There are numerous reasons to visit the Heidelberg area – few, however, are more remarkable than the layers of time and memory still visible on the Heiligenberg or “Holy Mountain”, rising some 439 meters above the river Neckar across from the Old Town itself.
There, archaeologists have found remains dating back to Neolithic times, as well as a Celtic fort and burial grounds. Nearby, the ancient ruins of St.Michael’s Abbey contain the foundations of a Roman temple to Mercury, a god identified with the Norse/Germanic Odin or Wotan.There was also a second monastery here, St Stephen’s, given to the University after the Reformation, which then razed it to sell the stones. Many of the remaining stones were reused in the 19th century to build a lookout tower on the same spot as the original monastery and in 1905 a beacon dedicated to Prince Bismarck was also erected nearby.
Today, however, the most complete of the structures on the mountain is the Freilichtbühne-Thingstätte, a dramatic amphitheatre/stadium designed by Nazi master-builder Albert Speer and realized by architect Hermann Akker in 1935, built following a period when rightwing student groups organized the notorious burning of “prohibited” books on the Universitätsplatz in 1933.
Some 40 such open-air theaters were constructed in significant locations across Germany, to be used for Third Reich propaganda purposes. They included one built next to the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games stadium and the amphitheater built on top of the Lorelei Rock,on the River Rhine, positioned to face the sunrise.
The Nazis were thus reviving what they imagined to be a truly Germanic way of living and celebrating, based on sun worship with several of the structures aligned to the rising or setting sun.
“My father, then aged 8, stood outside our building as one of a long chain of young torch bearers”, reminisced an affable hotelier I once met there. “It was June 22nd. Dr. Goebbels himself arrived to give the opening speech, timed for the summer solstice. The line of torches stretched from the old city, over the Karl-Theodore bridge and all the way up the Philosophenweg to the top of Heiligenberg. There, the torches surrounded the newly built amphitheatre”. A French writer of the time had stated bluntly that “Fascism is Theatre!” and this certainly illustrated how important that concept was to the Nazis.
Said to originate from early Viking democratic assemblies, The Thingstätte at Heidelberg was an idea of Joseph Goebbels to counter the influence of Christian Churches. Hitler saw Christianity as a threat to the national-socialist regime, so new ceremonies needed to be invented. This was endorsed by Himmler who considered the main task of his elite SS was to be prepared for an ultimate clash between “humans against subhumans”.
A crowd of some 20,000 people gathered on the 56 rows of seats and around the theatre slopes to hear Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, speak to the crowd. He compared the Thingstätte amphitheater to being “like the Autobahn, National Socialism in stone!”. It then opened with a Summer Solstice celebration that included a musical cantata by Franz Philipp called “Heiliges Vaterland”(Holy Fatherland). The acoustics were excellent and still are today.
Various staged events took place there over many months, before the Ministry of Propaganda dropped the “Thing” Movement by 1937, to concentrate on the Albert Speer-staged and rather Wagnerian Nuremberg Rallies.These were filmed and movies like Leni Riefenstahl’s much acclaimed “Triumph of the Will” disseminated their triumphant message in cinemas instead. The Nazi ideas were then efficiently reinforced through the radio broadcasts that were such a daily feature of the Third Reich.
After the war, and 20 years spent in Spandau prison, Speer moved back to Heidelberg and lived in a villa above Heidelberg Castle. His son was also an architect but the two were estranged until his death in 1981 in London. He was on his way to a BBC interview on his bestselling autobiography. To his death, Speer always denied knowledge of the Holocaust and is said to have donated a good part of his publishing income to charitable Jewish institutions.
The stadium-theatre he designed in Heidelberg remained in use for many more years – hosting events which included several organised by the US Army, an unofficial “witches” night every April and for high profile concerts – the most successful of which was possibly the electronic group Tangerine Dream, leading exponents of the so-called Krautrock movement.
The tranquil views over the beautiful Neckar valley would alone make a journey up the Heiligenberg worthwhile, but the unforgettable forest setting and the meaningful ruins and monuments make a visit particularly rewarding.
, land of the endangered Amur Tiger. There are less than 30 left in China and 400 in Siberia, some of which prey on bears. There is also an Amur leopard, though only about 45 adults remain in the wild. Earlier in 2014, Vladimir Putin released three tagged Amur tigers into the wild in this region. One, a male called Kuzya, made headlines by quickly choosing to cross the river into China, where local officials welcomed the event, promising that “if necessary, we can release cattle into the region to feed it” .Siberia remains in the news…
Stories of the great treasure, said to be buried with him, have always circulated among Mongol tribes.The site of his former palace is located about 150 miles from today’s capital, Ulaan Bataar. Despite rumours and many searches (even, most recently, by satellite), nothing has ever been found. In the city itself, the main city square is dominated by the seated statue of Chingghis (Genghis) Khan on the approach to the National Museum.
to sheep”). Traditionally a nomadic people, they were accustomed to live in relative isolation from each other. Once guided by Shamanism then by Buddhism, they were ruled from the legendary capital of Karakorum, the center of power moved later by Kublai Khan to Shengdu, an event imagined by poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his memorable verse
the city still has some of the lowest crime rates in Asia.
here. A popular restaurant, DGH, is subtitled “Dreams Get Happiness” while another sign reads “DESTROY, Hair and Beauty Salon”?! The largest commercial enterprise is the STATE DEPARTMENT STORE, “All Needs are Fulfilled,100% cash back guarantee”. It is full of Western and UK brands that, according to our British fellow-travellers, are offered at 2/3 the price of Marks and Spencer.
While two of our intrepid travellers, Bob and Geraldine, head out of the city to see the enormous (40 meters/about 130 ft tall) Genghis Khan statue by the Tuul river, the rest of us leave for the dramatic rocky Terelj National Park. The tour is led by our local guide Buyana, whose name, we find out, means “heavenly light”. It is a chance to catch a glimpse of wild Mongolia.
to Russian tradition and a fascinating visit to an Old Believer community, exiled to Siberia centuries ago for refusing to accept reforms aligning the liturgy with that of the Greek Church. During the visit we have lunch, enjoy village songs and jokes, admire the colorful painted houses and their gardens. Soulful Russian poet Yesenin, once lover and husband of Isadora Duncan, came from an Old Believer peasant family. We hear about even more traditional Old Believer communities such as those in Estonia that still follow ancient prohibitions such as the one where men who die without a beard have to be buried in an unmarked grave or another about women who, unable to enter a church bareheaded, must have their scarves pinned under their chin for tying a knot is symbolic of the suicide of Judas by hanging. Otherwise the traditional icons are similar, the “onion domes” of churches still represent the flame of a candle, while the lower bar on the crucifix, at an angle to the cross, represents pointers signifying up to heaven, down to hell, a reminder of the choices made by the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ on Golgotha. Another window on the Russian soul.
s ! Locals point out Baikal is the ideal crime site, as there is absolutely no evidence left.
That evening there were cocktails and a special Caviar Dinner. Piano music in the lounge bar brought a discussion on how Moscow composer Boris Tchaikovsky (no relation to Peter Ilyich) was moved to write his symphonic poem on “The Wind of Siberia” (1984), considered a “pictorial masterpiece” by critics. Irkutsk novelist Valentin Rasputin was also mentioned as a controversial environmentalist (maybe stimulated by his own home village, Atalanka, being flooded as part of a major dam project ). He is seen as trying to protect and preserve northeastern Siberia from what Moscow authorities consider as ripe for exploitation or development. We note the stop at Polovina to come. It means “half-way” and is located as a marker station 4644 kms. from Moscow. There are towns with warning names such as Zima (meaning “winter”) before reaching much visited Irkutsk and Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake.
, inconvenient critics such as Romantic writers Lermontov (“A Hero of our Time”) and Pushkin had been sent to the Caucasus to cool off, but this was a more serious matter. The Decembrists, as they became known, came from the Russian elite. Their main leaders were hanged, but large numbers of exiles from aristocratic families were dispersed over Eastern Siberia. They gradually made Irkutsk their principal centre, at the same time transforming cultural awareness in the whole region. A particularly poignant aspect of their exile was the heroic determination of their wives and fiancées who abandoned great wealth, comfort and even their children, to support their rebellious, liberal spouses and create an island of culture in the wilderness ,an aspect which still influences the city today. It is this which is brought out in our Golden Eagle excursions when we see the paintings, portraits and landscapes at the Irkutsk Art Gallery, before visiting some of the carefully preserved wooden houses, long gone in most other cities.
triumphant rendering of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (it is absolutely worth seeing, at least 
There is further animated discussion on the train after another documentary film “Joseph Stalin; Red Terror” is shown. We recollect how our Moscow guides had illustrated Stalin’s despotic power with a story, maybe apocryphal, but credible to most, explaining the map of the Moscow metro lines. They mostly run north to south but in the middle is an absolute circle. Stalin insisted on approving all plans personally. When by chance he placed his coffee cup in the middle of the proposed map, it left a perfect circle. No one dared to even point this out, so there it remained and the circular metro line was built. During our debate, someone remembered that a recent Moscow television poll to determine public perception of Great Russians placed Stalin at number three, Tolstoy at number forty!
