“Wagenburg”

adminonDecember 20, 2021January 27, 2022Leave a Comment

Replica of Luther’s traveling carriage at Wartburg Castle © Maik Schuck

A detailed replica of Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) traveling carriage has been on display at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, Thuringia, since Tuesday. Unlike other museum exhibits, visitors are not only allowed to touch, but even to climb in.

The vehicle will be used in the upcoming National Special Exhibition "Luther and the Germans" at Wartburg Castle from 4. May to 5. will be on view in November. Exhibition guests will be able to sit in the carriage and experience how the reformer traveled through the countryside.

A good three weeks before its opening, the national special exhibition is thus taking shape, said castle governor Gunter Schuchardt in the Wartburg city on Tuesday. The bulk of the loans for the exhibition, however, are not expected until after Easter, he said.

From the time of the mock hijacking

The exhibition opens on 4. May refers to the day Luther arrived at Wartburg Castle after the Diet of Worms and his mock abduction in 1521. At that time, however, on horseback, Schuchardt explained. His carriage was left behind at the site of the fictitious attack at Altenstein Castle. For the journey to Worms, the reformer had a carriage from the Wittenberg town council at his disposal.

4.20 x 2.60 meters

After scientific consultation by the historian Rudolf Wackernagel, the Braunschweig carpentry workshop "Die Drei" dared to reproduce the so-called Kobelwagen, which is about 4.20 meters long and 2.60 meters high. Cartwright Theo Malchus personally delivered the "highlight exhibit," according to the Wartburg Foundation, in Eisenach. For this purpose, the car was disassembled into four individual parts, which were then reassembled in the inner courtyard of the Wartburg, including the semi-circular top.

Touch and enter

For the duration of the special exhibition, the motto "touching allowed" will apply there – unlike for the other museum treasures and valuable loans of the exhibition. Visitors will also be allowed to climb aboard the wagon and have their picture taken inside, the castle’s captain promised.

"Luther and the Germans" is one of three major exhibition projects for the anniversary of the Reformation. The two partner exhibitions "The Luther Effect. 500 Years of Protestantism in the World" and "Luther! 95 Treasures – 95 People" will be on display from Wednesday (12. April) at the Gropiusbau in Berlin, or from 13. May will be shown in the Luther House in Wittenberg. All three special exhibitions end on 5. November.

Tafel employees distribute food © Patrick Seeger

Refugees and pensioners have also been coming for a long time: the mostly volunteer helpers at the Tafel distribution points in Germany have a lot to do. 25 years after the founding of the umbrella organization of the Tafel, they seem more important than ever.

It is an idea that impresses above all by its simplicity: companies produce surpluses, while the socially needy often lack the most basic necessities at the end of the month. So why not simply distribute surplus food to those in need? In the early 1990s, a women’s initiative in Berlin began to implement this idea and founded an initiative for it in the city in 1993: That was the birth of the first food bank. Similar initiatives in the USA served as a model.

More than 900 have been added over the years. 60.000 volunteers are involved and help around 1.5 million people to make ends meet every month. The Tafeln are supported by charities and citizens’ associations. And for 25 years now, there has been the umbrella organization of the Tafeln, which, with its employees, primarily takes care of logistics.

Praise and criticism

Despite all the praise, for some years now there has also been criticism of the so-called Tafel movement. The main accusation is that the food banks have moved away from their original approach as an emergency solution and are now serving as a kind of alibi for politicians.

One of the biggest critics is the social scientist Stefan Selke. For him, it’s not a question of yes or no, the scientist emphasizes again and again. The Tafeln, which take care of needy people, in principle did valuable work. What is really needed, however, are political solutions such as a poverty-preventing minimum income, Selke said. His initiative "Critical Action Alliance 20 Years of Tables" was also joined by individual Caritas and Diakonie associations.

The Tafeln counter: Of course, the movement must be careful not to be taken over – not by politics, not by food chains, they argue. And of course they would have made mistakes and learned over the years. At the same time, the federal association stresses that the Tafeln have never claimed to provide a full supply; that is clearly the task of the state.

Instead, the Tafeln want to make it possible for people to perhaps also be able to afford a cultural event sometimes.

Greatly changed customer structure

In addition, the structure of customers has changed considerably in recent years, according to Jochen Bruhl, chairman of the Federal Association of Food Banks in Germany. In the beginning, the Tafeln mainly supported homeless people, then came ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union. Even before the summer of 2015, refugees had increasingly sought help. The boards are therefore a "seismograph" of society.

The fact that individual food bank associations sometimes resort to rigorous measures became very clear two years ago. At the time, the Essen Tafel declared that it would only accept new needy people with German passports into its file. The reason, he said, was that the proportion of migrants had recently risen to three quarters of the population. Bruhl distanced itself from the measure. During the Corona lockdown and even afterward, many food banks showed flexibility, bagging food and taking it directly to those in need.

For Sabine Werth, who was part of the women’s initiative 27 years ago, the Tafel movement is something like a life’s work. And over the years, she has learned to deal with criticism more calmly. Many people who visited the Tafel came because the facility had also become an important contact point for another reason. According to the 63-year-old Tafel founder, valuable encounters and friendships were formed there.

Werth was also the one who launched another Tafel initiative about 15 years ago: to distribute the collected food more quickly, she approached Berlin church congregations. In the meantime, there are more than 40 distribution points, which help around 50,000 people.000 needy Berliners take advantage of. This model has set a precedent. In other large cities such as Hamburg and Cologne, the food banks now also use church congregations or other social institutions as distribution points.

The Catholic German Bishops’ Conference has sent blessings to the Alevis on the occasion of the Muharrem fast that has just begun and the subsequent Asure festival.

"In the face of a virus that rages regardless of borders, ethnicities and religions, it is more important than ever to rediscover what unites us. Only through more dialogue and more cooperation we will be able to cope with the tasks ahead," said Fulda Auxiliary Bishop Karlheinz Diez, a member of the Bishops’ Conference Sub-Commission for Interreligious Dialogue, in Bonn on Thursday.

On Thursday, the Muharrem fast began for the Alevis in Germany, which will be followed on 1 January. September the Asure celebration follows. Dietz emphasized that the upcoming Alevi holidays focus on the suffering and hope of the people. On the feast of Asure, the faithful looked ahead: to a future in which the one human family leaves behind that which divides it. "In this sense, let us hope together for a future in which we can once again invite and visit each other at our festivals as a sign of unity and solidarity," Diez added.

More than half a million Alevis in Germany

Germany is home to between 500.000 to 800.000 Alevis, mostly of Turkish origin. They belong to a faith community that was founded in the 13. and 14. The Shiite branch of Islam developed in Anatolia in the sixteenth century. At the center of the esoterically influenced teaching, which does not follow any central dogma, are ethical aspects such as tolerance and love of humanity. Supreme goal of the believer is self-perfection and recognition of God in creation and in fellow man.

The Alevis reject the ritual worship of the majority Islam. Sharia regulations and the five pillars of Islam – such as the daily obligatory prayers or fasting in Ramadan – as well as the veiling of women, strict gender segregation and other aspects of Sharia play no role for them. Therefore Alevis are often exposed to severe persecution.

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