You Can Take It With You – Baggage Handler at Bontida (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #79)

They say you can’t take it with you. I have found that in terms of travel that is not true. I have always taken “it” with me. For a long time, I did not realize that I was carrying “it” with me wherever I went. I thought that I was traveling to experience new places, new people, new languages, and new cultures. I was going to see famous, infamous, and obscure sights. I was going to go from reading history in books, to experiencing history where it happened. I was going to escape the repetition and dullness of daily life by traveling to places that stimulated my curiosity. I was going to get away from it all and I thought I did. I did not notice anyone or anything following me. Then one day, I finally realized that I carried the world I thought I left behind within me.

You can take it with you. There is no finer example than the time I spent in Riga, Latvia. The weather was cold, humid, and blustery. The opposite of what it had been in Kyiv when I left there a day earlier. The climatic change led to me catching a terrible cold. Sore throat, fever, chills, clogged sinuses, I had caught an awful cold. The physical part of this cold would be mitigated with medication. The mental part was another matter altogether. It could not be cured by anything in a bottle. What I really needed was my mom. That might not sound like the most macho thing for a middle-aged man to say, but while lying in the bed at night fending off fever dreams, I wished that my mom would walk into the room. Her presence would have comforted me. She always did when I was a child. Now I was in Riga, as far from home in place and time as I had ever been. My mother would not be coming to check on me. This was the moment when I realized how much I relied on her. I carried my mother with me wherever I went, in sickness and in health.

Chilled – Autumn in Riga (Credit: Laurijs Svirskis)

Keeping Watch – In The Eyes of Strangers
I have spent an inordinate amount of time looking into stranger’s eyes. Behind ticket counters at train stations, at bakeries while picking up breakfast, during check-in at hotels, on numerous free tours, I searched in stranger’s eyes for affirmation. This is much more difficult in foreign countries where I cannot speak the language. I must look for signs. Perhaps a subtle warmth in the eyes, knowing glance, or hint of a smile. I did not need much more than that. That was exactly what I received on free tours in Bucharest and Bratislava, Prague and Pula, among many other places in Eastern Europe. Acknowledgement from the guide meant the world to me. Once that was done, I could relax, listen, and go back to being a loner. I did not need to be the center of attention, only an acknowledgement. That need has always been inside of me.

I always talked too much as a child, probably because I felt like no one was really listening to me. I have learned to live with being largely ignored, but only after an acknowledgement. If one was not forthcoming, then I would continue to search. The need comes from a childhood where my dad had disappeared, and my mom was distracted with trying to meet our most basic needs. There was no one to really listen, but my mom always acknowledged me and my two siblings. As for my father, he never knew what I was missing. Unfortunately, I did and still do, no matter how far I am from home, I still search for affirmation in the eyes of strangers.

Affirmation – Guide on the Free Tour of Bucharest

Illicit Love Affair – An Epic Tragedy
I carried a lot of baggage to Bontida and none of it was on my back. I went to see the ruined home of the Transylvanian aristocrat, Miklos Banffy whose Transylvania Trilogy I had read with intense interest. That lost world fascinated me with its elegant balls, crazed eccentrics, illicit love affairs, intellectual endeavors, and sporting pursuits. That grand splendor was dealt the first of several fatal blows by the First World War. The world which had existed prior to the war never really returned afterwards. It struggled on like a bad marriage momentarily saved by material possessions and money. There was no going back to the way things used to be. Memories evoked sadness rather than joy because they were a reminder of all that had been lost. Everyone was left fending for themselves.

The old order had been upended to the point that no one knew what came next. Some picked up the pieces and rebuilt a semblance of their lives, others took to slowly killing themselves, while still others practiced the fine art of self-delusion. There were plenty of poisons to pick from. Radical ideologies were among the most lethal. Banffy erred on the side of truth masquerading as fiction with his epic trilogy. I felt a kinship with the lost world he so elegantly portrayed. Another great writer of the early 20^th century, Marcel Proust, once said, “the only true paradises are the ones we have lost.” I didn’t quite realize at the time of my visit to Banffy Kastely that I was searching for a paradise I had lost. Slowly the truth revealed itself to me. I was searching one lost world for another. 

Light and darkness – View from a ruined room at Banffy Kastely

The Lost World – Transylvanian Trauma
The lost world of Transylvanian aristocracy portrayed by Banffy reminded me of the one our family lost when my father walked away from it all. We went from wealthy to working class overnight. The upper economic echelon of society was no longer open to us. Love turned to loneliness, and the emotional tumult took a toll on everyone. No one was ever the same. Some of us were better, some of us were worse, none of us were left unscathed.  The baggage I carried to Banffy Kastely was the heaviness in my heart brought all the way from home. They say you can’t take it with you. I know better. I know the truth.

Click here for: Playing The Victim – Imagining The Worst In Sarajevo (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #80)

Night At The Opera – A Transylvanian Tale In Cluj (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #69)

I am besieged by books at home. I always keep several volumes within easy reach. As I have gotten older, my library has grown to alarming size. I have long since realized that there is no way I will read every one of the books I own. From time to time, I cull the volumes hoping that I can make reading them more manageable. This only lasts as long as the next library book sale. After which, I return home with another armful of books.  These get stacked atop all the other books already piled on the shelf. The hundreds of thousands of pages still to be read are a daunting task, but I also see them as an opportunity.

My strategy is not to read each book I own from cover to cover. Instead, most of my library is filled with books I use for research. Some of this involves the obvious such as tracking down information about specific places of interest or double checking to make sure certain details are correct. This is essential for research and writing, but the real reason I own so many books is because I love searching for anecdotes and stories. There is nothing I love more than absurd, obscure, and unbelievable stories that showcase people and places in a strange but true manner.  When I open a book, my journey starts with either the table of contents or index, looking for any subject heading that might stimulate my interest. I found one of my all-time favorites in Richard Basset’s “A Guide To Central Europe.” 

        Primary source – Transylvania by Richard Bassett

Buy The Book – A Well-Respected Recommendation
The first time I saw Bassett’s guide was in Budapest on a table in the apartment of Michael O’Sullivan, the erudite and well-respected author. O’Sullivan has an incredible knowledge of Central and Eastern Europe which he conveys with elegance in conversation. He has lived and traveled in the region for many decades. When I met him, it was only a few months after the publication of “Patrick Leigh Fermor: Noble Encounters Between Budapest and Transylvania”, his work of history/travel that follows in the footsteps of Fermor’s legendary journey across Hungary and Romania on foot in 1934. That journey is the subject of Fermor’s marvelous “Between The Woods and The Water” which offers a fascinating account of the Hungarian aristocracy’s fading world just before it was extinguished by the Second World War.

When I picked up Basset’s book, O’Sullivan asked me, “Have you read it?” After I replied no, he said, “It is excellent.” That was enough of a recommendation for me.  O’Sullivan knew Bassett well. Both had been foreign correspondents in Vienna. They knew the region long before the Iron Curtain fell. I asked O’Sullivan if I could take a photo of the book. He politely agreed to my request. The photo would allow me to remember the book so I could order a copy for myself. Before I flew back home, I had already ordered the book so it would be waiting for me upon arrival.

      A look back – A Guide To Central Europe by Richard Bassett

Primary Sources – Old World Journalism
Like so many books I buy based on intuition, I spent a few minutes perusing “A Guide To Central Europe”, then placed it on a shelf facing my favorite chair. That way I would notice it at some later date. Only then would I really begin to delve into the book more deeply. I found several things I liked from a quick scan of the text. Basset’s book was not a typical travel guide. Instead, he wrote in a narrative style about various regions in Central and Eastern Europe. As a reader, I felt like I was right there beside him throughout his travels. Since Bassett was a journalist, his writing was easy to read and highly accessible. He knew how to relate details in an intriguing manner with a gift for enlightening and colorful anecdotes. This was old world journalism at its finest. My first impressions would be lasting ones.

When I finally plucked the book from my shelf, the chapter that most interested me was the one on Transylvania. The book had been published in 1985. That meant Bassett had visited the region during the worst years of the Ceausescu regime. This was a rarity. Snooping foreign journalists were viewed with feverish disdain in Cold War era Romania. Travelers from west of the Iron Curtain were not welcomed. Those who did make it into the country were under the ever-watchful gaze of the Securitate, the Romanian secret police that spied on anything that moved. Bassett managed to visit Transylvania with the eyes of a tourist despite the restrictive nature of travel. His observations in the guide are a valuable primary source historical document. They can also be unintentionally hilarious, particularly in one absurd case.

          Gray days – Cluj in 1989 (Credit: Fortepan.hu)

Theater of the Absurd – Machine Guns & Elegant Ladies
Ceausescu-era Cluj was not the prosperous, cosmopolitan city that is Transylvania’s commercial capital of today. In the mid-1980’s, Cluj was marked by hints of former grandeur and tight-lipped people.  The world Bassett stepped into was in the iron grip of authoritarianism. This pervaded every aspect of life. Arts and culture were particularly susceptible to the regime’s trends and whims as Basset relates on a visit to the Opera. The façade of the building – “a delightful Helmer and Fellner essay in Neo-Baroque, has recently been restored” – gives no hint to Bassett of the performance he will witness inside. Basett notes with characteristic understatement that “Occasionally the operas are political in theme.” He then provides an unforgettable example. “I remember one extraordinary work, the magnum opus of some Romanian revolutionary leader, resounding to the sound of machine guns and partisan massacres. The Romanian audience, which numbered less than a dozen and were easily outnumbered by the combined forces of cast and orchestra, were a colorful lot with several elegant ladies wearing hats in their boxes, adopting stiff poses redolent of an Olivia Manning novel.”

Reading that, I did not know what was better, the machine guns or the elegant ladies. The former was full of ridiculous revolutionary ferocity, the latter an astonishing example of old-world charm gone mad in the face of modernity. The partisan massacres must have been good fun for the white glove set. The empty seats show that even in a tightly controlled society everyone knew the regime staged farces to further destroy their meager creditability. Basset’s description was priceless, though I doubt he paid more than a few lei for his night at the opera, and the opportunity to witness one of the more absurd moments in a regime full of them. Bassett’s “A Guide To Central Europe” is a trove of travel anecdotes. I look forward to many more evenings traveling with him.

Click here for: Another Side of Sibiu – The Many Faces of Transylvania (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #70)

Going Off – Eternal Life In Transylvania (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #68)

Transylvania is as close as I’ll ever get to being a child again. Each day I have spent there brought me something new. My curiosity is stimulated to such an extent that it could never be satisfied, only inspired. I could spend my entire life on journeys of discovery across the region. A sense of wonder unlike anything I have ever felt before or since came upon me the first time I crossed over King’s Pass and entered Transylvania. This autumn procession led me into a land that glowed green and gold.

Windswept meadows, misty clouds, rugged hills, village spires reaching to the sky, all illuminated by a sun that resisted the slide toward winter. That feeling of awe I first felt returns to me each time I cross back over into the region. A succession of feelings so powerful that I carry them within me where I go. A kaleidoscopic series of images and experiences that memory has gifted me. This is when I feel most alive. The moments and memories often come back to me late in the evening. An uncontrollable human urge, an impulse so fierce and natural that I have little choice but to follow my heart back to Transylvania.

             Symmetry & beauty – View of Sibiu

Silent Tolerances – A Series of Observations
Transylvania is all those memories that mean so much to me. The eye-like eaves on Saxon houses, the dog sitting atop a house in Sibiu. the symmetry and beauty of that same city. The exquisite pottery sold in someone’s backyard, the countless bicyclists in Bontida. Dodging craters pockmarking the parking lot at Saschiz, hay bales climbing up hillsides high in the mountains, the menacing stoicism of a policeman patrolling the platform in Cluj, the sublime calmness of horse drawn wagon cart drivers on highways,

Romanian flags flying above police stations in Szekely Land Two tracks that run to little pieces of pastoral heaven, the teenage girl leading tours of a church in Darjiu, the antiquated and insular world of the Szekely. The rusticated colors of neglect on village houses, the clothes of old men who look like they have been wearing the same suit since the Second World War, the women with stares of sincerity, the roundtrip rail journey from Sibiu to Sighisoara that takes forever.

The Roma sitting in a pasture by the railroad tracks just after dawn, the night trains reminding of the way things were, the border control reminding of the ways things are. The listless look of people walking to work. The low prices, the even lower wages. The villages without anyone in their twenties. The peaked caps, scruffy beards, and frosty mustaches. The worn faces, wrinkled clothes, and dark hands. The chatter that sounds like Latin has come back to life, the laughter that is its own language. The kindness of Romanians, the seriousness of Hungarians, the vanishing of Saxons, the stubbornness of the Szekely, the exoticism of the Roma. The legacy of Trianon that hangs over everyone and everything. The ancient enmities, and silent tolerances of all involved. The way people look past each other, the way people look into one another.

        Shadow & light – Side entry to a church in Transylvania

Inside Out – Life Among The Transylvanians
The speeding vehicles on rural roads, the melancholy of the villages, the suspicious stares at outsiders. Garden plots growing for centuries, the broken fences still standing, the rhythm of life everlasting. The plastic shopping bags on handlebars, the habits of pensioners, the indifference of stray dogs. The beautiful and lifeless town halls, the amount of cigarettes being smoked, the endless conversations in cafes and restaurants.

The symmetry and beauty of Sibiu, the absence of Dracula, the violence of Vlad Tepes, the castles slowly collapsing, the manor houses hollowed out. The flaking of early 20^th century paint, the pretty pastel townhouses, the blood red politics of the past. The trains that never arrive on time, the buses that never leave on time, the people who learned to tolerate it. The random towers that still stand along city walls, the doors that should have fallen off long ago, the houses where no one has been home in years.

The people walking without purpose, the wait for no one in particular. Those who could really care less and those who care too much. The dated splendor of a city center, the odor of a woman sniffing glue, the harmlessly belligerent drunks, the barely standing bus station, five days in Brasov. The modern tractor in one field and the horse drawn plow in the other. The benign look of rural poverty, the frightening look of urban depravity, the buildings that look like they should not be left standing.

The dog that bit my pants on the run to Deva Castle and the apology from its owner. The autumn storm sweeping over a giant meadow, the corruption that will not sweep the streets. The smell of public places, toxic indifference. The idea that nothing will ever change. The people waiting for a handout, the people wanting out. The modesty of beggars, the pride of professionals, the frustration of the working class, the successful failures. The beautiful women who look unapproachable and lonely, the handsome men who look arrogant and insecure.

          Keeping watch – Dog on a rooftop in Sibiu

Running In Place – A Step Behind The Times
The university students who make conversation and never war, the peasants who make a life and never money. The unseen elites who rule, run, and own everything. Those who do not have much and want for nothing. The women selling flowers whose smiles are worth so much more. The sturdy wooden doors and drawn curtains that an entire world lives behind. The empty side streets and crowded sidewalks. The pace of life, forever falling a step behind the times.

The romance of elderly couples and the lust of university students. The adults who are full of ambition and headed for immigration. The Banffys, the Telekis, and all the other aristocrats that can never be brought back. The grand facades and less grand interiors. The palaces that look like nothing of the sort. The churches that preserve tradition, the silence within them that is their perpetual condition. The graffiti on a ruined wall at Banffy Kastely asking “are you the solution or the problem.” The quiet voice that could never bring itself to answer the question.

Click here for: Night At The Opera – A Transylvanian Tale In Cluj (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #69)

That’s The Ticket – Eastern European Travel: Personal Journeys (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #67)

During my high school years, getting a traffic ticket from the police was deemed a rite of passage. Many of my fellow school mates who had just passed the driver’s license exam seemed hell bent on achieving this dubious feat. They would often exchange stories of getting stopped by the police for speeding. It was a bit of adolescent justice, the ne’er do wells wore it like a badge of honor. Those wannabes who had yet to be ticketed would listen in awe as the guilty recounted the pleasure of being charged with a minor traffic offense. For those who had not yet been lucky enough to find trouble, they would redouble their efforts by going twice the speed limit next time they were behind the wheel. It was a bizarre act of rebellion that cost many young men dearly in financial terms, not to mention the lives they put in danger while driving at reckless speeds. Sometimes I wonder if anyone kept those tickets, the way I have kept many of the tickets I later received in Eastern Europe.

Cluj to Bontida – Romanian Train Ticket

Roaming Charges – Standard Fare
There is one big difference between the tickets my fellow schoolmates received and the ones I received while traveling. My friend’s tickets came from the police, mine came at the hands of women sitting in small booths or behind large desks in Berlin and Budapest, Ljubljana and Lviv, in addition to all the points in between. The people who issued tickets to me were almost always females. They did so from behind glass windows while speaking into a small microphone. My replies to them were made through a small hole in the glass. Before issuing me a ticket, they would often ask questions about time and date of departure. I would then pay a price and walk away completely satisfied, cherishing my newly issued ticket. Many times, I would stuff them away as keepsakes and standard fare to feed my own personal superstitions. The idea goes something ²like this: if I have those tickets, the trips can be brought back to life. They are pieces of the past that bring journeys into the present.

One of my most cherished keepsakes comes at the end of any trip to Budapest. I place in my wallet the last multi-day public transit pass in my possession. They can serve as a marker for the length of my stay and the breadth of my travels around the city. The same cannot be said for the individual tickets. I have bought blocks of ten at a time, but the ones I do not use get discarded. Then again, the one I do use also get discarded. The individual ones remind me of raffle tickets. Each ticket can only be used once. After a journey ends, the ticket is useless. That ticket is torn from the block of ten, soon the entire block will be rendered useless. At the end of each day, if there are any individual tickets left, I usually purge them from my pockets and into the nearest waste basket. This is something I can never bring myself to do with a multi-day public transport pass. The passes are larger than the individual tickets and thus seem more important. A pass allows for all access. By flashing the pass, I can ride buses in Kobanya, trams in Kispest, metro lines under the Danube and boats atop it. The pass is a reminder that for a few days I can go almost anywhere I want to in Budapest, a freedom to roam that is intoxicating.

All access – Three Day Budapest Public Transport Pass

Memory Triggers – Getting Ticketed
Train tickets are different. They hold a special significance for me. These tickets almost always involve a journey through at least one Eastern European city. Looking at them years after a trip, makes those journeys come back to life. The cities and stops written on the tickets stir memories. I grabbed a handful of them recently and began to decode them. This is an example of what I found in just a few minutes.

A journey from Budapest-Keleti to Eger on September 9, 2012, where I barely made the 13:53 departure time, not because I was late, but because the ticket seller sold me the ticket a couple of minutes before departure. The trip to the train left me breathless, the romance of that moment after all these years still does.

Budapest-Deli to Tata on March 23, 2013. It was one of the grayest days I have ever experienced. Spring had not yet arrived in Hungary. The countryside was brown, the trees leafless and Tata seemed lifeless, such was the stillness and silence that pervaded it on this day. The trip to Tata was my third consecutive daylong trip in a row. Obsession means always pushing on. Weariness of body and mind are no excuse, they are motivation.

The ticket for a 33 minute train ride from Cluj to Bontida. This was the day I visited Banffy Kastely, the former home to Miklos Banffy, author of the Transylvania Trilogy, a phenomenal fictionalized account of the Transylvanian aristocracy in the years before.  The train ride would have been forgettable if not for the fact that this trip helped make the trilogy real. Visiting the Kastely was like meeting someone famous for the first time. They don’t seem quite real. Neither did the fictional trilogy until my trip to Bontida.

There was the ticket for October 2, 2013 from Vienna to Budapest. A morning intercity route which whisked me back to Budapest after ten days along the Adriatic coastline in Croatia and Italy. I was still half asleep from a noisy night train journey between Venice and Vienna. Sleep deprived and bleary eyed, I vividly remember only one thing about waiting at the Westbahnhof in Vienna. That I was dead tired. The end of the line was still three hours away, the journey between Vienna and Budapest must have been like so many other things in life, committed not to memory, but oblivion.

Vienna to Budapest – Austrian Railways Ticket

Taking Stock – Guideposts To The Past
I could go on and on while looking at these old tickets. Each one of them triggers a memory. They are rites of passage much more meaningful than any traffic ticket could ever be. The tickets trace a very personal journey, one that runs across roads and railways. They trace the arc of my travels and the arc of my life on the move across Eastern Europe. They are more than just scraps of paper. I keep these tickets not to show off to friends or old classmates, but for my own private enjoyment. They represent courage and curiosity, the two indispensable traits of all good travel. Taking stock of my old tickets gives me hope and feels me with wonder. They are markers of memory and guideposts to the past. In sum, the tickets are a testament to my travels.

Click here for: Going Off – Eternal Life In Transylvania (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #68)

Once In A Lifetime – Yugoslavia’s Moment of Glory in Sarajevo (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #64c)

The host nation of the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics no longer exists, nor is it likely ever to again. Yugoslavia was a South Slavic geopolitical experiment that most of the western Balkan nations which formed from its breakup would rather forget about. It is hard to imagine now after the deadly Yugoslav Wars of the 1990’s, but there were moments when Bosnians, Croats, Kosovars, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Slovenians felt a sense of national solidarity. Much of this was enforced by the unclenched fist of Josip Broz Tito, one of the very few communist dictators who governed sensibly.

Compared to the Ceausescus, Hoxhas, and Stalins of the communist world, Tito’s iron hand had a lighter touch. Tito used a combination of incentives and draconian measures to keep Yugoslavia unified. That troubled nation would not survive his death by very long. The time period between Tito’s death in 1980 and the beginning of its dissolution in 1991, is often viewed as a prelude to disaster. Yet there were moments when the inhabitants of Yugoslavia still felt a sense of national pride. One such moment occurred when Jure Franko won Yugoslavia’s first medal in a Winter Olympics.

On a mission – Jure Franko at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo

Olympian Feats – Going For Gold
For an American, it is difficult to understand how much importance the rest of the world ascribes to the Olympics. The world’s premier international sporting event is not that big of a deal in the United States. In the rest of the world, the Olympics are huge. While the Olympics can inspire fervent patriotism in America for a couple of weeks, in Europe they inspire entire nations both during the competition and long after it has concluded. An Olympic medal can make someone a legend for life in Europe. The smaller the country, the greater the effect. For Europeans, only the World Cup can match the stature of the Olympics. There is a big difference though. With the odd exception of the recent Croatian teams, the World Cup is dominated by the largest nations in Europe. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain consistently contend for the Palme d’Or. Smaller nations only hope to make it into the knockout round.

The Olympics are the best bet for small and mid-size European countries to achieve glory in athletics. This is particularly true for national teams from Eastern European countries. Their citizens are keenly aware that the Olympics offer their athletes hundreds of opportunities in a wide range of sports that much of the world hardly even notices. I have seen it in the eyes of Eastern Europeans and heard it in their words. A single medal is enough to drive a small nation that would otherwise be insignificant on the international sporting scene to madness. I can still recall seeing a Slovenian friend swell with pride when she talked about how one of her countrymen won a medal in an obscure sport. I envied her zealotry. It was a point of pride that had her beaming with delight.

Alpine run – Mt. Bjelašnica was the venue for skiing events at Sarajevo (Credit: Xe0us)

Asserting Identity – Another Form of Nationalism
Archery, canoeing, kayaking, rowing, shooting, these are the kind of sports which fly under the radar until they become of intense interest for a few nations during the Olympics. Every country has their affinity for a sport that their athletes can dominate. I often wonder how these countries come to be the best in a specific event. Take for instance, Hungary in men’s water polo. For decades, the Hungarian team has been one of the most dominating nations in the sport. Anything less than a medal is considered a failure. Other countries excel in winter sports due to their climate and the world-class sports facilities they construct to take advantage of it.

It is not hard to see why winning Olympic medals sends Eastern European countries into a frenzy. For almost fifty years they were in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. The Olympics gave them a chance to stand out, as much against the Soviets as against the western world. Athletics was a form of nationalism. While Hungarians or Czechs might not be able to beat the Soviets on the battlefield, they could assert their superiority in the athletic arena. What for most other nations would be minor victories, were cause for celebration in smaller Eastern Bloc countries. On the surface, these sporting triumphs were made to look like a triumph of the communist system, but the more subtle message was the assertion of national identity.

By the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia had been a leader of the non-aligned movement (nations favoring neither the Soviets nor the Americans) for several decades. They remained aloof from the superpower struggle while still eager to assert themselves on the world stage. Hosting the Olympics in Sarajevo was a perfect platform to boost Yugoslavia’s prestige. Socialist nations had long been known for state support of athletics. This had paid dividends for Yugoslavia in the Summer Olympics where their athletes had won 53 medals, but they had never medaled in the Winter Olympics. To not do so as a host nation would have been a dubious first in Olympic history. All Yugoslavia needed was one medal, getting that would not be easy. Fortunately, Jure Franko rose to the occasion.

Olympic glory – Jure Franko in Sarajevo

Winner’s Circle – Once In A Lifetime
A Slovenian whose specialty was the Giant Slalom, Franko had finished the previous year in the world’s top 10 rankings. To win a medal, Franko would still have to overcome long odds. He was not considered to be among the top three in the world. After his first run, Franko was in fourth place. He would need a better second run under immense pressure if he hoped to contend for a medal. Franko did just that as he pulled off a spectacular performance by bettering his first run time by nearly a second. His effort was the fastest single run in the competition. It was good enough to move Franko into second place for the silver medal.

Franko’s career defining performance was met with a roar by the home crowd. When it became clear that Franko had won a medal, he instantly became a national hero. Yugoslavia had now won a medal at the Winter Olympics. Even today, Franko is still famous throughout the region. He has been given the status of honorary citizen of Sarajevo. Franko’s Olympic exploits would be one of the last times that the citizens of Yugoslavia would be united. The same could be said for Sarajevo.

Click here for: Cover Story – The Wrong Connection In Bojnice (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #65)

From Moscow To Sarajevo – An Olympic Sized Fascination (Rendezvous With Obscure Destiny #64b)

The Olympics. Those two words did as much as anything to stimulate my interest in Eastern Europe. It is hard for any sports fan who did not live through the Cold War to understand just how important the Olympics were in the competition for global supremacy between the United States and Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc and the rest of Europe. And this struggle also had shades of gray with non-aligned countries such as Yugoslavia playing an outsized role as well. The Cold War was known for proxy wars and the Olympics were the ultimate proxy war. Superiority in sport was a proxy for superiority in ideological systems. The superpowers battled on fields in Moscow and Munich and ice in Squaw Valley and Sarajevo among many other places. There were amazing athletic achievements and the dirtiest of deeds. The Olympics were for more than national pride, they were for world dominance.

All together now – 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony

Manic Intensity – The Winner Takes It All
One way of establishing dominance in the Olympics was by hosting them. The host city gained an incredible amount of prestige. The Olympics were a showcase not just for the city, but also the host nation. The superpowers competed in this arena just as hard as they did in sporting ones. The Soviet Union struck first. By the late 1970’s the spirit of détente was already waning. The Soviets then delivered a fatal blow to it with their invasion of Afghanistan. The Americans were not going to respond in direct fashion with their military. Instead, the Carter Administration announced a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics which were going to be held in Moscow. This decision did nothing to stop the Soviets and kept hundreds of American athletes from pursuing their lifetime goal of competing in the Olympics. The boycott led to decreased interest in the games. The Moscow Olympics were one of the least popular in Olympic history and viewed largely as a disappointment. I can still recall seeing the boycott announced on television.

Earlier in 1980, the United States and Soviet Union had given me the first taste of the manic intensity caused by superpower rivalry when the American ice hockey team upset the heavily favored Soviet squad in the semifinals at the 1980 Winter Olympics held in Lake Placid, New York what was termed, “The Miracle on Ice”. The memory of watching that game will stay with me forever. The 1980 Moscow Olympics may have been held in the summer, but the only image I can recall from them is Leonid Brezhnev with his usual gray and grim personality. Brezhnev looked like the kind of man who involved himself in fixing games rather than playing them. Other than that, those Olympics, at least from an American perspective, were utterly forgettable.

The Soviets exacted their revenge when they boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Like the Americans four years earlier, the Soviet boycott was the equivalent of an own goal. A self-defeating, reactionary decision that changed nothing other than keeping their athletes from competing. Watching those Olympics, I began to realize that the Soviets did not have an iron grip on those nations said to be within their sphere of influence. Romanian athletes kept appearing on medal podiums. Athletes from Yugoslavia also made their presence felt. In a world that was bifurcated between east and west, these outliers left me confused. By this time, I was beginning to realize that Yugoslavia was not in the Eastern Bloc. Earlier that same year, it had played host to the Winter Olympics, a landmark event which I still remember fondly.

Field of competition – 1980 Moscow Olympics Opening Ceremony

Winter Wonderland – Snow in Sarajevo
Winter is a magical time, especially when it is sprinkled with snow. Cover any scene with a thick frosting of snow and it tends towards the fantastical. Now imagine the impression that a city in an exotic land beset by a massive winter storm would make upon an impressionable teenager. This was how I first came to know Sarajevo. My fascination with Eastern Europe began in earnest on winter nights in February 1984. I, along with millions of Americans, sat starry eyed in front of the television and watched the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. The name entranced me, it was exotic and easy to pronounce. Sarajevo slid off the tongue, sounding refined and gentle. This was the beginning of a love affair that I still have with the city. That love would be further consummated during a visit I made there in 2009, exactly twenty-five years after it held a memorable Winter Olympics

Those nights in February made Sarajevo a household name. Like many other Americans I knew nothing about the city when those Olympics first started. I knew only a little more about Yugoslavia. My main point of reference for Yugoslavia would come later that same year during the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. That was when I discovered Yugoslavia did not follow in lockstep with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. They refused to boycott. Yugoslavia seemed to me a softer, kinder nation. It was communism with common sense. My positive opinion of Yugoslavia was first formulated by the Winter Games in Sarajevo. The city looked mysterious and enchanting due to the heavy snow which fell upon it. My most vivid memory is Jim McKay of ABC sports standing outside during heavy snowfall. The flakes swirled around him. The snow made Sarajevo seem magical. Here was a faraway city in an obscure part of Europe. This was, is, and always will be Sarajevo for me.

Taking a Leap – Promotion for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo

The Opening Ceremony – Wild Weather
Snow and Sarajevo are synonymous in my mind. There cannot be one without the other. Ironically, right before the games were to begin there was a great deal of worry due to a lack of snow. The organizers knew they were at the mercy of the weather. In the days leading up to the opening ceremonies their worries increased. A snowless Sarajevo would have been a disaster for a city that had put an incredible amount of effort preparing for the Olympics. This was to be Sarajevo’s shining moment on the world stage. No one would be disappointed as a blizzard blanketed the city in snow.

Click here for: Once In A Lifetime – Yugoslavia’s Moment of Glory in Sarajevo (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #64c)

An Acquired Taste – Developing A Passion for Eastern Europe (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #64a)

A couple of months ago a friend asked me how I first became interested in Eastern Europe. This is not the first time I have been asked that question. It is easy to understand why since I have no relatives or ancestors from the region. I grew up in the foothills of western North Carolina which does not have any connections to Eastern Europe. At least not ones that I am aware of. When I was growing up there in the 1980’s and 90’s the local libraries carried very few books on subjects pertaining to the region other than World War II and the Holocaust. Furthermore, we lived far from those Midwestern cities where the descendants of immigrants from Eastern European countries makes up large shares of the population. The city of Charlotte where my family originally came from was a very long way from Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh which are home to several million descendants of Czechs, Croats, Hungarians, Jews, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Slovenes, and Ukrainians.

Single Minded – Soviet Young Pioneers in Kazakh SSR (Credit: Peter Huber)

Willful Ignorance – Identity Issues
The only ethnic group from Eastern Europe that anyone ever mentioned in my hometown was Poles. Unfortunately, they were the subject of ridicule with tasteless jokes. This was baffling since I am certain that none of those repeating these jokes ever met a single Pole. I cannot recall anyone with a Polish surname in my hometown. Recently, a childhood friend brought up the subject of those lamentable comments about Poles that we heard as kids. He was just as baffled as me about where they originated from. This friend had met several Poles in his line of work as an engineer and found them to be among the most intelligent people he had ever met. Neither of us had any idea why these jokes were prolific in a provincial rural area. I understand that these ethnically based remarks arose from anti-immigrant sentiment around the turn of the 20th century in the Midwest and Northeast, but somehow, they managed to filter all the way down to the rural South.

The other ethnic groups in Eastern Europe were totally anonymous. No one had experience with any of the various peoples. What little was known kept even the curious in a state of confusion. Eastern Europeans had strange names and spoke even stranger languages. With the notable exception of the Soviet Union, all the countries were jumbled together on a map. They were hard enough for schoolchildren to pronounce, let alone identify. Take for instance, Czechoslovaks and Yugoslavs. It was assumed that these were specific ethnic groups. I later came to realize that there were no such things as ethnic Yugoslavs or Czechoslovaks. These were politicized terms that denoted disparate peoples herded together into nation states. There was no one around to explain (or knew) that both were products of the post-World War I peace process. Those of us who were vaguely aware assumed they were all part of the same ethnic group. Czechs and Slovaks, Serbs and Slovenes, Bosnians and Croats, did not exist separate from one another.

Villain-in-chief – Yuri Andropov (Credit: RIA Novosti archive, image #101740 – Eduard Pesov)

Single-Minded – The Soviet Colossus
The same was true for the Soviet Union. We were taught in school that it was a monolith where millions walked in lockstep with one another. The Soviets were a single-minded colossus of communist zealots’ hell bent on conquest. This line of thinking was promoted in civics classes and supplemented by nightly news shows, newspapers, and periodicals. For some reason, weekly current events filmstrips that reinforced this were shown in my 8th grade North Carolina junior high history class. The year was 1984 and fear of communism was rising to red scare levels. There was an ominous sense of Orwellian foreboding. Yuri Andropov was one of the weekly stars of the film strips. The former head of the KGB was the villain in chief. No one quite knew what to make of this man with the bizarre sounding last name, other than the fact that the ideological system he spearheaded was an existential threat to America. For a teenager who took the Soviets seriously this was worrisome. Not that any of us knew what the Soviet Union was really like. It was a superpower shown in black and white, color had not yet come to communism except for Red Dawn which was playing in local theaters.

There was very little worldly experience available to help inform opinions. After someone I knew took a college trip to the Soviet Union, they returned with confusing information. Their trip had included a visit to Georgia. I was shocked to learn that there were people in the Soviet Union who were not Russians. Even more amazing was that these people sounded cheerful. Georgian hospitality had made a positive impression upon the American students. Just hearing about it was a revelation. That Georgians had little in common with Russians in Moscow and St. Petersburg other than the fact they were all part of the Soviet Union was news to me. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Latvians would have to wait until the early 1990’s for the American public to discover them.

In junior high classes there was much talk about how the Soviet Union, with its emphasis on math and science, was patenting a race of near superhumans (Dolph Lungren in Rocky IV would later become a point of reference) who would put us all to shame and possibly even labor camps. Lazy American youth was too intoxicated by pop culture. I can still recall when Mr. Connelly in 7th grade World History read us the riot act on how far we were falling behind. I took his words seriously enough that I started doing my homework. Fear induced by the Soviet Union could be a motivating factor. The message was clear, work hard or be overrun by communist automatons.

Field of competition – Marathon runners in 1980 Moscow Olympics
(Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-W0801-0120 Dr Heinz Frotscher)

East Versus West – Fields of Competition
All of this goes some way in explaining how I became fascinated with Eastern Europe. I first recognized the region through the superpower struggle between the United States and Soviet Union. The Cold War stimulated that interest, but that was mostly a byproduct of school. My fervor and passion for the region started in earnest with international sporting events. Watching them for hours on end was a way of life for me. This was taken to an entirely new level in 1984. The Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and professional tennis that year steered me decisively towards an abiding fascination with Eastern Europe. My interest in the region is inseparable from those memories.

Click here for: From Moscow To Sarajevo – An Olympic Sized Fascination (Rendezvous With Obscure Destiny #64b)  

What We Wish To Forget, Keeps Us Going – Interpreting Sandor Marai’s Embers (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #63)

One way of judging the greatness of a book is the many different interpretations that arise from reading it. These interpretations may vary from person to person and can even differ with the same person depending on such things as how many times they read the book and at what age they do so. In the best works of literature, we find not only universal truths, but also our own personal truths based upon how we choose to interpret the text. In literary circles, a great book is usually referred to as one that has been deemed by critics to be a great work of art. This is a very narrow way of defining greatness.

I do not need anyone to tell me whether a book is great or not. I am perfectly capable of deciding that for myself. Most readers are as well. The greatness of a book often comes down to whether it speaks to something within the reader’s experience. To do that it takes much more than a good story and finely plotted narrative arc. A great book should yield multiple interpretations that are filtered through the reader’s personality. The best ones have aspects that represent or reflect something the reader can relate to from their own experiences. 

Still burning – Sources of illumination

Act of Betrayal – An Illicit Affair
I was reminded of this while having a late-night talk with one of my hosts in Cornwall who has a graduate degree in Russian literature from University College in London. Our discussion led me to the realization that a book can have entirely different meanings depending upon the reader’s personality, perspective, and nationality. This realization occurred while discussing Hungarian writer Sandor Marai’s masterful novel, Embers. My host and I had very different interpretations of the book. Learning of a different interpretation than my own not only gave me a new perspective on the book, but also the Hungarian mentality.

Embers is one of the few books I have read twice. Several passages I have read many more times than that. In my opinion, the book captures the mood of a specific period in Hungarian history that had a defining influence upon the nation. The narrative concerns two lifelong friends, an old General (later in the book his name is given as Henrik) and Konrad, who fell out with one another due to a devastating betrayal. Konrad was carrying on an illicit affair with Henrik’s wife Krisztina. Henrik had no clue that Krisztina was cheating on him with his best friend. How he discovered their affair is a critical turning point in the novel.

Konrad and Henrik plotted to have Henrik killed while hunting. Konrad was to be the one who pulled the trigger. Whether because of cowardice, guilt or shame, Konrad was unable to shoot Henrik. In that near fatal moment all became clear to Henrik. Konrad fled to the tropics. Henrik and Krisztina continued to live together while leading separate lives from one another. Their marriage was an irreparable ruin that would never recover.

Poetic justice – Sandor Marai

Slow Burn – Friendship & Betrayal
By the time Konrad shows back up forty-one years later, Krisztina has long since died. Henrik has managed to survive with the goal of seeing Konrad one more time. Their meeting turns into an all-night attack by Henrik on Konrad’s character. The tension between the two is incredible. Even though both are now elderly and at the end of their lives, they are more alive during their discussion than either of them has been in decades. While their discussion continues through the night, the candlelight around them grows progressively dimmer. The book’s title in Hungarian is “A gyertyak csonkig egnek” ‘Candles burn until the end.”

For me, one of the most fascinating aspects of Embers is how the General and Konrad are still bound by their friendship despite the act of betrayal which destroyed it. This is a case where two things can be true at the same time. The unbreakable, lifelong bond between two friends and the complete destruction of their relationship. There is still so much life among those ruins. There could have been no betrayal without their friendship in the first place. The betrayal cut so deep because of the bonds of friendship between the two men. Many critics have called the book a rumination on friendship. That it is, but I also saw something else represented in the work.

The post-World War I Treaty of Trianon severed Hungary from historic lands that became parts of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. My interpretation was that Konrad represented the successor states which had been an inseparable part of the Kingdom of Hungary for centuries. The taking of those lands from Hungary in the postwar peace process was a seminal trauma in the nation’s history. Henrik’s character set forth the feeling of betrayal that Hungarians felt when they lost those lands. Marai was acutely aware of this since he was born in Kassa (present-day Kosice, Slovakia). Embers was published in 1942, after Hungary had reoccupied that area. The reoccupation would not last for long. At the end of the war, the lands would be returned to Czechoslovakia. The act of betrayal was complete, but the Hungarian lament for those lost lands continues.

Candles burn until the end – Sandor Marai’s masterful novel

Wishful Thinking – Burning at Both Ends
My interpretation was probably not the one Marai intended, but the strength of Embers is that the novel yields so many different interpretations. My host in Cornwall who is Hungarian had a very different and even more illuminating perspective on the novel. I mentioned to him the incredible tension that existed between Henrik and Konrad during their nightlong discussion. I kept expecting Henrik to strike a fatal blow against Konrad with a weapon rather than words, but it never happened. I did not find this as disappointing, as I did baffling. My host said, “Is that not the point? We wait and wait for something to happen, and it never does. That is what we do in Hungary, we keep on waiting.”

His interpretation was what I had heard when discussing the Treaty of Trianon with Hungarian. They wait and wait for the results of the treaty to be overturned. There is a strange hope in their hopelessness, a knowledge that it will never happen and still they continue to believe that it will. An entire nation is waiting for Godot. They look forward to the future while dreaming of the past. In a sense, we all do that. Some might call it nostalgia. Others might call it the candles burning until the end or at both ends. The only thing left are the embers.

Click here for: An Acquired Taste – Developing A Passion for Eastern Europe (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #64a)

Dead Reckoning – Coming to Terms with Hitler’s Birthplace (Part Five)

History, whether it is personal, professional, or national, is a ghost that haunts everyone until they confront the truth. Who among us wants to retrace steps taken down the darkest corridors? Who would choose to follow a path that offers only two options, cowardice or confrontation. Fears spawned from conflicted parts of the past threaten to consume nations as well as people. There is no finer example of this phenomenon than Austria and its reckoning (or lack thereof) with a single building in Brauanu am Inn where Adolf Hitler was born. The building represents much more than one demagogue. It represents the entire era of Nazism, a largely unresolved part of Austria’s past. With the building’s planned conversion into a human rights training center for police, an opportunity to confront the darkest part of Austria’s history will be lost.

Act of Remembrance – Hitler Birthplace Memorial Stone (Credit: Jo Oh)

Willfully Ignored – Fear of History
Have you ever known someone who willfully ignores history? I am not just talking about the history we learn in school or the history that is the subject of documentaries. I am also talking about personal history. The history of someone’s life, their decisions, good or bad, their best and worst moments. The sum of everything that has made them who they are. Those who ignore history do it at their own peril. The problem is not that they will repeat the past, the problem is that they might never get past it. The longer something in the past goes unresolved, the larger it looms. The failure to deal with unresolved parts of the past leaves a dark cloud permanently hovering on the horizon. That is until one day when the cloud bursts, raining down consequences on those who for so long failed to acknowledge it. If the moment of truth never arrives, the past stays unresolved, and continues to inform the behaviors of those who failed to acknowledge it. This is the situation Austria finds itself in with Hitler’s birthplace.

The challenges started a day after Braunau am Inn was surrendered to American forces on May 1, 1945. A Nazi official governing the area ordered the building with Hitler’s birthplace destroyed. German forces were sent to carry out this order. They were unable to fight their way past American soldiers. By protecting the building, the Americans inadvertently deferred the question of what was to be done with it until later. The postwar Austrian authorities might be forgiven if they wished the building had been demolished. This would have saved them and successive Austrian governments a problem they have been unable to resolve. Despite several different uses, the building has never really been able to escape the fact that Hitler was born on one of its upper floors. What exactly should be done with it has vexed the Austrian government since the war ended. 

Before the fall – Braunau am Inn in 1934

Double Dealing – Unwanted Conversion
Initially, the building was given back to the Pommer family who were its original owners prior to the Nazi Party purchasing it after the annexation of Austria (Anschluss) into the Third Reich. The building was soon utilized to house a library and a bank. In the early 1970’s, the Austrian government began paying the owner a sum of money equivalent to 5,000 Euros per month to lease it. They sought to control usage of the building so it would not become a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis. For several decades it was used by a charitable organization that assisted people with learning disabilities by teaching them skills in workshops. In 2011 the building became vacant. The Austrian government sought to expropriate the property from the owner and demolish the structure. This resulted in legal proceedings that ended with the Austrian government paying $1.1 million dollars (812,000 Euros) to the former owner. Demolition would have proved too controversial as there were very strong opinions against what many felt would be erasing an important part of Austrian history. One that was not being dealt with in a forthright and transparent manner. Finally, a commission recommended that the building be converted to a much different use than prior efforts.

Now the government of Austria believes it has a plan that will finally put Hitler’s birthplace to rest. Adding the building to a larger police station will allow the authorities to utilize the structure and avoid demolition. This plan has met with resistance. One poll showed that over half the Austrians surveyed were against the conversion. For decades there had been talk of converting the building into a museum that would honor the victims of Nazism and educate future generations about the horrors unleashed by fascism. Others feel that the building should revert to helping people with disabilities. This would be a strong response to the Nazi’s persecution of the disabled. There are also those who would like to see the building demolished. Despite these divergent opinions, the Austrian government is moving forward with the police station at a cost of 20 million Euros (21.6 million dollars). It is due to be completed in 2026.

Tragic reminder – Hitler riding into Braunau am Inn after the Anschluss

Troubling Questions – The Cover-Up or The Crime
The fate of Hitler’s birthplace raises troubling questions about how Austria deals with the Nazi era. The government wants to avoid controversy while public opinion calls for greater accountability. The government’s solution does not avoid controversy, nor does it satisfy the public. In short, it will please no one and leaves the legacy of Hitler’s birth, troubling rise, support among many Austrians, and the horrific excesses of the Nazis, unresolved. This is proving to be a case where the cover-up can be just as bad as the crime. Masking a problem does little to make it better. In some cases, it makes the problem even worse. That could well be the case for the Austrian government’s plan to convert Hitler’s birthplace into a building that vaguely resembles the original. Fortunately, those who do happen upon the building will be reminded of its historic importance by a memorial stone that was placed there through the efforts of Braunau am Inn’s mayor in 1989. The stone reads:  

For Peace, Freedom
and Democracy.
Never Again Fascism.
Millions of Dead are a Warning.

The stone which bears the inscription comes from the quarry at what was once Mauthausen Concentration Camp.

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up – Preserving Hitler’s Birthplace in Braunau am Inn (Part Four)

How could that building still be standing? This was the first question that came to mind when I learned about Hitler’s birthplace in Braunau am Inn. It was hard to believe that the multi-storied former guesthouse located at Salzburger Vorstadt 15 had made it to the present unscathed. The fighting between German forces and Allied armies closing in on Austria cut a wide swath of destruction. Any symbol of Nazism was fair game for destruction. Soviet troops carried out lethal acts of ferocity, against human and structural targets. American and British forces were more controlled in their actions, but this was a total war. All bets were off when soldiers who had seen their brothers in arms killed or wounded had the opportunity to deal a fatal blow to anything that reeked of Nazism.

Object of veneration – Hitler’s birthplace in 1939

Taking Aim – Symbolic Target
By 1945, Hitler’s birthplace was a symbolic target. The Nazis veneration of the building had made it somewhat popular. A rather nondescript 17^th century building with only mild architectural value, the building was not any different from hundreds of others across Austria. Its only distinguishing characteristic was that the man who would lead Germany to destruction was born there. In 1938 after Nazi Germany forcibly annexed Austria (Anschluss) into the Third Reich, Martin Bormann, a Nazi official who would eventually become Hitler’s personal secretary, purchased the building for the Nazi Party. It was then utilized as a public space. There was a library and gallery that showcased government approved content. By the time Allied forces fought their way into Braunau am Inn, they would have been aware of the building’s significance. Here was the early childhood lair of fascism’s greatest beast. The slaying of that beast, physically, psychologically, and symbolically was a top priority for the Allies. They sought to put the cult of Hitler out of its misery.

From 1938 to 1945, the Nazis used Hitler’s birthplace at Braunau am Inn to cultivate fascination for the Fuhrer. The birthplace was an incarnation of his cult of personality.  One that held millions in its malevolent grip, and at the same time brought about the destruction of millions more. Nazism derived much of its strength from symbolism. Hitler’s birthplace was part of that pantheon. The exalted status given to the birthplace by the Nazis would eventually put it in the crosshairs of future conquerors. It is surprising that the buildings managed to survive the war completely intact. One of the reasons it did was because of its relative remoteness. Hitler was a provincial from an Austrian backwater. The same could be said of Braunau am Inn. The town’s small size and lack of strategic significance spared it the wrath of the Allied aerial bombardments that caused massive destruction in lands that were occupied by Nazi Germany. It was not a high value target.

Taking over – Hitler announces the Anschluss in Vienna (Credit: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1987-0922-500)

Striking A Blow – Veneration & Vengeance
Despite not being a high priority on the list of targets, it is still a bit baffling how Hitler’s birthplace escaped the destructive fate of other places associated with him and/or Nazism that had been venerated by the Third Reich. There is a simple explanation for why Hitler’s birthplace survived the war. Put simply, American troops saved it. This act of preservation was not for the sake of posterity. It turns out that the Allies were not the greatest threat to the building. Instead, the Americans fought off a group of fanatical Nazis who planned to destroy it. The zealots did not want it to fall into Allied hands. They never got close enough to strike a blow against the building. The Americans kept them out of Braunau am Inn. This was another one of those cases where war turned the world upside down.

The saving of Hitler’s birthplace at the end of World War II is a study in absurdity. In this case, a group of Nazis wanted to destroy a site of pilgrimage for their faithful. Conversely, the American who were fighting to destroy Nazism, saved the birthplace of the man most responsible for it. This is one of those “you can’t make this stuff up” moments in history that seems like it came out of fiction. Imagine a headline that states, “Americans win battle to save Hitler’s birthplace.” Why they wanted to do so is not completely clear. Perhaps they were just “following orders.” In the context of anything pertaining to Hitler those are dirty words. Just as odd is how a bunch of Nazis tried to fight their way into the town so they could put Hitler’s birthplace to the torch. A year before, that would have been unthinkable. They were ready to risk their lives to destroy a site they once venerated. Furthermore, they wanted to destroy the building precisely because they had venerated it. Does this make any sense?

Battle hardened- Vienna at the end of World War II

Difficult Questions – A Contradiction In Terms
To say the behavior of those who wanted to destroy Hitler’s birthplace was contradictory understates the obvious. One would think that those Nazis had better things to do with their time while on the edge of total defeat. In this case, they decided that destruction of the birthplace was their highest priority. The Nazis could not stomach the idea that it might fall into what they considered the wrong hands. There is precedent for this. The Germans destroyed the Tannenberg Memorial in East Prussia (present day Northern Poland) before the Red Army overran the area. This was the preeminent shrine in Germany to supposed Teutonic superiority over the Slavs.

The demolition of the memorial was quite an undertaking at a time when every soldier was needed on the front lines. Not to mention the amount of explosives used. The Wehrmacht expended invaluable resources to turn the memorial into rubble. The same would have happened to Hitler’s birthplace if American troops had not stopped them. By saving the building from destruction, the Americans unwittingly left Austria with a postwar problem that has reared its ugly head on several occasions. No one had been able to figure out exactly what to do with Hitler’s birthplace until just recently. The Austrian government decided to make the building part of a police station. That solution has raised difficult questions about how Austria reckons with the darkest aspects of its past.

Click here for: Dead Reckoning – Coming to Terms with Hitler’s Birthplace (Part Five)