2011-12-09

750 years

2011-05-10

Lulustein / Lulu's stone

Lulu was the nickname of Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph, the son of the French King Napoleon III. When Lulu was 14, his father sent him off to Saarbrücken to fight the Prussians. On the spot of this stone, he fired his first canon shot. The life of Lulu was not particularly fortunate. The French lost to the Prussians and Lulu died at the age of 23 at the hands of Zulus, whilst helping the British in South Africa.

2011-03-24

Cruel steel

From 2011-03-23.

2011-03-23

In memoriam

Remembering the mining disaster in 1985 that took 22 lives.

2009-07-19

Platz des unsichtbaren Mahnmals - The Square of the Invisible Memorial

Above you can see the Saarbrücker Schloss (Palace). It has been the site of some castle or palace since mediaeval times. Its present contours were given to it by the famous baroque architect Friedrich Joachim Stengel in the 18th century, although it has suffered several bombings, fires and rebuildings since then. What you cannot see above is the aptly named invisible memorial. In 1993, the art professor Jochen Gerz and his students chiselled the names of 2,146 Jewish cemeteries on cobblestones and placed the stones in the square with the name-side down.

If you are thinking of visiting the palace, I would suggest you do it on a Sunday morning. Then a friendly ghost will give you a guided tour.

2009-07-02

Remembering the fallen

Spicheren is not only known for its corn. On August 6, 1870, the Battle of Spicheren took place here, a decisive moment in the Franco-Prussian War. On that day, on the grass just below this scene of this photo, over 1,000 men lost their lives and around 5,000 were wounded. When the Germans later occupied Lorraine, they erected several monuments on the site of the battle, including this one from the 39th Infantry Regiment. As the village web site points out, they must have employed a French stone mason: he made several spelling errors such as Officiere instead of Offiziere.