Visit to Austria: The “Green Heart” is copied – Hildburghausen
Like the next day on a city tour of Graz. City guide Sybille Gauby was delighted to whom she could show her beloved Graz, as she is an active choir singer herself and also a member of the parish of the Salvatorkirche Graz, where the Thuringian singers had their big performance in the evening: “Encounter of the green hearts – a joint concert of Cocktail a cappella and Salvator cantat”. She was able to hear a first sample of the skills of the Thuringian singers during the city tour – in Graz Cathedral the guests did not hesitate to sing a first song.
At the joint concert in the evening in the Salvatorkirche, Roland Geister welcomed the visitors with the words: “Building bridges is more important than building walls!” Afterwards, the two choirs impressively proved that the greetings of the patrons of this musical event were not exaggerated. “Music challenges us to genuine encounters. It is precisely in this that their great potential for our time lies”, as diocesan bishop Wilhelm Krautwaschl recognized.
The governor of Styria (comparable to a prime minister), Christopher Drexler, adds: “You can see the depth in the music, because home is depth – not narrowness. This tradition has an effect beyond our national borders when two green hearts for choral music pulsate here.”
In the same spirit, Hildburghausen’s District Administrator Thomas Müller gave the choir from his district the following words: “The green heart of Germany meets the green heart of Austria – a transnational interaction could not be more perfect. Encounters shape all of our lives in everyday life and make it worth living in the first place. The meeting of the green hearts on this evening is now a milestone in transnational friendship. Music unites and that is exactly what should be made clear at this international choir concert.”
In addition, the district administrator emphasized that this ensemble from southern Thuringia already exemplifies cross-state cooperation, because its members come from the Thuringian districts of Hildburghausen and Sonneberg and from the Bavarian side from the district of Coburg. “These are bridges that this society needs so badly. These are connections that can have a lasting and deep effect because there is a common timbre, a common interest,” says Katja Mittelsdorf, President of the Thuringia Choir Association.
Thuringian dumplings and bratwurst should now lure people to Germany
A cleverly coordinated, demanding program made the hearts of the numerous visitors in the Salvatorkirche beat faster – both choirs quickly provided proof that they could probably do justice to the high demands of the words of the leading politicians. The choirs didn’t just sing songs from their own homeland. Even more impressive when the Graz Choir intoned Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s “Lend Us Peace” to a text by Martin Luther. After the individual contributions of the two choirs, it was then “Thuringia meets Styria” (Thuringia meets Styria) and “Styria sings with Thuringia” (Styria sings with Thuringia).
It didn’t stop with the meeting of the two choirs on stage. The encounter that evening was much broader. The listeners were also involved and, after the musical delicacies, were also able to get to know the culinary delights of the two federal states. Because in the foyer of the church everyone could fortify themselves with appetizers from Thuringia and Styria, with beer from Thuringia and wine from Styria.
However, Yvonne Unger made one restriction: “If you really want to get to know the culinary side of Thuringia, then you have to come to us – because unfortunately we couldn’t bring Thuringian dumplings and the real Thuringian sausages with us.” If the people of Graz accept this invitation, District Administrator Thomas Müller’s wish would also come true: “I would be happy to welcome you to our district with its tourism opportunities soon.”
The slogan: From the angular corner to the successful double heart
August Trinius invented the later advertising slogan in 1910 with the book “The green heart of Germany: A hike through the Thuringian Forest”. From the 1920s, the heart became the right tourism brand. In the 1970s, in search of its own slogan, Styria experimented with “Das Grüne Eck Österreichs” (The Green Corner of Austria) – but that proved to be too edgy. “Too edgy – even for the German colleagues and journalists you met at the tourism fairs and who still remembered the old slogan ‘Thuringia – the green heart of Germany’. And since the people of Styria had been promoting Styria with gingerbread hearts for years, the famous slogan was born quickly,” writes Steirische Tourismus GmbH. That’s why it still advertises with “The green heart of Austria” to this day.
The provincial capital of Graz
If Styria is the green heart of Austria, then Graz is the pearl of Styria. Thuringians were able to see this for themselves during their visit to the state capital, which is about the same size as Erfurt. Two city guides show her Graz – Sybille Gauby and Heribert Szakmáry. The many dates they named will soon be forgotten. But the insights into the history of this city, into the time when Austria was a multi-ethnic state in which up to sixteen languages were spoken, are remembered. Here – as in Thuringia – the same stumbling blocks were laid in memory of the former Jewish fellow citizens. Respect for another nation is very important in such a multi-ethnic country. The fight against the Turks, when Graz was built into an impregnable fortress, the religious war between the Protestant and the Catholic doctrine and the consequences, triggers a shake of the head again and again. The Protestant faith was strictly forbidden when the Habsburgs, as strong Catholics, took power. “Whoever has the power also has the law on his side,” says Heribert Szakmáry. Evangelical Bibles were strictly forbidden, and believers were only allowed to meet in secret. When this was relaxed after the Augsburg religious peace, Protestant churches were allowed to be built again. But this had to look like a multi-storey apartment building – with dummy windows on the front, the entrance was not allowed from the street side, it was only allowed to be from the backyard. Another shake of the head when Heribert Szakmáry says with a grin: “Sometimes it’s not so bad to have no money. There was a time for us when maintaining history was dismissed as kitsch. The only reason I can show you so many magnificent facades from the Baroque and Renaissance periods in our inner city today is that homeowners didn’t have enough money to tear down their houses and rebuild them in a ‘modern’ way with lots of glass and concrete. However, if you see such a building among all the beautiful historical facades, you can be sure that it belongs to a bank or an insurance company. Because she had the money for it!”