Germany’s Saxony region offers Christmas, cars and connections with Michigan

Wolfgang Gartner is the head of international marketing for Saxony Tourism. He and I talked in various cities such as Leipzig, Dresden, and Gorlitz throughout Saxony which, after WWII and before the Berlin Wall fall, was in East Germany. The place most reminiscent of Michigan was Germany’s Christmas village of Seiffen, in the Erzgebirge Mountains, which had a Frankenmuth feel. The Weib family are like the Zehnders in that, since 1921, they’ve operated the colorful, generational, family-run Hotel Buntes Haus.

Instead of Bavarian Inn chicken, a day strolling in Seiffen promises nut-crusted rack of venison; air scented with ginger bread; Stollen fruit cake; hot gluhwein; shopping and sips of suds in the biergarten. If you’ve ever bought a Nutcracker figurine at Bronner’s in Frankenmuth there’s a good chance it came from Seiffen – where full-scale Nutcracker production was invented. Andreas Bilz has business contacts in Frankenmuth. He is managing director of the Seiffener Volkskunst demonstration workshop where visitors, as if they are with Santa’s elves at the North Pole, can watch production of the little Nutcracker soldiers produced each day by hand. “Every day is like Christmas here,” Bilz admitted.

It felt like Christmas later that October night in nearby Annaberg-Buchholz where Gartner and I talked over a traditional Ore Mountain Christmas dinner (nine German courses on one big plate) at a restaurant called Rathskeller Zum Neinerlaa, right next to my lodging in the square at Traditionshotel Wilder Mann. It was across the square and down the hill from St. Anne’s Church and its 500-year-old Miner’s Altar and artistic treasures. Between bites of brotwurscht and rutkraut, the amiable Gartner also revealed a blood sausage dish called “tote oma,” which translates to “dead grandma.”

But he also taught me to wash it down the next night with a warm fermented, herbal malt beer called the Gose at the big, festive, famous restaurant Auerbachs Keller – the best-known in Leipzig and the first place Mephistopheles takes Faust on their travels in Goeth’s play. (Martin Luther did some debating there, too.) Dana Marschner, PR spokesperson for Leipzig, joined us to detail her cities’ music, culture and creativity. She also recalled completing her foreign study in, of all places, Perrysburg, Ohio. “It was always my dream to see the American way of life by going to high school there. I lived with a host family and I saw a baseball game in Detroit.”

Gartner said his dream came true while touring the USA on a roadshow with the National Tourist Office – even donning lederhosen - to promote Germany. “We were in a different city each day but when I hit Detroit I managed just enough time in our busy itinerary to send my luggage to our hotel with others and take a very expensive cab ride direct from the airport to the Motown Museum. I am a Motown fan, especially Smokey Robinson and the Isley Brothers, so I had to see it at all costs.”

Gartner, also a car lover, said he’d be fascinated to return and see what Detroit is like now. “After so many years of bad news and decline Detroit’s fortunes seem to have turned around. It’s in an interesting phase of history.”

During Gartner’s visit parts of Detroit appeared “bombed out” or described as a “war zone.” But Gartner’s home, Saxony’s Dresden, the richest and most beautiful city in Germany, actually had its center destroyed by bombs at the end of WWII. Like Detroit, Dresden has rebuilt, preserving and renewing its spectacular architecture, art collections, and historical locations for the Reformation and Reunification. And Dresden is a “Motor City” itself due to Volkswagen’s famed Transparent Manufactory, where complete assembly is staged as a public performance. You can also get a production tour and get a ride on the company test track at the Porsche Museum in Leipzig, one of Saxony’s four car factories.

Contact Michael Patrick Shiels at MShiels@aol.com His radio program may be found at MiBigShow.com or weekday mornings from 9-noon on WJIM AM 1240

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Germany’s Saxony region offers Christmas, cars and connections with Michigan