Kufstein, Österreich

Yesterday I went to Oberaudorf, Deutschland, to visit the home of a colleague at Hochschule München. Specifically, it's the professor who's desk I'm sitting at. He's been out ill this entire semester, and very kindly let me use his desk. He's definitely improved, and will be back for the Sommer Semester.

He is a true Bavarian, from Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria), and is back living in the town that he grew up in. Actually, he's living in the house he grew up in. Oberaudorf is a small town of about 3,500 nestled along the left bank of the River Inn (which, of course, also flows through Innsbruck). The "foothills" of the Alps are to the West, and, of course, great skiing is just a short walk from the center of town. It's similar to Park City, Utah, in this respect: the ski lift leaves from the edge of town. So if you are a resident, all you have to do is walk a few hundred yards (or meters, if you like SI units) from your door and you're on the slopes.

We drove a short way upstream along the Inn, across the border into Austria (which is a non-event now that there's a European Union), and into the town of Kufstein. This is a slightly larger town, with about 25,000 inhabitants. There's a nice castle, which was the scene of many battles between the Bavarians and the locals several hundred years ago. And on the bridge across the Inn is a statue of Johannes von Nepomuk.

The Festung Kufstein, occupying a commanding position on a hill above the town and above the River Inn. This view is looking south (upstream toward Innsbruck).

Johannes von Nepomuk is a national saint of the Czech Republic, who was drowned in the Vltava river at the behest of Wenceslaus, King of the Romans and King of Bohemia. (Wikipedia)

Berlin Wall (2)

An interesting perspective that I had never thought of before, was how did the GDR deal with fact that the underground trains crisscrossed Berlin, and even if the Wall prevented passage above ground, there was a network of tunnels ready made to serve the potential escapee.

An entrance to the S-bahn near Brandenburger Tor after the war. Today, the U-bahn is the "underground" network of trains that Americans would call the "subway," and the S-bahn is the "suburban" network of trains that usually runs above ground, although in the inner city (of both Munich and Berlin) they must also travel underground. At the far end of the building on the right is the location of the Starbuck's today.

 As the Wall got stricter and stricter, they had to essentially split the subway systems into two different networks, so that you could not simply take the subway to escape from East Berlin. However, a few of the West Berlin subway lines actually ran underneath East Berlin territory, where in addition there were stations! These stations were closed, of course, and they came to be known as "ghost stations," because the trains would only slow down in these stations, but not stop. In addition, they were manned by East German police, to make sure, presumably, that no East Germans tried to hop on, but also that no West Germans tried to hop off.

Several of the successful (and unsuccessful) escapees used the underground tunnels.

Here is a view of the same station, now an U-bahn station, near Brandenburger Tor, taken on 4 Jan 2015, by yours truly. In fact, there is also an S-bahn station, but that has a separate entrance. Notice the new buildings to the left of the Tor. The large white one is the United States Embassy. The area is much less desolate than in the previous photograph.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Definitely one of the most impressive places to visit in Berlin is the Berlin wall.  Of course, the wall existed throughout the city, and most of it is commemorated by stones in the ground, crossing streets, sidewalks, buildings.

A piece of the Berlin wall in Potsdamer Platz. This was one of Germany's busiest intersections between the two Great Wars. But after the wall went up, it became a ghost town.

The wall passed just to the west of the famous Brandenburger Tor (see the next post), which was where Reagan made his famous speech. There is, however, an official Berlin Wall memorial site, that has preserved several blocks of the "death strip" (the no-man's land between two walls) and a block of the wall itself.

Portion of the Wall along Bernaer Straße, site of the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall memorial site).

View of the wall and the "death strip" along Bernauer Straße  from the roof of the museum building across the street.

One of the things I found interesting was the fact that in the building up of the wall over the years, increasing the security, an entire church was caught in no-man's-land. Ironically, it was the Church of Reconciliation. The following photo shows the rapid change to the wall near the church site.

Evolution of the wall near the Church of Reconciliation.

In 1985, the church was demolished, but after the wall fell, another building was erected on the original site, and it can be seen toward the left in the panorama above.

It's a powerful experience to just walk around the area. Even though it is gone, the feeling one gets is not describable.

More graves in Berlin

While in Berlin, I couldn't help but looking for more famous physicists. And in this case, I got a mathematician, too. I went to the St Matthäus Kirchhof where Gustav Kirchhof, of Kirchhof's Laws (both electrical and thermodynamic) is buried. I was a little confused as to why the cemetery had the same name as the person, but Kirchhof just means 'churchyard', so it was the St Matthäus churchyard cemetery. Unfortunately, I never found Kirchhof's grave, so you'll have to be content with a photo of the impressive entrance arch.

Entrance to the St Matthäus Kirchhof cemetery.

I did, however, find Leopold Kronecker's grave, along with his wife, Fanni. Kronecker, was a 19th century mathematician who is credited with the quote, "God made the integers, all else is the work of man." In physics his name often comes up in reference to the Kronecker delta symbol, δ_ij, where the subscripts i and j typically take on the integer values 1, 2, 3, and the value of the Kronecker delta is equal to 1 if i = j, and is equal to 0 if they are not equal. 

Grave site of Leopold Kronecker, mathematician

Kronecker is also related to me academically (or rather I am related to him). If you go to the Mathematics Genealogy project, the picture of the "tree" shows Dirichlet, who was Kronecker's advisor. I, on the other hand, am "descended" from Dirichlet through Lipschutz, Klein, Lindemann, and Sommerfeld.

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven

In the Berlin Tiergarten there are many statues. One that I found that was particularly nice was this one.

This is the Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven monument. It apparently had a troubled history, especially during WWII. It has since been moved and refurbished, although you can still see bullet holes in the closeup shots. 

It's a three-sided monument, with a sculpture of one composer on each side. Your task is to determine who is who? The first one to guess correctly in the comment section wins a prize!!

Number 1.

Number 2.

Number 3.

The names are carved on the monument, but I think the resolution that I've posted is not high enough for you to read them, even if you download the jpg files and zoom in. In any case, that would be cheating! So, you are allowed to zoom in on the faces, but that is all. Good luck.

Berlin - day 1

I arrived Friday night after a short flight (on Air Berlin, naturally) from Munich. The Germans were a little more pushy exiting the plane than I'm used to. But that's pretty typical. When entering or exiting trains, for example, it's not typical for them to defer to those around them, but just to move and exit first. Just another cultural difference. And another difference - one of the snacks offered was lebkuchen! It's everywhere (more on that on day 2).

In any case, I successfully found the bus (TXL) heading to Alexanderplatz, paid and got on. My first impression is that is is more stark and industrial than Munich, and also dirtier. That was confirmed when I got out and about - see photos in the next few posts. Also, it turns out that Berlin has two airports (who knew?), and I landed at Tegel, which is a bit closer to the center of town, also known as "Mitte."

My airbnb home is in an apartment building in Mitte, smack in the East Berlin section of town. I don't know how many of the buildings remain from that period, but this area definitely has a Soviet feel to it.

So here are a few photos from my first day

The famous Brandenburger Tor.

The only gate of the old city left standing, and it attracts all visitors, even Napoleon.

The Reichstag.

It's been rebuilt several times, and only the facade and four towers (one on each corner) are left from the original. The four towers represent the four kingdoms Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemburg, that the unified Germany, well, unified, in 1871. Of course, this is the building that burned down in 1933, which propelled Hitler and the Nazis toward absolute power.

A statue of an Amazon on a horse in the Tiergarten, a large park adjacent to the Brandenburger Tor that was originally a royal hunting ground. It is now the largest public park in Berlin. I walked a bit in the park. It is very nice, but not as nice as the Englischer Garten in München. You'll notice a theme among my comments on Berlin - nice, but not as nice as Munich.

Next post: guess the famous composer! (12 noon PST)

Happy 2015!

To celebrate, here's a photo of the famous Neues Rathaus in the snow (well, the glockenspiel is famous) in Marienplatz (which is also the famous site of the Munich Christmas Market), as viewed from the top of Alter Peter (not so famous), a nearby kirche which can be climbed.

And here is a wider panorama that shows the Frauenkirche (the two towers on the left), as well as more of Munich, including the Residenz (the main Palace of the ruling Bavarian monarchy for a long time - at least until they were deposed in 1918) in the distance on the right (more about this building in a later post).

The snow is about 2 feet deep, as it has been snowing since December 26, although it did not snow yesterday, nor has it snowed today yet. It doesn't look like it will, and the temperature is supposed to climb over the next few days, so I'm guessing that some of it might melt.

Have a healthy and productive 2015, or as Garrison Keillor says, "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."