[PRCo] Re: Boris von Wartburg

[Fred Schneider]

Eisenach is the city; Wartburg is a the 11th century castle on the southern edge
of the city.   The city is a little gem ... absolutely unremarked but truly
worth a visit.  The Bachhaus (where Johnann Sebastian neither grew up nor lived
but a house typical of his station in life) offered a delightful concert using
period instruments (late 17th - early 18th c.) to play music from his time (that
visit was about 1991).   The Wartburg castle (11th century), after which the
steel automobile was named, was the hiding place for Martin Luther when he
translated the New Testement of the Bible into written German in 1521 or 1522.
Perhaps even more important, Luther's dialect (that spoken around Hannover,
Celle, Eisenach) thus became the High German or Hoch Deutsch that we learn in
school, that which today is used by newspapers, magazines, television, and
radio.  Perhaps Luther's translating the Bible into that one of many German
dialects was the most important thing that happened at the Wartburg.   The
castle was also the setting for Ricard Wagner's opera Tannhäuser, which I was
forced to translate in a college German class.

The Trabant or Trabi automobile (and the Wartburg too) were both two-cycle
machines that cast a blue pall over all of East Germany.  I wish I had brought
one home as a souvenir ... they became instantly worthless in when the wall went
down and tens of thousands of used western automobiles flooded the east.  I
doubt though that I could even start it up if I owned one because the local
police would cite me for burning without a permit!  The Trabant was the butt of
all jokes.  I remember a book of Trabi jokes.  One of them read, "How do you
double the value of a Trabant?  Put gasoline in it."  And my personal favorite,
actually uttered to me by a stranger when my Ford Escort would not start in East
Berlin, "Es ist kaput und es ist nicht nur ein Trabi?"  (Translates:  It's
broken and it isn't even a Trabi?)   Those plastic bodies on the Trabants became
a major problem ... they just couldnt be melted down to make new ones.  Many
were buried in landfills.  But I remember one news item about the DDR trying to
develop microbes that would eat them.

Eisenach was a seat of automobile production as far back as 1896.  And, if my
memory serves, the Wartburg factory was the pre-World War II BMW automobile
plant.  I'm dead certain that after the war BMW, as a west German firm, was left
with only a motorcycle plant, and I think it was in München (Munich).  When the
flood of western cars came into the DDR in 1990-1991, Wartburg had no better
luck fending them off than the Trabant.  It may still be an automobile city,
however.  In 1991, General Motors built a brand new Opal assembly plant on the
west side of Eisenach.

Frederich von Karlsruhe

History lesson over.

Boris Cefer wrote:

> Wartburg ....was an Eastern Germany automobile (and I guess also city) with
> a three(!!!)-cylinder motor. Famous in many Eastern bloc countries, but his
> fellow - Trabant - was the most popular folk automobile in socialistic
> Europe. It had a double-acting motor ant its body was made of phenolic resin
> containing also cotton. Too small for me, we had been utilizing one for
> about 13 (?) years.
> Understood your comment. The intent was to forward my thanks to you because
> this picture was one of those I lost with PC failure in October and I hadn't
> been able to find it again for several weeks!
>
> Boris
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim Holland" <PghPCC at pacbell.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>
> > > Guten Morgen!
> >
> > > Jim, I can't find you out on that Cleveland photo.
> > > Where are you?    (And now I wonder what will happen...)
> >
> >
> > Probably not even a gleam in anyone's eye at That Early Date!!
> >
> >
> > > Boris von Wartburg
> >
> > Name Change?    Alias?    Alien??
> >
> > >> From: "Jim Holland" <PghPCC at pacbell.net>
> >
> >  http://206.103.49.193/pitts/htm/wvp359.htm
> >
> >
> > <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> >
> > Jim