Heidelberg is the epitome of...

Heidelberg is the epitome of university towns. It is the oldest university in Germany and lies next to the Neckar with green wooded hills on both sides of the town. There is a beautiful walking path called the Philosophen Weg, a tremendously long pedestrian zone, old churches, some very ancient student pubs, many bookstores, and thousands of tourists even in the cold Spring. Most of the tourists stay clumped in groups, all led by guides through the old town.

Hegel taught here. Holderlin also taught and lived here, as well as wrote love poems to the city. The city is associated with the German Romantics, especially the Schloss or chateau which was built at different times and some of which has laid in ruins for centuries.

One striking thing that I saw in several guidebooks which had chronologies in them was the conspicuous gap between 1933 and 1945. At 1945 they state something like "courageous citizens turned over the town unscathed to American soldiers. No mention is made of the intervening years, nor is their talk of the old bridges being blown up by the Nazis several days before the wars end to slow the allied advance.

There were only three public references to the WW II years which we saw on display. A plaque by the old bridge spoke of the above. There was also a plaque by an old house which said how many Jews a Catholic priest had helped save. And one plaque in the Anthropology Museum that stated that one of the founders, born in Prague, Jewish, killed herself at the age of 79 in 1942 because she was being followed by the SS.