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Hermann Löns' grave and memorial
Part Two of Two
We now walk around the grave stone with its Wehrwolf (Warwolf, actually meaning defense-wolf) rune.
SOIL ASIDE: Although earlier in the morning there was frost on the ground, this white material is sand. One reason for large stretches of heather in sandy parts of Europe is this plant's ability to reach deeply for water in rather loose sand, which does not hang onto water near the surface, like more clayey soils do. The soil here is rock-less, clay-less near-white sand (I picked up that litter, it was my trail note- sheet and must have fallen out of my pocket, I noticed it as I started to walk away):
Here rests Hermann Löns, is what it says:
This person was revered by common people, not just by Nazis as my story elsewhere may have suggested.
On the plane home I sat next to a German professor of math who loved Löns as a kid, and thinks fondly of him even now, for his poetry. He nostalgically recalled memorizing and reciting Löns poems as a child in grammar school.
An example of that poetry is recorded in stone on his nearby memorial. We will now walk to that memorial, but first a look back to the grave stone in its beautiful setting:
Then we approach the memorial:
You can read one of his poems here for yourself:
The excellent website on walking tours in this area gives a translation for this poem. It says:
Let your eyes be open
Be silent
And wander quietly,
Then you will become aware of hidden things
A powerful insight.
We now reverently, silently, walk away from the memorial and open our eyes to take a last look at the heather.
The heather has lost its summertime purple flowers, but there is still a hint of purple in the landscape:
Soon we are back in the woods and headed for the nearest train station:
Saw a sign suggesting I was close to a train station.
Got to that spot, and saw some people at a nearby house, so asked where the train station was. They said the one on the map was demolished over 12 years ago, the next one is about 5 kilometers down the road.
The daughter of the lady of the house drove me 1 kilometer to a fork in the road she said was hard to describe even if my German had been good. From there I walked the last 4 kilometers, quite fast for me so as to make the 4:10 train back to the big city, Hannover. There I waited many hours for my night-train to Frankfurt. That wait is illustrated, on the next page of course.
Go to Hannover for a quick walk through town
Go to Köln (Cologne) and see the Dom (cathedral), outside only
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