Regime Change in Bavaria?

Last weekend the former once-and-future ruling party in the German state of Bavaria, the CSU (Christian Social Union, as you might already imagine, a flock of rather conservative notion) lost its election in a landslide and is no longer able to act as sole ruler in the quiet and stable de-facto-one-party-state of Bavaria, where their regime was established in the 1950ies and went on unhindered until last Sunday.
They lost about 17 %, nearly as much as the next biggest party, the SPD (Social Democrats) harvested in total. The CSU still will be able to form a government though, but will need a partner to form a coalition, which is – given the more than slightly absolutist attitude towards their rightful and god-given homestead of Bavaria – a shameful humiliation for Germany`s Grand Ole Party of the South and –of course- a good laugh for the rest of us.

Bavaria, being an independent kingdom until 1871 was grudgingly incorporated into the German empire lead by the Prussians, but has to this day a strong awareness of its own identity and distinctiveness. Local customs are held up to the point of outright tribalism and dialect is widely spoken even by people of higher education, serving as a billet of entry to the core of Bavarian notabilities and economic bigshots.
There is a proverb, which although a cliché, does tend to bundle the complex state of the bavarian mind to one single phrase: “Mir san mir”(We are we).
The CSU has, since the 1950ies, been THE bavarian party, the one party that pledged loyalty to the social conservatism rooted in the catholic faith of Bavarian people, and even more important, claimed successfully to negotiate the hell out of any prussian federal government, whether it be located in Bonn or Berlin. The CSU is in short a party of big, bulky local shopkeepers in lederhosen harboring a firm belief in the free market as long as the very business of that free market is controlled by a bunch of local shopkeepers fighting ironfisted for their own interest. To no one´s surprise really, Bavaria has been doing quite well and prospered throughout the years due to generous funding by Federal and EU-Government, and – to be fair- due to sensible economic politics favouring the middle class, backbone of German and Bavarian economy.
Now this remarkable alliance has come to an end. Still economic data shows a performance above German average, but the honeymoon seems to be over.

The Ripuarian says hi.

Originally this blog was supposed to be called „the hinterland“, for that term seemed to describe quite accurately the kind of physical and - as I have to admit – sometimes even mental surrounding I am situated in and accustomed to, but that url was long gone.
So “The Ripuarian” it is. Ripuarian is the scientific name of the dialect spoken in the very region of Germany I am living in and was born to, which makes me technically a Ripuarian, although I don´t speak dialect very much.

I am living in Bonn (pop: 316.416), a fair city of modest extent, located at the banks of the Rhine (in German “Rhein”), where the river gets broader and lingers in deserved lazyness after having done a marvellous job carving out the ravines and gorges of the more spectacular Mittelrhein area south of Bonn, where all the tourists go to see the Loreley, the Drosselgasse in Rüdesheim (famed for the world`s largest winebarrel) and ruins of medieval castles, destroyed by history`s various German-French wars or the even more frequent battles between rivaling “Burgherren” (a feudal title my dictionary won´t translate).



Bonn, founded as a fort on the wild frontier of the roman-germanic borderland about 12 BC, boasts with being the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven, who made it to Vienna straight after highschool. Bonn made then - courtesy of Ernst Moritz Arndt, August Wilhelm Schlegel and a couple of other boffins with spectacular sideburns - some decent contributions to the intellectual life of 19th century Germany, before it hit the news again in 1948 as capital of post-war, pre-unification West-Germany (a country that no longer is, as you will surely know).
Given the much more suited candidates for the job, such as the labourous yet glamorous Frankfurt our cute lil`provincial town of Bonn was an odd, rather unlikely choice, but since Harris` British Bombers had been utterly occupied targeting nearby Cologne, Bonn made it through the war relatively unharmed. Compared to the Mad Max-like wastelands of other cities in post-war Germany that was a convincing unique selling proposal. Besides that, the first chancellor of the second German republic, a staunch catholic yet ruthless politician named Konrad Adenauer, proclaimed it in a grand autocratic gesture capital for the simple reason that he was living in the neighbourhood.

It is getting late, dear bogus reader, and I will rest now. But if - by chance - you did enjoy my rant about this little town of mine, lo and behold, there´ll be more musing of that sort. Good night.