Finding Old Stuttgart

On the last weekend of February I found the old city of Stuttgart. It is well hidden, and many people undoubtedly pass through this city without ever knowing about it.

You can reach the old city by walking through the forests just behind my house. It isn't long, and I could describe the way, but all you need to know is that you must climb up the small hill known as the Birkenkopf, overlooking south Stuttgart. Walking along the winding path to the top of the hill, you'll only know that you're going the right way if you had cared to stop and read the modest monument at the bottom. As you reach the summit, you immediately see the old city before you - and underneath you as well. You're standing right on top of it.

The Birkenkopf has always been a small hill in Stuttgart, standing roughly 450 metres above sea level - before the last world war. As a centre of German industry, Stuttgart was subject to a very heavy aerial bombardment by the Anglo-American air forces. The result was that Stuttgart lay as rubble in 1945 - rubble that had to be cleared away to begin the postwar reconstruction efforts. One of the places they decided to dump this rubble was on top of the Birkenkopf, raising it's height by 50 metres or so.

To walk to the top of the Birkenkopf is a sobering experience. The only time you realize what you are standing on is when you see the detritus of a broken city scattered in mounds on the summit. Stacked on top of each other you recognize first a reinforced concrete column, then elegant masonry from what must have been an impressive dwelling, then a portion of a red brick wall. Once people lived in these buildings - considered themselves lucky about the good view from the window, wished for a bedroom that got the morning sun in winter, thought about whether they would paint or wallpaper their dining room. You can't avoid the unanswerable question about what happened to them.

Area bombing was a particularly ruthless and brutal way of destroying the industrial capacity of the enemy, and was practiced by all sides in the second world war. The deliberate targeting of civilians rightly arouses our disgust and anger. By today's standards this would be considered a war crime. But so too, I would advance, by the standards of 1938 - which were very different from those in 1942, or even 1945. As the war progressed the possibility of sparing of innocent life found itself gradually moving down the list of priorities, not necessarily out of blind hate, but rather due to growing desperation to finish the conflict by any means possible. I know this point is arguable - many books have examined the issue from all sides, hitherto without resolution. Perhaps there will be none. Alas, morality in war is never devoid of context.

When I left home to walk to the old city it was overcast. By the time I reached the summit, a driving rain had set in. I huddled against some old wall and used it to shield myself, as I looked down upon the new city of Stuttgart below me.