Destination: Germany

While filming our Protestant Reformation special in Germany, I couldn’t resist stopping by a sight I’ve never heard of before that is related to the Reformation — the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen. Nearly unknown to American travelers, seeing this creative view of an epic event (the Peasants’ War of 1525) is an amazing experience. Sorry the audio on the video clip is weak — I had to whisper. Below is the entry I wrote up for the next edition of my Germany guidebook:

Panorama Museum — This museum houses a massive, 400-foot-long cyclorama that shows vividly, with an East German communist slant, the bloody Peasants’ War of 1525. Called the Bauernkriegspanorama, it stands in a 007-looking building atop the hill where around 6,000 peasants — armed with shovels and axes — battled the well-armed troops of the Holy Roman Emperor and were slaughtered, marking the end of the Peasants’ War. It portrays more than just a horrible battle. It’s the bloody transition between medieval and modern worlds. At the base are twenty great change agents at end of Middle Ages (Luther, Erasmus, other Reformers, Copernicus, Columbus, Dürer, and more) — gathered around a well. Above them is a colossal battle under a rainbow — the Imperial troops on the left, the doomed rabble on the right. Further to the right, an elegant couple (their backs to us) dances before a gallows. The message: The elites continue to win. This was done in the 1980s — the last years of communism — by Werner Tübke. The government of East Germany wanted to celebrate the struggle of peasants 500 years ago, reminding all of the same struggle they felt was valiantly being fought in their era by the working class (€6 includes a fine and essential audioguide, Sun-Sat 10:00-18:00, until 17:00 off-season, closed Mon, fine cafeteria, in Bad Frankenhausen — 30 minutes north of Erfurt, just follow signs, tel. 034671/6190, www.panorama-museum.de).

We’ve begun a twelve-day TV shoot in Germany for a public television special celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation (due out in late 2016). Perhaps you don’t know yet how exciting this is. Here’s a quick little clip taken by me in the back of a car. I’m recording a creative (low budget) effort to film a “point-of-view” shot illustrating how Luther was kidnapped and taken to a friendly prince’s castle. With the sun glinting through the trees, the hill-capping castle flickering up in the sky, and two cameras rolling, it could be really effective. Be patient; it takes a while for the castle to come into view in my video. (I’m shooting with producer/driver Simon Griffith, our regular cameraman Peter Rummel, and my friend — cameraman Tim Frakes — who produced the travel show I did on Martin Luther for the Lutheran Church 15 years ago.)

For background, read this bit of the script (six sequences out of 120; information in brackets includes shot number and location/image). I hope you can imagine how fun it is to tell this story:

[77a, art] While romanticized in this painting, the drama was certainly real. Imagine the showdown at Worms: Papal representatives, princes, Imperial troops — all power-dressing…and Charles — the Holy Roman Emperor himself — sitting high on his throne — the crowds craning to see the action. In the center of the room, Martin Luther stood alone…beside a table stacked with his rabble-rousing books and pamphlets.

[78, Worms courtroom, art] The prosecutor insisted Luther was a heretic. Summing up his case, he asked, “Who are you to go against 1,500 years of Church doctrine?” He demanded that Luther renounce his theses and writings. Luther would not budge. Perhaps as never before in European history, one ordinary person stood up to power for what he believed. He said: “Unless you can convince me by scripture or by clear reasoning, I am bound by my beliefs… I cannot and I will not recant. God help me. Amen.”

[79, Rick On Camera, Rothenburg] Luther was declared a heretic and left Worms essentially an outlaw. Now “outside the protection of the law,” Luther could be captured and killed by anyone. On his way home to Wittenberg, he was kidnapped and dropped out of sight. Many thought Luther had been killed.

[80, Wartburg, etchings] Days later, a man named Junker Jörg — or “Squire George” — appeared at Wartburg Castle. This was actually a disguised Martin Luther, who had been kidnapped for his own safety on his journey back from Worms by his benefactor, Prince Frederick the Wise. Safely hidden behind the stout walls of Wartburg, Luther spent nearly a year making his next stand against the Vatican and wrestling with his deepening depression. He fought his depression by working…studying and writing.

[80a ] This was Luther’s room. Restless, overfed, and lonely in the castle — he continued his lifelong personal battle with Satan. And it was here that he employed his favorite weapon — the printed word.

[81 Rick On Camera, Wartburg cell] Believing that everyone should be able to read the word of God, Luther began the daunting — and dangerous — task of translating the New Testament from the original ancient Greek into German. He used simplified language, as he said, like a mother talking to her children. As the King James Version of the Bible did for English, Luther’s translation helped to establish a standard German language that’s used to this day.