Joanne's long walks: Via Romea Germanica Day 33: Schweinfurt

They say that history is a teacher. Well, if it is really a teacher for our future, let us make the terrible lesson it taught us in those years of collective madness our intellectual property. Let us go to work with good courage and a sense of responsibility, with respect for people - for every person - with a sense of justice and love, and let us allow human talent to shine, that form of thought that strives to achieve moral and material good.

- Leonardo Calossi, Italian writer, former military internee and forced labourer at Kugelfischer, on the occasion of his visit to Schweinfurt in 2003.

Pfingsten: another German holiday with an amusing name! Pentecost, or Whit Sunday, as it is known in the UK, celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles of Christ on the 49th day after Easter Sunday. Though celebrated in the liturgy, it is not a public holiday in Italy, but in Germany, the Monday after Whit Sunday is a holiday. Businesses are closed and everyone goes out to enjoy the spring sunshine - for instance, by cycling along the bike path by the River Main! So I had plenty of company on the cycling path between Schweinfurt and Wipfeld.

But first I walked through the city of Schweinfurt. All the shops were closed; there were several Italian cafés to choose from, but I had breakfasted with my host Klaus's renowned cappuccino - he has a proper cappuccino machine, a miniature version of the ones used in Italian bars - and so I didn't feel the need to stop, and carried on through the city centre to the riverside path.

The Rathaus is one of Schweinfurt's few remaining historic buildings

Industries along the River Main

South of the city, the Radweg or cycling track follows the course of the Main, through a grassy belt by the river, which is very pleasant despite the fact that it is surrounded by factories on both sides. Placards along the way provide information on the darkest days of the area's history, summarised and translated below; more information is available here.

Forced labour in Schweinfurt 1940-1945

As the German Reich spread across Europe, more and more men were sent to the various fronts of the war, resulting in a shortage of workers for industry, agriculture and trade. The Nazi regime developed a comprehensive system to deport women, men and children from the occupied territories to Germany and force them to work. Prisoners of war were employed in all economic sectors: in agriculture, by craftsmen, in small and medium-sized businesses, in communities, in private households, and above all in large companies.

The first evidence of the arrival of prisoners of war and civilian forced laborers in Schweinfurt dates back to 1940. The people were housed in many small camps in the city and the district, e.g. in restaurants, schools, dance halls, gymnasiums. From the documents of the city archives, the total number of foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war working in Schweinfurt in the period from mid-1941 to the end of 1944 can be calculated at around 6000 civilian workers and 4500 prisoners of war, i.e. a total of 10,000 people.

The municipality of Schweinfurt also built its own Eastern labor camp, Bleichrasens, on an island in the Main in the winter of 1942/43. In 1944, 258 prisoners of war (Belgian, French, Italian) and 138 Eastern workers worked for the city, in the construction yard, power plant, gas and water works, clearing rubble and repairing bomb damage.

Following the cycling path, I passed the site of the chemical factory camps which had been manned by forced labourers (Fichtel & Sachs, Vereinigte Kugellagerfabriken VKF, Deutsche Star and Kugelfischer) and came to the memorial site designed by the artist Herman de Vries. The memorial is engraved with wording in gold letters: Die würde des Menschen ist unantastbar - Human dignity is inviolable.

I left the cycling path to venture onto the main street of Bergrheinfeld, in the hopes of finding an ice cream, but all the businesses were shut - including the hotel I had originally been planning to stay at - except for a Greek restaurant at the sports and recreation centre. I had already eaten my cheese sandwich and banana and wasn't looking for a big meal, so I used the washroom at the rec centre and then carried on, returning to the cycling path, which took me past the decommissioned Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant.

Nuclear power in Germany

Germany opened its first commercial nuclear power plant in 1969, and by 1990, nuclear power accounted for about a quarter of the electricity produced in the country. But the anti-nuclear movement, which already had a long history in Germany, dating back to the early 1970s, intensified following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster; after the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and subsequent anti-nuclear protests, the government announced that it would close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022. As of 2021, nuclear power accounted for 13.3% of Germany's electricity supply, with six power plants still in operation; three of these were switched off at the end of 2021, and the other three had ceased operations by April 2023.

The Grafenrheinfeld plant was online from 1981 until 2015; spent nuclear fuel is still stored "temporarily" at the site.

It was kind of freaky walking so close to a nuclear reactor - even a decommissioned one! And the cycling track beside the road was beginning to be a bit of a bore. So I left it to venture into the village of Garstadt, in the hopes of finding a snack and somewhere to charge my phone for a bit. I found both, in unexpected form - a farm shop selling fresh asparagus, strawberries, grape juice and wine! I bought half a kilo of strawberries and sat down to eat them at a table outside, while my phone charged inside the shop. I was joined by the owners, who were taking a coffee break. They stamped my pilgrim credential with their strawberry and aspargus growers' stamp - now there's a first!

When I had charged my phone sufficiently, and eaten half of the half-kilo of strawberries, I continued on my way along the cycling track beside the road, and soon passed the first vineyards, entering Franconian wine country!

The cycling track, and road, rejoined the river Main just before Wipfeld, my destination for the day: a charming little village, with what must be the world's shortest ferry ride - taking bicycles, people and cars to the other side of the river - and an automatic ice cream vending machine selling ice cream made from farm-fresh local milk. I chose strawberry cheesecake flavour, and ate it with the rest of my strawberries while watching the little ferry going back and forth!

I checked into my pension, run by the elderly Frau Hildegard Gais, who showed me to my room and provided me with a photocopied map of the village on which she had highlighted her suggested sightseeing route. After a short rest in my room, I followed her recommended route, which took me past the village's historic buildings and up to thr church, in front of which was a viewpoint over the vineyards and the river.

The ferry again, seen from above

I walked back down to the river, to the Biergarten, and ordered a Flammkuchen (Germany's answer to pizza, see here) with a glass of Müller Thurgau.

Then I sat for a while on a bench by the river, watching a stork over on the other side and trying to figure out if it was real or fake (it never seemed to move), when an enormous river cruise boat passed by!

The passengers looked bored and totally uninterested in the lovely little village they were passing by. In fact, most of them had drawn the curtains of their cabins against the sun, and couldn't see a thing!

I'd rather walk!!