Schneeballen in Rothenburg
Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a long name for a little medieval city squeezed into a pork chop shape by a dauntingly massive, traversable stone perimeter wall. With this wall, Rothenburg was able to resist being overtaken for nearly 400 hundred years. The problem with medieval walled cities in the 21st century is that they can’t keep annoying, dumb tourists out. Then again, I don’t think there are many things that can. I was sitting outside a little cafe at lunch eating schnitzel when a guy walks by and says, “Hey! Fish and chips!” in a distinctly American accent.
The good thing about tourists is they inspire various locals to invent imaginative ways of making money off them, as is the case with a guy who calls himself the “Night Watchman” and gives English-speaking tours of the town. I went on one such tour, thinking it would be stuff I already knew about medieval Europe (and some of it was), such as how people used to dump their bed pans out the window and various animals would crap all over town and how overall, the quaint little cobblestone streets of a town in the 1600s were a pretty nasty place to hang out with or without a latte. There was some of that, but interestingly, I also discovered that the peaked roofs of all the houses in town were actually hiding attic storage rooms where everyone was required to store extra food, particularly grain and in the case of rich people, salt. In fact, because the quickest way to get a walled town to surrender was to starve it out, storing food was mandatory and the well-to-do were obligated to share their salt with the poorer residents. Salt was such a precious commodity that at the time it could even be used as currency, and during a lockdown when the town was defending itself against an outside enemy, salt was more precious than any gold, silver, or other inedible and particularly unsavory piece of metal. Salt as legal tender has actually maintained its significance over the centuries, as its the root of a very familiar modern word - that’s right, “salary.” Hey, I didn’t know this, although a few people on the tour did.
As a defensive machine, Rothenburg was pretty effective at keeping intruders out. The town had a curfew since the darkness of night is when enemies usually chose to attack, and when the bell rang everyone working out in the fields knew that it was time to go home. Anyone coming back late would still be allowed in, but only through a very small one man sized door, and after paying a hefty fine for having to be let in the hobbit door. Both of these doors are original, built in the 1500s:
What I forgot to ask is how they knew who was actually living in the town. Was there some kind of town ID card, or was the town really so small that the guy opening the door and collecting the dues knew everyone in town? In any case, whatever defenses the town had in place worked up until 1631, when a weather-beaten, starving and freezing army led by Count Tilly, that wasn’t even originally interested in Rothenburg, decided to take over the town to get out of the rain (this is why I always tell you people to bring umbrellas, because storming towns is a big pain in the ass). The town admirably held the army off, and had even managed to kill 300 of them while losing no one, until of course they started to run out of gunpowder. The fellow whose only job it was to guard the gunpowder tower then went up to check on the supplies and, finding it excessively dark inside the storage room, decided to light a torch to find his way. Where it was once very dark, it was now very, very bright. The town was subsequently forced to surrender, even though it had lost only two of its citizens - the gunpowder tower guard and another guy who was standing too close.
Rothenburg suffered another ignominy in 1945 when a losing Nazi army fled to the town to hide and fight. Allied American forces bombed Rothenburg, destroying 40% of the city, including much of the historic wall. The Nazis, following orders from their dear Führer, refused to give up the city. That’s when U.S. Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy ordered a General by the name of Jacob L. Devers to send in tanks and destroy what was left of the city from the ground. This is where the story becomes more than a tad miraculous. Before McCloy was born, his mother had visited Rothenburg as a tourist. She loved the town so much that she purchased an illustration of it and hung it in her New York City home where little Johnnie later grew up looking at it in the staircase hallway. Suddenly connecting this town portrait hanging on the wall of his childhood home with the city he had just given instructions to destroy, McCloy realized he was now in an extremely crappy situation - let the Nazis have the city or listen to his mother bitch for the rest of his life about how he blew up her beloved city. Knowing darn well which was worse, McCloy told Devers to drive up to the gates of Rothenburg and ask the German military commander Major Thömmes to negotiate. With Adolf out of town (getting a latte?) and Thömmes recognizing that the war was over for Germany, he surrendered the city on Devers’ promise not to destroy it. And that’s how Rothenburg survived, McCloy was happy, McCloy’s mom was happy, and every tourist sitting on the wall eating Schneeballen today is happy.
And now about that Schneeballen. Schneeballen is supposedly Rothenburg’s claim to fame. Really though, I think that surviving WWII is a great claim to fame, but that’s not as much of a tourist draw as sugar, I suppose. Schneeballen is a sweet that starts its life as a long, doughy noodle before being compressed into a sphere that looks something like a giant rubber band ball but larger than a tennis ball. It’s then deep-fried in special Schneeballen tongs and traditionally dusted with powdered sugar, hence the name “snow balls.”
Of course, five minutes after it was invented, it was then discovered that you weren’t restricted to just putting powdered sugar on Schneeballen, and now there is chocolate Schneeballen, maple Schneeballen, amaretto Schneeballen, etc. In terms of texture, it has the density of a shortbread cookie but is slightly less crumbly, and is pretty awkward to eat since it’s too big to bite into with no extruding surfaces and too hard to poke with a fork. Since it’s round, it also won’t stay on any plate so you’re stuck holding it in your palm. Practicality and ergonomics was certainly not at the forefront of the creator’s mind when Schneeballen was born. I’d say there’s no way to eat it without it getting all over you, sort of like powdered sugar funnel cake. It seems that people either like or dislike Schneeballen, because it never seems to be what you expect when you first bite into it. I think it’s all right, which I guess puts me in the “like” category, although after the chocolately mess that was my face and hands after eating one, I’m starting to get a little put off.
Rothenburg’s set up some other displays for tourists, like the Medieval Criminal History museum and the Toy and Puppet museum. (You can guess which one I found more disturbing.) The Criminal History museum is one of those standard medieval torture device shock displays, although more authentic and complete than any of the ones I’ve seen at contrived experiences like Medieval Times. Now, I’ve seen the spiky chair and the thumbscrews and the rack, but I had no idea that killing someone by running over their limbs a thousand times with a wagon wheel with a dull piece of metal embedded in it was a legitimate method of execution back then. That legal system - always so innovative! The best piece of equipment by far was the inspired creation shown below, a binding public display tool for humiliating bad musicians. If only we could still use this today, I know some subway artists, MTV rap stars, and previous neighbors who could spend some time in this thing.
The toy and puppet museum was about half scary (see case in point, below)
and half cool:
The weird part was the explanation in the English language version of the self tour guide that said the museum almost went out of business until they opened a gift shop, which meant that this was clearly what “everyone wanted.” Of course this begs the question, why not just have a gift shop without the museum? Maybe it’s marketing, like the monkey is to the organ grinder. I actually saw an organ grinder in Berlin with a stuffed toy monkey sitting on his street organ, and I have to say it just wasn’t as compelling.
One of the highlights of Rothenburg is the reconstructed town wall. Typically I don’t like it when old stuff has been rebuilt to mimic the grandeur of what once was, but they seem to have done an excellent job with all the donations after the town (and the country) went broke and started asking for help from elsewhere. You can now walk the wall just like the actual night watchmen would have done, scanning for enemies and for what everyone in southern California is still afraid of to this day - fire.
It was even on this wall that I thought I lost my Lonely Planet book for the second time yet, and spent an hour cruising the town’s ramparts wondering where I might have left the book. Assuming it was during one of my narcissistic tripod moments, I checked every peephole ledge and archer’s turret but couldn’t find it. It wasn’t until I went back to the hotel I had just checked out of and the woman in the green apron with embroidered flowers came running out to hand it to me. It’s pretty much only in Germany and Switzerland that you can lose something and get it back by brute force or the helpfulness of strangers. Even if I can’t get back the intangibles of life through a German good samaritan, I can at least get my book back so I can find my way to the train back home, which contributes an awful lot to that most volatile of intangibles - happiness.
The whole Rothenburg ob der Tauber gallery is here.
