Göttingen Schützenfest

Here is the loaf- where are the fishes?

The Best of the Wurst

1962 Schützenfest in Göttingen

Göttingen, Germany is  wonderful small city, a university town with brio, culture, and bustle.  I found these old photos taken out of the 3rd floor window of the Commerzbank back in 1962 on the occasion of the Schützenfest parade down Prinzenstrasse.  My in-laws lived in Göttingen since after World War II, and it was always such fun to visit.  In fact, we  visited so often that when I was writing The Shadow Warriors and needed a university for Professor Mittelstadt,  Göttingen's came to mind immediately.   I felt relieved that there was no "Institute for Advanced Computing," and I could make it up.  I made up a lot, but most of it was based on fact, including the "Stern Marsch"  and  the resulting riot.  A visit to the library's michrofiche department provided photos of police, helmets down, dogs straining at the leash.  
An  author always looks for the most dramatic setting possible, and naturally  a university always has the town/gown controversies and professors, their wives, grad students, all the things I put into The Shadow Warriors.  One day, knowing I needed certain characters for my novel, I sat in the Marktplatz and jotted down descriptions of interesting people who walked by.  I found Jakob, Marlies, Claudia, Marcus and others.  Petra was a long time coming, and I finally saw her at Roche Brothers supermarket in Wellesley, MA, but her scuffed velvet jacket came from a relative.  

Did you know the Brothers Grimm were professors at the University and were even protesters way back when?    Another interesting fact that went into The Shadow Warriors.  My nephew took me bar-hopping one night, and  again, the pubs went right into the book, but under different names.  One of them is picturered in this blog in an earlier post.  Another sidewalk cafe became Cafe Amalfi of Boston fame, now defunct.  It's a cool name, don't you think?  

If any of this sounds interesting, and you are a German who reads English, you might like The Shadow Warriors.  Other scenes are set in Berlin, Frankfurt, Baden-Baden and Singapore.  Also Hong Kong and Cambridge MA where I worked at the time.  "Warriors" is available on the German Kindle and also as a trade paperback.  Of course the Kindle version is 'way cheaper. 

Schuss!