Both my father and Herman had fond memories of their hometown, Meiningen, located in the southern part of the state of Thuringia, Germany, and just over the border into what was, from 1945 until 1990, East Germany. I was able to travel there in the Spring of 1991 with my elderly parents and one of my sisters. The thing that made the biggest impression on me was the deserted border crossing about 15 miles before we arrived in town. The stark gate and concrete barriers scarred the gently rolling green hills and reminded us why this was my father’s first trip home since he left in 1934.
The town itself, so recently freed from Communism (it had only been 7 months since the dissolution of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, a satellite state of the USSR) looked as if it had been sleeping for the last 40 years. Located in a pleasant valley with the small Werra River flowing through it, the city had retained its charm. On a wooded hill overlooking the town, the fairy-tale towers of the Schloss Landsberg stood tall and offered rooms for the few tourists coming into an area that had been closed for four decades. There were the spires of the Gothic Stadtkirche to one side of the big open market square and the white walls of the Schloss Elisabethenburg that was once the palace of the resident Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen. Several beautiful half-timbered structures, including the Büchnersches Hinterhaus, now an art museum, gave evidence of the town’s prosperity during the Middle ages. On Bernhardstrasse, we saw the elegant and romantic Sachsischer Hof Hotel, built in 1798 as a first class guest house to accommodate travelers that included Johann Strauss, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, and Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, who came to see or perform at the town’s famous theater.
Most of all, Meiningen was a theater town. This tradition was established by Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, who was a patron of theater and music. In 1866, he developed the first theater troop of the city, which performed in his court theater, toured extensively between 1874 and 1890, and then found a home in the magnificent classical theater built on Bernhardstrasse in 1909. Duke Georg II is sometimes considered the first modern theater director. The Meininger Theater, just down the street from Herman’s childhood home, was very convenient for his father, Hugo, who followed theater intensely and had many actor friends.
With the magic of Google Maps, you can get a “satellite view” of Meiningen today. Unfortunately, there are still no walk-around, pedestrian views of the city, which means, I guess, that the Google self-driving cars have not been there yet. But you can put in the address below for the Lang family home until 1936 and get a bird’s eye view of it and its surroundings.
#16 Bernhardstrasse, Meiningen, Germany
If you want to follow the path that Herman took on the day he sped home on his motorcycle, look up and to the left for Landsbergerstrasse and you can see where it comes into town from Suhl. (If you want to, you can even expand the map and find the town of Suhl.) The Landsbergerstrasse is the main road into Meiningen from Suhl. It passes the brewery (still there), crosses the Werra River on the small bridge that the German army blew up as they retreated before the arrival of Patton’s Third Army, and dead-ends on the Bernhardstrasse.
Herman’s family home at #16 is right on that corner, the roof still impressive. Magnify the view and you can make out the round portion of the roof that topped the family’s favorite tower room, which overlooks Landsbergerstrasse and the river. On the other side, across Bernhardstrasse, the large English Garden park where Herman loved to play remains, an oasis of green, with a lake only steps from their front door. Turn right and go down Bernhardstrasse. Just beyond the lake, the majestic theater is surrounded by parklands.
It really must have been a wonderful place to grow up. When I visited Meiningen with my father in 1991, I listened to him talk about all the places and the associated adventures of his childhood and understood better the rosy memories both he and Herman shared of the city in their youth.
When the Nazis came to Germany, their idyllic days of innocence came to a close. My father was already 18 when he left Meiningen in 1934, so he only read about the bad times to come in the newspapers and in carefully worded letters from his mother. But Herman remained in Germany until 1939. He saw much more, including Kristallnacht. He also witnessed the horror of Dachau only days after its liberation. These experiences made it more difficult for him to return to his hometown after the war, something he was only able to do a few years before his death with his wife and son along for support.
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