
I was strolling along the banks of river Neckar the other day, taking some photographs of the Old Bridge while waiting for the sun to set.
“Too bad it’s under renovation, huh.”
I thought I heard someone talking to me from behind. So I turned around and there was this middle aged man smiling at me.
“Yeah. I came all way here……and it’s under renovation. What a bad timing..”
And then he pointed towards the castle sitting on top of the hill behind the bridge.
“Have you been up there before? Do you know who destroyed it?”
He was referring to the Heidelberg Castle (Heidelberg Schloss in German), the landmark of Heidelberg. It was first built as a fortress in the 12th century and then upgraded to a palace in the 15th century.
But what remains today is only it’s ruins. It was destroyed by Louis XIV and his French troops in 1689 when the war erupted.
“Do you know what they did to it”
“They stuffed the bottom of the watch tower with black gun powders and blew the hell out of it!”
Then he went on explaining the conflicts and wars between Germany and France up to the first World War.
“Heard of the Treaty of Versailles?”
I shook my head.
It seems that I’m in for a brief European history class.
“There was this leader, you know. Gustav Bauer. I think he must be crazy and went to sign this murderous treaty with the Allied Forces after World War 1″
“Because of this treaty, we have to give back East & West Prussia (today’s Poland) back to Poland, Eupen Malmedy to Belgium (near to where I am), Saarland & Danzig to the League of Nations, Alsace-Lorraine to the Frech and a few more that I couldn’t remember exactly.”
“We had to give back our colonies in Africa, Tanganyika (today’s Tanzania), Namibia, Botswana and Rwanda-Burundi.”
“And the worse thing ever was we accepted full responsibility for causing World War 1 and we have to pay out compensations to other countries for the damages!”
“You see, we were getting stronger and stronger in the early 1900′s and was about to overtake England and France as the main powers in Europe, economically and military strengths. They couldn’t let this happen as it would cause an imbalance of powers in Europe.”
“So, they put restrictions on us. They forced us to reduce our army, they reduce our lands…”
“And we went backwards..”
“Until a nationalist came and woke up the country in 1939…”
To be continued in Part 2.