The current pandemic has been hard on my Transylvanian correspondent. The reduction in the ability to travel has resulted in her being stuck in Stuttgart. I pointed out that she lived there but apparently that isn't really a sufficient reason to hang around. To help her adjust to life in her home town I have decided to write this blog entry extolling the virtues of Stuttgart or at least to give her documentary evidence when she turns up in Munich as an asylum seeker.
Stuttgart is nestled in the highly fertile Neckar Valley region of Germany. Being in such a rich agricultural area it was natural that Stuttgart became a centre of German car production. Mercedes-Benz and Porsche have their headquarters (and manufacturing plants) in the city. In fact Stuttgart can be considered Germany's Detroit. The principal differences are; Stuttgart still has a vehicle industry, crime rates are low and the population of Stuttgart faces the future without a sense of existential dread.
Stuttgart has a long history of being involved in the transportation industry, the city was founded when when the son of the then Holy Roman Emperor set up a stud farm for his warhorses. Accommodation for humans eventually followed once the stable boys got sick of living knee deep in horse manure. Possibly in self defence vines were planted in every area not covered by warhorses and the people were squeezed in between the two. Development was slow at first as there was already a nearby town that didn't stink of overripe horses. Nevertheless Stuttgart somewhat reluctantly took off as possession of the area migrated from one German noble to another following the vagaries of marriage politics, inheritance politics and sometimes just general politics.
The city really entered onto the world stage ("the world" at this point consisting largely of Europe) a few centuries later under the rule of Count Eberhard the Illustrious of Wurttemberg. Under Eberhard's inspired guidance Stuttgart (and indeed most of Wurttemburg) was razed to the ground by the vengeful forces of the Holy Roman Emperor after Eberhard attempted to expand his territory without permission. After the emperor died Eberhard sneaked back in and managed to patch things back together while everybody else was arguing over the imperial succession. This is how you got an epithet like "the Illustrious" in those days. Basically if you died in your bed you could be considered to have won.
A hundred years later the Counts of Wurttemberg were elevated to the status of Dukes of Wurttemberg as one of the courses at the Diet of Worms. Stuttgart was now the capital of a semi significant region of the empire. The next Duke managed to get himself on the wrong side of marriage politics (he knifed his wife's lover), imperial politics (the emperor was pissed off at the knifing), local politics (he got on the wrong side of the Swabian League, a local self defence group rather like neighbourhood watch with weaponry) and finally a peasant revolt. The traditional invasion and razing of Stuttgart to the ground followed whereupon the Emperor sold the Duchy to somebody else. Our boy eventually managed to get it back at the price of grovelling submissively to the emperor. Towards the end of his reign the Duke embraced Protestantism thus setting the scene for the devastation of Stuttgart in the Thirty Years War.
During the Thirty Years War over 50% of the population of Wurttemberg died but (perhaps with a sense of deja vu) the Duke and the remaining population started patching things together again. Despite a frightening moment during the Nine Years War (invading armies, threats of pillage etc etc, what Stuttgart would call business as usual) this was a period of progress for our city. Stuttgart's first high school was opened and its first bookshop was founded possibly so that the students had something to read.
At the end of the eighteenth century the Holy Roman Empire got into a series of wars with Napoleonic France. Demonstrating the history of loyalty to the crown noted above the Dukes of Wurttemberg cheerfully ratted out their imperial overlord and cuddled up to Napoleon being rewarded with the title of King of Wurttemberg in Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine. Somehow they managed to keep this title of king after both Confederation and Napoleon had been tossed into the dustbin of history and as a royal capital Stuttgart started to take off. In 1846 a railway station was built symbolising Stuttgart's now and happening status.
German unification was just around the corner and Wurrtemberg cheerfully signed up to be a constituent of the German empire. Given their reputation for loyalty I would have advised Bismark and the German Emperor to check the contract for loopholes. Nevertheless it was as part of the empire that the King of Wurrtemberg led his people into World War I. Ever the trend setter Stuttgart was one of the first cities to undergo air raids during that conflict. At the end of the war the people of Stuttgart very politely informed the king that they were sick of the war and the gibbering imbeciles who had been ruling them for the past several centuries and would he kindly pack his bags and piss off. This the king obligingly did (you note nobody thought of calling him "the Illustrious" apparently he didn't get enough of his own territory destroyed).
During the Second World War the Allied air forces placed a compulsory demolition order on much of the city and at the end Stuttgart was in the familiar position of being in ruins. In fact it would appear to have spent more of its history in ruins than it has intact. Now however the people of Stuttgart came into their own. Rebuilding a ruined city and shattered economy was pretty much their major talent by this stage.
Rising proudly from its own ashes Stuttgart became capital of Baden-Wurttemberg the latest name for the area that Stuttgart is the capital of. It was considered as a possible capital for West Germany but the rents were lower in Bonn. Now it is the third largest city in southern Germany and is famous for...
And at that point my narrative comes to a screeching halt. I checked out things to do in Stuttgart and if you're not interested in vehicle production lines (in the name of God, who is?) well you're just going to have to wander down to the Pig Museum. Situated without any sense of irony at all on the grounds of a former abattoir the Pig Museum is dedicated to all things pig. You might think it was an act of contrition for killing so many pigs but there's a restaurant there. Guess what they serve?
Of course Stuttgart has magnificent old buildings, parks, a large zoo and all of the usual accoutrements belonging to a city that has survived, however tenuously, for centuries but I think we can say that once you're tired of the Pig Museum you're tired of Stuttgart.
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