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The Best of Living in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Back in 2015, my family followed a call of God to ministry in Germany. You can read details about this whole process at our blog: martinfamilyinbavaria. In the six years since we’ve been here, we’ve gathered somee extensive experience with German life in and out of the Catholo-Pentecostal-Bubble, some gleanings of which I will now share in the form of the “best of living in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland”.
- We’re on a mission from God.
Really, we are. That’s why we’re in Bavaria. Augsburg is here, and the Gebetshaus Augsburg- Augsburg House of Prayer- is a key place we were called to.
Which means we spend a lot of time here, in the Gebetsraum, the Prayer Room:
This would be the prayer room at the Gebetshaus Augsburrg. We spend about ten hours in intercession there a week. Untortunately this photo was taken during the COVIC Panic of 2020-21, so the room is not nearly as full as usual on a weekday morning.
2. The landscape (Deutsch: Die Landschaft): Since we spend a lot of time communing with the author of all beauty, we also get out and enjoy the particular beauties of our home in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Such as:
The forest floor just outside of Neuschwanstein, about 70 minutes from the house we live in. Speaking of which, here’s the obligatory Neuschwanstein shot:
Here’s a picture of Hohenschwangau across the lake and down the hill from Neuschwanstein:
And here a shot from the so-called “Siebentischwald” in southeast Augsburg. Why “Woods of Seven Tables”? Because there was at one time a tavern with seven and only seven tables located there. The name stuck.
And below, the Allgäu region near the Austrian border.
As is this:
3. The food.Seriously,the food. 
Yes, I know, I’ve used this photo before. And this one, too:
That’s Döner, the lead competitor with the Breze (soft pretzel to you…hey, look! B –> P! It’s the Second Sound Shift! Hide the women and children! Call Arahant to warn him of excessive use of exclamation points!).
And the trout of Bavaria, I have mentioned before, but will mention again, here, because they are just that good. Here are the ones I made in our oven:
Then there are the baked goods. Like these:
“Krapfen”- which are these filled donut-like creations that come in a huge variety of flavors. The top one was filled with coffee cream; the bottom one with chocolate cream.
3. The Bier. Yes, it is amazing:
Yes, it’s an older photo. And it only shows one variety of Bier…there are many:
The real key in picking a good one, though, is this: Look for the Abbey or Monastery on the lable. All of the good stuff comes from places like Weihenstephaner, Kloster Scheyern, Kloster Oberschönenfeld, Barfüßler, even Franziskaner- these are the ones to look for. And it’s just better. Tradition counts. A brewery that’s been practicing the craft since …1048…1190…1489… hundreds of years, in any case, has a better mastery of the craft than those founded more recently. Which leads nicely into my last point…
4. History. And Art.
My daughter’s school is just a few hundred feet from a Benedictine Abbey founded in 969 on the site of an earlier church, which was founded on the site of a Roman military outpost. The house we live in is in part constructed on a site of a Napoleonic-Era monastery.
That’s Worms Cathedral, built in 1035. The city of Worms is the site of many key moments in German history. It is mentioned in Das Nibelungenelied and has been a locus of both the best and worst in German-Jewish history. Worms is one of the cities which was caught up in the awful pogroms of the 1st Crusade that began in 1096 and continued into 1097. The Jewish community recovered and eventually the synagoge in Worms became the seat of teaching for both Meir von Rothenburg in the 13th century and Raschi in the 17th. If was of course the locale of one of the best and worst moments in European history: The Diet of Worms, where Luther, pronounced his “Got kum mir zu hilf.” in the face of condemnation from the Emperor, the assembled princes and bishops.
And these are just a few of the elements that I go on about. The castles, museums, original artworks, architecture, great musical academies, combine to make the best of life in Germany by reminding us of the best elements of western civilization. I could stay on the topic for quite a long time, but the afternoon is getting on.
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Thanks for the kind words about the photos. Funny you should mention the West Coast Jesus Movement of the 70s- a friend of mine and founder of both the Freie Christliche Jugendgemeinschaft (FCJG- Free Christian Youth Association) was converted in no small part out of that movement. Help For All Nations (HfAN) also grew out of that here.
Thanks for post and photos. I never made it to Augsburg, but my favorite place in the world is just down the road in Austria (Salzburg, naturlich).
The title reminded me of a recent incident. A guy I know has an old ’72 Mercedes with a ‘DDR’ sticker on it. I asked him why on Earth he had an East German sticker on it and he got so excited because he’d had it on there for 20 years and no ever asked. I can’t remember his explanation, though…hmm.
I read your story on your blog; very interesting. I found your interaction with the German Christian who had a real sense of shame regarding the Holocaust very poignant. I was there just a generation after the end of WWII; conversations with German Christians had this sense of shame in common with your experience.
I have a fair number of students who feel our government should be more like Germany or Sweden in terms of social contract between ‘citizens’ and the state. I try to explain to them that the brand of socialism practiced in those countries is fairly libertine but lacks liberty in the traditional American sense. I felt the culture and conformity among the Germans somewhat stifling and oppressive. I felt that they have fewer liberties than us in terms of free speech and the ability to live differently and be left alone. A German nurse I worked with (a Darmstadt native, present during a horrific night bombing raid by the British), loved America and Americans. She especially loved New Orleans; she said it was a place where she could be herself.
I heard from some that the power of secular atheistic thought there was in response to the horrors of the Nazi era; for that level of evil to have taken place, there must not be a God, He would never allow that to happen. I am happy for your work there; I wonder someday if the work that you are doing there will be a necessary work here…
I have a pretty basic question–perhaps OT but not too much so. The stereotype of the German “person” is that the person is (and I generalize here) “cold,” almost mechanical in a sense, with a tendency to arrogance and lack of humor.
My disclaimer is that I listen to, but don’t subscribe to, stereotypes without personal experience in verification. Still, I will admit that, in my very limited exposure to native Germans, the stereotype is not unfounded. I’m not trying to offend here BTW.
I love N’awlins. If being yourself happens to lose its charm, pick somebody else, and be him tomorrow.
ns
Where and what do you teach if I may ask?
There are strange ways the German character- and there is one- plays out. That “live by the schedule” stereotype is real. So are the stereotypes about punctuality and thoroughness by and large. These things are taught as virtues, so of course people internalize them. Maybe I need to do another post about this…I am getting too many ideas at once…
I loved the stereotypes you describe; arriving on time at a train station with the connecting train leaving from another track in 3 minutes and never missing one. The thoroughness, yes indeed. They can be brusque when doing business with them–time is money, after all. The ones I interacted with tended to be very convinced of their own ‘rightness’, stubborn in a way. Part of that conformity of thought, I think.
I found many with a sense of humor but you needed to get past a certain point relating to them to see it. Hoyacon, I totally understand your perception; I had the advantage of working with several long-term. Probably the fact they were comfortable working for the Americans makes them a less than ideal control group for judging those stereotypes. I worked with a gentleman who was part of Rommel’s Afrika Corps (served as a medic). He told me the best day of his life was the day he was captured by the Americans. He said they knew they would be fed by us and would no longer be subject to being sent to the eastern front. They were not as confident that they would be well-fed by the British. He had a very gregarious personality and was very well-thought of by our patients.
I am in my 31st year of teaching Chemistry and Physics at a small-town Ohio high school.
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