Wonderful Jugendstil chapter headings from the book published in connection with the 1901 exhibition held by an artists’ colony in Darmstadt, Germany.
Tag: Germany
Jewelry by German designer Theodor Fahrner. Living from 1859-1919 , he founded a company that bore his name. Slightly more affordable than Tiffany and Cartier, you didn’t have to mortgage the family schloss to own a piece.
An envisioning . . . 1926 and a dance at the old villa in the Alps that was Aunt Gertrude’s until the government seized it after the revolution came.
Oh to be here
Bavaria in 1926 and a dance at the old villa that was Aunt Gertrude’s until the government seized it after the revolution came. A photograph to pose for to send back to Mother in Paris. Time for a cigarette in the hall and a few drinks in the drawing room before the party begins.
Some gauche people from the villa down the road from Berlin but something to be ignored. Odd. Austrian, someone said, but not Vienna with its cultured edge. No, from somewhere with peasants, Transylvania or wherever it was that it turned into Hungary after the war.
An orchestra all the way from Baden, the one with the lead singer whose father played for Kaiser Wilhelm before it all went up in smoke. Not the same anymore but something left.
Enough for winter in a cut-rate villa that at least has an address in Nice even if it isn’t really. The Lutheran church on February Sundays where Father put piles of money in the plate. Only enough for ten marks now but something. Not like the poor Russian chaps with only one kopek. Bad but not as bad as that.
Better than nothing but not the same. Heirloom tiaras for weddings and a veil to match but the grand house up on the Baltic sold. Only the townhouse left and half of that leased out. But a better day to come and for now another dance and dinner . . . . .tomorrow for rubies and the pawnshop on Monday but still one can dream.
An envisioning . . . .. eight in the evening and a compact out of one’s evening bag in the powder room of the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. A summer’s night in the midst of war.
Oh to be here
Eight in the evening, a stocking seam adjustment and compact to use in the powder room of the Hotel Adlon in Berlin.
The war and all that but the noise and bombs some place else and in someone else’s country.
Dinner, a room upstairs and then home. But what can one do? A chest full of medals and a big suite at the Reichstag. Enough power to protect and that is all that matters.
A husband taken off and a daughter to watch out for. No. Better an affair with one of them. Safe that way. Too much money spent on silk frocks but a need to look glamorous.
Jewelry all right. Aquamarines, rubies from somewhere and emeralds from Vienna. Better not to think too hard on it. Eye candy, that and being a living ornament on an officer’s arm.
Tomorrow not to be thought of. Summer up on the Baltic if they can ever take Leningrad. A watering place otherwise or a stay by the lake. Everyone for a month but for his wife wherever she goes.
But the finest champagne brought back from France and a toast from the other end of the banquet table. The best food anyone can buy in the dining room of the hotel where one’s parents’ wedding reception was. Something. Still the best place.
Hard though. Living a schizoid existence. Glamour queen trying to look like a film star on the outside and scared on the inside with a child half Jewish that they could find if they looked hard enough.
A nice fellow down the hall wanting to share dinner but impossible. Better to be immoral and safe than free to dine and scared. Better than anything . . . .life . . .. freedom . . . . .a better day to come whenever it does . . . .
This is not my story. I heard it from a woman I worked with when I was young about her friend who was a child in Berlin during World War II. The story was that of a beautiful woman whose Jewish husband was taken off to the camps early in the war. The mother had an affair with a high ranking Nazi though all of the war to keep her little girl safe . . . .You know I would have done it too to protect my babies.
