Hamburg

So several weeks ago (yes, I'm definitely behind on blogging) I had the opportunity to visit Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany. Overall, it's a very lovely port city on the River Elbe in northern Germany.

Hamburg also happens to be the hometown of my wonderfully nice host mother Ulrike who visited her family the same weekend and gave me and a couple of my friends a ride to the city. It was great to spend the car ride with her and hear more about her life. Particularly interesting were her stories about how the separation of Germany affected her family (she lived in Hamburg in West Germany with her parents while her grandparents lived in East Germany in Magdeburg).

We were lucky enough to visit Hamburg while the Aussenalster (one of Hamburg's two artificial lakes) was entirely frozen over for the first time in 15 years. A huge number of people were on the lake throughout the weekend and we naturally joined them. As someone who comes from a state where ice fishing is a popular pastime, the whole experience didn't seem particularly out of the ordinary, but it was nevertheless fun. Here's some photos (including an artsy shot of the ice):

Throughout our few days there we took in many of Hamburg's sights including the Chile Haus, a shipping company building known for its unique architecture:

 the old shipping warehouse district (currently an emerging arts and culture center):

several beautiful old churches:

 the Hamburg History Museum, and a ferry boat ride down the river to see the current harbor:

We also visited the St. Nikolai Kirche. This particular church was heavily destroyed during the 1943 bombing of Hamburg and was purposefully not rebuilt after the war so the church could stand as a memorial against war:

Today, people can ride an elevator up to the top of the church tower to see the city as well as visit a small museum exhibit about the bombing of Hamburg. I found it difficult to visit the exhibit and see the church, in large part because I had never heard of the bombing of Hamburg before. To be honest, I hadn't really heard much about the bombing of any city in Germany before (perhaps with the exception of Dresden). To give a brief historical background, the attack, called Operation Gomorrah, was a series of bombings during a week in early July of 1943 that created a huge firestorm which engulfed huge parts of the city. Temperatures reached 1500 degrees Fahrenheit (enough to melt asphalt). In all, 42, 600 civilians were killed.

As I learned about the event and saw a variety of photos in the exhibit showing the aftermath of the bombings, I became troubled by the lack (at least in my experience) of awareness and recognition in the US of the destruction our military has caused. While I definitively think the US was right to fight against the Axis in World War II and I am truly proud of our veterans for fighting for the freedoms I have today, particularly in this war, I found it troubling that my US public school system education included minimal information regarding the impact of World War II upon civilians in the nations against which we were fighting (with the notable exception of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan). Perhaps because I generally hold the "most German citizens were pretty innocent in World War II" opinion and perhaps because I am living in a country that has directly experienced modern warfare for the first time in my life, I'm having very mixed emotions and thoughts about war and World War II in particular. Mostly, the main question that comes to mind is: "Was it really necessary?" and while that question is impossible to answer, the second question that comes to mind is: "How do we deal with what happened in the hopes of insuring it doesn't happen again?" And fundamentally, that's the point of places like St. Nikolai Kirche. My only concern is that we haven't done enough of that in the US, because we haven't had to. And my larger concern is that because the US has never had to deal with the past in this way, we have a tendency to engage ourselves in problematic wars (Iraq immediately comes to mind) without truly addressing and dealing with the consequences of our actions for civilians in these countries. So I guess the one major, rather peace loving hippie point coming out of this random rant of feelings and thoughts is that I hope the US (and really the world for that matter) starts asking itself: "Is it really necessary?" before the fact and "How do stop war from happening again?" all the time.

Anyway, on a more uplifting note, I also visited the gorgeous Rathaus (city hall) of Hamburg. It's absolutely beautiful inside and out and houses Hamburg's Senate and Parliament. Here are some photos: