SAAR Free Museum Day for the Month

First thing first, this is the main reason I wake up every morning:

This machine is more advanced than most smart phones.

SAAR HISTORY MUSEUM

For the past two weeks I've been going to the HTW for an intensive German course with other international students (Erasmus students).  Last Thursday, we all went to a museum on the history of Saarland, in the basements of the Saar Castle.  The castle has existed in one form or another for around 1000 years.  All of the exhibit signs were in German and French, which means I wasn't able to understand everything very well. Also, it's been over a week since I went there- here's what I understood and remember (I think):

The castle has seen several major renovations as it changed hands throughout its long history (Germany, France, Empire, etc.).  In the 1930/1940's it was in a French Chateau style.  Something something something and then they did some excavation... and they found the remains of the old Castle beneath the Chateau.

The entire underworkings of the Chateau were excavated and now part of the Museum.  I got to walk around and this was the only place I could take pictures. 

 At some point, this was a cannon position within the fort.  It is weird to see it, because it currently points at a wall from a more recent time.  Additionally, everything you are seeing is about 20-40 feet below he current day soil line (I guess over a 1000 years they have filled in the castle hill with a lot of dirt).

Within a different part of the basement/catacombs/maze beneath the Chateau is the Saar history musuem (no photos).

Saarland 1900-2000

This part of the museum was really interesting and made me wish my German was better. Perhaps I'll go back at the end of my stay here.

Saarland has switched between France, itself, and Germany something like 8 times in 200 years (5 times since 1900).  The museum's purpose is to tell the story of the Saar from 1900- present day, which includes a lot of history.  Here are the things that caught my attention:

1. Saarland used to be a large manufacturing and industrial capital.  Lots of the steel/iron/coal that two wars required came from Saarland.  This means in both wars it was heavily attacked and defended.

2. From 1920-1935 Saarland was to some degree controlled by France.  In 1935 the people, who were ethnic Germans, voted to return to Germany. At the time it looked like 2 years of Nazi Socialism would be good for the economy.

3. NS reintegrated Saarland. Saarbruecken was the capital.  The city theater (quite beautiful) was build for/because of Hitler (this was some advanced German, but the pictures supporting the text corroborate this clam).

4. NS took over the Schloss as the Gestapo headquarters.  This was actually a very hard part of the museum to walk through- the curators had done a great job to remember the victims of Gestapo ethnic cleansing.  In one of the cells of the Chateau, victims destined for Concentration camps were held.  While stuck in the cells, they scratched their names, birth dates, homes, or current condition into the walls, in the hope someone in the future would see them.  The markings have been preserved, and the museum has found the stories for many of the people whose names they could make out. The stories of each person, their scratched message, and photos of them are built into many o the displays surrounding this portion of the musuem.

5. The rest of WWII was intense as well.  It showed some of the bombings, evacuation of cities, and atrocities of war.

6. The period after WWII of Saar independence included a lot of information about the region rebuilding itself and the manufactured products that made them famous (including tobacco and pop-art).  Another interesting portion was a room full of political posters associated with major Saarland referandums and elections.  "We've seen the fruit of Nationalism once before" was a common theme- the region was very hesitant to support radical political ideas, etc.