A european with a home in france

A european with a home in france

Godehard schramm’s book about lake como has just been published: "the chancellor and the lake – lago di como – land and people, culture and konrad adenauer". The nurnberg writer will bring this book to bad staffelstein today. We wanted to know in advance what impulses the obermain gives him.

Question: what do you think of when you hear the place name bad staffelstein??
Godehard schramm: first of all, the reunion with my friend erich walter, the famous botanist from bayreuth, after an almost fatal stroke – when he was already smiling again in a wheelchair in the care of the staffelstein health clinic. Next: that in the circle of french towns with the noble title of bad in front of them, the dominance of the lower franconians has dwindled and after bad berneck, bad alexandersbad and bad rodach, staffelstein can now also decorate and identify itself as a bad’ish. To this crowning came recently the "ring of figures" of the sculptor wilhelm uhlig, who has been working in nurnberg for a long time, adds. As I have seen the art of this almost last "figurative I am very pleased, before my reading, to see this "gold right standing" crib to be able to see the sculpture-septet in the spa park.

What do you know about the staffelberg?
I don’t know anything about the staffelberg, but for me it belongs to the magical and actually also holy mountains of france – like its sibling, the walberla.

Is the term "gottesgarten am obermain" a designation that attracts you or is it rather a hackneyed term?
When i was driving on the A 73 to thuringia as a pilgrim to visit our pope benedict XVI., i read the brown highway sign with the designation "gottesgarten – and it was clear to me: in our society, which is characterized by the perfidious art of "negative tolerance as "master from germany it won’t be long now, and then someone who doesn’t believe in god will go to court and be charged with personal illness or. Defamation lawsuit until from the public space of the highway – as in schools, etc. – this designation must be removed, like the cross. The term "god’s garden is a confession and at the same time a sign of our faith – always more significant than the more modern sign, also at the highway, which describes upper franconia and the "genussregion" expulsion.

Do you have a favorite place on the obermain??
If I knew exactly which places belonged to "obermain belong to . . . So let’s take the main river downstream, after the confluence of the red and the female main as the northern beginning and then until shortly before bamberg – then i say bayreuth. For the simple reason that I do not want to talk to people who live there or who do not believe. I am connected to the people who lived there; and over the years, the connection to people has become more important to me than anything related to location or culture. Architectural beauty. And then of course fourteen saints.

What book are you working on?
Now that my book about lake como has been published and my "life journey through franconia" has been finished as a 500-page-typoscript is already at the munchner verlag, i can finally get to the conclusion of my "explorations in fernnebenan" turn to: this will be my france-book: "france – fireworks in colors. My "contact with the czech republic" is quite advanced: "in smetana’s fatherland", which begins in 1968. Poems are also being prepared for a book of poetry. I have a piece in mind: "twelve suicides at the lord’s table" – with two special references to franconia.

From which books or payments do you read in bad staffelstein?
The theme of the evening are my "at the same time-homelands": local, spiritual and acquired homelands. I will read from "second home lake garda", "the chancellor and the lake"; "invitations to poland" and from my translation of the polish poet and priest jan twardowski "i herd the cow for a communist". I might also recite one or two texts from my frankenbuch.