Eating quietly in a restaurant in Erfurt's Fischmarkt, our peace was disturbed by the arrival of 29 assorted Swedes who variously shuffled and stumbled their way into the building. \u00a0They were accompanied by a be-blazered, didactic-type who, once latecomers had been assembled and counted, proceeded to lecture the gathered throng. \u00a0He did this reasonably quietly, so the peace was not much disturbed. \u00a0However, when he'd done, they all stood up and began to sing very loudly. \u00a0It did not sound like a song about how great Germany is; more likely it was relief that they'd finally done with bildung for the day.<\/p>\n
This cannot have been the first time Erfurt's taverns had experienced such a thing. \u00a0The 1930s in particular were a time of singing and matching, particularly by the \u00a0Sturmabteilung (Brownshirts) who sang the\u00a0Horst-Wessel-Lied (Die Fahne hoch) to provoke local communists into attacks; of course, they usually obliged.<\/p>\n
Whilst a mass of elderly, culturally-incentive Swedish tourists are not a National Socialist rabble, and they didn't set out to provoke a riot, they were only really aware of themselves and took no notice of their surroundings. \u00a0It was not a great display of European-togetherness. \u00a0We drank up our wonderful black pilsner and moved on to the much quieter streets.<\/p>\n
But is this sudden bursting into song catching? \u00a0I only ask because we experienced two other outpourings in Dresden. \u00a0One was a (the collective noun escapes me) of Chinese children, all decked out in blue and white, who suddenly burst into song at the behest of their elderly leader; the other was a group of orthodox Jewish boys who did the same in front of what I thought was a fairly secular wall. \u00a0The latter are, of course, about as far from Horst Wessel as you can get. \u00a0Where will all this end?<\/p>\n
All this is probably a bit unfair, of course. \u00a0The British have been marauding and carousing round the continent for 800 years or so, often with the help of strong drink; no doubt we shall continue this tradition even after Brexit. \u00a0Tomorrow it will be musings on the Fuller Life in one of Weimar's fine caf\u00e9s.<\/p>\n
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