Thoughts on War and Germany
September 3, 2008 by kwalker10
I’ve never been to a war-torn country before. Not that Germany is at all torn by war at the moment, but it was not so long ago when much of this beautiful city was destroyed. Yesterday when I was wandering by myself looking for a German equivalent for Target, I wandered into the Munsterplatz: a square with a gorgeous cathedral. Of the buildings surrounding the square, one stuck out in particular. It was a red building with a multi-colored roof whose architecture seemed a little more stereotypically German than the rest. Today, we were taking a tour through the city and ended up in the same square. It was then that I learned that the cathedral and my little red building were the only buildings on the square to have made it through the bombing of Freiburg during World War II. “Everything else was completely flat,” our guide told us.
They also showed us the Stolpersteine (SHTOHL-per-STINE-eh), which means “Stumbling blocks.” These are little gold plaques mixed in with all the gold cobblestones with the names of Freiburg Jews who were killed during the Holocaust. I understand, certainly, that war can be necessary. Hitler was a madman who needed to be stopped. It’s a sad, sad world when the actions of a 12-year government can simultaneously lead to the distruction of a great nation’s past and future. Living in a country with these daily reminders of what war can do to a country has really helped me understand the German reluctance to go to war, even in cases where it is necessary.
