What is our responsibility to the past? Must we remember things as they were, and, if we must, how and why?
Yesterday, we visited the “last remaining medieval castle” in Germany. But other cities and other castles had been destroyed and rebuilt. Art had been hidden in bunkers, then replaced with missing bits filled in. The famous castles along the Rhine were mostly built after 1850, and you can tell the medieval English style chosen for design from the medieval German style chosen, by 19th century architects. The Germans have found many ways to embrace their past. How do they approach their history, and can we learn from it?
Recreating What Was
As we walked around Marksburg castle, a historical site near Koblenz on the Rhine in western Germany, our guide kept emphasizing that these were the original timbers, the authentic tapestries, the slippery stone steps that prevented attack, which have never been improved in nearly a thousand years. Imagine storming this medieval castle! Imagine the duke sleeping upright in the tiny bed or using the stone toilet in the Great Hall while the door was open!
Tourist sites emphasize these ideas of real, authentic, preserved, or original. But much of what we’ve seen in Germany had decayed or had been destroyed and was decidedly not original. Does it matter? Germany makes the argument repeatedly that it does not matter whether it is authentic or original. What matters is the memory.
Nuremberg is a good case in point. This historic city had preserved much of its medieval flavor through the centuries, including a city wall and town built inside the moat. (Something like York in England). It was an important administrative center during the Holy Roman Empire, a second capital of sorts. Sigismund I signed a charter that said the crown jewels would always be kept in Nuremberg. Plagues came and went; Jews were expelled repeatedly whenever the population suffered. The castle was attacked and parts destroyed in the Thirty Years War and by Napoleon, at which point, the jewels were moved to Vienna for safety.
Nuremberg’s strategic place on the river and special history, along with a buddy-buddy relationship between its mayor and Hitler, turned it into a favorite stomping grounds for the Nazis. Literally–as the large parade grounds for rallies were constructed to impress and astound. As early as 1939, the city cozied up to its friends in Berlin, but prepared for the alternative. They pulled the art out of the churches and museums, and they created an extensive bunker out of their beer cellars. The Crown Jewels came back from Vienna, after the Nazis absorbed Austria, and were stored in the bunker.
The bunker also held room for several thousand residents, though not the twenty thousand of the city. Still, when Nuremberg was carpet bombed by the Allies near the end of Germany’s war, thousands did crowd in the tiny space. The medieval portion, along with the modern grounds, was flattened, one of many cities destroyed in Germany but also in England, France–Germany bombed and was bombed. The map of Wurzburg is similar to that of Nuremberg, Wertheim, and other towns that had factories or even symbolic value. Rubble.
Nuremberg rebuilt after the war, using old photos and old paintings as guides. It still looks like a medieval city from the top, especially the roofs and timbered walls. Only if you look closely can you notice that the lower walls where people live are stucco and plaster, the windows in the 1950s or later style. The walls around the moat are relatively new, only put up after tourists fell into the moat. Tourism to see the medieval city of Nuremberg, even though it’s not the original city, is booming.
Theseus’ Ship, Platonic Ideals, and Wormholes
I’ve written before about the ship of Theseus, the Argo. The Greeks preserved it because he was the hero Athens. Over time, the wooden timbers rotted and were replaced. They were still being replaced, after centuries. Is the ship the design? Was it only the timbers? The Greeks didn’t think so. Was this the authentic Argo?
Part of the purpose of the replacement–the restoration–by was to honor the past. Part was surely to show the history to their grandchildren and great-grands, but they knew that it was not the original, authentic. Plato built a whole philosophy around ideals that were abstract, so was the ship idea the “thing.” Was Nuremberg an abstract idea? Just replace the roofs?
Yet it must be a little more complicated because they put their art in the bunker. The Monuments Men, the Allied art experts drafted into the army, helped with the discovery of items in the bunker. According to German tour guides and the book/movie, the men did help to restore the actual items to place of origin.
But our guide for Nuremberg pointed out that the Americans found the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Emperor in the Nuremberg bunker. The Monuments Men returned them to Vienna because that’s where they were before WWII. Yet, there had been other wars, and Nuremberg has a charter that says the jewels should be in Nuremberg. So it’s not that simple to “restore” or replace. Part of the history is about preserving the Thing itself, if it still exists.
Another case in point: relics. The magnificent cathedral of Cologne, with its 500-foot-tall spires, was built to house a very special Christian reliquary containing the bones of the magi who knelt to the baby in a manger. The bones have been dated to the appropriate time in C.E. and DNA confirms three bodies. But authenticity is deceptive. They might be three people. Were they The Magi? Were there three magi, even, or a manger?
Let’s say there was a manger and magi–I’m not trying to burst any theological bubble here. Why would the three have remained together until their death? Moreover, the bones in Cologne were taken from Milan, which took them from Constantinople, which took them from Jerusalem. A 21st-century skeptic would scoff at “originality.”
Yet to study relics is to understand that it was never about actual body parts. We might think that medieval people were silly in thinking these were “actual” relics. And we miss the point. Having a relic with the right provenance and DNA did not matter to them. Medieval priests and congregation knew these were not original body parts. It was about the idea of the relic, about having something consecrated (whether authentic or not). Praying over a relic was like a special passage that could take you closer to God. Relics were a wormhole to heaven.
The Sublime Creations of Ancestors.
Even aside from the spiritual aspect, there is a beauty of the reliquary itself and the magnificent cathedral that houses them. Isn’t the idea of relics enough to have generated the visual splendor that all of us, Christian or not, can appreciate?
Art itself, then, might be seen as its own justification. There are great debates about what ought to be restored. Some argue that the original art should never be touched. The bishop’s palace in Wurzburg housed masterpieces of artwork, chandeliers from Murano, a hand-painted ceiling. Wurzburg was annihilated, 90% of the city destroyed by bombing and 75% of the bishop’s palace. Should it have been left to decay?
Wurzburg decided to restore it. The hand-painted ceiling was not destroyed, so it can be viewed in all its splendor and with all its biases. It is a gorgeous conceptualization of the “four” continents, relying on myth and history. But Asia, for instance, spans from Egypt to Armenia, with emphasis on Persia; there is no China or India. Its authenticity includes falsehoods.
Other rooms needed more help. The mirror room, hand-painted gold and dripping with ornamentation, melted completely. It was meticulously recreated by artists, using paintings and photos from before 1940. Here again, authenticity has a different meaning, and I can imagine no regret in recreating something of this magnificence, even if it deemed both sublime and wretched excess of the 18th century aristocracy.
Witnessing History
I have read two books on the US Civil War that seemed to touch on this differently. In one, the author comments that the war seemed “pre-ordained.” That view seems so myopic when we take a much broader view. I assume (correctly) that a northerner wrote that. To preserve and to restore implies that none of this was pre-ordained. If it was doomed, you’d leave the ruins. That’ll teach those losers.
Another view comes from a great but painful book, They Left Great Marks on Me, which is about the atrocities committed by white southerners in the U.S. against former Black slaves during Reconstruction. Here, collecting, retelling, and preserving these stories restores the memories of what happened. These people were witnessing what occurred around them and to them.
Today in Nuremberg, there is a medieval city, restored and happy to accept tourist dollars as I was happy to spend them. It has pride in its legacy, both good and bad. You can tour the Nazi parade ground and hear how the American GIs put up goal posts to play American football, still there, see? The nearby Nazi power station has been gleefully turned into a Burger King. This is also a way to restore and rectify a checkered past.
There is one more issue that Germans must grapple with. Jews across these quaint medieval towns were at best, forced to leave the country, and at worst, put on a train to the death camps. Tour guides who grew up in Germany told us that their parents were silent with shame about what happened until decades passed, the 1980s-1990s. They had erased what had been done by their leaders or even by their family members.
More recently, people have tried to recreate as best as they can. In many cities, stones have been planted in the walkways which have the names of Jewish families who had been there. People who learned nothing growing up have done the work of finding out, not because they themselves were Jewish but because it ought to be done.
This is the responsibility of history. To restore memory of what had happened, even if no one was left to act as witness. To could recreate the truth as best they can, restore it for us to hear and to know. They don’t shy away from it; they don’t suggest it was preordained.
Thus, Germany has found many paths to restore its history. Some emphasize accuracy and originality, but others are about retaining beauty that once was and telling stories about people who once there. Witnessing is also an essential part of restoration, especially for those who can no longer do so.
Meanwhile, Nuremberg is still trying to get the crown jewels back from Austria, the ones from a long-forgotten empire.