Feature photo: Heilbronn 1945, US Army photo, retouched
In Heilbronn, December 4th has been a very special day since 1944, which some still take as an opportunity to go to the honorary cemetery again. Today this day even coincides with the 2nd Advent and so the beginning of the day would have been quite well combined with a church visit. In Ulm I would have had a bad conscience if I had stayed away from the service; but as it is, our pastors are making sure that I don't have one, at least today.
Thanks to the Stadtarchiv Heilbronn there is one Chronicle of the destruction of Heilbronn on December 4, 1944, which summarizes these tragic events quite well.
But it wasn't because of the weather that I saved myself a trip to the cemetery, but because the first Sunday in December is almost traditionally scheduled for printing out, folding and enveloping membership letters. Since my school days I have regularly spent a few days a year with this activity, which has meanwhile become contemplative for me. In the beginning, creating the letters with carbon paper and later with a stencil printer was still a small challenge. In the meantime — even since the mid-1980s — this can be done very easily with computers and printers. What remains is the folding, enveloping and sorting of letters. Thanks to Herbert Steudel I have been spared the franking for a few years, although even today I automatically get a taste of glue in my mouth when I put them in envelopes.
And so today I got myself a couple of long-playing records from Wilhelm Furtwangler ready, but then put them aside again in favor of my little music server, because the record change was not compatible with my folding and enveloping routine. Even if Detlef Stern recently remarked that there is a difference between listening to good music from the record and from the can, in my case it's really just a matter of feeling.
So today my hours just flew by and I was surprised by the music my server offered today. It depends on which software I use to access it, because it always puts the music together differently for me and these programs differ enormously. A few years ago, my two boys also stored their own favorite music on the server and so there can be very interesting combinations. In any case, I always find that transferring music CDs to a server has been worthwhile for me, because I don't need Spotify, Apple or Amazon to listen to good music.
