Freiburg im Breisgau is a pleasant university city at the edge of the Black Forest in the southwest corner of Germany, near the borders with France and Switzerland. In other parts of Germany, Freiburg is envied for its relatively mild climate, since the daily weather maps in the newspapers and Read More …
For 47 years after the Second World War, the French army maintained a large base in Freiburg, three kilometers south of the city center. The French base was called Vauban Barracks (la caserne Vauban) and was named after the French military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707). When the last Read More …
“If one person dies, it’s a tragedy. If a million people die, it’s a statistic.” This cynical statement was attributed to the late Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (1879-1953). It was quoted to me by a Russian Jewish orchestra conductor who spent his childhood in Moscow under Stalin’s rule. Like many Read More …