File:Romantic Germany (1910) (14781662541).jpg

Identifier: romanticgermany00scha (find matches)
Title: Romantic Germany
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Schauffler, Robert Haven, 1879-1964
Subjects: Cities and towns -- Germany Germany -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : The Century Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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eenth century Potsdam was men-tioned in a mortgage as a Stedeken, or little city,and obliged to send as its military contingent to theleague of cities enen Wegener und enen Schiitt—one mailed halberdier and one crossbowman. The Hohenzollerns came to the Mark of Brand-enburg in 1416. But they were a busy race andpaid small attention to Potsdam, which they mort-gaged over and over again to princes, abbots,knights, and other financiers of those days. From these early rulers and the Thirty YearsWar Potsdam suffered many things, and gained,importance only with the rise of its mighty neighborBerlin. Then it became the royal playground. The Town Castle was begun by the Great Elector,and finished by Frederick the Great, in a pleasantclassical style in the midst of a wicked and perversegeneration of architecture. Its noble colonnade isthe first thing to greet the traveler coming from thestation, and the mellow orange tint of its walls isgrateful after the colorless facades of Berlin. In- 106
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POTSDAM deed, this color contrast between the cities is sym-bolic; for one is the office of the HohenzoUerns, theother their garden. The castle stands for the two men who have donemost for Potsdam: Frederick William I, who caredfor its utility, and his great son, who developed itsbeauty. The rooms of the Spartan king have beenleft as bare and forbidding as even his taste couldhave desired. Above his death-bed are two atro-cious pictures painted by him while he had the gout(In tormentis innooit F. W.), one of which por-trays a nude female with two left feet. And hereare a chair and a clock which he constructed underthe same grim conditions of torment. Memoriesof the notorious Tobacco Parliament still hang aboutthe castle. This function was at once an informalcouncil of state and a royal rough-house. It isnot definitely known in which room it was held, forFrederick the Great loathed smoke and obliteratedall traces of the odious custom; but one cannotwander through the west wing without

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