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From cell phones to credit cards, and even some IDs, smart cards can be found all over! But did you know that you can thank a German for this powerful technology?

In the late 1960s Germans Jürgen Dethloff and Helmut Gröttrup imagined a way to place an integrated circuit (IC) chip onto a plastic card as way to provide a secure, tamper proof form of identification. Acting like a key, the first use of this technology was intended to release the tapping mechanism at unmanned gas stations. 

Since that first conception, there have been many changes, improvements, and additions to this

 technology. The first widespread use of the smart card didn't come until 1983 when a smart telephone card was created for payment in French payphones.

Today you can find smart card technology nearly everywhere you look. SIM cards, public transit cards, credit and debit cards, ID cards, and more - we have this secure technology thanks to Germans Dethloff and Gröttrup!

This month Rosa suggests the book Ich bin dann mal weg: Meine Reise auf dem Jakobsweg, the true recollection of German comedian Hape Kerkeling, who completed the 800 km (500 miles) Camino de Santiago pilgrimage hike. Kerkeling humorously tells about his interesting fellow pilgrims, sleeping badly in hostels on the route, and connected to his spirituality.

Our language school director Carina recommends Kim Schmidt's "Local Heroes" comics/caricatures about the North of Germany and its people.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this month?

On December 24th, 1818 priest and poet Joseph Mohr approached composer Franz Xaver Gruber and asked him to create guitar music to his lyrics for what would become Silent Night ("Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" in German) for that evening's mass. Mohr was searching for alternative music, as flood waters had damaged the church's organ and it was woefully in need of tuning. Mohr had written the poem in 1816 following the Napoleonic Wars. The song was performed that night and quickly became a holiday favorite. Over the years Mohr's name has often been forgotten and the song has been attributed to many famed composers including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. This is not the case in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, where the song was first performed. There, in the Silent Night Chapel, Mohr and his holiday contribution are memorialized. The church features stained glass windows depicting Mohr, framed copies of the poem, and even houses Mohr's skull interred behind the nativity scene. 

Today, Silent Night has been translated into more languages than there are countries in the UN and has become one of the most popular Christmas carols even today.

Are you an intermediate or advanced German speaker looking for an intellectually engaging podcast? Museum & Development Director Rosa recommends Lage der Nation. The two hosts (a Deutschlandfunk reporter and a law scholar) talk about current events (mostly German news, some global). Occasionally they have a guest on. They often have healthy disagreements with that classic German bluntness.

Sami's recommendation is to follow Feli from Germany! Recently we had the pleasure of visiting with Feli, a German youtuber and social media influencer living in the Midwest! She has a whole host of channels you can follow her on - YouTube, Instagram, and even TikTok! Check out her podcast, "Understanding Train Station." Hear her talk about Germany, and her experiences as a German living in the American Midwest! Sami really enjoys Feli's TikTok account and her podcast!

Our language school director Carina recommends Latte Igel und der Wasserstein for readers and listeners 6+: There's no more water in Latte Igel's forest, and so he sets out to find the water stone that will fix it all. But he has to steal it back from... well, find it out yourself! Available through most major bookstores.

Looking for a good German movie? Carina recommends to try

It’s Halloween week and you know what that means? CANDY! But did you

know that you can THANK A GERMAN for a festive fall favorite? That’s right, we’re talking about Candy Corn! 

According to the National Confectioners Association and oral history records, Candy Corn was first invented by George Renninger, an employee at Wunderle Candy Company in Philadelphia. While many companies at the time were creating mellowcreme candies in various shapes, the corn kernel with its layered colors was new. In 1888 Wunderle became the first company to produce and sell this sweet treat, but it was the Goelitz Confectionery Company that really popularized candy corn.

The Goelitz Confectionery Company was founded in 1869 by Gustav Goelitz, a 24 year old German immigrant. In 1894 the family candy making tradition continued when Goelitz’s sons took over the company. In 1898 the brothers acquired the candy corn recipe and began to make history. Initially marketed as “chicken feed,” candy corn was produced alongside many other mellowcreme shapes including pumpkins, chestnuts, turnips, and more. Though it had the same taste and ingredients as other mellowcreme candies, candy corn was unique and widely recognized for its three bright colors.

Today we associate Candy Corn with fall and Halloween, due to its seasonal popularity and the harvest color theme, but it wasn’t always that way. Candy Corn was initially offered as a “penny candy,” cheap candy that could be bought in bulk. As trick or treating became more popular and Halloween became a time to hand out individual packages of candy, Candy Corn became more strongly associated with the spooky season. 

The Goelitz company continued to create sweet treats for generations and is still active today. Though you may know them by a different name...does Jelly Belly ring a bell? The Jelly Belly Candy Company, once the Goelitz Confectionery Company, still produces Candy Corn today, though Brach’s, another company founded by a German immigrant, has emerged as the primary producer of this “chicken feed” candy!

October 30th is National Candy Corn Day - Thank a German while you enjoy this sweet treat!

Not a classical music buff? No need to be. Chances are you’ve probably heard of Mozart whether you’ve realized it or not.

This Austrian composer is heralded as one of the most influential musical prodigies of all time. He authored operas, concertos, symphonies, and sonatas with poignant emotion and remarkable sophistication. 

Born in 1756 in Salzburg, Austria, it was clear from a young age that Mozart was destined for a life in music. His teacher was his father, Leopold, who quickly picked up on Mozart’s extraordinary gift for music and worked to refine his son into the musical genius we know him to be. By 5, he had already taken to composing. He was a brilliant pianist and violinist from an early age, and as he started traveling for performances, soon all of Europe agreed. 

Despite achieving acclaim and financial success, Mozart found himself in financial strains during the mid-1780s. He was known for his lavish tastes and extravagant lifestyle. Eager to start earning more money, Mozart set his eyes on a court appointment. In 1787, his ambitions were realized. Emperor Joseph II awarded Mozart the position of “chamber composer” in 1787.

His financial situation, however, did not improve. He was forced to move his family and himself into a more affordable part of Vienna. His lavish spending did not change, prompting Mozart to borrow money from friends. The 1870s were a difficult period for Mozart, finding himself in depression and prolonged financial troubles.

Although the early 1790s proved a creative, productive, and somewhat lucrative period for Mozart, he saw his mental and physical health coming apart. On December 5, 1791, Mozart died from what is speculated to be some sort of fever. He was 35 years old.

Written by DANK Haus intern, Kat M.

We look forward to a Wiedersehen with our first-ever Development Intern, Sara Gooding. Here is what Sara had to say about her time on our team, January–March, 2021:

"The last three months have flown by as I interned for the DANK Haus German American Cultural Center, a Chicago cultural organization that seeks to preserve and promote German and German-American culture. I spent my time at the DANK working in the Development Department, helping manage donor software as well as finding and applying for additional funding from outside sources.

Interning during a global pandemic was definitely an eye-opening experience. My internship was completely virtual, which definitely meant that I was unable to experience parts of what could be considered a 'normal' internship experience, like interacting with fellow coworkers or working in-person fundraising events. However, while I missed out on some things, I was able to experience many new opportunities that would not have been possible otherwise.

The reality of the pandemic changed how non-profits and other institutions operated, including how they received and utilized funding resources. This internship was my first time experiencing how non-profit institutions like the DANK receive funding and develop their donor network, and I was able to watch in real-time as the DANK’s development methods evolved to match their current needs.

It was definitely out of my comfort zone at first, but I have learned so much in my time here. I learned how to utilize different membership and donor software, such as Wild Apricot and Bloomerang, to manage and keep track of donations to the DANK Haus. In addition to learning donor software, I also researched grant proposals that the DANK could utilize for potential funding. My goal for this internship was to increase my skills in non-profit management and get an intimate feel for an individual museum. Mission accomplished! Thank you DANK Haus and Rosa!"

Best wishes on all your future endeavors, Sara! We know you will be a great success!

Written by Rolf Achilles, an art and architecture historian with a special interest in Chicago and its community of artists/craftsmen. Rolf was the founding curator of the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows at Navy Pier and the curator of the current installation of windows in the Macy’s Pedway.

Peter Behrens should be better known. He was arguably the most influential architect and industrial designer in pre-World War II Germany. 

First, some biographical facts: Behrens (1868–1940) attended Gymnasium (middle/high school) at Christianeum Hamburg from 1877 until Easter 1882. He then studied painting in his native Hamburg and Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe, from 1886 to 1889. He is best known for his woodcut, Der Kuss (The Kiss), published in the periodical PAN in 1898. This woodcut is currently on display in the exhibition PAN: Prints of Avant-Garde Europe, 1895-1900 at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Chicago.

Der Kuss breaks with traditional imagery and is one of the best known German prints of this era. It is a colored woodcut and Behrens's only Jugenstil print. It was published in PAN, IV, vol.2, 1898.

In 1899, Peter Behrens was invited to Darmstadt by Ernst Ludwig II, reigning Grand Duke of Hesse, where he became the second member of the new Darmstadt Artists' Colony. In the colony, Behrens turned to architecture and built his first house. He designed all the interiors, including furniture, towels, paintings, pottery, etc. The house received widespread critical attention. In 1903, Behrens was named director of the Kunstgewerbeschule (school of applied arts) in Düsseldorf, where he implemented successful reforms, developing new ways of teaching design. 

In 1907, he and Hermann Muthesius, Theodor Fischer, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Bruno Paul, Richard Riemerschmid, Fritz Schumacher, and others, plus twelve companies, were founding members of the Deutscher Werkbund (German artists organization). With its focus on better design, the Deutsche Werkbund continues to be active. 

At much the same time, he was designing the Turbine Hall of the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG; general electric company) in Berlin. The turbine hall is now considered an iconic building of the 20th century. 

AEG factory, Berlin, 1907-09. Photo by the author, Rolf Achilles.

Like his house in Darmstadt, his work for AEG was a Gesamtkunstwerk––a "whole artwork." Here he included all aspects of corporate design, including the hall itself, the typefaces for the stationary, and the clocks and electric tea kettles that AEG manufactured.

AEG Advertisement for Wasserkessel, 1909. Wikipedia image.

Kettle.

Demitasse and Saucer, 1900-1902, on display in the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Rolf Achilles.

Pitcher, c. 1904, on display in the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Rolf Achilles.

As a successful architect, he had apprentices. In 1910, when the first copy of the Wasmuth Edition of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture was published, Behrens and three of his apprentices studied it together. The senior apprentice was Walter Gropius (he went on to found the Bauhaus in 1919); the middle apprentice was Le Corbusier, who went on to change French architecture; and the junior apprentice was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who had become the most influential architect in the world by the time he died in 1969. 

Meanwhile, Behrens became a leader of the rationalist/German Reform Movement in architecture. Between 1920 and 1924, Behrens turned to Brick Expressionism when he was responsible for designing and constructing the Technical Administration Building of Hoechst AG in Hoechst, outside of Frankfurt am Main. Its soaring atrium clad in colored bricks representing the factory's dye products and exterior in dark clinker bricks with a clocktower and dramatic arch is one of the most remarkable representatives of Europe's style. 

 

Hoechst lobby, 1924. Wikipedia image.

From 1922-1936 Behrens headed the architecture school at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria, while designing buildings across Germany, Russia, and England. In 1928 Behrens won an international competition to construct the New Synagogue in Zilina, Czech Republic, which was restored in 2012-17 as a cultural center. 

In 1936 Behrens left Vienna to teach architecture at the Prussian Academy of Arts (now the Akademie der Künste) in Berlin, reportedly with Hitler's specific approval. Behrens also worked briefly with Albert Speer but was rejected by Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg.

Behrens died in the Hotel Bristol in Berlin on 27 February 1940. 

Written by Rolf Achilles, an art and architecture historian with a special interest in Chicago and its community of artists/craftsmen. Rolf was the founding curator of the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows at Navy Pier and the curator of the current installation of windows in the Macy’s Pedway.

On August 9, 2020, the Museum of Modern Art released on YouTube Video, "The Flying Train (1902) | MoMA FILM VAULT SUMMER CAMP." It's a lightly colorized restoration of a 1902 film showing the extraordinary, "flying" view from Europe's most peculiar urban metro, the Wuppertal Suspended Railway (the Schwebebahn) wending its way above streets and the River Wupper. For a 1902 and 2015 side by side ride, see: "Wuppertal Schwebebahn 1902 & 2015 side by side video," also on YouTube.

The city of Wuppertal, Nord Rhein-Westfalen, Germany, in North Rhine-Westphalia, lies about 20 km east of Düsseldorf and has about 355,000 inhabitants. In 1929 when Elberfeld, Barmen, Vohwinkel, and several other smaller municipalities joined to form a new city, Wuppertal, named after the Wupper River valley. 

Decades before Elberfeld, Barmen, and Vohwinkel became Wuppertal; the three municipalities had accepted the Einschienige Hängebahn System Eugen Langen (the one-track hanging train system of Eugen Langen), a system that had previously been rejected by Berlin, Breslau, and Munich. Acceptance of the Langen system was in 1894, construction began in 1897, and the first track opened March 1, 1901, between Kluse and Zoo. The western section, between Zoo and Vohwinkel, followed on May 24. Eugen Langen (1833-1895) was an entrepreneur, engineer, and inventor from Köln (Cologne), Germany. 

Its immediate popularity credits the Schwebebahn with the growth of the original cities that merged to found Wuppertal. During World War II, the line was seriously damaged, with service restored within a year after the war. It continues in operation today. 

The Schwebebahn in Wuppertal. Photo by RoestfrischerKaffee on Unsplash.

In 1901, the Eugen Langen system was also sold to Dresden, Germany, where the Dresden Suspension Railway (Schwebebahn Dresden), a suspended funicular system, is still in service between the districts of Loschwitz and Oberloschwitz. Supported by 33 pillars, the line is 274 meters (899 ft) long. The Wuppertal line is 13.3 km (8.3 miles) long, has 20 stations, and transports 82,000 people per day. 

The Wuppertal Schwebebahn is the world's oldest electric suspension railway, but not the first over the street electric urban railway. That distinction belongs to the Chicago "L," the elevated train that first ran on June 6, 1892, from 39th street (now Pershing Road) and State Street to Congress Parkway and Wabash Avenue. 

The Chicago "L" train in the Loop. Photo by Johannes Krupinski on Unsplash.

By 1893, the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad extended this line to Jackson Park and the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. 

A week after the Fair closed on October 30, 1893, a second, elevated line began running on November 6, as the Lake Street Elevated Railroad. In 1895 the Metropolitan West Side Elevated followed with lines to Douglas Park, Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, and Logan Square. It was the nation's first non-exhibition rapid transit system powered by electric traction motors. 

During the second half of the 19th century, many cities in Europe and the US had horse-drawn streetcars, known as horsecars. They were contributors to the newly invented urban traffic congestion generated by rapidly expanding cities. No city in the world added population faster than Chicago! In 1900 there were perhaps 100,000 horses and 1.7 million people in Chicago. Its congestion and pollution became legendary. A solution was a privately funded, city-approved steel rib-like structures spanning certain city center streets that also radiated south, north, and west through neighborhoods much as the horsecars did only not on the congested streets. The first steam locomotives quickly gave way to "electric traction." Electric traction trains were the future that fit neatly into Chicago's already much electrified Loop with light bulbs and elevators.

But Chicago's "L" was not the world's first electric tram line. That credit goes not to a private but city-funded street-level system built by Werner von Siemens in Licterfelde near Berlin, Germany, in 1881. A year earlier, Siemens had proposed an electric subway for Berlin. Almost two decades later, an overhead railway, running along a viaduct, opened in 1896, followed in 1897, by establishing a company to build both an electric overhead and underground railways. The underground quickly dominated Berlin and became the U-Bahn (Untergrundbahn). 

The U-Bahn (subway) stop Bundestag (capitol building). Photo by Victor Kallenbach on Unsplash.

By the way, the earliest elevated railway was the London and Greenwich Railway, London, England, run on a Roman-style brick viaduct of 878 arches, built between 1836 and 1838. 

From the late 1860s on, elevated railways run on viaducts became popular in US cities. 

Besides steam and electric powered trains, there were also cable cars on municipal streets. Andrew Smith Hallidie officially invented these in San Francisco in 1873. Of the eventual 23 lines, three continue to operate in San Francisco today. In New York, the West Side and Yonkers Patented Railway served with cable cars from 1868 to 1870; thereafter, locomotives pulled them.

With the opening in 1882 of cable lines to the south on State Street and Wabash-Cottage Grove Avenue, Chicago entered the cable car system into its urban street congestion. It was immediately successful. In 1886 a cable line on Clark Street and parallel 5th (now Wells Street) went into service. In 1889 a branch on Lincoln Avenue opened, followed by Clybourn Avenue in 1891. By 1887 the State Street lines extended to 63rd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue extended to 71st Street in 1890. Cable cars ran in Chicago from 1882-1906. s

Underground trains like the London Tube and the Paris Metro or Berlin's U-Bahn, are another story.