Castle Garden - the Little Known Immigration Depot

Castle Garden



Ellis Island


Did your Rhineland ancestors pass through Ellis Island, leaving their homes behind them? Probably not, since the majority of Germans landed in New York during the middle years of the 19th century, a time when there was no "Isle of Tears."

Somehow Ellis Island has usurped all the fame of the immigration story. As many beginning genealogists search for their German roots, they are frustrated to learn that there are no immigration records for their ancestors available in the Ellis Island Immigration Center's database. "Why?" they ask. They have grown up believing every immigrant ship brought its load of passengers into the forbidding fortress where only the lucky ones received permission to continue their journey into the "new country." Ellis Island is as well known as President Abraham Lincoln, but our 19th Century ancestors' immigration center was almost always Castle Garden. And Castle Garden is about as familiar as President Millard Fillmore (our 13th US President).

The scenes I am about to describe are from a very good television series called "Germans in America." You may already have seen it or will find in soon on the schedule of your public television station. The four segments, focusing on the German immigrant experience, were produced in Germany for German television audiences and now has been translated into English. But I found it misleading at one point. See what you think.

Scene 1: Immigrants are shown waiting in long lines at Ellis Island, then being examined and told their fate. Would one family member be rejected and told to return to the home country. Should those family members who had passed the physical test return with their family member or stay in America? Small wonder Ellis Island was often called the "Isle of Tears." Fade to...

Scene 2: The year is 1849. A young man, Karl Steinweg, writes his family in Germany to come and join him. He is already in New York, having fled to the United States after taking part in the revolution of 1848. Fade to...

Scene 3: In the 1860's, another family arrives. The Julius Gumpertz family - father, mother and four children - hope to change their lives for the better in the new world.

The way these scenes are sequenced leaves viewers with the impression that the Steinweg family and the six members of the Gumpertz family sailed into New York harbor, saw the Statue of Liberty, were marched through Ellis Island, and finally declared fit to enter New York City and go on with their lives. It's good drama but nothing like the arrival of either of the two families, because Ellis Island immigration station did not open until 1892 nor was the Statue of Liberty fully assembled until July of 1886.

Before 1855, German immigrants arriving at the Port of New York were hardly noticed in any official kind of way. Once their ship was declared free of disease and the automatic quarantine was lifted, ship passengers and their luggage were loaded on to smaller boats and taken to one of five piers in the city. Here they found themselves on their own. Often the people who spoke the German language were con men who attempted to lure the newcomers to run-down boarding houses or to "help" them purchase tickets for passage to their end destination. These costs were usually two or three times higher than fair prices. Some of the immigrants gave their money to a "helpful countryman" and never saw him or their money again. The 1849 immigrant Steinwegs were completely on their own when they left their ship.

The 1860 Gumpertz family, as well as many of my German ancestors, had a better start. They went to Castle Garden, a receiving station for immigrants. Its purpose was not to limit immigration but to safeguard the new immigrants as well as prevent sickness from being spread to the residents of New York City. There was less drama here than at Ellis Island. Castle Garden, opened on August 3, 1855, was a place of temporary refuge for our immigrant ancestors, concentrating on services to help these new arrivals in a country they hoped to call their new home.

Castle Garden was located at the tip of lower Manhattan in Battery Park, a 23 acre waterfront park at the tip of Manhattan. It was constructed between the years 1807 and 1811 as part of a chain of harbor forts that could defend New York City against a naval attack. It was first known as the West Battery, but was renamed Castle Clinton in 1815 after George Clinton, the first governor of the state of New York. In 1823, the U.S. Army withdrew from the fortress, leaving it to New York City authorities, who in turn permitted private investors to take it over. These investors reopened it several months later as a center for social events and gave it a new name: Castle Garden. Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish soprano, once performed there for an audience of 4,000. But in 1855, the state of New York's Board of Emigration Commissioners decided to use the building for immigration purposes.

There were about 100 people who worked at the Castle Garden Landing Depot. There were inspectors who boarded the incoming ships to see how many passengers were aboard the vessel, and how clean it was. When the ship docked in New York City harbors, other agents transported the immigrants by barge or tugboat to the castle for medical exams. The sick were sent to Ward's Island for medical attention and the rest were brought into the rotunda of Castle Garden. After their names, nationalities, old residences, and destinations were recorded, the immigrants were sent to the baggage delivery. If the immigrant was not staying in the city, he could make arrangements here to forward their trunks or boxes to the final destination.

Back inside Castle Garden, there was a department with personnel who helped write letters in various languages for those immigrants who were illiterate; German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Czech, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, Portuguese, Swiss-German, Russian, and Latin interpreters were available. Thus any immigrant could mail a first letter back to the homeland.

The new arrivals also found a place here where they could safely change their foreign money into American currency, as well as a strictly regulated list of the 76 immigrant boardinghouse keepers allowed representation at the Castle. A restaurant, bread stands, washrooms, even a Western Union Telegraph Company branch were also available on the premises.

Barry Moreno, who works in the reference library at the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York City, says, "Today, Castle Garden swarms with tourists who come to buy ferry tickets for an excursion to the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island. Only a few observe the stone walls that surround them; almost none go inside the modest exhibit gallery at the entrance to the castle. But those who pause within that quiet space will learn a startling fact: they are standing in a citadel that in bygone years was the great threshold to America for millions of migrants, a place where such travelers paused before journeying onward to new homes and livelihoods. Castle Garden is the true golden door to which poetess Emma Lazarus refered in her 1883 sonnet, 'Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me...''

I'm very glad my Rhineland Ancestors found a friendly, helpful country when they reached our shores.


Sources:
Moreno, Barry, "Castle Garden: The Forgotten Gateway," Ancestry Magazine
"Germans in America," Axel Engstfeld Filmproduktion, in collaboration with WDR/Cologne and ARTE, and with the support of North Rhine-Westphalia’s Film Funding Board (Filmstiftung NRW) and the Goethe-Institute

The Army Calls and I Must Go?

The storming of the Frankfurt barricades by Prussian Army


You probably believe, as I once did, that your Kreis Saarburg male ancestor served as a soldier in an imposing and well-trained Prussian army after the outcome of the Napoleonic wars gave the Rhineland to the Prussian Empire. I've heard, over and over in genealogy workshops, that the male population of the Prussian Empire were subject to three years of active military duty beginning at age 21.

When I began to try to put my ancestors into their historical setting, I pictured Johann Meier, my great-great grandfather, donning his Prussian military uniform and marching away from home to serve with other Prussian troops. But that left me with so many questions. Where would he have served? Since he was the right age to have been on active duty during the rebellion of 1848, did he take up arms against friends or family members or was he a rebel himself? What was his uniform like and what weapons were issued to him? Did he get time off to visit his family and the girl he was courting? I began to collect dribs and drabs of information.

In the 19th century, according to an article in Wikipedia, the Prussian infantry generally wore the dark "Prussian blue" of the previous two centuries. The blue color and other features of the historic Prussian Army uniform were generally adopted by the other German States as they fell under Prussian influence before and after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

Picture of 19th century Prussian Uniform


According to Ernst Mettlach (who has researched the Prussian military), from 1814 on (1815 for Trier) every male between 17 and 45 had to serve three full years in the Prussian Army which was known for its harsh drill and discipline. After his time as active soldier, the young man was not free of army duty. He had to join the reserve for 4 or 5 years (depending on whether he served in the army, navy, cavalry or artillery). When reserve duty was finished, a man became a member of the Landwehr or "landwehrpflichtig" for 5 years (2 years for navy, cavalry and artillery). The Landwehr was similar to the National Guard in the U.S. today, and could be called upon to defend the country in time of war. The final service was in the "Landsturm" until a man's 45th birthday. Ernst did not explain this term, and I can't find it in the dictionary; but I assume it would be a very inactive type of duty, only necessary when the enemy was on the road to the Kreis and every soldier, even the oldest, was needed.

An article in the New York Times in 1888 described military training in the Prussian army in this way: "Under ordinary circumstances the German lad steps into the ranks at the age of 20. For three years he serves with the colors, the next four years he is in the reserve, and the following five years he belongs to the Landwehr, another reserve more remote than the first. Of these twelve years the first three are occupied entirely in severe military work. The most stupid peasant, under a system so thorough as Germany's, must be stupid beyond recovery if he does not turn out an alert, obedient and well-trained soldier...His only law is the law of the court martial; his only duty is to obey without question, and the interpreter of his duty is the captain of his company."

Looking beyond generalities
In the 1860s, The Prussian Government began a reorganization of the military. The plan met with resistance from the liberal, middle class Provincial Diet. Friedrich Engels had agreed to write an article on the Prussian military reform for Der Social-Demokrat, but the newspaper's fear of offending the Bismarck Government made him give up his intention. After consulting Karl Marx, he decided to have his work published as a separate pamphlet, which he began writing it late in January 1865, aiming to support the Provincial Diet's objections to the military reorganization plan. However, by 1866 the Provincial Diet was dissolved and the military reorganization plan the Diet had opposed went ahead.

Why am I telling you about this mostly unknown work by one of the founders of the Communist party. Because it would eventually help me to understand that not every able-bodied young man served in the Prussian army. Johann Meier and many of his contemporaries were exempt. In his emigration application file, begun on February 20, 1861, there was a notation of a request from the Royal Government Department of the Interior at Trier asking for further information why "said Meier, 35 years old is of no military obligation". There would be no emigration permission unless the question was answered in eight days.

A letter was sent to the Royal Government Department of the Interior at Trier from Herr Merhman, Royal County Commissioner, Kreis Saarburg of 1 March 1861 confirming that in 1847, when Johann Meier was 21, he was designated "Battery A" (probably the equivalent of the U.S. Army's 4F classification) because of Mindermaaβ and that he had no military obligation. The archivist at the Regional Archive in Koblenz told me that Mindermaß was an archaic word no longer used in the German language. It meant my ancestor was "too little" to serve in the Prussian army.

"Too little to serve in the army?" The archivist who was helping me assured me that Johann Meier was probably not unusually small. He said that the Prussian army was known to look for soldiers who intimidated with their height. Or perhaps he was just too short to fit into the military-issued uniforms - or to handle a saber.

That's when I began to try to interpret the meaning of "mindermaß." Herr Engel's pamphlet provided the answer I was looking for and changed my perspective on Prussian military conscription. Here is one of the arguments Engels made against the Government's plan for reforming the military.

"...now according to the Zeitschrift des preussischen statistischen Bureaus (March 1864) the number of young men registering in 1861 was 227,005... In the 1863, Minister for War, von Roon, presented the following analysis of the 1861 levy to the Military Commission of the (Provincial) Assembly:

Total population (1858 census) 17,758,823
Twenty-year-olds liable for military service class of 1861 217,438
Of these:
1. Untraced 55,770
2. Moved to other districts and required to register for service there 82,216
3. Failed to register without being excused 10,960
4. Enlisted as 3-year volunteers 5,025
5. Entitled to serve as l-year volunteers 14,811
6. Theologians, deferred or exempted 1,638
7. Liable for naval service 299
8. Struck off as morally unfit 596
9. Rejected by the Regional Commission as manifestedly unfit 2,489
10. Rejected by the Regional Commission as permanently unfit 15,238
11. Transferred to the Supplementary Reserve
a) Below 5 foot after three musters 8,998
b) Below 5 foot 1/4 inches after three musters 9,553..."

Engels continued his analysis: "18,551 men were rejected for not being of sufficient stature. Note: not rejected for service altogether but "passed to the reserve". Therefore, in the event of war they should serve after all. They are only excused parade-service in peace-time, being insufficiently imposing for that. It is thus admitted that these short men are quite good enough for service, and it is intended to use them even in emergencies. The fact that these short men can be quite good soldiers is demonstrated by the French army, which includes men down to 4 feet 8 inches. We therefore have no hesitation in counting them in with the military resources of the country. The above figure merely includes those who were finally rejected after three musters as being too short; it is thus a number that recurs each year. We will discount half of them as unfit for other reasons and we are then left with 9,275 little fellows whom a capable officer would no doubt soon knock into splendid soldiers..."

"However the whole way in which recruits are medically examined in Prussia has taken a peculiar turn. There were always more recruits than could be enlisted, and yet no one wanted to abandon the appearance of universal conscription. What could have been more convenient than to select the desired number of the best men and to declare the rest unfit on some pretext or other?"

Did your male ancestors serve in the Prussian military? If they came from the Rhineland, which seems to produce men, who like the French soldiers, were capable little fellows, they probably were able to stay home, court their sweethearts, earn money to buy their farmland, practice their trade, or quite legally immigrate to America.


Sources:
Division of the Interior, Royal Government at Trier; Vol. 12 p. 1-746; Class V, Section 1, Littera C; Koblenz Division 442 Nr. 181
Wikipedia
Engels, Friedrich, The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/02/12.htm

Spring in the Saar Villages

Springtime in the Irsch of today.
Photo from www.irsch-saar.de

The first crocuses in my garden are showing, part of the reason my thoughts turned to the spring season as our ancestors knew it. When you are finishing your taxes, the allure of a spring day out in the open fields has an almost irresistable charm. Was it the same for the Meiers, the Rauls and the Hausers in their villages? What was spring like for them - a season to be longed for or one filled with work harder than most of us can imagine? Both those things, I believe.




Bird's eye view of the spring fields near Irsch. Photo from http://www.irsch-saar.de/

After the snow melted and the weather softened, it was time for planting. In the book, Hennerm Plou, the famous poet of the region, Ernst Thrasolt asks "do you hear the sap in the earth and the trees?' The farmer knew, from the smell of the air and wisdom of his father before him, that the plow should be made ready for the land.

According to the historians at the Roscheider Hof open air museum, the spring planting in the 19th century Saar and Mosel regions was, for the most part, still carried on the same way it had been for centuries.

Manure was spread on the fields before the plowing began. Then the soil was turned over with the plough. Most of the plows, called "Hackpfluge" were still made entirely of wood, fashioned by a cartwright. The farmer guided the plow pulled by a horse, an ox, or sometimes a cow, depending on the status of the farmer. Only the well-to-do farmers had a horse. The small-holdings farmers, the Kleinbauer, might have an ox or use cows both for field work and for milk.


Wooden plow in the collection of the Deutschen Historischen Museums, Berlin


Plowing with the Hackpflug left clods of earth which needed chopping and pulverizing by a harrow, a cultivating implement set with spikes. But on many farms, wife and children performed this labor instead - as well as removing stones turned up by the plow.

Once the land had been tilled, the seed could be sewn. This was done by means of a sewing cloth, which the planter carried on his front, rather like a half-apron. By pulling together the bottom edge of the sewing cloth with one hand and gripping it tightly, the farmer formed a cradle for the seeds. With his free hand, he would broadcast the seeds with a rhythmic motion as he walked the field. Common crops planted included oats, barley, wheat, potatoes, rye, clover and flax. Most farmers who lived near enough to the Saar to take advantage of the river climate also had a few vines for growing grapes.

Some seeds were planted using the horns of a cow or an ox. The tip of the horn was cut off so that the seeds could slowly come through. Different sizes of horns and how much of the tip of the horn was removed allowed for the planting of various sizes of seeds: beets, lettuce, and many other of the garden seeds could be dropped precisely using this method.

After the planting, the field was rolled flat with a heavy oak roller. This served two purposes. It pressed the seeds into the soil, and it would also flatten any remaining clumps of earth. This facilitated the swing of the scythe and made it easier and faster to cut the crops at harvest time



Spring along the Saar from direction of Beurig.

Although the plowing and planting was hard labor, it was not without its pleasures. The poet Ernst Thrasolt, who grew up in Beurig, just across the Saar River from the city of Saarburg, captures the joy of the farmer as the spring season arrives in a poem simply called "Spring."

The land is free!
Now we bring the plow from the shed.
Now it will go back and forth again and again.
Who would let his head hang?
See how clear is the sky!
An hour away the sound of the rushing Saar,
And the clods are so brown...

...behold the sun and the chaffinches and
the starlings and the larks and
the wagtails and the blackbirds and
the thrushes and all the rest.
Children, fetch the plow!

Around the village and in the meadows, the trees in bud would soon bloom. Ernst Mettlach who comes from a village about 10 kilometers from Trier says that in former times most farm fields had Streuobstwiese, literally "stray fruit meadows." In the pastures all over the region stood apple trees and other fruit trees as well. The "stray" trees had very high, knotty tree trunks. A traditional apple tree, says Ernst, looked like a very old man. (The modern orchard trees of today have very short trunks so it is easier to harvest them, but since no light reaches the ground, useful vegetation cannot grow beneath them). The Streuobstwiesen orchards gave space to a lot of animals and plants. These old orchards could be compared to a house where the ground floor was used by the cattle as pasture while the second floor produced fruit and gave space to birds like little owls.

Pear and plum trees blossomed too. One of the most important types of plum trees in the region is the Zwetschge. It is a tree that looks very similiar to the apple tree and very often grew in the Streuobstwiese orchard. When the trees were filled with blossoms in the later part of spring, apple, plum, and pear all together in some orchards, it looked like snow had fallen, for the ground was covered with white petals.

Edeltrud Heiser of Trier who grew up in Irsch remembers the apple orchard there and the spring wildflowers, including the the Maiglöckchen or May bells which we know as lilies of the valley.
Thus amid the hard work of spring, there was also beauty which was there for those who plowed and hoed and planted the land. It was the time of rain storms, rain showers and sun, of the brown, newly tilled soil brimming fresh green shoots and potential. Best of all, there was the long-term hope for the joy of a plentiful fall harvest.




Irsch on a spring evening. www.irsch-saar.de

Straw, Wood, Fire

Zerf Volunteer Fire Department Garage - 2004










During this snowy winter, I resolved to clean up my office. While the effort was only partially successful, I did find a lot of interesting material I had completely forgotten about. One especially valuable find was of some photocopied pages from a book by Edgar Cristofel, "The History of the Landkreises of Trier-Saarburg from the beginning until the present (Die Geschichte des Landkreises Trier-Saarburg von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart 1815-1992). Herr Cristofel's research into the history of the region was extensive, and I will probably quote his work again in the future. This time what drew my attention was the attempt of the Prussian government to try to avoid one of the most feared disasters of the time - fire.

In past posts I have described the typical Trier/Saarburg Einhaus in which the house and barn were brought together under one roof. These dwellings belonged to land-owning farmers of at least moderate means. But not every resident of a village in Kreis Trier or Saarburg had such dwellings, especially not in the period between the fall of Napoleon in 1814 and the mid-point of the century, when poverty was widespread.




Historic reconstruction of a wall at Rosheiderhof Open-Air Museum


In his book Herr Christofel says that in the early part of the 19th century, many of the houses in a rural village were only one story high and rather small. Such villagers were day workers who did not own land. Instead they worked for the landed farmers as field hands. There were also struggling craftsmen like the broom binders and basket weavers. All of these families lived in very small houses with roofs of straw or thatch. Wood beam construction was used and the walls of the houses were constructed from clay, stone, or sometimes a combination of both. Straw or thatched roofs were the rule, except for the roof of the mayor's house and the roof of the church. Slate or tile might be used on the roof of the schoolhouse but not always. Even most of the farm dwellings still had straw roofs.

The wooden beam construction of the houses, the roofs of straw or thatch, and the crops of hay and straw stored under the one roof that served as both house and barn made for a tinderbox environment in all of the villages of the region. In the year 1822 in the little village of Kenn in Kreis Trier there was a fire that destroyed 122 houses, stables, and other out buildings.

When a fires broke out, a householder would seek help from his neighbors to fight the fire. They used the only method they had to put out the blaze. A bucket brigade would be formed; and if the fire was controlled, the embers were raked apart and stamped out. Little by little villages built up a crew that could be called out for a fire.

Fire Prevention Decree of 1837

Aware of the constant threat of fires burning out of control, in 1824 the Prussian Government decreed that any house built after that time could not be roofed with straw or thatch. One can assume that many the emperor's subjects violated this rule because of the poverty of the times.

In June 1837, a new rule was promulgated by the Prussian government. It was called the "General Rule for Halting Fire Danger". It applied to any place in a city or village where houses stood together and had several requirements.

Roofs: A straw- moss- or wood-type roof was not allowed when the house was less than 2,000 Prussian feet from the other buildings in the village. Where houses stood together, any new roof had to be constructed of slate, metal, or clay. Permission or an exception was only made when the property owner lacked the means to be able to replace a straw or wooden shingle roof with a slate- or clay-type shingle.

Permission to cover a roof with straw, wood, or any other flamable material could only be granted by the Landrat, the head administrator in each Prussian district. Anybody who ignored the regulation and reroofed a dwelling with straw without this permission was fined a penalty of 1-5 Prussian Taler. In the case of a new building constructed with a straw roof and without permission, the violator was "punished." Herr Cristofel did not explain what the punishment might be.

Lanterns: Each house had to have a closed lantern, and only with this kind of lantern was one allowed to walk on wooden floors, in the stalls and stables of the barn or any other places where there was a danger of fire. The lantern had to be available for inspection in each household.

Fire-fighting: In each city or large village, a Brandcorps (fire corps) had to be formed. Residents from the community were chosen by vote of the governing council of the city or village and approved by the Burgermeister. Once the Brandcorps was formed, they voted on which of them would be the fire chief. Some community members were not permitted to be part of the fire corps. People over 60, under 15, priests and religious, teachers, sick and infirm, government officials, and doctors were excluded. The fire corps had to meet twice a year under the guidance of the mayor or his representative in order to practice using their firefighting equipment.

When a fire broke out in the community, the inhabitants were made aware by whatever means possible; the ringing of a bell, a village drummer or the cries and alarms of the night watchman.

In spite of the fire laws and regulations, a good many of the houses in the rural villages were still covered by straw roofs until the last 20 years of the century. The volunteer fire companies with fire-fighting equipment also came into being about that time.


Christoffel, Edgar, Die Geschichte des Landkreises Trier-Saarburg von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart 1815-1992. Der Akademischen Buchhandlung Interbook, Trier, c2000

Washday By Hand

Hans Dieter and Margret Jung in the garden of Haus Jung

My curiosity about the way in which women washed and dried clothing in the 19th century - methods, how often, time spent - began when my sister and I rented a ground floor vacation apartment at the Haus Jung in Saarburg in 2002.

In no time at all the Haus Jung had lived up to its claim as the "friendliest Gasthaus in Saarburg." Margret and Hans Dieter Jung treated us like old friends, even though we had never met before, and I spoke German at about the same level as their five-year-old granddaughter. In addition these welcoming landlords had never rented their comfortable vacation apartment to English speakers before. They had taken the chance that all would work out even though they spoke no English.

To my surprise, I learned that Herr Jung had a hobby that fit perfectly into my search for information about the lives of my Saarburg area ancestors. He was a serious and skilled collector of old postcards from the Saarburg region. He showed me a part of his album collection and then suggested that I might also enjoy seeing some of the postcards that he had scanned into his computer.

That afternoon I saw a picture show of the "old" Saarburg; the city as it was in the late 19th and early 20th century, before much of it was changed forever by World War II and by modernization. It was like taking a virtual trip back in history. Herr Jung explained each picture on the computer screen, pointing out the places that today are reconstructions, those that no longer exist and those which still stand much as they always have.



Near the banks of the Saar River and the Leukbach stream on washday

In one of the picture postcards, something lay on the ground, looking a bit like patchy snow. Herr Jung told me that the village women placed the laundry there because the bank was close to the stream that runs through Saarburg and also to the Saar River. I was amazed.

With my limited vocabulary, I couldn't understand his more detailed explanation of the scene. But the postcard picture stayed in my mind. And with the help of three books in my collection, I've acquired a much clearer idea of what washday meant to women of the past - those in Saarburg and in neighboring parts of Germany and France. From a children's book on the customs and traditions of German Lothringen, (now Lorraine, France); from an English language guidebook to the Roscheider Hof museum at Konz; and from a book about the history and customs of Westphalia, near Munster, I came to appreciate my automatic washer and dryer as never before.

"The Big Wash" in Lothringen

There was always in Lothringen, says the author of Landleben im Jahreslauf, a "big wash" in the spring which had to take place before Easter. During the long winter a mountain of "white" wash had collected. On the day of the wash, the kitchen or the bakehouse began to bustle with life.

Water was heated in the big pot which was more normally used to prepare feed for the pigs. The dirty wash had already been put in a large wooden laundry tub and covered with a bedsheet. Ashes, which had been saved from the fireplace all winter long, were sprinkled on the top of that bedsheet.

When the water in the pig-food kettle was hot, it was poured over the ashes by the housewife so that the solution of wood ash (lye) and the water could permeate the layers of wash. The contents of the tub were swished back and forth; then everything was left standing until the next day.

On the second day of the big wash, all of the wet wash was put into a wheelbarrow and taken to a washhouse, usually located in the middle of the village. (I've been told that the washhouse was not common in Germany, but have read that there were, at one time, washhouses and women for hire to do laundry, along the Seine River in Paris).

Whether at the washhouse or near the river, the women, knelt, beating the laundry with washing paddles. In addition, they rubbed it, rinsed it and wrung it out until it was white again. As they worked, the women found time to chat and gossip, the sounds of their voices heard far into the village. With wet skirts, reddened hands and tired arms, the women then made their way home.

When the wash was dry again and had been ironed, the women would put the laundered items back into a peppermint and absinth scented oak chest. The next wash would take place after the summer work was finished and there was once again time for another strenuous washing.

From the Roscheiderhof Museum Guide

The writer of the guide points out that, in order to be a judge of what a woman's job of laundry involved in earlier days, you have to imagine the many stages of the wash days as they were practiced right up until the 1950s. Much time and energy were required, and it took far longer than in modern times, before the laundry once again lay clean in the cupboard. For this reason the white wash was generally only done twice a year. This is the same as the "big wash" in Lothringen.

Why only two times a year? For one reason there was far more important work to do in the summer. Another reason was that the mild days of spring and early summer were used for a "general cleaning". The months between the two laundry days were tided over with supplies from the "laundry cupboard." This explains the large number of bed linens contained in a proper dowry. The colored items were cleaned every four weeks because the laundering process was not so labor intensive and because there were not so many of them.

Women washing clothes on the river bank in Saarburg

there was a stream or river near the village, this made rinsing the laundry much easier. The washerwomen rubbed the laundry and kept brushing it out in the running water. On farms washing with wood ash, rinsing in running waters and bleaching on the fields were still usual well into the 20th century. However village women began to have some form of ringer washer and wash tubs. Village wash was hung out to dry. Right up until the 1950s the white wash was then placed on the mown grass to bleach. This was the process shown on Herr Jung's postcard that had so intrigued me.

Washdays on a Large "Hof" in the Upper Rhine Country




In the Münster region on the upper Rhine, the farms were larger than in the Saarburg or Lothringen areas. Inheritance laws here favored the eldest son; the land traditionally was not divided among all the children as in those regions where Napoleon had declared all children equal heirs to the property of their father.

The book Damals auf dem Lande explains that the wash was done monthly and each time there were days of hard work that took place. On a large farm, there were not only family members, including unmarried relatives and elderly parents, but also a number of serving maids and laborers who lived on the premises. The clothing of everyone who lived on the farm was part of the pile collected for a wash process that went on for days.

The labor was similar to the methods already described. Garments were soaked in wood ash or some other type of lye mixture. A fatty soap was used for the strenuous rubbing of every item, especially parts of garments that were heavily stained. In addition, all the water for the washing had to be gotten from an inside or outside well; then carried to the wash tubs and to the large water-heating kettle which at other times was the container for making slops for the pigs.

Chicken looking for garments to walk on?

The most time-consuming part of washing, as in Lothringen and in the Mosel and Saar areas, involved the white linens. These had to be bleached. After the wash process was completed, the linens were spread in the meadow for a day or more. As the sun dried the linens, it also took out dullness and grayness on the exposed side. Then the linens were turned, and the bleaching process was repeated. Oh the danger! The linens were at risk from tree and plant pollen, the birds overhead, or an unpenned chicken or three. When such disaster happened, tears might easily be shed because the wash had to be done all over again.

The last work of the wash was the rinsing out. Most of the wash was put into a wheelbarrow and taken to the closest stream, a place where one would have flowing water. This rid the clothes of the ash and/or the soap, and it was much easier than doing a rinse at the farmstead, where every bucket of water had to be pumped and carried. On cold days the rinsing in the stream was unpleasant. Icy water hurt the hands, making them stiff, red, and cracked. When it was really cold, women took a container of hot water with them. Periodically they used it to warm their hands. After the rinsing, the wash dried on racks or sometimes also on the ground.

Then came the ironing. Strength and skill were required, especially with the earliest ironing devices. The early Bugeleisen was a monster-sized ironing apparatus. A red-hot iron bolt was placed in a deep hole at the top of the Bugeleisen. This warmed the entire iron. More bolts were kept red-hot in burning coals, ready to be inserted when the current bolt cooled. Another version of the Bugeleisen had a deep cavity, and glowing coals were placed in it. Eventually a smaller and lighter version of the Bugeleisen was used. The Setzeisen (sitting iron) was smaller and lighter. It set on a hot plate to be heated. When the iron was hot, a handle was clamped to it. While the woman ironed, a second Setzeisen was warming on the hot plate.


Many thanks to Herr Jung of Saarburg for introducing me to the history of washday/s and for his generous willingness to search his postcard collection and scan all the postcards showing the many styles of drying and bleaching laundry in his home city for this blog post. Here are a few more.

Laundry day in color

Laundry on washstands on the Saar River Banks

..Will the wash dry soon..

Big wash - big picture of Saarburg

Silvester in Germany

In the villages around the Mosel and Saar, the period of time between mid-November and Three Kings' Day was filled with customs and celebrations. Many of these disappeared as the immigrants from Irsch, Serrig, and Zerf and the rest of the region immigrated to America. In my part of Wisconsin, remnants of the customs of St. Nicholas Day and Christmas were preserved. Most others disappeared completely. Such was the case with New Year's Eve and New Year's day and so I thought I would try to research a typical Rhineland Silvester, the German term for the coming of the new year.

Why do the German’s call the New Year's celebration Silvester? Because December 31 is the feast of St. Sylvester, a pope of the 4th century. Legend says that Pope Sylvester cured Roman emperor Constantine I of leprosy (after converting him to Christianity).

The traditional German New Year's wish seems to me to be so much more descriptive than our "Happy New Year." My German relatives wish me "Einen guten Rutsch ins Neujahr." Who wouldn't want "a good slide into the new year!" as one year fades into another. Some linguists think this traditional German New Year's wish has nothing to do with "sliding" (rutschen) into the new year—despite the fact that most German speakers understand it that way. The expression may come from the Hebrew word "rosh," meaning "head" or "beginning"—thus "a good beginning"—as in "Rosh Hashanah," the Jewish New Year.

Pea soup was a traditional new year's dish in many parts of Germany because it was thought to bring prosperity in the new year. Fish and fish soup were also believed to auger abundance in the coming year. The eating of these foods along with regional baked specialties usually preceded the Jahresabschlussmesse, the special mass that marked the close of the old year. The pastor would take the opportunity to advise his listeners to reflect on the past year and to remember the principles that would lead to eternal life.

In some places, the villagers would gather in the church yard as midnight approached. They would make noise with brass instruments, sing, ring the bells, shout, blow on horns - a noisy greeting to the brand new year that probably goes back to the old pre-Christian custom of scaring away the evil spirits so that they did not enter the new year. The web site of the Cologne Archdiocese calls it "Trommeln und Rummeln", a phrase that said aloud sounds exactly like its meaning.




Special types of baking to bring luck were part of the new year celebration. There were the “Neujahrskringel, -kranz, -zopf, -brezel, -striezel or (in the Rheinland) Neujährchen. As a rule the ingredients were wheat flour with the addition of grains like millet or even poppy seeds. There was a special form for the bakery. A cross symbolized not only eternity but also protection against evil demons. A braid was a metaphor of eternity. Neujährchen of the Rhineland was most often given the shape of a four-leaf clover, again a symbol of eternity.

On New Year's day, hangovers and heartburn could be cured by leftover gingerbread soaked in brandy and lit on fire before being consumed. It was important to eat this on an empty stomach. A book in 1864 told of the custom of eating lucky foods on Silvester. Nettle cake, carrots and beer were supposed to bring money and health. Apples on the other hand would cause tumors. Illnesses of the skin could be prevented by eating a dish of peas.

It was important that good wishes for the new year be extended far and wide. When appropriate, a small gift was given in addition. In the Rheinland the „Neujährchen” was a gift to housemaids, day laborers and other workers, sometime along with a few coins, for their services during the year.



There was a belief that one could bring good luck to the new year with certain symbols. Such is the case with figures of lucky pigs, horseshoes, four-leaf clovers, and chimney sweeps. The fly agaric mushroom that has a red cap with white spots was also understood to be lucky. A lottery winner in Germany is called "a lucky mushroom."

At the beginning moments of the new year, Germans give the toast "prosit." This toast, from the Latin, has been in use since the beginning of the 18th century. It meant to "do good," when it was "Germanized" by university student vernacular. Today it is the equivalent of "cheers".

Fireworks date back to very ancient times. In the old days people used a plant powder called "witch thunder" or "lighting powder" to produce a primitive form of fireworks. It was used to drive out demons, and its lights and noise could keep bad weather away from the house and hof. The use of fireworks goes back to the stone age. Certain plants exploded when they were exposed to fire, producing bright colors and a loud noise. These non-flowering plants have a thick yellow fluid spore powder. A part of the powder is blown into the flame, and there is rapid combustion without smoke. When the early fireworks-like substances were used to achieve good luck and the warding off of evil spirits, there was the danger of fire. A farmer would have four mounds of loose ground ready, at the four directions in which a spark might blow.

In the Westphalian area of Germany, the young people of the villages would spend New Year's eve going from house to house singing and receive small gifts. The people also believed that on New Year's Eve, nothing in the house should be moved or changed, not a piece of furniture, picture - even the things within trunks and cabinets should not be moved to a new place because that was unlucky.

On New Year's morning, the first person to give a New Year's greeting would get a small reward like an apple, nut, candy or even a special little cake made for the day called an Eiserkuchen. The children on that morning would write a letter or card to their parents or godparents.

One of my favorite finds is the old saying about Silvester. Whoever is last to finish his meal on New Year's Day will be too late to enter heaven. Now I understand why most of my friends and relatives who have a Germanic background, including me, eat so fast. It's caused by that genetic memory!

Rätsch, Christian and Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Weihnachtsbaum und Blütenwunder. (English title is Pagan Christmas: the Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of the Yuletide) 2006
Hermine von Hagen, Damals auf dem Lande, 1985
http://german.about.com/library/blsilvvoc.htm
http://www.religioeses-brauchtum.de/fruehjahr/zwischen_den_jahren.html

Christmas in the Kitchen

Savoring the aroma of Christmas baking and the Christmas dinner roasting - it is a part of Christmas for most of us. So it was for our ancestors in the Rheinland.

Plätzchen and other Weihnachtsgebäck

The "Adventskalender Lufthansa", published in 1986, was a Christmas gift from my aunt who loved the idea of German ancestor searching as much as I do. There is one glorious picture of Christmas cookies or candy for each day of December. On the reverse side of the picture, there are two recipes, one in German and one in English, for making traditional Christmas delicacies from many parts of Germany.

The introduction reads: "Everywhere in Germany, home baking is as much a part of the Christmas festival as are the brightly decorated Christmas tree and Father Christmas with his gifts for the children. Christmas baking reaches its high point when the children receive their gifts on the evening of 24 December. When the Christmas tree is brilliantly illuminated, the presents on the traditional table of gifts will include a colorful 'bunter Teller', a plate overflowing with all the fragrant cookies and cakes that have been baked in the weeks preceding the festive season." As you can see in the picture above, there is a large "24" on the last page of the calendar and a "colorful plate" of mouth-watering Christmas delights.

Whether in 1986 or 1868, Advent is/was the time for Christmas preparation. On an evening when the skies shimmered red in the Hunsrück, the children were told that "they are baking cookies (Plätzchen) in heaven." This baking was not to be done alone. God's children, especially the young ones, must help. Usually it was the grandmother who got the children busy, rolling out dough and shaping the Plätzchen for the oven. The children were happy as they worked because they knew that when the cookies came out of the oven, there would be a chance to sample. But the cookies were soon put in tins because they were to be eaten on Christmas eve and Christmas day.

There were many kinds of cookies baked in the Hunsrück. Most used simple ingredients that a farm family could produce through their own labor. Weihnachtsgebäck was a Christmas sugar cookie, very similar to the kind still made today. The dough was rolled thin and a glass, usually a wine glass, was used to cut out the cookie. It was pierced with a fork or needle to make a decorative pattern, then egg yolk was spread on it so that the cookie would bake golden brown. In a tightly closed can, these cookies would keep for a long time. Another was called a Honigküchlein, a little honey cookie that used sugar, flour, honey, eggs, and egg yolk. The flavor could be varied by using cinnamon or clove or ginger. By the end of November, the baking of Lebkuchen had begun. Nussküchlein or little nut cookies used butter, sugar, egg, hazelnuts, cinnamon, and flour. After the dough was mixed, it was cooled so that it could be shaped like very little Brotchen (rolls), spread with egg yolk and baked on a well-oiled pan.

In early times, the Christmas tree was decorated with the baked sugar cookies and with apples, nuts or straw handmade ornaments. In the Hunsrück, as well as many other parts of Germany, it was thought that on the holy eve of Christmas the animals in their stalls could talk with each other. It was a custom for farmers in the Hunsrück to put hay, rye, wheat, oats, barley, bread and water in front of the house door. They believed that if the water and fodder was given to the animals on Christmas morning, and if the bread was eaten dry by the farm family, sickness would be kept away for the rest of the year.





Christmas Day Goose

The traditional Christmas dinner for the Hunsrück farm family was a stuffed goose raised on the farm. The stuffing for the goose was made with butter, eggs, onion, wormwood, nutmeg, as well as the heart, liver, and stomach of the goose, apples and potatoes or shelled boiled chestnuts. After all the ingredients were chopped and mixed, the goose had to be washed. The feathers and fine little hairs were singed off. It was salted well inside and out and the filling was put in a hole in the stomach. When this hole was sewed shut with strong string, the goose was placed in a big iron pan. First it was laid on its breast for an hour of roasting and then the fat was drained and the goose was turned and roasted for another half hour. It was basted with water or beer a few minutes before the goose was removed from the oven to give it a good crust. A sauce or gravy, thickened with flour, was made from the drippings (the beer gave added extra color).

The kitchen was the heart of the 19th century home at most times, but especially during Advent and on Christmas Day.

Ratsch, Christian, Weihnachtsbaum und Blutenwunder, 2003
Adventkalender Lufthansa, 1986
Schabel-Becker, Christiane, Das Schinderhannes Kochbuch, self published,1985

Living in the Einhaus

Stube at Roscheiderhof Museum

Drinking Federweißer and eating Zwiebelkuchen (last post) is not much fun if you are outside on a cold and rainy day. As autumn days get shorter and colder, one thinks about shelter, a warm fire, and home. November is a good time to come inside of the typical Quereinhaus of our ancestors.

In past posts, I've described bits and pieces of life inside the 19th century barn house. But I've not tried to organize everything into a unified whole because I knew it would be a difficult task. The floor plan for the family's living space in the typical "barnhouse" of southwestern Germany, Luxembourg, and French Lorraine is, unfortunately, foreign to me. My ancestors adopted American-style farm buildings once they settled in their new country.

My main sources of information for the typical floor plan of the Quereinhaus come from opposite ends of the spectrum - the published papers of a scholarly symposium given by architectural experts versus a children's book about farm life in French Lorraine or "Lothringen" as is was once called. In spite of the difference in intended audiences, these two sources are in remarkable agreement (I confess that the children's book is much easier to read.) After studying both of those sources, there were still a few things I could not quite grasp. Various German internet sites have helped fill in the gaps in my comprehension as has a museum guide for the Roscheidhof open air museum at Konz. After many hours of puzzling over the architectural drawings and definitions of words that are no longer in new German dictionaries, I still have questions about the rooms inside the Quereinhaus, but I do have a much clearer image of of the family's living space.


Ground Level of the Living Space

Diagram of the ground level of living space - left of drawing

Alkoven - alcove
Kuche - kitchen
Kammer - chamber, small room
Spüle - sink unit/dry sink
Eichener Unterzug - oak beam support
Tenne - thrashing floor
Stall - animal stable
Nachbar - neighbor

As you can see in the diagram above, a long hall separated the living quarters of the house from the barn and stable area. The house was entered from its street door leading to the hallway or, as it is known in the old dialect, the "Ern". This hallway ran from one end of the house to the other; that is, from entry door to the kitchen or Kuche. There was an inside door, usually closed, which was midway along the hall. It opened into the Stube, the family's living area. This is where the family ate, rested, or worked at chores, especially in winter. The Stube almost always had a spinning wheel (some also had a loom), table and chairs where meals were taken, a chest, a bench, a cabinet for dishes, a rocking chair and a cradle. A crucifix hung on the wall. Perhaps there were also one or two pictures of a religious nature purchased from a peddlar or brought back from a pilgrimage church.


The dividing wall between the kitchen and the Stube was the location for an open fireplace. This wall had an opening which enabled heat from the kitchen fire to warm the Stube by means of an iron plate called the Takenplatte. It functioned as a stove because the heat from the kitchen fire would heat the iron plate. The front side of the Takenplatte often was ornamental, embossed with religious figures or symbols. The use of the Takenplatte to heat the Stube was the common arrangement until sometime in the nineteenth century when each room began to have its own heating source.

In order to regulate the heat better, the so-called Takenschrank cabinet was built around the Takenplatte. The doors of the Takenschrank could be opened to allow more heat into the room or closed when the heat was not needed. Because of the warmth, the Takenschrank in front of the Takenplatte was an excellent storage place for food or other objects which might be damaged by moisture. One might find the bread, jam, cheese, and even the homemade brandy in the Takenschrank.

The kitchen was, according to the one of the speakers at the Roscheiderhof symposium, "the kingdom of the wife" where she would cook and bake and get water ready for the washing. The open fireplace in this room was used to smoke ham and bacon as well as for the preparation of the daily meals. From the kitchen a wooden stairs went to the upper floor and a stone steps led down to the cellar. There was cellar space only under the kitchen and the Stube in most houses. This was the storage place for the potatoes, sauerkraut, other root vegetables from the garden and for the milk.
In many houses, a small room that served as the bedroom of the husband and wife and the youngest children was entered from the kitchen and heated by the kitchen's fireplace. When the parents grew old and were ready to give over the running the farm to the next generation, their living arrangements changed. These grandparents were no longer to be the occupants of the marital bedroom. According to one speaker at the Roscheiderhof symposium, a place for them to sleep was often worked into the Stube. Their bed might be placed in a corner and heavily draped in the Turkish style or built into a little alcove with locking double doors. This is the arrangement shown in the diagram above.

Upper Floor of the Living Quarters

Vorräte - storage
Salz - salt
Zucker - sugar
Honig - honey
Regate - shelves
Kruge aus Steingut - earthenware jars
Schranke - wardrobe
Kisten - chest
Truhen - trunk
Leinenvorrate - storage place for linens
Kleider - clothing
Wertsachen - articles of value
Schlafraum Gaste - guest room
Steigenkammer Schlafraum - sleeping room in the open area at the top of the stairs
Ofenstein - heated stone in upper chimney of the kitchen's fire place



The older children, unmarried brothers and sisters, and any household or farm helpers slept on the second floor of the home. As you can see in the diagram above, there is a small "Ofenstein," that is, a "stove stone." I am guessing it served somewhat the same purpose as the Takenplatte, but lacked the decorative styling and had less ability to absorb the heat from the lower level's fireplace and furnish warmth to the upper area of the house. Its placement in the main sleeping room on the second floor would indicate that this was not a "guest room" per se but a room which might be given over to guests who stayed the night with the family.

Much of the space in the upstairs area was devoted to storage rooms as you can see from the diagram. The preservable foods meant to feed the family would be housed here: root vegetables in bins, preserves in jars, honey, salt and flour and sugar. Items made of cloth, such as bed linens and towels, clothes (an early walk-in closet?) as well as any item that were of special value to the family members all had their place in a Vorrate as well.


Loft of the Living Quarters


Getreide - grains
Rauchkammer - small room for smoked meat

When one notes that the space above the ground floor living quarters housed not only the foods and clothing and sleeping space for the family but also the storage rooms for the various grains that would be used to feed the animals, make flour for bread, and seed the fields in the spring, it is easier to grasp the confined space which held families of eight to twelve or more people.

I remind you once again that the material above is a simply drawn picture, based on the architectural plan of one Einhaus and my less-than-perfect translations skills. But the information does help me picture the indoor life of my great-great grandparents as they worked, ate, slept and shared life in the company of their children, elderly parents, relatives and their neighbors and friends.
About one thing I have no doubt. I am sure that they made good use of the Takenschrank and the Branntwein kept in it.

Sources:
Symposium, Alles unter einem Dach, (papers presented in 200o at the Open Air Museum in Roscheiderhof bei Konz and published by the Museum)
Morette, Jean. Landleben im Jahreslauf: Alltägliches aus einem lothringischen Dorf vor siebzig Jahren für alte and junge Leser gezeichnet und erklart von Jean Morette, Saarbrucker Druckerei und Verlag, 1983
Museum Guide: Freilichtmuseum Roscheider Hof Konz, 2001

Tiny Feathers in the Wine!

Typical sign for a traditional treat


As September ends and October begins, it seems the right time to take a break from the history of the barnhouses of the Trier area and appreciate a current-day pleasure. The wine harvest is just about over and all over the Rhineland, the time for Federweißer and Zwiebelkuchen has come.

The first time I saw a sign like the one above, I stopped in puzzlement. My German being far from perfect, I thought my translation must be wrong. Literally it seemed to say "White feathers and onion cake." Walking along the streets of Trier, I saw another such sign and then another and another. Every snack bar, cafe, and restaurant were offering the same combination. I guessed that the white feathers had to do with young wine but an onion cake?

When questioned, my German relatives smiled, offered little explanation, and said, "Yes, we must have it before you leave." So on a trip to Cochem, my sister Marilyn, our relative Edeltrud, and I sat at a table in a small restaurant overlooking the Mosel and ordered Federweißer and Zwiebelkuchen. Marilyn and I were unanimous in our opinion that both were lecker(yummy). Never again would we cringe at the thought of white feathers and chopped onions in a pound cake .

Edeltrud and her daughter Dani had another surprise in store for us. They took us to the Wassermann Winery in Leiwen where we tasted Federweißer directly from a wine barrel where the newly harvested wine was fermenting and aging into an excellent Riesling wine.




Leiwen vineyards on the Mosel

Tasting Federweißer at Wassermann Winery

There is not much doubt in my mind that our Rhineland ancestors enjoyed the feathery new wine of autumn. With such a delicious brew in their wine barrels or stone jugs, why would they wait for it to mature completely? I can find no data about Zwiebelkuchen to tell me whether it is a recipe from earlier centuries or one that has been developed in recent times.

Miscellaneous information from the Internet as well as from friends and relatives:

Federweisser is described in some German wine journals as the "fresh foretaste of autumn." It gets its names from the tiny "feathers" of yeast that float in each glass of this new wine, a wine in its beginning stage. It is as sweet as grape juice, contains alcohol, and still has the yeast in it.






Golden Autumn celebration in Saarburg - with Federweisser







Federweißer, is known as Suser, Sauser or Junger Wein in Southwest Germany, Switzerland and South Tyrol, Sturm in Austria, Neuer Wein in the Palatinate, Bremser in Franconia, and burčák in the Czech Republic.

It is a fermenting grape must. Once yeast has been added, grape must begins to ferment rapidly. The fructose contained in the grapes is broken down into alcohol and carbonic acid (glycolysis). As soon as an alcohol content of four percent has been reached, Federweißer may be sold. It continues to ferment until all the sugar has been broken down and an alcohol content of about ten percent has been reached.

Due to the carbonic acid, Federweißer tastes quite refreshing, not unlike a grape lemonade or a sweet sparkling wine. The yeast particles contained in Federweißer are responsible for its name, which literally means "white as a feather." In general, Federweißer is made from white grapes; red grapes are rarely used.

Due to the rapid fermentation, Federweißer cannot be stored for long and should be consumed within a few days of purchase. As carbonic acid is constantly produced, the bottles cannot be sealed (they would rupture otherwise) and must be stored in an upright position. In the past, the fermentation could not be decelerated by cooling. Thus, transportation over longer distances was impossible, and Federweißer was only available in wine-producing regions such as those along the Mosel and Saar.

Depending on the date of the grape harvest, Federweißer is available from early September to late October. The classic combination is Federweißer and Zwiebelkuchen, although Federweißer and chestnuts is also popular. Because a plentiful amount of sugar is present in the Federweißer, the alcohol content is masked and can quickly slip unnoticed into the bloodstream, making for unexpected inebriation and perhaps a hangover the next morning.



Zwiebelkuchen, which literally means onion cake in the German language, is a one-crust pie made of steamed onions, diced bacon, cream, and caraway seed on a yeast dough. It is particularly popular in the German wine-growing-regions. A similar pie called Flammkuchen is also eaten in Alsace. In the fall, it is traditionally accompanied by some Federweißer. At other times Zwiebelkuchen” will be served with a glass of white wine.

From the German Wine Institute's Internet Site

According to the DWI or Deutschen Wein Institute, the actual start of the wine harvest begins at the end of August or beginning of September. Federweißer, season sends an eagerly awaited message to wine lovers who have been looking forward to the tiny little feathers dancing in the young wine.

The ideal way to drink one the new wines is at the time it is half way from grape juice to wine, so that the sugars, alcohol and fruit acid are in good balance. At this time it exhibits an alcohol content of approximately five percent by volume. (The Federweißer will already show the first characteristics and fruit flavours of the new wine class.) In the further process of the fermentation, the initially seductive sweetness yields gradually to the alcohol and lends an increasingly harsh note.

The "new wine" industry is an important one. At the current time, some two million liters of Federweißer from the Rhineland and Palatinate are sold each year.