 Which
of your books, Herr von Paczensky? The
last time we did read something from your
pen it was about the cultural history of
COGNAC.
Are you calling in as a gastronomic
connoisseur of long standing or as
PANORAMA’s pointed beard? This one
is shaved as we see now; and, we are
afraid, all this is a bit shaved already
… We are talking about
Germany’s political spectre of the
Sixties … is still anyone
remembering the headline of a German
boulevard-paper of that time:
„Der Spitzbart muss weg! —
The Pointed Beard Must Go!“?
„I do, of course. The first time
such a headline was pointing at the
GDR-Wall-Creator Walter Ulbricht, the
second time it was pointed against me!
You know, the pointed beard was sort of
my trademark when, in 1961, together with
the colleague Ruediger Proske, I
introduced the critical magazine PANORAMA
to German television-viewers. It was said
we would endanger the growing of the
fragile plant of German-French friendship
when we documented cruelties of the
French colonial power in Algeria. You
have heard about it already by an earlier
guest on this stage which, at the moment,
is not rolling at all, by Frantz Fanon.
French authorities did not permit me to
travel to France at that time …
Anyway, I am talking of my books
‚Die Weißen kommen‘ —
‚The Whites are Coming‘ and
‚Teurer Segen‘ —
‚Expensive Blessings‘, of
course, the first one published in 1970,
the second one in 1991.
27
Part of our cultural heritage is a movie
that made film-history many years ago
because of its technical illusion: King
Kong. I am not sure whether the remake of
this film does contain that scene which
had been for me the most impressive one.
Members of a film-team that had landed on
an island are opening, to the terror of
the natives, the gate of an otherwise
impregnable wall. From time to time, King
Kong uses this gate to get his tribute, a
human victim.
The whites come to know not only a
jungle-scene but also such cruel
conditions as they have ruled mankind in
early ages; they are confronted with all
sorts of monsters and, of course, with
King Kong.
I always thought, a similar cruel period
of European history is hidden behind such
a wall of taboos. Monsters which dwell
there as ghosts of Europe’s past. If
we would come to know them we may get a
chance to know ourselves better —
our historical roots, our psychological
development, our role in the world, or to
be more precise: the role as played by
our forefathers.
We, their heirs, cannot free ourselves
from their deeds, especially because many
of us enjoy the affluence whose fundament
was created by them. But, how they
created it … that is hidden behind
that wall.“
And
what about the walls of the
„Traufenhaus“ in Nienburg at
the River Weser? Anything hidden there as
well? Hello … Gert von Paczensky?
…
Is gone?
So, we ask Herr Möllenkamp. What is a
„Traufenhaus“? Something like
this one out there, erected by your
virtual engineers along a railway
platform in Africa in a night and fog
action?
„At night, yes — at fog, no!
Where you find the original Traufenhaus,
in Nienburg at the river Weser, there you
will have quite often foggy nights and as
a result a lot of rains. Flowing down the
roofs it is collected and led away at the
lowest edge of the roofs by what is
called in German a ‚Traufe‘.
Usually, old framework-houses are
standing next to each other with their
smaller gavels fronting the street, not
length-wise with their
‚Traufe‘. Now, this house of
1648 in Nienburg is an exception.
By the way, this colonial exhibition you
were referring to had been the last event
of the museum there; it had to move to
another location because someone bought
and renovated the cute old house as a
private residence.
Also, this building out there along the
railway platform that has been moved by
our virtual engineers from Nienburg to
Africa for this special occasion is
neither a ‚Traufenhaus‘ nor a
railway station — it is a complete
school building!
Three years before Albert Schweitzer
received the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE he had
received from Nienburg a request
…“
 The Alsatian
theologian, medical
practitioner, organ-player and
philosopher Albert Schweitzer allowed
this school to bear, as the first one in
Germany, his name. On 17th June 1999, the
Albert-Schweitzer-School in Nienburg
celebrated the 50th anniversary of this
event.
Will this staircase never come to an end?
Hello,
has everyone got a ticket?
A ticket?
You
have entered, at this moment, a German
cultural facility, and you are climbing
up to the „Giebelsaal“ of the
Albert-Schweitzer-Schule in Nienburg at
the river Weser in Germany; should
someone be handicapped, please ask for
assistance! Tickets have been available
at the town-office of the local paper DIE
HARKE … Considering special
circumstances, passengers of the African
TAZARA-train are excepted from payment
…
All three of them are supposed to be
here! The NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES Albert
Schweitzer, Henry Kissinger, Kofi Annan
…
Although, our African had to split his
award in 2001 — with his
organisation, the United Nations …
... like Kissinger in 1973 with
Hanoi’s peace-negotiator Lę Đúc
Tho — who, however, refused the
award because, at that time, the Vietnam
War was still raging.
... and the NOBEL PRICE LAUREATE of 1952
is playing a Bach-Fugue!
Herr
Möllenkamp, do you remember the piano at
the wall on the right side of the
entrance in Lambaréné?
„On departure for
Lambaréné in 1913 he was presented with
a pedal piano, a piano with pedal
attachments (to operate like an organ
pedal-keyboard). Built especially for the
tropics, it was delivered by river in a
huge dugout canoe to Lambaréné, packed
in a zinc-lined case.“
Please, hurry up! Because at this moment
the show is taken over by …
PUPIL 1:
The WORKING GROUP „NOBLE
PEACE-AWARDS“ — an initiative
of pupils of the Albert-Schweitzer-School
in Nienburg at the Weser — welcomes
you, ladies and gentlemen, to a night
session with multimedia-applications,
here at the „Giebelsaal“!
PUPIL 2:
The Albert-Schweitzer-School of Nienburg
is one of the oldest learning
institutions in Lower Saxony. It was in
1525 when Count Jobst II of Hoya
supported such learning efforts as part
of church reformation; but it probably
happened under the influence of his
enlightened wife Anna von Gleichen; and
it is thought that the earliest existence
of this school dates back to this year
since Martin Luther had sent letters to
all German cities requesting the
establishment of a „Christian
Schooling System“.
The school is mentioned for the first
time in a historical church-document of
1541: the cantor let sing his pupils in a
service of the St. Martin Church …
Seven years ago, the school celebrated
its 150th birthday as a state-owned
gymnasium and, at the same time, its 475
years of existence.
PUPIL 3:
This „Giebelsaal“ is being used
not only as the school’s assembly
hall but also as a location for public
cultural events of the
Nienburg-community, for example for the
annual „Master Concerts“ …
This evening you hear as Bach-interpret:
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, however, only from
one of his early recordings ...
Fact is that Albert Schweitzer does not
play a visible role in contemporary
school-life. We have no active working
group that would deal with him or with
his work in Africa.
That Albert Schweitzer will play a role
in tonight’s performance of an
active working group of pupils is owed to
a request whether Nienburg’s railway
station could be transferred at short
notice to Africa or whether the African
TAZARA-train should have a stop-over on
tracks of the Nienburg station.
Background of this virtual
travel-arrangement, so we were told, was
a proposed meeting between
TAZARA-travellers with pupils of the
Albert-Schweitzer-School.
The pupils’ representatives voted
for a third alternative: the historic
complex of our school should appear, for
the time of our presentation, in Africa.
Heia
Safari!!!?
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