Indiana: The Hoosier State The US state whose name means “land of the Indians” also has a lot of German connections. In fact the largest ancestry reported in Indiana is “German” – with 22.7 percent of the population claiming that ancestry in the 2020 census. In the 1980 census that percentage was even higher: 32 […] The post Indiana’s German Place Names and Connections first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more

A perk of my new job is that the headquarters is in Vienna. While I usually work remote from Berlin, there have already been a few opportunities to visit the team in office, as well as combine work and pleasure by taking some days to explore other places in Austria. On my last trip south […] The post Guide to Salzburg first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more

Egyptian Artifacts and a Wealthy Berlin Patron of the Arts If you want to see the famous bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti (c. 1370 – c. 1330 BCE), the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, you have to visit Berlin’s Neues Museum (New Museum) to experience it in person. The world-famous sculpture of Nefertiti’s head and shoulders first arrived […] The post Why Nefertiti Is in Berlin, Not Cairo first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more

During the pandemic my family would take long walks around our neighborhood in Berlin. As nearly nothing was open, it was our entertainment and we wandered far and wide, through forests and meadows, parks and gardens. As the pandemic-measures wore on, playgrounds re-opened in Berlin – yet our boredom grew. We dusted off our bikes […] The post Bike School in Germany first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more

Coburg, Germany Before, During, and After the War As Black History Month has recently passed its halfway mark, I’m returning to a theme I’ve written about before: Black Americans and Germany. Which, believe it or not, brings us to the northern Bavarian city of Coburg, population 41,842 (2022). Coburg has a long and interesting history. […] The post Coburg, Germany, Black History and St. Mauritius first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more

Last November I was in a funk. I had found myself in visa limbo after living in Germany for many years, newly laid off, and facing a big decade birthday. I kept telling myself it would all work out, but the anxiety was eating me alive and an impending birthday demanding to be dealt with […] The post Weekend in Hamburg first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more

The World’s Oldest Known Representation of the Night Sky I’m not exactly sure when I first became aware of the Nebra Sky Disc, but I do recall being reminded of its existence in late 2021 when the German ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer named his mission to the International Space Station “Cosmic Kiss” and took along […] The post The Nebra Sky Disc: An Introduction first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more

It feels like every year at about this time I hear rumbles of dissatisfaction with Berlin. Sometimes they are coming directly from me, but this year I’ve noticed more online posts than usual complaining about the rising costs of the city, the dismal winter weather, and the general gloom that seems to envelope the city […] The post The “New” City of Dresden first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more

How a Stuttgart Publisher and US President Eisenhower Saved the Advent Calendar The Advent calendar tradition is a relatively recent Christmas custom, far more recent than the Christmas tree. Although homemade calendars date from around 1850, the first printed calendars were sold in 1902. With time, many German publishers designed and printed Advent calendars in […] The post How the German Advent Calendar Emerged from the Ashes of War and Conquered America first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more

No, The World Is Not Flat! Bad news for flat-earth believers: Ancient Greek astronomers proved that the earth was a sphere – which later gave us the Latin (and German) word globus. Although references to globes representing the planet earth date from about 150 BCE, no terrestrial globes from ancient times are known to have […] The post How Germans Helped Shape the World: Historic Globes first appeared on The German Way & More ..read more