This is a lovely piece of writing - thought-provoking with the sudden dramatic shift of scale right at the very end.
Could your response to the bombed-out Berghof also, though, be that culturally ingrained reaction to ruins made most explicit through Romanticism - but also present, inter alia, in the Old English poem 'The Ruin' (8th cent…
This is a lovely piece of writing - thought-provoking with the sudden dramatic shift of scale right at the very end.
Could your response to the bombed-out Berghof also, though, be that culturally ingrained reaction to ruins made most explicit through Romanticism - but also present, inter alia, in the Old English poem 'The Ruin' (8th century?) - in which contemplating the wreckage of a once-monumental structure becomes a point of embarkation for reflecting on the limitations of all earthly power and glory, etc, etc - worthy, not-entirely-secular thoughts like that? Flowers grown in the ruins are very relevant to that, with their suggestion that a fragile, pretty little thing that won't even last the summer will also, at some level, outlive empires, thousand year reichs very much included.
Whereas, the busy café at the Eagle's Nest, with its commercialised, matter-of-fact, perhaps slightly voyeuristic atmosphere is the Enlightenment personified: Hitler's dead, the war's over, people still need to buy and sell things, life goes on, have a beer, etc. And there's a truth in that too, I suppose - and I suspect it also would have annoyed Hitler, which is always a bonus. (Speer seemed to enjoy contemplating his own architectural compositions as future ruins, but not as future tourist traps, and presumably his boss concurred.)
And that's why your reflections are so good - because they remind us that historic places can be all sorts of different things, and that those in charge of them have quite a choice to make there, and there isn't one single easy answer.
This is a lovely piece of writing - thought-provoking with the sudden dramatic shift of scale right at the very end.
Could your response to the bombed-out Berghof also, though, be that culturally ingrained reaction to ruins made most explicit through Romanticism - but also present, inter alia, in the Old English poem 'The Ruin' (8th century?) - in which contemplating the wreckage of a once-monumental structure becomes a point of embarkation for reflecting on the limitations of all earthly power and glory, etc, etc - worthy, not-entirely-secular thoughts like that? Flowers grown in the ruins are very relevant to that, with their suggestion that a fragile, pretty little thing that won't even last the summer will also, at some level, outlive empires, thousand year reichs very much included.
Whereas, the busy café at the Eagle's Nest, with its commercialised, matter-of-fact, perhaps slightly voyeuristic atmosphere is the Enlightenment personified: Hitler's dead, the war's over, people still need to buy and sell things, life goes on, have a beer, etc. And there's a truth in that too, I suppose - and I suspect it also would have annoyed Hitler, which is always a bonus. (Speer seemed to enjoy contemplating his own architectural compositions as future ruins, but not as future tourist traps, and presumably his boss concurred.)
And that's why your reflections are so good - because they remind us that historic places can be all sorts of different things, and that those in charge of them have quite a choice to make there, and there isn't one single easy answer.
Thank you Barendina. You're spot on. I should have got Ozymandias in!