I've been wanting to visit Germany for a very long time. Ever since we discovered the baptismal records of my great-grandfather, Aloys Panther, and the rest of his family in Moesbach, Ortenaukreis, Baden, Germany, I've wanted to go. There always seemed to be something preventing this from happening. So why did it happen now? It all started when my son-in-law was assigned to temporary duty near Kaiserslautern, Germany. Kaiserslautern is the birthplace of my wife's mother. Our daughter visited Kaiserslautern while her husband was stationed there to spend time with him and to visit my wife's aunts, uncles and cousins that remain in the area. She absolutely loved the time she spent there and encouraged my wife to visit. When my wife said she wanted to go, I agreed whole-heartedly.
When planning our trip, we had to decide our lodging. We could choose a hotel, a VRBO apartment, or a room or house in a smaller town. We ruled out a hotel room right away. We would always prefer to live among the people of the towns were are visiting. We looked at an efficiency apartment in Kaiserslautern and a room in an older home in a small town outside of Kaiserslautern. Given most of my wife's family lives in Kaiserslautern, we chose to stay in a modern apartment there. During our stay, as nice as the apartment was, we agreed that we would be happier to stay in a small town.
Our first day, we landed in Frankfurt, got our rental car, and drove to the apartment in Kaiserslautern. It was around 5:00pm when we got there. We got dinner to go from a Doner place down the street and settled in. The second day, we spent most of the day shopping. We shopped for groceries and wandered around downtown and the mall. This was very different from doing the same thing in America. Downtown shops were a short walk from the apartment, as was the mall. We connected with family and verified plans for meeting them while we were there. We found the church were my wife's mother was baptized and the fountain where her parents spent time while dating.
On our third day, we met with my wife's uncle and his family. It was a large gathering, many of the attendees unable to speak English. With my ability to speak Germany, however little, helped, but a couple of my wife's cousins spoke English enough to translate the various conversations occurring. Her aunt, uncle and cousins were very welcoming and patient with the conversational limitations. Her uncle, who had spent a substantial amount of time in America and spoke well enough English that we could understand him. He told me that he thought my ability to speak German was as good as his ability to speak English. That's a huge compliment given how well he spoke English.
On our fourth day, we visited with another group of my wife's aunts and cousins. Again, the group was very welcoming and patient. Everyone was happy to reconnect with family they hadn't spoken with in many years.
On our fifth day, we visited the cemetery where my wife's grandparents and aunts were buried. Given the temporary nature of graves in Germany and the lack of headstones in many cases, we were not too successful in finding their burial places. We also found the area of town where her mother spent her childhood. The buildings had all been torn down with new buildings built in their place, but we at least had an idea of the location.
On our sixth day there, we drove to Baden-Baden. We got a hotel room there and I went to Casino Baden-Baden to play poker. I won't go into great detail about poker since that's not why you're reading this but here is a short version. The place is elegantly extravagant. It is nothing like what you'd expect from a casino. It is more like a very elegant mansion or hotel. They have a dress code to enter. While I felt I was a better player than many of the other players, I got unlucky and lost what I had set aside for this activity.
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| Casino Baden-Baden |
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| Casino Baden-Baden |
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| Casino Baden-Baden |
The next morning, we drove to Sasbachwalden, where my cousin, Sonja Schuchter is mayor. We were welcomed into her office and introduced to Roland Spether. He is a reporter for Baden Online and photographer. We discussed our family history, our family, and many other subjects.
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| My wife, me, and my cousin, Burgermeisterin Sonja Schuchter |
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| Walking up to Der Engel |
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| My wife and Sonja having lunch |
She brought us to eat at "Der Engel", a Michelin rated restaurant. To say it was amazing is an understatement. The atmosphere, service, and food were all amazing. During lunch, Sonja presented me with two books. One is "Winter in Sasbachwalden". This is an anthology of short stories by the children of Sasbachwalden, for the children of Sasbachwalden, written during a long cold winter during the Covid pandemic lockdown. The other is "Jewelen im Schwarzwald", or "Jewels of the Black Forest". It is about sites, locations, businesses and people of the Black Forest region. Both of these books are in German. I will make my way through them slowly, given my limited skills in the German language.
We visited Heidelberg Castle, which was absolutely amazing, and Château Landskron in Oppenheim, which was also amazing to see. My wife's cousin acted as our tour guide for these locations, for which we are very grateful.
During our visit to Heidelberg Castle, her cousin mentioned the castle in Frankenstein, which is near Kaiserslautern. We decided to make a day of this. This was our favorite day of the trip, one that we will talk about for the rest of our lives. There wasn't anything that was earth-shattering about the day, but it was very relaxing, enjoyable and a bit unbelievable. We had always though that the story and location of Frankenstein was completely fictional. Given what we saw, it makes me believe Mary Shelly may have visited this site before writing the novel. We started up a narrow path, which led to a church, which had a graveyard next to and behind it. Several headstones showed the names of people with the last name of Frankenstein. The castle was built around 1100 AD. Note this is the Frankenstein Castle overlooking the village of Frankenstein in Baden and not the Frankenstein Castle near Darmstadt, Hesse.
We could look through a window of the castle, down on the church and the graveyard, which seemed straight out of the novel and movie. When we went back down the hill, we visited a pub just below the castle. There, we saw a sign saying it had been owned and operated by the family of Diedrich Frankenstein for the past 25 years, although we don't know how old the sign was. We chatted a bit with people sitting at a long table labeled with Stammtisch, or table of the regulars. They invited us to join them. We talked about all things Germany, America, vacations and many other topics. We had a good, fun relaxing time. One gentleman inside the bar looked very much like a cast member of a Frankenstein movie. He looked a bit scary but was a kind man we enjoyed talking with. We bought the bar a round and were shocked at how little it cost.
The Sunday prior to our leaving on Tuesday, we returned to Moesbach, but before going there, I went to Renchen, which is where my 8x-great-grandfather, Christman Brandstetter settled after the Thirty Years War with his friend Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen. I found the Grimmelshausen house, which displayed a statue dedicated to "Simplicius Simplicissimus", his most famous work, and a statue of Grimmelshausen in front of the house. Down the street just a bit, I found a dedication stone on the site of Grimmelshausen's burial. This was one of the highlights of my trip.
After wandering Renchen for a bit, I continued to Moesbach, where Sonja Schuchter lives. I spent the afternoon having drinks and snacks with Sonja and her family, discussing all manner of subjects. It was a wonderful time. I spoke with her brother, who owns a business that makes "Kirschwasser", which, as I believe is best described as distilled cherry wine. I spoke with her sons, one of which works at Mercedes, which my brother also does. My brother gets to their corporate headquarters in Stuttgard one or more times per year and Sonja's son works in Stuttgard once per week. They'll likely meet up the next time my brother goes to Germany. One of Sonja's son's fiance, who speaks very good English, after I said I took four years of German in high school, expressed surprise at how well I speak German. I expressed surprise saying, "I do?" I don't feel that I speak German very well but apparently better than it feels to me.
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| I am 3rd from the left. The rest are the family of Sonja Schuchter |
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| Kirschwasser |
We spent our last day in Germany with my wife's cousins in Eich, Germany. The grandson of her first cousin had his 8th birthday party. He and his older sister are learning English in school and wanted to demonstrate their ability with their visitors from America. We had a very enjoyable time and tears were shed when we finally had to leave.
The trip was very enjoyable and we're happy we went, although we'd recommend a shorter trip. By the time we were there for ten days, we were exhausted and ready to be home. If you're planning a similar trip, I recommend making it ten days or less, then plan another ten day trip at a later date. This way you can learn from the first trip to make the second trip better, like staying somewhere else and have a better idea of how to plan your time there, plus you won't be completely mentally and physically exhausted by the time your trip is ending.
--Matt
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