Post by shartmeyer on Oct 27, 2013 13:39:08 GMT
Irmgard and I are happy to introduce our new film. It's in the German language, but reading the English abstract below, things should be relatively clear. The mountain is well known in Germany, however, for an English translation we would choose the title: "Carnivores and whitches on Germany's legendary Blocksberg".
In Goethe's "Faust" can be read, that witches meet on top of the legendary mountain "Brocken" (Germany, vernacular: Blocksberg) to sweep off the last snow before May. The area is now part of the National Park (NP) Harz, and also some species of carnivorous plants occur there. We received a filming permit by the NP authorities and we express our gratitude to Dr. Gunter Karste, who accompanied our film-tour into the secret mountain bogs.
The film starts in the climatic spa Benneckenstein, including a short retrospect on the history of the Hartmeyer family, who lived here until their family enterprise has been unlawfully dispossessed by the communistic authorities of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR - Remark: After the German reunification it became family property again.). The Hartmeyers escaped to the western part of Germany in the 1950s, but the contact with relatives and old friends remained constant in time.
A special thank goes to the Benneckenstein chronicler Jürgen Kohlrausch, who supported this film project from the beginning and who showed us some Drosera that grow not far away from Siggi's old native city in an area which is now called the "Green Belt". It sounds amazing, but where the former German zonal border existed with its strips of death and mine-fields, many endangered animal and plant species survived. Apart from urban sprawl and roadmaking, they found interestingly here a secure refugium.
In Goethe's "Faust" can be read, that witches meet on top of the legendary mountain "Brocken" (Germany, vernacular: Blocksberg) to sweep off the last snow before May. The area is now part of the National Park (NP) Harz, and also some species of carnivorous plants occur there. We received a filming permit by the NP authorities and we express our gratitude to Dr. Gunter Karste, who accompanied our film-tour into the secret mountain bogs.
The film starts in the climatic spa Benneckenstein, including a short retrospect on the history of the Hartmeyer family, who lived here until their family enterprise has been unlawfully dispossessed by the communistic authorities of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR - Remark: After the German reunification it became family property again.). The Hartmeyers escaped to the western part of Germany in the 1950s, but the contact with relatives and old friends remained constant in time.
A special thank goes to the Benneckenstein chronicler Jürgen Kohlrausch, who supported this film project from the beginning and who showed us some Drosera that grow not far away from Siggi's old native city in an area which is now called the "Green Belt". It sounds amazing, but where the former German zonal border existed with its strips of death and mine-fields, many endangered animal and plant species survived. Apart from urban sprawl and roadmaking, they found interestingly here a secure refugium.
