Once, while in Shreveport staying with the widow of my kinsman Samuel Gross Wiener, credited with being the first modern architect in the South, Marion Wiener gifted a catalog from the 1984 exhibition at the Tulane University School of Architecture, “Modernism in Louisiana: A Decade of Progress 1930-1940.”
Marion is quoted therein, saying that one had to travel to Europe, circa 1930, to experience cutting-edge architectural design. Nowhere else could one enjoy the aesthetic.
Subsequently I acquired a sumptuous book showcasing preeminent 20th century designer Charles Eames (whose only sibling, Adele Eames Franks, was the founding Head of School at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Day School — possibly related to my family, possessing Alsatian Gross ancestors as well: Lucia Eames, Charles’ only child, concluded “We’ll never know for certain. We like each other and thus we will claim the relationships.”) Charles Eames and his first wife, Lucia’s mother, made a simultaneous pilgrimage to Europe. Catherine Woermann Eames Lewis echoed Marion’s observation that one had to travel to Europe, circa 1930, to experience cutting-edge architectural design. Nowhere else could one enjoy the aesthetic.
One need not travel in pursuit of an agenda to expand one’s horizons: One can go abroad with an appetite to observe and receive unmitigated reward.
If one stays home, complacent in familiarity, failure to venture into the unknown becomes confining; a prison; a straightjacket.
I flew into Munich on Saturday January 20th, planning to remain in my favorite city for a couple of nights before completing my first 2024 cross-country ski marathon, in the Dolomites, the following weekend.
I had no clue of the serendipity awaiting me. Germans took to the streets, the weekend of my arrival, protesting extremism in their midst.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported, in its Monday January 22nd edition, that 80,000 to 130,000 people protested in Hamburg and 4,000 in Kiel on Friday January 19th. Saturday January 20th witnessed multiple protests: 15,000 in Braunschweig, 9,000 in Erfurt, 35,000 in Frankfurt, 5,000 in Freiburg, 12,000 in Gießen, 16,000 in Halle, 35,000 in Hanover, 18,000 in Heidelberg, 20,000 in Karlsruhe, 15,000 in Kassel, 5,000 in Koblenz, 15,000 in Nurnberg, 12,000 in Saarbrücken, 1,200 in Straland, 20,000 in Stuttgart, and 10,000 in Wuppertal.
Sunday January 21st saw 60,000 to 100,000 protesters in Berlin, 25,000 in Bonn, 50,000 in Bremen, 3,500 in Cottbus, 30,000 in Dortmond, 50,000 in Köln, 30,000 in Leipzig, and 100,000 to 250,000 in München. Additional protests were planned in Bayreuth and Soest on Monday January 22nd.
The turnout was significant. Those involved in München were impressive in number and appearance. The protesters were neither immoderate nor unkempt. Participants were conservative people who have had enough and want no more.
I was not amidst the march through city streets. Subsequent sights conveyed what one needed to know. Countless people were on the streets afterward — some costumed and some carrying signs taken to the rally. I tend toward the higher estimate of participants given the impressive presence of protesters. They were everywhere. A river of people was on the sidewalks. I observed a ceaseless stream of participants in the English Garden while I walked. Later, en route to dinner at the Spatenhaus, I witnessed others, gathered in the Altstadt.
Germans know, better than any nation in the world that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Paralysis while the Nazis overthrew German democracy, one hundred years ago, yielded an incomprehensible nightmare.
Notwithstanding the salutary process of denazification following the Third Reich, one would be disinclined to think that Germans would so enthusiastically oppose autocracy, given their history. Their vehemence proves the presumption to be premature.
The world should pay heed to what is afoot in Germany. Germans possess experience that other countries do not. They endured the tragedy arising out of failure to pursue moderation. The world ignores last century’s lessons at its peril.
Jay Wiener is a Northsider.
