog Days) in Germany. Don´t think about the movie from 1975 starring Al Pacino. It´s more abtut the Wetter (weather). I guess the meaning of Hundstage respectively Dog Days is the same in German and English. Well, I simply wanted to say: It was soooo hot!

In the beginning and middle of August most of the people thought that the Sommer (summer) was already over because it was cold and feucht (humid) for weeks. But suddenly temperatures rose to 35°C and even more. Finally, after weeks, Freibäder (open air pools) were crowded again and Eisverkäufer (ice-cream sellers) made big business. People enjoyed living draußen (outside). In the evenings, bars and restaurants were filled and you could sit outside in short clothes and open shoes. It was kind of a Mediterranean feeling and the cities were just crowded until nighttime.

But of course there were as well people who complained about the heat. Especially older ones can´t handle with hot weather. They quickly have to struggle with Kreislaufproblemen (circulation problems). But also younger people are not always happy with hot weather. Some jobs are hard to handle when there are more than 30°C. I had to move when the Temperaturen (temperatures) started to rise, so I wasn´t happy about it all the time as well. Really, I can´t remember the last time sweating like these days

Also in the nighttime it was hard to get some Schlaf (sleep), especially when you lived under the rooftop. But after all, it was fun to live outside and enjoying warm Sommernächte (summer nights). We don´t have this too often over here, so when it´s there, most people freak out.

Well, the heat lasted for about a week. After five days, the first Gewitter (thunderstorms) appeared during the nighttime. But at the seventh day, temperature was falling again enormously (more than 15°C!) and since then we have kind of the first days of Herbst (autumn).

But every season has its benefits, so kids are already looking forward in kite flying and doing handicrafts with leaves and Kastanien (chestnuts).

Some vocabulary:

Die Hundstage – dog days
Das Wetter – weather
Der Sommer – summer
feucht – humid
Das Freibad – open air pool
Der Eisverkäufer – ice-cream seller
draußen – outside
Die Kreislaufprobleme – circulation problems
Die Temperaturen – temperatures
schwitzen – to sweat
Der Schlaf – sleep
Die Sommernacht – summer night
Das Gewitter – thunderstorm
Der Herbst – autumn
Die Kastanie – chestnut

The Building of the Berlin Wall was a topic in the German media on the last weekend because 50 years ago, on 13 August 1961, the Wall was built. Thus, I would like to remind you in this post why this wall was ever erected.

The allied forces, the USA, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union occupied Germany after they had won WWII and divided the country into four occupation zones: an American area, a British and French one, as well as a Soviet zone. Berlin (located in the east of Germany) was the capital of the Third Reich, and thus the residence of political activists. Therefore, the victorious powers decided to divide the capital separately. In other words, geographically Berlin would have belonged to the Soviet zone alone.

During the war, the allied forces pursued one and the same goal, namely to beat megalomaniac Hitler and his idea of conquering the whole world. But after the war, the ideologies (politically as well as economically) of the West and the East clashed, that is, the USA, Great Britain, and France were representatives of democracy and capitalism, whereas the Soviet Union favored socialism and communism.

The West was interested in new trade relations and markets. Thus, it immensely supported Germany with its reconstruction and the improvement of its economic climate. It supplied natural resources, goods, and food, lent money, implemented a currency reform, and helped the country to become a sovereign state.

The East, on the other hand, sought primarily for revenge and compensation. It looted everything possible and dismantled any industrial facilities. I should note that looting and dismantling took place in the other three zones, too, but in the Soviet one it was most excessive. People in the East suffered from hunger and had no means to reconstruct their part of the country. The Soviet government strictly forbade relationships to and any kind of contact with democratic countries. The bad economic condition and the missing political voice prompted people again and again to flee from the Soviet zone. One way to flee from the Soviet sector or GDR was Berlin, which more and more people used. In order to prevent a mass escape, the government of the GDR planned to build a wall around the western part of Berlin, so that neither Berliners from the Soviet zone, nor other citizens of the Soviet zone, by which Berlin was surrounded, could flee from East Germany.

Officially, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded 23 May 1949 and the German Democratic Republic 7 October 1949. From 1945 and during the whole 28-year-long-era of the Berlin Wall people tried to flee from the GDR and some of them had even lost their lives because there was a so called death strip on the east side of the wall, an area riddled with grenades and where border officials were allowed to shoot at humans when they enter this area.

Of course, there is not enough space here to present a detailed description of all the political circumstances that gave rise to a divided Germany with two different forms of governments: West = parliamentary democracy and East = post-war dictatorship. But let me give you one of my personal memories and feeling I have of the GDR.

I was born and grew up in East Germany, in a town close to Berlin and the Wall was that present in my childhood consciousness that I thought that all countries in the world are divided by fortifications made of cement. I remember the time when I found out that this wasn’t so. I was on the road with my family and my uncle was talking about the surroundings and told me that I could see the “border” to another country. I didn’t see anything, so I told him that there wasn’t a wall. He laughed about that and informed that it is only an imaginary line. That confused me a lot because it was so unintelligible to me why some borders are visual and others are not.

Although I was a little child when the GDR still existed it was, nevertheless, like living in two parallel worlds. Officially, everybody had to love the state but in private people complained about the political system and the social structures. Sometimes we received so called West Parcels, filled with goods that weren’t available in the GDR. Once I got a kind of plastic bag with colorful flower pattern and I loved that bag so much that I wanted to show it to everybody but my mother forbade that I go outside with the bag. Obviously, she didn’t want anybody to see me with a product of the West.