Ghostrider
Mitglied
I heard the Moonlight Sonata on YouTube today.
...and memories became alive.
Pictures of people from overseas and memories of people from here.
These are stories from my family.
And every time goosebumps... before these fates,
in the great struggle of nations.
_______________
As the first big war was over everybody here in Germany were caught up in a trauma.
First there was a period of rebellion then the first effort of Democracy. The Weimar Republic was destroyed than
by the grimace of Nationalism that grew in my homeland. Born out of pain and injured vanity.
It grew into overestimation and arrogance spiced with racism.
In those days a young man grew up here, tall and strong with thick blond hair.
He was his parents' delight and he loved animals.
It was my uncle Joachim, he followed this calling
and studied veterinary medicine at the University of Hanover.
In 1939 he was drafted to look and to care for the horses of the army as a veterinarian.
The horses were needed for the push into Poland.
He wrote a lot of letters home... to my grandparents.
These letters reported between the lines, what guilt our people have shouldered in these days.
In 1941 his company rode even further east in the shadow of the motorized troops and tanks.
The Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union late in this year.
Through foreign land and dry steppe, still in the warmth of late summer 41.
Then it became autumn with big rain and its little brother mud.
Horse hoof and army boot, man and mouse sank into the morass.
Despite prayer and stick dam. Hardly anything went.
And overnight he was there... Father frost.
What was baseless and sticky yesterday was hard and frozen today.
Nothing worked anymore, everything was stuck.
And the boys, with and without horses,
Oh my god, what did they freeze.
-40°F overnight and they only had their thin summer uniforms.
Just a few more miles to Moscow... well... then let's rest a bit.
Shelters with small log fires, frozen tanks and frozen horses.
Everything stopped.
Christmas came, with all the thoughts of home...
---
And then they came… with fresh troops.
From Siberia well-armed and on skis, with tanks and full of rage.
They swept over the invaders like a winter storm.
And the intruders ran for their lives leaving everything behind.
Machines, guns and tanks, everything was lost,
And the race back was a race for survival.
My uncle Joachim... he got a bullet shot in the stomach.
A death sentence in this cold world.
He was buried in Russia's vastness...
My father was younger than my uncle.
He was spared such a fate. He was still too young for this madness.
Towards the end of the war, they brought him in as a flack helper.
This second Great War charged a terrible price.
This aggression this pointlessness.
Do we have to go back to such patterns again and again?
Our democracy...
where reason controls madness.
It's the only way to freedom.
Even if we don't always like everything.
_______________
And then…
there was this young man from New York.
He played the piano and loved Beethoven more than anything.
In 1944 he was drafted and came to Europe as a young GI.
Here he experienced the D-Day,
All the hard way through the hedges of Normandy,
over Paris and through the torments of the Ardennes.
He fought his way with his comrades to the Rhine...
There they liberated a small town, still on the left bank of the Rhine...
The next day they would cross the Rhine,
and in anticipation of that next effort,
he searched wearily in the evening hours of that day
a night's camp in this city.
There was a small house downtown and he entered it in the dark.
He found a room where he lay down to sleep.
In all the chaos of those days and the half-ruined city, there was space
a little warmth and protection in the dark.
When he woke up the next morning, he looked at the belly of a wing.
Under his three feet he had rested in the night.
He stood up slowly... and saw a bust on a ledge.
He looked into the face of beloved Master.
The room revealed sheet music, keyboards, pictures and books.
Then he realized where he had spent the night.
Because the city was called 'Bonn am Rhein'
and this was the 'Beethoven House',
'Ludvig van' had lived here.
On this wing under which the young man took refuge in the night.
'Ludwig van' had written the 'Ode to Joy', the ninth symphony.
The anthem of today's Europe.
A young man from New York finds, above all the suffering of these days,
the home of his idol in the dark of night, deep in foreign Europe.
This young man was my Uncle 'in-law' Richard.
My wife's uncle from Glens Falls, Upstate New York.
Stories like this build bridges through time.
stories, some full of sorrow,
and others who keep giving me hope. … And that's good.
__________________________
By the way:… The Rhineland is my home today.
I live between the cities.
Cologne in the north
Bonn in the south
and all this is “deep in the west”.
I wish you the best and a good health...
In these "Corona" days.
...and memories became alive.
Pictures of people from overseas and memories of people from here.
These are stories from my family.
And every time goosebumps... before these fates,
in the great struggle of nations.
_______________
As the first big war was over everybody here in Germany were caught up in a trauma.
First there was a period of rebellion then the first effort of Democracy. The Weimar Republic was destroyed than
by the grimace of Nationalism that grew in my homeland. Born out of pain and injured vanity.
It grew into overestimation and arrogance spiced with racism.
In those days a young man grew up here, tall and strong with thick blond hair.
He was his parents' delight and he loved animals.
It was my uncle Joachim, he followed this calling
and studied veterinary medicine at the University of Hanover.
In 1939 he was drafted to look and to care for the horses of the army as a veterinarian.
The horses were needed for the push into Poland.
He wrote a lot of letters home... to my grandparents.
These letters reported between the lines, what guilt our people have shouldered in these days.
In 1941 his company rode even further east in the shadow of the motorized troops and tanks.
The Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union late in this year.
Through foreign land and dry steppe, still in the warmth of late summer 41.
Then it became autumn with big rain and its little brother mud.
Horse hoof and army boot, man and mouse sank into the morass.
Despite prayer and stick dam. Hardly anything went.
And overnight he was there... Father frost.
What was baseless and sticky yesterday was hard and frozen today.
Nothing worked anymore, everything was stuck.
And the boys, with and without horses,
Oh my god, what did they freeze.
-40°F overnight and they only had their thin summer uniforms.
Just a few more miles to Moscow... well... then let's rest a bit.
Shelters with small log fires, frozen tanks and frozen horses.
Everything stopped.
Christmas came, with all the thoughts of home...
---
And then they came… with fresh troops.
From Siberia well-armed and on skis, with tanks and full of rage.
They swept over the invaders like a winter storm.
And the intruders ran for their lives leaving everything behind.
Machines, guns and tanks, everything was lost,
And the race back was a race for survival.
My uncle Joachim... he got a bullet shot in the stomach.
A death sentence in this cold world.
He was buried in Russia's vastness...
My father was younger than my uncle.
He was spared such a fate. He was still too young for this madness.
Towards the end of the war, they brought him in as a flack helper.
This second Great War charged a terrible price.
This aggression this pointlessness.
Do we have to go back to such patterns again and again?
Our democracy...
where reason controls madness.
It's the only way to freedom.
Even if we don't always like everything.
_______________
And then…
there was this young man from New York.
He played the piano and loved Beethoven more than anything.
In 1944 he was drafted and came to Europe as a young GI.
Here he experienced the D-Day,
All the hard way through the hedges of Normandy,
over Paris and through the torments of the Ardennes.
He fought his way with his comrades to the Rhine...
There they liberated a small town, still on the left bank of the Rhine...
The next day they would cross the Rhine,
and in anticipation of that next effort,
he searched wearily in the evening hours of that day
a night's camp in this city.
There was a small house downtown and he entered it in the dark.
He found a room where he lay down to sleep.
In all the chaos of those days and the half-ruined city, there was space
a little warmth and protection in the dark.
When he woke up the next morning, he looked at the belly of a wing.
Under his three feet he had rested in the night.
He stood up slowly... and saw a bust on a ledge.
He looked into the face of beloved Master.
The room revealed sheet music, keyboards, pictures and books.
Then he realized where he had spent the night.
Because the city was called 'Bonn am Rhein'
and this was the 'Beethoven House',
'Ludvig van' had lived here.
On this wing under which the young man took refuge in the night.
'Ludwig van' had written the 'Ode to Joy', the ninth symphony.
The anthem of today's Europe.
A young man from New York finds, above all the suffering of these days,
the home of his idol in the dark of night, deep in foreign Europe.
This young man was my Uncle 'in-law' Richard.
My wife's uncle from Glens Falls, Upstate New York.
Stories like this build bridges through time.
stories, some full of sorrow,
and others who keep giving me hope. … And that's good.
__________________________
By the way:… The Rhineland is my home today.
I live between the cities.
Cologne in the north
Bonn in the south
and all this is “deep in the west”.
I wish you the best and a good health...
In these "Corona" days.
