#calendar sheet

[huariqueje]

Calendar sheet March with Storks on their Nest - Theodorus ' Theo ' van Hoytema , 1902.

Dutch, 1863-1917

Colour lithography , 45.0 x 21.0 cm.

[tineiya]

CHILLING DRINKING WINE

Oil pastel on calendar sheet

30/01/26

[thatswhywelovegermany]

May 12, 1949: Berlin Blockade ends after 322 days

When the three zones of West Germany and West Berlin had introduced a new currency – the Deutsche Mark –, Russa took this as an excuse to close the transit routes between West Berlin and West Germany on June 24, 1948, cutting off 2.2 million West Berlin citizens from the supply with essentials. The official reasons were technical problems at the railway border crossings and the need to repair dozens of bridges on the vehicle transit routes. In fact, Russia attempted to gain economic – and eventually also political – control over West Berlin by making the East German currency the only one valid in all of Berlin. Russia also demanded to cancel the plans for a West German government.

The only way to move goods that remained was by air: In 1945, Russia had granted the Western Allies three air corridors connecting West Berlin with West Germany. To revoke the right to use these corridors would have led to grave political and probably also military consequences. The Western Allies were determined to use their air forces led by Lucius D. Clay to supply West Berlin through these air corridors. On June 26, 1948, the first aircraft with supplies landed in Berlin. However, there was a widespread scepticism whether 2.2 million people could be supplied by air – no one had ever carried out or even planned that kind undertaking.

In the end, the action was a success: West Berlin’s supply was narrowly secured in a logistical masterpiece, even throughout the difficult winter time. The determination of the Western Allies made Russia rethink its strategy and they finally gave up. The annexation of West Berlin into the Russian occupation zone was successfully warded off.

The Berlin Airlift was not only the starting point of the deep friendship between the Western Allies (and particularly the USA) and West Berlin, but also between the German and Allied nations that were at war only a few years ago. Gail Halvorsen famously got the idea to drop candies on little parachutes from his plane during the final approach to Tempelhof Airport.Other pilots followed the idea quickly and the West Berlin children were excited. Thus, the airplanes quickly gained the nickname “Candy Bombers”.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

January 19, 1919: Marie Juchacz holds the first speech of a woman before a German parliament

Marie Juchacz (née Gohlke) was born in Landsberg an der Warthe, today Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland, as a carpenter’s daughter. After minimal school education, she worked as a maidservant, semi-skilled factory worker, and nursing auxiliary before she did an aprenticeship as a tailor. In 1906, she was divorced from her husband, which usually meant a further life in poverty. In her case, however, that move caused her political awakening. She became an active member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and was engaged during world war I in a commission for the distribution of food. When the USPD split from the SPD in 1917, she was appointed to fill the vacant position ot the secretary for women’s affairs of the SPD, following Clara Zetkin. She also became the managing editor of a feminist magazine, “Die Gleichheit” (”The Equality”).

The women’s right to vote and to be elected has been codified by the Council of the People’s Deputies after world war I on November 13, 1918. Women coud exert that right for the first time in the elections of January 19, 1919. The response was overwhelming: Mogr than 80 % of the women voted. Surptisingly, the SPD, the party that had advocated women’s right to vote most actively, did not profit from that. In the end, 37 womenbecame members of parliament, representing a fraction of only 8.7 %. After Marie Juchacz was unceremoniously called up, she began her speech with an unusual salutation, changing the conventional order of men and women, which probably caused laughter after only a few words. She said:

“Meine Herren und Damen!“ (Heiterkeit.) „Es ist das erste Mal, dass eine Frau als Freie und Gleiche im Parlament zum Volke sprechen darf, und ich möchte hier feststellen, ganz objektiv, dass es die Revolution gewesen ist, die auch in Deutschland die alten Vorurteile überwunden hat.”

“Gentlemen and ladies...” [interrupted by laughter] “This is the first time that a woman has been allowed to address the people in the parliament on free and equal terms, and I wish to establish here, entirely objectively, that in Germany as elsewhere, the revolution has overwhelmed the old preconceptions.”

Juchacz was not only a politician, but also an active social reformer. She founded the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (Worker’s Charity), today one of the biggest charitable organizations in Germany, which she led from the day of its foundation on December 13, 1919, until 1933. When the Nazis came to power, she went into exile, fleeing vie the Territory of the Saar Basin, France, and Martinique to the USA. In New York, she founded a branch of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt supporting the victims of the Nazi regime in Germany for many years after the war. Juchacz returned to Germany in 1949 and became honorary chairman of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt until her death in 1956.

Despite her achievements, she is almost forgotten. Only a few institutions, mostly belonging to the Arbeiterwohlfahrt, and a few streets are named after her.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

January 15, 1919: Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht murdered

Rosa Luxemburg, born 1871 as Rozalia Luksenburg in Zamość, Poland, was a thought leader of the left wing of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) during the German Empire. As a steadfast anti-militarist, she stood in sharp opposition to the center wing of the party, which (more or less reluctantly) supported World War I, splitting off the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) as a new party. She also founded the Marxist Spartacus League, acting independently of the USPD and leading to the foundation of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Although she opposed against Leninism, she firmly believed in a dictatorship of the proletariat. Contrasting many contemporary communists, she did not interpret the body of thought of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in a dogmatic way, but rather in a critical way. Her political engagement resulted in multiple detentions and imprisonments during the war.

Karl Liebknecht, born 1871 in Leipzig, had made himself a name as a prominent antimilitarist and member of the left wing of the SPD, famously winning the imperial electorial district of Potsdam-Spandau-Oberhavel, until then a stronghold of the German Nationalist Party. Due to his antimilitarism, he separated from the SPD, which began to support the war, and founded the International Group, which later became the Spartacus League, and which ultimately caused his expulsion from the SPD. When he started to organize anti-war demonstrations, he was sentenced to four years and a month in a corrective facility, but was released after two years, three months before the end of the war. He immediately began to reorganize the Spartacus League, attempting a revolution in Germany following the example of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917. On November 9, 1918, he proclaimed the “Free Socialistic Republic of Germany” from a balcony of the Berlin Palace. This proclamation failed – shortly before, Philipp Scheidemann had proclaimed the “German Republic” from a window of the parliament building, the Reichstag.

In January 1919, Luxemburg and Liebknecht were the leading figures of the Spartacus Uprise, Luxemburg as the mastermind and Liebknecht as the master organizer and agitator. The uprise started when the centrist fractions of the provisional government illegitimately intended to increase their influence on politics and administration by removing a number of left-wing persons from office, among them Berlin Police president Emil Eichhorn. The insurgents sympathizing with a prospective communist government attempted to remove the center-leaning government of Friedrich Ebert from power, with no avail.

Against the advice of Rosa Luxemburg, Liebknecht wanted to forcefully overturn the government and seize power before the elections scheduled for January 19 could be held. But Liebknecht had misjudged the general athmosphere among the German population: The workers followed a general strike call, but they were tired of violence. The government of Friedrich Ebert, however, teamed up with the military to forcefully suppress the uprise, with success. One of the leading figures in quelling the uprise was interior minister Gustav Noske.

Luxemburg and Liebknecht were now wanted persons. They were identified by vigilants in an apartment where they had hidden, fearing for their lives. Illegaly taken in custody, they were brought to Hotel Eden where they were mistreated. Waldemar Pabst, leading officer of the Guard-Cavalry-Shooter Division, which had its headquarters in the hotel, decided to “finish off” Luxemburg and Liebknecht. He contacted Gustav Noske, who told him to confer with his superior, which Pabst refused. Noske, unwilling to protect Luxemburg and Liebknecht, but also unwilling to take responsibility, said to Pabst, that he should decide himself what to do.

Pabst commisioned a selected group of individuals to drive Liebknecht to the Tiergarten park in Berlin where they should shoot him, ordering them to make it look as if Liebknecht had been shot while being on the run. They drove to a dark place of the park, faked a car breakdown, got Liebknecht out of the car and shot him from behind. Then they dragged the dead body back into the car and drove him to the police station opposite of Hotel Eden, where they turned him in as an “unknown corpse”.

Rosa Luxemburg’s death was staged as a lynch mob. When she was brought to the entrance of the hotel, a soldier disguised as an angry civilian hit her unconscious with a rifle butt. She was thrown into a car and driven away while Lieutenant Hermann Souchon, riding on the footboard, killed her with a contact shot in the temple. Her body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal, where it was found floating in a lock 16 days later.

None of those participating in the murders was ever punished, active obstruction of justice from the side of the government was involved.

Karl Liebknecht was buried on the cemetery at Friedrichsfelde on January 25 with an empty coffin for Rosa Luxemburg at his side. More than 100,000 people attended the funeral. Luxemburg’s body was buried there on June 13. Again tens of thousands of people were there.

The murders caused violent riots throughout Germany that came close to a civil war. The government under Ebert and Noske forcefully crushed the riots, causing thousands of deaths. That bloodbath was one of the reasons that the Weimar Republic had a hard time to find supporters among the majority of the Germans, and its Social Democratic leadership did not easily find unquestioned approval. It was the first nail in the coffin of the Weimar Republic before it even existed, and the reputation of its leaders was undermined from the very beginning.

The graves were destroyed in 1935 by the Nazi government and restored by the government of the GDR after world war II. Commemorating the murders has become an element in the tradition of the extreme political left in Germany: Each year, members of the political left gather on the second weekend of January at the gravesite to commemorate Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

Numerous memorials have been set up to commemorate the events and the unatoned murders. Rosa Luxemburg has a prominent memorial at the site where her body was disposed of in the Landwehr Canal.

At the site where Karl Liebknecht was shot, there is a stele carrying his name.

Streets, squares, and schools were named after the two, mostly in the GDR. Some of these places have been renamed after the German reunion, some still carry the names.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

24 May 1949: Federal German Constitution comes into effect

On May 24, 1949, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland) came into effect. It was drafted, adopted, and issued by the Parliamentary Council of the three western occupation zones on behalf of the three western allies of world war II. Originally intended to be an interim solution until a quick reunification (hence the designation as “basic law” instead of “constitution”), it contributed to the creation of two German states and an enduring division.  Moreover, it survived the German reunification of 1990, when in a formal act the five states of the GDR joined the ambit of the Basic Law.

Its preamble reads:

   Im Bewußtsein seiner Verantwortung vor Gott und den Menschen,    von dem Willen beseelt, als gleichberechtigtes Glied in einem vereinten Europa dem Frieden der Welt zu dienen, hat sich das Deutsche Volk kraft seiner verfassungsgebenden Gewalt dieses Grundgesetz gegeben.

    In the consciousness of their responsibility before God and man,     Inspired by the will to serve the peace of the world as an equitable member in a united Europe, the German people, by virtue of their constitutional power, have given themselves this basic law.

The first twenty articles deal with the basic rights, and their suspension is illegal. Article 1, which is unchangeable, states that the implementation of these rights is a binding obligation of all branches of the German state:

(1) Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt. (2) Das Deutsche Volk bekennt sich darum zu unverletzlichen und unveräußerlichen Menschenrechten als Grundlage jeder menschlichen Gemeinschaft, des Friedens und der Gerechtigkeit in der Welt. (3) Die nachfolgenden Grundrechte binden Gesetzgebung, vollziehende Gewalt und Rechtsprechung als unmittelbar geltendes Recht.

(1) The dignity of man is inviolable. To respect and protect it is the obligation of all state power. (2) The German people therefore acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the foundation of every human community, of peace and justice in the world. (3) The following fundamental rights bind legislation, executive power and jurisprudence as directly applicable law.

In an attempt to make sure that a potential dictator would never again have the chance to come into power, article 20 gives every German the right to resist against everyone who attempts to overthrow the constitutional order.

(1) Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland ist ein demokratischer und sozialer Bundesstaat. (2) Alle Staatsgewalt geht vom Volke aus. Sie wird vom Volke in Wahlen und Abstimmungen und durch besondere Organe der Gesetzgebung, der vollziehenden Gewalt und der Rechtsprechung ausgeübt. (3) Die Gesetzgebung ist an die verfassungsmäßige Ordnung, die vollziehende Gewalt und die Rechtsprechung sind an Gesetz und Recht gebunden. (4) Gegen jeden, der es unternimmt, diese Ordnung zu beseitigen, haben alle Deutschen das Recht zum Widerstand, wenn andere Abhilfe nicht möglich ist.

(1) The Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social federal state. (2) All power originates from the people. It is exercised by the people in elections and votes, and by special organs of legislation, executive power, and jurisprudence. (3) Legislation is bound to the constitutional order, executive power and jurisprudence are bound to law and justice. (4) All Germans shall have the right to resistance against anyone who undertakes to abolish this order if other remedies are not possible.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Calendar sheet: 28 May 1987 — West German teenage hobby pilot lands on Red Square in Moscow

On May 28, 1987, 18-year-old German hobby pilot Mathias Rust landed on the Red Square in Moscow after passing the heavily guarded Soviet-Russian airspace.

Rust hired a Cessna 172 from his flight club in Hamburg, saying that he wanted to do a round trip over the North Sea. During a stopover, he removed the rear seat to gain more range. He then continued for the next two weeks with stops at the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Bergen (Norway), to Helsinki. From there, he continued, flying first to Leningrad (today St. Petersburg) and watched out for the railway station there. He then navigated along the railroad tracks to Moscow.

His first attempts to land on the Red Square failed because the square was crowded with people. Rust the decided to land on Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge instead. Incidentially, the trolleybus lines were removed for maintenance on this very day, so a landing was possible. Rust then taxied onto the Red Square where he parked the plane on a parking lot for tourist buses and talked to people until he was arrested by the KGB.

Mathias Rust was convicted to 4 years of labor camp for hooliganism and disregard of aviation laws, but was released after 14 months in prison and immediately deported to Germany. The plane was bought by a German cosmetics company, which sold it later to Japan, where is was displayed in an amusement park. In 2009, the German Museum of Technology in Berlin bought the plane, restored it and put it on permanent display.

The Soviet air defense spotted Rust’s plane very soon and accompanied him with MiG-23 fighters, but did nothing to stop him for various organizational reasons. Incidentially, his landing on the Red Square happened on the Day of the Border Soldiers. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev used the incident as a reason to fire a number of his opponents in the military in the largest turnover since Stalin’s purges, further securing his position.

Rust remained an instable person, being sentenced for attempted manslaughter for 2.5 years in prison after stabbing a female co-worker who refused to kiss him. He was also convicted for theft and fraud. Since then, he has led a fragmented life, financing himself at times as a professional poker player, analyst in Switzerland and founder of a yoga school.

A German comedy series circling around the fictional town of Stenkelfeld renamed Stenkelfeld Airport to Mathias Rust Airport.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

June 20, 1908: Patent granted for the coffee filter

The Imperial German Patent Office grants a design registration for a drip-brew coffee filter invented by Melitta Bentz, housewife from Dresden.

A few months later. Melitta Bentz and her husband founded a start-up to market the invention with the starting capital of 73 pfennig (pennies), laying the foundation for today’s worldwide operating Melitta company, selling coffee, paper coffee filters, and coffee makers.

The original disposable round paper filter placed into a cylindrical aluminum funnel with a metal sieve revolutionized the process of coffee making, which before included a filtering cloth that had to be cleaned and washed after each application in order to avoid a rancid taste in the brewed coffee. Melitta Bentz kept improving the filter technique and introduced the cone-shaped filter that we know today in the 1930s.