“Overall, the product has a degree of freshness and material composition necessary to be assessed to be satisfactory after 64 years,” according to the State Office for Agricultural, Fisheries and Food Security.

The authorities did, however, find minor deficiencies in the lard’s smell and taste, discovering that it was slightly gritty and appeared old, meaning it could not compete with the quality of a fresh sample. Still, it appeared to be fit for human consumption, they said.

The office credited the air-tight US can and preservatives for maintaining the lard in such pristine condition over the years.

Feldmeier was delighted to hear of the unusually successful preservation, but when he requested his can back from the agency, they gave it back to him empty. Link

“They could speak a little English,” he recalled later. “Their clothes were patched and they hadn’t had gum and candy for two or three years. They barely had enough to eat.”

Halvorsen gave them two sticks of gum and promised to drop more candy for them the next day from his C-54. He said he’d rock his wings so that they could distinguish him from the other planes. Then he returned to the base and spent the night tying bundles of candy to handkerchief parachutes.

Not only did Halvorsen deliver he candy, but when word of his caper leaked out, Americans sent lots more candy to be dropped over Berlin. And Halvorsen did just that. Fifty years later, he encountered one of those children on a trip to Berlin, which you’ll have to go to Futility Closet to read about. Link -via Fark

You can read more about Halvorsen at Wikipedia. Link

In English, that’s Who’s Coming? which was a kinderbuch (children’s book) from 1910 showing all kinds of people who come to the house. The illustrations are by Julie Conz, and you can see eleven of them at BibliOdyssey. Not only are they beautiful, but they also highlight how differently goods and services were provided 100 years ago. Link

Link Via BuzzFeed

So here’s the story: it’s 1728 and you live in Amberg, a little Bavarian town somewhere north of Munich. You and your lady friend really, really want to get married, but there is a little snag; the council laws permit only homeowners to marry, and you’re still stuck renting a place. But all is not lost! You pick up a little strip of empty land between two other buildings – just 2.5 meters wide. You run up a quick wall on the front, another on the back, slap a roof on top, and presto – you’re a homeowner. The council falls for it, and allows you to get married.

But now what? Well, it’s not liveable, so you head back to the rental place to live, but you recoup your investment by selling the Eh’häusl (Little Wedding House) to the next couple with the same problem.

Link to story. Link to hotel site.

(Image: Google Street View)

In Germany, researchers have created artificial blood vessels by putting a mix of synthetic polymers and biomolecules, so that the vessels aren’t rejected, into the 3d printer ink reservoirs, and the results are a finely detailed set of transplant worthy capillaries precisely detailed in every way.

Now that they have succeeded in creating blood vessels, researchers are looking at ways in which to print out internal organs and bones. I wonder how much those ink cartridges cost to replace?

Link -image via Fraunhofer IGB

Siemens, the largest engineering conglomerate in Europe, announced Sunday that following the German government’s decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022, it would stop building nuclear power plants anywhere in the world. “The chapter for us is closed,” Peter Löscher, the chief executive of the Munich-based conglomerate, said in an interview with Der Spiegel, the weekly news magazine. He emphasized the company’s commitment to the rapidly growing renewable energy sector.

He said the decision was also “an answer” to political and social opposition to nuclear power in Germany.

Link -via TreeHugger | Photo Credit Topato

Addressing the ceremony on Bernauer, a street famously divided by the Wall and now site of a memorial, Mayor Wowereit said the capital was remembering the “saddest day in its recent history”.

“It is our common responsibility to keep alive the memories and pass them on to the next generation, to maintain freedom and democracy and to do everything so that such injustices may never happen again,” he said.

Earlier, Mr Wulff told Die Welt newspaper that the modern Germany could take pride in “East Germans’ irrepressible desire for freedom and West Germans’ solidarity with them”.

The wall was finally opened in 1989. Link -via Fark

Previously: Read more about the history of the Berlin Wall in The Fall of the Wall.

He told police he’d snapped up the plastic life-size model at a local flea market but strapped it into his front passenger seat because he thought it would be damaged in the boat.

A police spokesman said: ‘It was only when we stopped the car that we realised it was a British right hand drive car – and the skeleton was therefore in the passenger seat.

“We could not make any charges against him as it is not illegal to have a plastic skeleton in your car.”

Link -via Arbroath

This urinal was photographed at Rheinfels Castle in Germany. I would think that most men would prefer to just take it outside.

(Image credit: Flickr member klaas koopmans)

Today, Ludwig remains famous for the castles he built and attempted to build, most notably Neuschwanstein Castle, perched high in the Alpine foothills. The king was a romantic, a friend and suporter of composer Richard Wagner, and he hired theatrical set designers rather than architects to design his castles. More absorbed in his personal world than state affairs, Ludwig spent most of his time on his own projects — emptying his personal coffers — and left his ministers frustrated by his inattention.

What is left is a mystery -and those castles! The Atlantic has a collection of 30 photographs of the king’s life and those gorgeous palaces that still grace the region. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: AP/Christof Stache)

Named Sherlock, Miss Marple and Colombo, the three vultures all have keen eyesight and an acute sense of smell. The idea is that birds could do a better job in handling rough terrain and scanning larger areas. Which is great and all but I hope the police remember that vultures are scavengers. So don’t be surprised if a body is missing a couple eyeballs and has more flesh wounds than it should because of the vultures.

Link | Image

The East German government called the Berlin Wall “the Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier.” But the machine guns along its length were pointed inward, toward East Berlin, not outward.

Shortly after midnight on August 13, 1961, the city of Berlin was cut in two. Soviet and East German troops moved in and ringed the city. Train service between the two cities was stopped. Telephone lines were cut. Streets connecting East and West were sealed off. The construction of the Berlin Wall had begun. The people of East Berlin were being locked in.

EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE

At first, the wall consisted of barbed wire, concrete barriers, and tanks. When complete, it was 100 miles (161 km) of pure concrete, 10 to 13 feet (3 to 4 meters) high. It extended 28 miles (45 km) through the heart of Berlin and some 70 miles (113 km) around the city to isolate West Berlin from the rest of East Germany, which surrounded it.

The wall was painted white, not to make it prettier, but to make it easier for border guards to see and shoot at anyone attempting to climb over it. A second wall was built 100 yards (91 meters) to the east of the first wall. In the no-man’s-land (known as the Death Zone) between them were 293 watchtowers along with searchlights, killer guard dogs, self-firing guns, and land mines. Over the years, the wall was rebuilt three times to make it harder and harder to breach.

THE GREAT ESCAPES

* The greatest number of escapes from East Berlin took place in the first two years while the wall was still being fortified.

* One East German butcher fashioned bulletproof protection by strapping hams, roasts, and sausages around his body. While he was hurling himself over the barbed wire, the meat absorbed the bullets.

* If a building was on the boundary line, people escaped by throwing mattresses out the windows and then jumping from second- or third-story windows. (First floor windows had been bricked up early on.) Some parents threw their children out windows on the eastern side into fireman’s nets on the western side.

* One man threw a hammer and line from a roof of a building in the East over the wall and, with his wife and young son, slid down it in a homemade chairlift. So many people used stout rope thrown over a wall (and held by someone on the other side) that East Germany banned the sale of any rope sturdy enough to hold a human being.

* East Germans used Berlin’s ancient sewer system to escape- until the authorities cemented the manhole covers shut.

* One woman created Soviet uniforms for herself and three friends. They saluted the East German guards and walked through through the checkpoint unquestioned.

* In 1979, two families with eight people sewed together bits of fabric, made a homemade hot-air balloon and flew to safety on the other side. In response, the East German government limited the sale of lightweight fabrics such as nylon.

* Tunnels were dug all over East Berlin. One ingenious tunnel started in a mausoleum in an East Berlin cemetery. “Mourners” would enter the crypt -and never exit. In 1962, NBC-TV funded a tunnel from Bernauer Street in East Berlin to Schoenholzer Street in West Berlin. They filmed the escape of 56 refugees, before flooding shut the tunnel. Another tunnel, they escape route for 57 people, was 430 feet (131 meters) long and took six months to build. Yet another began in a backyard outhouse in East Berlin and ended in a bakery on the western side.

Estimates vary widely, but between 5,000 and 16,500 people escaped East Berlin by outwitting the wall -and the border guards. Some 246 hopefuls are known to have died trying, and approximately 3,200 people were arrested for attempting escape -and were either sentenced to death or imprisoned for life. (Because of the extreme secrecy of the East German government, the exact number may never be known.)

THE FIRST CRACK IN THE WALL

By the late 1980s, the Communist governments of the Soviet Union and East Germany were near collapse. In May 1989, Hungary started cutting down the barbed wire fence along its Austrian border. East Germans vacationing at Hungary’s lakes saw their opportunity. That summer, 5,000 people a week escaped to West Germany via Hungary and Austria. On September 10th, 1989, Hungary completely opened its border with Austria. East Germans began streaming through, and by the end of the summer, 50,000 had fled East Germany.

The floodgates to freedom had opened. On November 4, 1989, Czechoslovakia opened its borders to tens of thousands of fleeing East Germans. All this fueled massive unrest in East Germany; antigovernment demonstrations were held, and the East German Communists ousted their leader.

THE WALL COMES TUMBLING DOWN

The East German government tried one last effort to stem the rush of people to the West. Late on November 9, 1989, as a postscript to a long news conference, an East German spokesman announced that, beginning immediately, the borders between East and West Germany and East and West Berlin would be open to travel unconditionally.

(Image credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1989-1110-018/Oberst, Klaus/CC-BY-SA)

Within hours, stunned and disbelieving crowds had gathered at the wall. When people crossed the border checkpoints without being shot at, the celebrations began. Berliners hugged relatives they hadn’t seen in 28 years. Masses of people took hammer and chisel, then sledgehammers, to the wall.

East Berliners marveled at the abundance in the West Berlin shops. The city of West Berlin gave each East Berliner $60 (49 euros) in “welcome money.” One man returned library books that he had borrowed from the American library in West Berlin the day before the wall went up -only 28 years overdue. The world media turned out in droves to cover the weeks-long party at the wall.

(Image credit: Flickr user Felix Petersen)

By December 3, the Communist government in East Germany was ousted. In March 1990, East Germans voted their country out of existence. Germany was officially reunited on October 3, 1990.

THE WORLD WIDE WALL

Today, very little of the Berlin Wall is left.The official demolition began on June 13, 1990. Small segments of the wall still stand in three locations, and the rest of the wall’s course is marked by a double row of cobblestones. Some segments of the wall were recycled for road building.

(Image credit: Wikipedia user Scapler)

Pieces of the wall are displayed in Washington, D.C.; at the libraries of former presidents Nixon, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush; at the Seattle Center; and, most improbably (or maybe not) in the men’s restroom of a downtown Las Vegas casino. There, the once feared and hated Berlin Wall serves as a backdrop to a row of urinals. A nice spot for a little revenge.

*****

* There were three checkpoints that were given names based on the phonetic alphabet. The Helmstedt checkpoint was called Alpha, the Dreilinden checkpoint was Bravo, and the checkpoint at Friedrichstrasse got the name Charlie.

* Although the wall was over 103 miles long, only a small section of it was painted with grafitti -the two-mile area between Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenberg Gate. The rest was plain unadorned concrete.

(Image credit: Wikipedia user Noir)

* There are 80 known deaths of people who died while attempting to cross the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989. The last death occurred just nine months before the wall fell on November 9, 1989.

* Germany was reunited on October 3, 1990.

______________________________

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again.

The book is a compendium of entertaining information chock-full of facts on a plethora of history topics. Uncle John’s first plunge into history was a smash hit – over half a million copies sold! And this sequel gives you more colorful characters, cultural milestones, historical hindsight, groundbreaking events, and scintillating sagas.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

The former butchering facility in Dresden, Germany featured in Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 book Slaughterhouse Five is a real place that you can visit. The book is a work of fiction, but Vonnegut was really held prisoner in Dresden’s Schlachthof Fünf (Slaughterhouse Five) during the city’s fire bombing in World War II. Read more about the underground meat locker that saved the lives of POWs like Vonnegut at Atlas Obscura. Link

“A woman walking her dog alerted the police after seeing the bird sitting by the side of the road oblivious to passing traffic,” Frank Otruba, spokesman for the police in the southwestern city of Pforzheim, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

The Brown Owl didn’t appear to be injured and officers quickly concluded that it had had one too many. One of its eyelids was drooping, adding to the general impression of inebriation.

“It wasn’t staggering around and we didn’t breathalyze it but there were two little bottles of Schapps in the immediate vicinity,” said Otruba. “We took it to a local bird expert who has treated alcoholized birds before and she has been giving it lots of water.”

The owl will be released when sober. Link -via Arbroath

It is a long way from home. According to the zoo, Heidi and her sister, Naira, originally came from the US state of North Carolina, where they were turned over as foundlings to a facility for wild animals. The sisters then made their way to the zoo in Odense, Denmark, before ending up in Leipzig.

The reason for Heidi’s crossed eyes is unclear, but zoo officials speculate that it might be because of fat deposits behind her eyes, caused by a bad diet early in life. The eyes might look off, but they cause the animal no pain, and don’t affect her ability to get around, according to the zoo. She is, aside from her looks, a normal opossum.

See more pictures of Heidi at der Spiegel. Link -via J-Walk Blog

By the mid 1800s many mines had played out and shut down, and the unemployed miners had to find another means of support. Their woodworking skills, and the increasing use of water-powered lathes, saved their schnitzel. The men began to produce items in quantity—tops and dolls, farm scenes with barns and livestock, Noah’s arks with lines of paired animals, angels and pyramids bearing candles, miners carrying lamps, and the nutcrackers that they had once created only for their own families. The finished pieces were transported by horse cart to markets in Dresden, Leipzig, and Nuremberg, where they sold well and gained a reputation for quality as well as charming simplicity.

According to local legend, Seiffen woodworker Friedrich Wilhelm Füchtner created the prototype of the modern nutcracker in about 1870—a king wearing cavalry dress and a crown reminiscent of a miner’s hat. This inspired other caricatures such as soldiers, forest rangers, and policemen. The nut-cracking function of these ersatz officials symbolized the unpleasantness with which real authority figures often treated the townspeople.

The popularity of those nutcrackers really took off during World War II. Read the rest of the story at Nat Geo Pop Omnivore Blog. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!

(Image credit: Flickr user Hugh Buzacott)

When World War II finally came to an end, Germany was in shambles. Its cities had been transformed into forests of twisted steel and broken concrete, and the German people were suffering from food shortages and rampant unemployment. Within a few years, however, things were looking up. Production of steel and coal were fueling remarkable growth in West Germany, and the country was positioning itself as the industrial powerhouse of Europe.

But this “economic miracle” was wreaking havoc on the environment. Careless mining and manufacturing turned the Rhine into what amounted to an open sewer, and soon, the international waterway contained millions of gallons of toxic waste. By the 1960s, the river was striped with red and green steaks of sludge. The water’s oxygen level had plummeted, and fish were dying en masse. Germany tolerated the pollution because food, jobs, and a sense of progress came along with it, but everyone knew that something had to change.

The catalyst for that change appeared unexpectedly on the morning of May 18, 1966, when a fisherman on the Rhine spotted a large, white creature swimming alongside his boat. Dr. Wolfgang Gewalt, director of the nearby Duisburg Zoo, was called in to identify the animal, which he recognized as a beluga whale. Intrigued, Dr. Gewalt quickly put together a team of whale hunters to trap the animal and bring it to his aquarium.

That was easier said than done. For all his expertise, Gewalt had little idea how to capture a whale without harming it. He tried trapping the animal using tennis nets, but the whale swam right through them. Several more failed attempts followed, and the whale began to garner more and more attention. Before long, the newspapers had nicknamed him Moby Dick. But as the German people continued to watch Dr. Gewalt’s attempts to capture the whale, it became impossible to ignore the unfortunate side effects of post-war progress. As Moby Dick proceeded to swim up the Rhine, journalists noticed that the whale’s skin went from soft and white to bumpy and splotchy. Concerned citizens began to fear that the river’s water would harm the animal, if not kill it outright.

After a couple of weeks, Moby Dick finally left the Duisburg area and traveled downriver. It was only a few yards from the North Sea when a strange thing happened. The whale suddenly stopped, turned around, and went back upriver. A few days later, Moby Dick appeared outside the German parliament building in Bonn -150 miles south.

This caused quite a scene. Hundreds of onlookers gathered at the river, and a group of nearby politicians even suspended their NATO news conference so they could get a glimpse of the whale. Meanwhile, the press went wild, with newspapers suggesting that Moby Dick’s plan all along had been to raise awareness of the environmental plight of the Rhine.

Although the whale eventually escaped to open water, its presence remained. For four weeks in 1966, Moby Dick captured the nation’s attention and highlighted the country’s ecological desperation. Not coincidentally, environmental politics soon became a pressing national issue. The German people began forming grass roots organizations, and in 1972, the influential Federal Association of Citizen’s Initiatives for Environmental Protection was formed. That same year, the German parliament passed the first two laws that effectively regulated waste disposal and emissions in rivers. And in 1979, Germans formed the first successful political party to focus on ecological concerns, Die Grünen Partei, literally “the Green Party.” It’s from their name that we get the term “green politics.”

Today, the Rhine is the cleanest it’s been in decades. Germany is still an industrial powerhouse, but it’s also one of the most eco-friendly countries in the world. Yet the river might still be a sewer today if it hadn’t been for one lost whale that tested the waters.

__________________________

The above article by Michael Ward is reprinted with permission from the November-December 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!

Der Spiegel has an image gallery of “Trummerfrauen,” or “rubble women” who were charged by the occupying Allies with cleaning up the wreckage of German cities bombed during World War II. There weren’t enough German men left to do the job, and the women had to use their bare hands and whatever equipment they could round up on their own. The job still took years. Recovered materials were sorted to be reused. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

So, why are they surviving the recession better than the rest of us? Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post suggests an interesting answer: It’s The Factories, Stupid.

What sets them apart from the world’s other major powers, purely and simply, is manufacturing. Their predominantly industrial economies meet their own needs and those of other nations, and have made them flourish while others flounder. [...]

For the past three decades, with few exceptions, America’s CEOs, financiers, establishment economists and editorialists assured us that the transition from a manufacturing to a post-industrial economy was both inevitable and positive: American workers would move to more productive jobs, and the nation’s financial security would only grow. But after rising steadily during the quarter-century following World War II, wages have stagnated since the manufacturing sector began to contract.

Harold went on to explain why most Americans are wrong when thinking that we can’t compete with China’s cheap labor (after all, Germany’s labor cost is even more expensive than ours): Link

Robots in industry are pretty much the coolest things ever, from car-assembling robots to dishwashing robots, there’s nothing quite like automation. Take this robot for example. Input disorganized salami and the robot will produce beautiful, orderly rows of salami, keeping track of the status of the salami. Considering how important salami is, I’m amazed we ever trusted anyone other than robots to sort it.

– via mentalfloss

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nmiller.

A furious argument erupted in the kitchen after the man made his daily delivery Wednesday evening but was told the restaurant didn’t immediately have the euro400 ($535) in cash to pay his bill.

The vendor then took back the meat he’d delivered — including steaks already being cooked or marinated. That still didn’t cover the bill, so he continued collecting meat in the dining room.

Police arrived at the scene after he left but said they believed no offense was committed.

Link

The boar in the photo is a life-size model weighing 150 kg – part of a test conducted by Germany’s ADAC automobile club in response to a growing number of roadkill incidents involving large mammals.  Hundreds of thousands of wild boars roam freely in Europe.  If you encounter a boar in the road, the appropriate response may be counterintuitive:

Unfortunately for the animals that stray onto roads, ADAC recommended that drivers do not swerve to avoid them. Trying to spare the animal’s life by shifting to the opposite lane entails the far greater danger of smashing into an oncoming car, it said.

That recommendation will be music to the ears of a variety of scavengers, including perhaps some humans.  Two years ago poachers in England were leaving jam sandwiches in the roadways in order to lure deer into roadkill situations.

Link.  Photo credit ADAC.

Several days after purchasing a highly venomous cobra, a German teenager discovered that it was no longer in its terrarium.

What followed was one of the lengthiest and most expensive pet-hunts Germany has seen in recent years. The walls, floor and ceiling of O’s attic apartment were dismantled and the two units on the ground floor below were also carefully searched. Flour was strewn on the floor in the hopes of collecting tracks. Strong, double-sided tape was installed to perhaps trap the cobra baby. The fire department even brought in mini-cameras to search the tightest and most inaccessible corners.

After the fire department removed and examined all the furniture, a construction company was called in to demolish the apartment.  The house has now been sealed, and other renters in the building have been told they will need to live elsewhere for two months while the cobra (hopefully) starves.  The cost of these interventions is well above €40,000; German authorities will apparently send the bills to the young snake enthusiast.

Link.  Credit for photo of the redecorated apartment to ddp.

The system of exploiting slave labor to assemble missiles began in 1943. It expanded dramatically after the August 1943 bombings of Peenemünde by the British Royal Air Force. The widespread destruction led the Nazi leadership and the missile staff to move underground and use forced labor. The chosen site was a mine/fuel depot near the town of Nordhausen in Thüringen. Slave laborers from the Buchenwald concentration camp came to extend the tunnels for an underground V–2 factory called Mittelwerk. The new concentration camp outside the tunnels was code named Dora and was later renamed Mittelbau. More than 60,000 prisoners were interred at Dora. Some of them built 6000 V–2 rockets between August 1943 and April 1945. They experienced squalid housing, starvation diets, and draconian discipline with frequent executions.

Tens of thousands of prisoners died at Dora. Others were sent off to death camps as their usefulness faded. When the US Army liberated Dora in 1945, they found 750 workers and 3,000 corpses.

Following combat units were teams associated with various American intelligence groups intent on capturing German technology and experts. The US Army collected parts of 100 V–2s from the underground factory and, under a larger program best known as Paperclip, brought more than 125 German V–2 missile engineers, scientists and technicians to America. The Army interrogated them to determine their involvement in Nazi organizations and war crimes. However the Army wanted their expertise for the Cold War, so officers sometimes consciously overlooked or buried incriminating information.

Similarly, the US–led Dora war crimes trial at Dachau in 1947 led to no heightened American understanding, in large part because the US media had lost interest in such trials. The Dachau proceeding tried guards, kapos and the Mittelwerk general director, but its convictions narrowly focused on individual cruelty to prisoners. US Army Ordnance shielded its German missile engineers from public scrutiny by preventing Wernher von Braun, the leader of the group, from traveling to Germany to testify. Afterwards the Army classified the trial records as secret to guard information about Mittelwerk.

The story of slave labor at Dora accompanies a photographic exhibit at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. The extensive website also includes many links to outside sources. Warning: some photographs may be disturbing. Link -via Metafilter

(image credit: Walter Frentz)

Right up until the last lap, Germany’s unluckiest Olympian looked set to break the mold and grab silver in the women’s 3000 metre speed skating race.

But eventually the 35-year-old fell short, losing out on third place by just three hundredths of a second.

No matter how hard poor old Daniela tries, she just can’t escape fourth place.

Anschutz-Thoms will have one more chance at a medal, in the 5,000 meter race next week. Link -via Digg

In the coal stripmine Hambach in Germany, there was a machine so big that it boggles the mind.the Bagger 288:

This is the 45,000 ton Bagger 288 digger built by Krupps in Germany, and it is the largest land based machine built by humans on the face of the planet.

It’s not fast, moving at about 2 meters a minute, but boy can it shift rubble.

It can dig up 240,000 cubic meters of dirt a day. That’s about the same as a football field sized hole that’s 30 metres deep.

And why do you need a machine so absurdly big? So we can strip mine coal out of the ground, transport it hundreds of miles on massive trains and take it to power stations where we burn it to make electricity. And where does quite a chunk of this electricity go? Strangely back to the digger, as it requires 16.56 megawatts of electricity to operate. You’re not going to find a lot of solar panels on this leviathan.

Once it starts digging, it literally will not stop. Anything in its path will be chewed up, including this 60 ton bulldozer. How, I ask you, do you miss a 60 ton bulldozer?

Link

But what is the true purpose of such a machine? Let’s all welcome our new digger overlord, as explained by Rathergood.

Professor Mark Horton of the Bristol University’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, who is coordinating this side of the research, explained the strategy: “We know that Saxon royalty moved around quite a lot, and we hope to match the isotope results with known locations around Wessex and Mercia, where she could have spent her childhood. If we can prove this truly is Eadgyth, this will be one of the most exciting historical discoveries in recent years.”

Eadgyth is likely to be the oldest member of the English royal family whose remains have survived. Her brother, King Athelstan is generally considered to have been the first King of England after he unified the various Saxon and Celtic kingdoms following the battle of Brunanburgh in 937. His tomb survives in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, but is most likely empty. Eadgyth’s sister Adiva – also offered to Otto as wife, but he choose Eadgyth instead – was also married to an unknown European ruler, but her tomb is not located.

Link -via Fark

(image credit: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Juraj Liptak)

You’re familiar with historical re-enactment groups who get together to stage battles from history. Here’s one with a twist: a group of woman who portray the German Red Cross, or Deutches Rotes Kreuz (DRK) of World War II. Aachen Stadt I does not endorse the politics of the Nazi party; in fact they say right up front that they will not tolerate racist ideology. They participate in WWII battle re-enactments and attend educational events to tell about the role of the Red Cross. And they have a 2010 calendar for sale as well! Link -Thanks, Erin!

“He gets on very well in the sanctuary with his new leg but he can’t live in the wild any more so he’s here with us for the rest of his days,” said keeper Rolf Arensberg.

Link -via Arbroath

Did you ever wish you could create the chocolate of your dreams? A German company named chocri allows people like you and me to customize chocolate bars, not only by determining which name is printed on the packaging, but more importantly by combining a base chocolate (dark, milk or white) with your choice of more than 90 toppings. The toppings can be dried fruit and nuts (what we would expect), but can also be crazy, like chive rolls, jalapenos or real gold flakes. The chocolate is fair trade, organic, and sales benefit kids on the Ivory Coast.

One percentage of our revenues goes directly to the organization DIV Kinder, which supports and protects children on the Ivory Coast. The Ivory Coast is the biggest exporter of cocoa beans on this planet. Our customers also get a chance to donate a small amount at checkout. Together, we’ve already raised thousands of Euros to benefit the children.

Chocri is expanding their sales into the United States beginning in January. Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by papillonc.

Police then towed the van away, also unaware of its feline freight and it wasn’t until midday on Wednesday that Caesar was returned to his rightful owners, more than 12 hours after his adventure began.

“Caesar is fine. We’re not worried about him,” circus spokesman Laurens Thoen said.

Link -via Arbroath

Photo: Ronald Playforth

Early in May, 1945, officers from the German army and Gestapo met with Allied commanders, including Field Marshall Montgomery to offer their country’s surrender at his headquarters near Hamburg.  Interestingly, the only color photographs of this event were taken by a clerk, Ronald Playforth, who hid in the trees during the meeting.

Thequintessential wrote a brief synopsis of this event:

His pictures show Admiral Hans Georg von Friedeburg, the most senior member of the delegation, General Eberhard Kinzel, chief of staff of the north west Germany army, and Major Friedl, a 6ft 6ins Gestapo chief. They were received by Field Marshall Montgomery, with his customary black beret and army uniform, who, when the Germans tried to negotiate, reportedly gave them a ‘tongue lashing’ about the bombing of Coventry and the horrors of Belsen. The delegation reported back to their HQ and Admiral Karl Doenitz – Hitler’s successor – and were given permission to sign the surrender papers, which they did the next day, May 4. When it was all over Montgomery is said to have leaned back and said simply: ‘That concludes the surrender.’

Link

When the brothers set up their separate companies in 1948 the town was also split, with residents loyal to one or other of the only major employers.

In a joint release, the two companies said they were making up to support the Peace One Day organisation, which has its annual non-violence day on Monday.

They say that the events will be the first joint activities held by the two companies since the brothers left their shared firm in 1948.

Adi and Rudolf Dassler went to their graves without settling their differences, and their descendants do not control either of the public companies. Link -via the Presurfer

“You wouldn’t even need to wash the beer off, it’s a fabric that dries immediately,” he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. The shorts look remarkably like the real thing, with elaborately embroidered deer heads, a front bib and traditional side stitching. They retail at €79, a fraction of the cost of the leather alternative.Alpine traditionalists who last year complained about the growing trend towards cheap lederhosen imported from Asia may cry heresy at the sight of Kolb’s lederhosen. After all, they’re manufactured in China and don’t contain a scrap of leather.

But Kolb insists he is helping to introduce Alpine traditions to younger generations, and is even exporting the region’s folk culture to a global audience.

Link -via Metafilter

”Come on, I know you’re down there,” he radioed. ”Where the bloody hell have you hidden yourself?”

Control tower staff say he also sang a few songs, cracked a mother-in-law joke and told them to ”pull their fingers out as I’ve got a party to go to”.

Fearing instrument failure, the tower scrambled a rescue helicopter, which homed in on the man in clear-blue skies west of the airport, and gave instructions for the pilot to follow it back.

The unnamed man was able to land the Cessna, and “wobbled” to his car. Airfield authorities called police, who arrested the man on his way home. He tested over four times the legal limit for driving. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Flickr user jon gos)

In 1940, Hitler, incensed by the successful bombing of Berlin by the RAF. ordered the construction of three enormous flak towers to protect the city. Soon afterwards, this idea quickly spread around Germany. 

Considered invulnerable at the time – and they pretty much were – many of these colossal structures still stand today, albeit serving much more "civilian" purposes:

The L Tower in Vienna is now, well, you take a guess. If your German is any good then its current name – Haus des Meeres is a complete giveaway. If not, then you may be surprised to discover that it is an aquarium. Instead of weapons of war and people huddling from falling bombs it now houses over three and a half thousand animals, with huge fish tanks containing sharks, turtles and piranhas (in different tanks one assumes). There is even a new tropical house with free flying birds and free-running monkeys.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

Henk Schulz, a scientist who on one afternoon last month was watching his three young children wander around Vauban, remembers his excitement at buying his first car. Now, he said, he is glad to be raising his children away from cars; he does not worry much about their safety in the street.

In the past few years, Vauban has become a well-known niche community, even if it has spawned few imitators in Germany. But whether the concept will work in California is an open question.

A few experimental car-free communities are trying to get off the ground in the US, but not many people live in them so far.

Besides, convincing people to give up their cars is often an uphill run. “People in the U.S. are incredibly suspicious of any idea where people are not going to own cars, or are going to own fewer,” said David Ceaser, co-founder of CarFree City USA, who said no car-free suburban project the size of Vauban had been successful in the United States.

Link -via Digg

(image credit: Martin Specht for The New York Times)

Here is a really neat PSA from the “International Fund for Animal Welfare” from Germany concerning the trafficking and buying of products made from protected and endangered animals such as the Elephant. Air Dumbo now landing!

In Germany, a speeding car missed a turn, and flew an amazing distance to crash into the roof of a nearby church.

The bank acted like a springboard, propelling the black Skoda about 35 meters (115 ft) forward and straight into the church’s roof frame, where it remained wedged 7 meters off the ground, police said in a statement.

Link

From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by Johnny Cat.

For 219 euros (about $280), patrons can spend the day operating 29-ton Liebherr backhoes and 32-ton Komatsu front-end loaders, off-roading through the woods in a Mercedes-built Unimog, peeling out in a Suzuki SUV, and slinging some mud on quad bikes.

The park began as a one-time promotion that became permanent when more and more patrons wanted to have some fun. The biggest customers are women, however, who buy tickets as gifts for men. Link

Here’s a bizarre and strange video where the presenters want you to see the latest and most fashionable Soccer uniforms and gear for the German clubs through dance! Mind you this is obviously weird because it’s from the 1970s and it’s from Germany. Those crazy crazy Germans.

via – BoingBoing

Head over to Autoblog for images and a video clip.

Link – via Gizmodo UK