A zeppelin going down

over water now
land behind us...
unfriendly place--
makes us think
keenly of home.
loss of lift--
captain's order:
all surplus over!
we have so little,
is any surplus?
food will go,
ammunition too...
guns? why not?
we can't fight--
anyone could have us:
jump or burn?...
that's it--all gone.
land in sight
water looks cold...
we might make it,
i hope...

Königsberg 1945

My city is wrecked

Surrounded, besieged...

And yet I'm here

My path is clear:

To hold out till the end.

My salvation calls me

From over the ice--

A boat at Pillau:

A lovely, long-dream'd-of boat,

Rich with the wonder of the sea..

But I will never reach it.

I laugh with the madness

Of deep-submerg'd despair.

Hölderlin and his education

During the Reformation, England destroyed its monasteries. Hölderlin's homeland turned them into schools. At Kloster Denkendorf and Kloster Maulbronn, young Hölderlin was prepared for the prize, Tübingen Seminary. A holy caste of pastors, caretakers, educators and officials had grown up to be as much of a state within a state as the Catholic Church had ever been. Hölderlin, as a member of this caste, was expected to take his place where and when it was assigned to him. His education at Tübingen was free, but if he ever defaulted on his state church obligations, he would be obliged to pay it back in full. This he was never in position to do, since, like Baudelaire, his mother and her financial advisors controlled his inheritance throughout his life.

Gottlieb Christian Storr (1746-1805) was Hölderlin's professor of theology at Tübingen. He gave a nod to the Enlightenment, which enraged the traditionalists, but in the eyes of the students secretly reading Kant, he did not go far enough. This "Old Tübingen School" recognized the validity and possibility of divine revelation, but did not believe that Divinity spoke today.

So what did Hölderlin learn from his religious education? Well, if we accept that divine revelation was possible in Bible times, then why is it now now possible? And if it is possible today, who within our society is best equipped to receive the word of God? Not the clergy, with their rigid adherence to dead forms, and the belief that Jesus had been the best and last revealer. Not the government, who know it was dangerous to have unrestricted access to divine things. The other half of Hölderlin's education gave him the answer--the Classical World. Since the time of Augustine and Jerome, the Church was tied to the great pre-Christian models of the liberal arts. Hölderlin says to us that divine revelation is still possible and the poet is the one who is best equipped to reveal divine words to the community. Thus his education proved both his making and his undoing. Like many students of theology and the Classical world, he was pulled in two directions: to see the Dantean Christian Kosmos and be a part of it and to see that humans had once lived another way in a time when they knew neither Jesus nor the Bible. Hölderlin found his path, but did not find his community to be receptive. While Storr's pupils continued to focus on God's Biblical communication through His chosen messengers, Hölderlin tapped into the wellspring of divine life, and in the doing found the ecstasy and emptiness that accompany the office of divine messenger.

Hölderlin and other poets

Poetry can be wonderful! It's metaphors can speak to us in the language of divinity. Poetry is something that I think I should like, but very few poets actually take root in my heart. Dante and William Blake were the first, but I seem to have wandered away from them. In college, I loved the biographies of the English Romantics-Keats, Shelley, Byron, Chatterton, Coleridge &c-but did not do so well with their actual works. Classes in Chaucer and Milton were enjoyable, until I wandered off with Robert Herrick.

Then a long time passed. I saw a movie in which a character bought the complete works of Baudelaire, so I tried a copy of Fleurs du mal. Aah! It was amazing, like the first time I heard the Sex Pistols at Terry Lancaster's house circa 1978--now THAT was MUSIC! Anyway, Fleurs is Dante for the modern age, where the supernatural world of the Commedia has collapsed into the streets of the modern city. Liking Baudelaire, I tried Verlaine, Rimbaud, Valery and Mallarme. Of them, all greats to be sure, I could only bond with Mallarme. He combines the desire for the mystical with the hidden fear that there is really nothing beyond life after all. But please try some Baudelaire--this is from my favorite, le jet d'eau--

So does your flashing soul ignite
In lightnings of voluptuous bliss
And rushes reckless up the height
As though the enchanted sky to kiss;
Then it relaxes, grows more fine,
And in sad languor falls apart
Down an invisible incline
Into the deep well of my heart.

The image is that of a fountain or fireworks. English cannot quite do it justice.

Which brings me around to Hölderlin. I knew he existed, but knew nothing about him until recently. Coming off a magical journey to Oz, I wandered into my ancestral homeland of Swabia, and decided to explore Hölderlin's world. Like me, he lost two fathers, and while pointed to the church, was undone from that path by a classical education. In exploring Hölderlin's life, I found the world of my ancestor Johann Martin Obermuller (1743-1803). The education at Tubingener Stift (Seminary) was free, but a graduate was under obligation to the State Church all the rest of his life. I believe my ancestor was enlightened, as Hölderlin was, by his education and as a result fled to America to escape the obligation. For Hölderlin, escape was not so simple. He had to register every lodging, have every employment approved, all the while struggling against the power of his mother and society to take his role in the State Church. In the end, he escaped into 36 years of madness. Johann Martin Obermuller spent 36 years as a farmer in York County, Pennsylvania, living in Rousseau's happy state of nature. Hölderlin's hope for his society vanished with Napoleon's betrayal of the ideals of the French Revolution, but my ancestor got to see the American Revolution close up and personal when the Continental Congress sat at York City in 1777-78.

Currently, I am reading Hölderlin's poems and letters. Amazingly, he is becoming, like Baudelaire, a part of me. So if you think that your heart loves poetry, yet you cannot seem to find the right poets, just keep looking and they will find you.

Johan Martin Obermüller

Genealogy has been an on-and-off passion for many years. I dabble a bit, get frustrated, and put it aside until later. Recently, in response to my Mother's desire to find out what her grandfather did for a living, I found this document http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/h/a/w/Gretchen-Hawkins/GENE1-0001.html

which answer'd her question as well as some of my own.

Johan Martin Obermüller and Maria Christiana Manbeck came to America and settled in York County, Pennsylvania. He was educated, but not so far from the land that he could not manage a farm. Now he and his wife lie under plain field stones about 14 miles from where my son is attending college. In Baden, Johan could have become a tutor to the children of a wealthy family, like the poet Hölderlin. Or he might have gone east to find a new life in the growing state of Prussia, where his descendants would have suffered a terrible fate in 1945.

Johan's youth was dominated by the Seven Years' War, and his adulthood by the Rebellion of England's 13 colonies. He found a refuge in school from French troops marching to fight Frederick the Great (his son was named Frederick). In America, his farm was close by the Continental Congress when it met in York in 1777. http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=492 What did he think of them so close by? Did he even have time to care? Perhaps the survival of his family was enough to keep him occupied.

When Johan died in 1803, his little Frederick was only 7 years old. Was there enough time to pass on any more than a fading memory? Johan and Maria left their homeland to start a new life on the edge of their world, leaving one war only to find another. I do hope that they found some bit of the joy of life here on their farm near the Susquehanna River, the Rhine of Pennsylvania.

RPT's Oz: Tiny Kingdoms

I have always loved tiny kingdoms, mini states which once spread over the Rhineland and British India, or the realms which reproduce by symbol the family drama of our childhood. Such a grouping of petty rulers arises when soverignty is divided, whether by policy or by weakness at the center. A Holy Roman Emperor might make a grant of Reichsfreiheit to any person or entity, thus freeing them from all liege lords save the emperor himself. A landholding, a convent, or even an individual could be reichsfrei. Pressure from Napoleon forced the 1803 Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, consolidating these somewhat, and the Congress of Vienna settled the rest down to a manageable number, all of which were swept away (except Liechtenstein) in the Revolution of 1918. In India, the maharajas arose as the Mughal Empire contracted and the East India Company expanded. They flourished under the Viceroyalty (1870s to 1947) and were swept away when the Republic of India decided that it could do without them. It is still a hobby of mine to compile lists of the rulers of these micronations. from the Gaekwars of Baroda to the Reichsfürstin (princess-abbesses) http://www.guide2womenleaders.com/womeninpower/Princess-Abbesses_2.htm

Ruth Plumly Thompson was the successor to L. Frank Baum as Royal Historian of Oz. She wrote a book a year from 1921 to 1939. Her favorite fantasy setting was the tiny kingdom, and I hope to examine some of these in the future. How did there come to be so many tiny realms in Oz? Did a strong center collapse or give away soverignty? Or did they arise independent of a central authority, and were gathered into the center as the realms of India were by the British? Oh, it doesn't really matter. For in the realm of Faerie, what is, is. We are not going there to dig archaeologically, but to enjoy ourselves thoroughly.

Language USA

This year, inspried by the TV show Who Do You Think You Are, I did a free sojourn into Ancestry.com. I traced my maternal grandfather's family back to some of the first German settlers in Pennsylvania. They were even related by marriage to William Penn--no wonder they got here so early! Jumping across the ocean, we went back even further to...Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III (1415-1493)! While some of the links are...questionable, I am happy to imagine that I am related to my favorite Late Medieval ruler, so I will leave it at that.

My grandfather grew up speaking German in his home. Since his mother lived until 1961, that means that his ancestors had been here in America speaking German for almost 300 years! He interacted with the German community in New York City when he lived there (1927 to 1940). Alas this gift was not passed on to me. My mother was born in 1939, and my grandfather worked for AT&T Long Lines division. It just wouldn't do to have a child learning German in the 1940s when her Dad worked in such an area vital to national security.

This is just something to think about today, when some people are all concerned about others whom they hear speaking Spanish or Hmong or Russian or whatever. Not taking anything away from the importance of English, it is my hope that children can grow up bilingual. To really learn a language, it should be learned in childhood. We are all Americans, but we should not forget our heritage. I know about "Dutch treats" and "Dutch courage", but Ish only hap' ein biszchen Deutch.