A new head of department will soon be starting at the city of Nuremberg, a native of Munich and a truly impressive man: studied history in Berlin, semester abroad in France, the Czech Republic, Russia, research work in the former Yugoslavia, Italy, Israel, scholarship in the USA, employed in Great Britain. His new city Nuremberg? With that, said the future head of department when he was introduced to the Nuremberg News, he still has to familiarize himself. And added: “How many people in Munich.”
It has to be said that this is incredibly open-hearted and blatantly likeable. Is it perhaps also a bit exemplary? Anyone who occasionally has to deal with people from the south of Bavaria at work can’t help but get the impression: probably yes, yes.
Nuremberg – isn’t that the city with the sausages?
A little thought game. The department head in question has overseas experience and, as a historian, he certainly got to know other historians there. Now imagine that one of those acquaintances contacts him for a short trip to Bavaria.
So Munich? Oh, says the American, this offer is terribly nice. And certainly a great, great, great city. But what would interest him most, especially as a historian, is Nuremberg.
Why? Well, the two of them don’t actually have to agree on that, since two historians are talking to each other: the imperial castle. The middle age. The Renaissance. Dürer. The Germanic National Museum. Fürther Straße, boulevard of industrial history. The Eagle. The Nazi party rally grounds. The Memorium Nuremberg Trials.
Is there anywhere more German, European and world history to see in such a small space than in this city with the sausages? One may argue about it, but the suspicion would be: probably not, no.
Anyway, the American arrives in Munich, from there you take the ICE for an hour to Nuremberg. On the train ride he says: Oh, only 160 kilometers? On an American scale, this would essentially be one and the same city.
And then there are two historians in Nuremberg, one is an American and the other is a Bavarian from Munich. And the latter says: Oh my – he first has to familiarize himself with this Nuremberg, “like many people in Munich.”
Would he say it with a hint of grief, overcome by a faint hint of shame? Probably not, no. And the American? Shortly before the flight home he would probably stop by a bookstore and ask if they had anything there about a phenomenon that he really didn’t understand at all on his trip: the history of the Bavarian mentality as a whole.