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| Crazy Bavarian King Ludwig's castle |
Bavaria, the most bucolic part of Germany, has its own very distinct identity and traditions. It is almost universally considered to be the most laid back, fun-loving part of the country.
If Hogan's Heroes' high-strung Colonel Klink might have been from some busy beehive of a German town like Hamburg, the food-conscious, easy going Sergeant Schultz would have almost certainly been from live-and-let-live Bavaria.
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| Schultz & Klink |
In fact, in Bavaria they joke that Munich, the chief city, is so relaxed that it is the only Italian city North of the Alps. Yet it is after all, still German so the trains do run on time there and it is home to the famed industrial giant, the Bavarian Motor Works (BMW).
Bavaria is predominately Roman Catholic and unlike elsewhere in Germany, it escaped much of the devastation of World War II. It also had the good fortune to have been in the American zone of occupation following the war where its first Military Governor was the famed US General George S. Patton (who was one of the only Allied Generals immediately after the war who was unabashedly pro-German and anti-Russian.)
One side of this American writer's German ancestry came originally from Bavaria -- more than 100 years ago (the other side from Baden-Wurttemberg -- about 125 years ago)which probably explains genetically why he has an insatiable thirst for beer or -- "Bavarian bread", as it is sometimes called.
Here are two contemporary musical celebrations of Bavaria --
--- One Nice:
--- And One Naughty:
And here Linkin Park sings My December to a backdrop of some beautiful scenes of Bavaria during wintertime:
1 comments:
17% of all Americans have predominately German ancestry and I would bet at least half of them were from Bavaria. Too bad we didn't keep up the Bavarian quality of our beer, although 100 years ago it was pretty much as good -- before they mass produced it.
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