Germany won’t name a fast train after Beethoven
mainDeutsche Bahn has been wondering what names to give its new generation of ICE trains.
So it asked the German public for suggestions, having reserved a slot for Ludwig van Beethoven on his 250th anniversary in 2020. Martin Luther has already got the first ICE train named after him.
The public submitted the following celebrity names: Konrad Adenauer, Hannah Arendt, Bertha Benz, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Willy Brandt, Vicco von Bülow, Marlene Dietrich, Hedwig Dohm, Albert Einstein, Ludwig Erhard, Anne Frank, Heinrich Heine, Alexander von Humboldt, Marie Juchacz, Erich Kaestner, Hildegard Knef, Käthe Kollwitz, Adolph Kolping, Thomas Mann, Karl Marx, Scholl, Margarete Steiff, Elisabeth of Thuringia and Fritz Walter.
But the railway has now changed its mind. nne Frank, it puffed, might awaken painful memories, and Karl Marx is a bit, er, controversial.
So all future trains will be named after lakes and mountains and Beethoven won’t get his name on an engine.
Luther, however, gets to keep his train.
“Celebrity names”?
Most of these have achieved something, which puts them above celebrity.
How about: Vivaldi’s “Mannheim Rocket”?
Brilliant. And those ICE trains are fabulous!! The suspension on them means they virtually float when going over 300kph.
Just name the train Muhammad. Germany is certainly on a fast track in that direction.
Or how about “Onyetenyevwe Ugwemubwem” to ensure that the Subsaharan “protection seekers” also get their representation.
Hello you two Ku-Klux-Klan fellows. How’s it going with your brains lost in the distant past?
They’re both right on the money. You are the person trapped in ideology and your comments were a projection.
They travelled in a high-speed train too many times and looked out of the window.
So, a marking of the bicentenary of Marx’s birth is a bad thing, but naming a train after Luther elicits no criticism from Slipped Disc. To be clear, I personally object to neither, but there seems to be some inconsistency here. If Marx is to be blamed for the later atrocities committed in the name of communism, surely Luther must be blamed for subsequent religious persecutions and wars, for the development of German antisemitism right down to the Holocaust, and for the atrocities perpetrated in the name of Protestant Christianity, e.g. the British Empire (since without Luther there would be no Anglicanism in the form that it took on in the 16th and 17th centuries). That is if we are going to be consistent.
Go participate in a non-Christian culture then semewhere else. Please make certain not to employ the Internet, that product of evil Christian, white patriarchal, running dog capitalist, toxic male colonialist civilization.
You paint with a broad brush since some advances in your so-called christian culture were made by non-christians. Some of the USA’s writers of its Constitution were non-believers. So maybe you should go participate elsewhere.
He probably means they were FACILITATED by the christian culture which gave rise to the Enlightenment, then the industrial revolution. Sure, these may not have come from adherence to biblical tenets – many were not – but they were ENABLED by an increasingly sophisticated civilization built around values and ideas which sprang from christianity. But you already knew that…
Well actually I’m a Catholic, so I’m not sure why you recommend I “participate in a non-Christian culture”. And, yes, I am well aware that the sort of people who say things like “Rhodes must fall” and “Britain: the world’s worst mass murderer” will also be swift to damn the entire history of the Catholic Church because of the crusades, the Inquisition, child abuse scandals, etc. I think the truth is that you are so quick to perceive disagreement with others that you probably didn’t bother to read my comment correctly. I don’t have a problem with commemorating Luther. But then I don’t have a problem with the Mongolians naming their principal airport after Genghis Khan. All I was saying was that it’s a bit inconsistent to condemn any commemoration of Karl Marx if one’s happy to commemorate Martin Luther, whose legacy is similarly problematic.
As for your hobbyhorse about Christian culture, yes, Christianity has been closely involved in many important achievements of human civilisation, but it’s far from the only religion about which one can say this. You appear from your previous comment to have a particular problem with Islam, and yet Islam bequeaths to the world an important legacy in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, pharmacology, science, navigation, cartography, trade, art, and architecture.
“Go participate in a non-Christian culture then semewhere else…”
What?! A fair percentage of the world’s Christians share with the OP a negative view of Luther and a belief that his actions caused unnecessary strife. Remember that Protestantism of Luther’s stripe is just only of several currents within Christianity.
it sounds like you might need therapy – or maybe an exorcist. you can make sure he/she is sufficiently Christian.
Insults aren’t argument. You are obviously bereft.
Well, for sure, Luther wrote some pretty horrendous stuff against Jews, and his Church has only just begun to somehow come to terms with that. Still, no-one needs to feel ashamed these days to call themselves Lutheran, much less Protestant. Whereas even so much as expressing a faint interest in Marx’ writings makes one, in the eyes of some, instantly an apologist of Stalin, Mao and the other guy. Now I’m not an expert on what Marx wrote but I do believe it contains nothing of the “whoever does not agree with me should die” or “Eskimos are Untermenschen” genre.
For those who despise Luther I’ve only got three words to say:
Johann Sebastian Bach
But at one particular quarrel with his wife, Marx called her father an eskimo.
« Fidelio » could have been a good name ! or « Ludwig Bullet Van » ?
How about « Pastorail » ? Or « Für El-ICE » ? « Hammerkel Klavier » …
« The Archeduc », « Road to Joy »
ENJOY THE RIDE
I think Fidelio is very good. It’s short, easy to pronounce and remember. But one problem that Fidelio is a story of patience and it may not be an image of a fast train…
Zuggi von Zuggesicht doesn’t have the same ring does it?
Don’t think DB has anything against naming trains after composers. A couple of weeks ago I was on the EC Carl Maria Von Weber from Prague to Dresden (where Weber is buried). This train goes daily from Prague to Berlin.
@ 50 minutes here. Briefly.
@ 50 minutes here. Briefly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5iaERTETvE