March 1
Birthdays
1610: Johann Balthasar Schupp
Johann Balthasar Schupp (1610-1661) was a German satirical writer, theologian (Lutheran), and religious poet. In his satires, he called out the mendacity and opulence of his time.
1717: Catharina Helena Dörrien
Catharina Helena Dörrien (1717-1795) was a German botanist, painter, and educator. In 1777, she published a book about all flora in the principality Oranien-Nassau (today an area between Siegen, Wetzlar, Limburg, and Bad Ems in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, and Rhineland-Westphalia) and used as one of the first botanists Linnés classification and nomenclature. Her author citation is DOERR. In addition to writing botanical and soem educational books, she also painted around 1400 watercolors of plants. You can read her book (in German) here.
1801: Henriette Davidis
Henriette Davidis (1801-1876) was a German (cookbook) author, home economics teacher and educator. Her most popular book was “Praktisches Kochbuch” (Practical Cookbook), published in 1845 for the first time. There were several new editions, and expanded versions, as well as translations. The Praktische Kochbuch and Die Hausfrau were published in Milwaukee in 1879 for Germans living in the U.S.. While it was written in German, the measurements and some of the ingredients were adjusted for American life.
1804: Klara Wendel
Klara Wendel (1804-1884) was a Swiss Heimatlose (without citizenship, homeless, unsettled, vagrant) and the main suspect in the “Gauner- und Kellerhandel” trial 1824-1827, one of the largest and most sensational court proceedings during the restoration period. Wendel was stylized to Räuberkönigin (Robber Queen) in the European press. Most confessions by her, relatives and acquaintances were made under physical and psychological duress.
1886: Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was an Austrian expressionist painter, graphic artist, and writer. He was one of the most significant artists of the Wiener Moderne (Vienna Moderne) next to Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. Kokoschka’s art was deemed entartet (degenerate) by the Nazis and he lived in exile, first in Czechoslovakia (34-38), and then in Great Britain (38-53).
1888: Robert Petschow
Robert Petschow (1888-1945) was a German balloonist and photographer. Petschow became a balloon pilot in 1911, and worked as a balloon observer during World War I. In the 1920s, he worked as a photographer and many of his photographs were published. From 1930-36, Petschow was the managing editor of the daily newspaper “Der Westen“.
1898: Wilhelm Pramme
Wilhelm Pramme (1898-1965) was a German painter, member of the artists’ colony Wernigerode (in the Harz mountains in Saxony-Anhalt) and of the Harzmaler.
1907: Béla Barényi
Béla Barényi (1907-1997) was an Austrian-German designer and inventor. He is regarded as the father of passive safety in the automobiles. Active safety measures aim to prevent accidents, like having designated bicycle lanes or ABS in a car. Passive safety refers to constructions in a car that minimizes the damage to passenger during an accident. One of Barényi’s major developments is the crumple zone in a car along with a rigid passenger compartment. Barényi holds around 2500 patents.
1927: Anneliese Zänsler
Anneliese Zänsler (1927-2023) was a German opera and operetta singer (soprano), music educator, and musicologist. During her stage career, she performed at most theaters in the GDR, and also abroad as a concert singer.
Death Anniversaries
1720: Johann Hektor von Klettenberg
Johann Hektor von Klettenberg (1684-1720) was a German alchemist. Von Klettenberg had to flee his hometown of Frankfurt am Main after he killed another noble in a duel. From then on, he lived as a con man promising to produce gold. August der Starke in Saxony finally put him in jail after von Klettenberg’s debts exploded and he hadn’t made any gold. Von Klettenberg was executed on March 1, 1720.
1897: Mauritia "Moritz" Mayer
Mauritia “Moritz” Mayer (1833-1897) was an Austrian hospitality entrepreneur. She opened the Pension Moritz (guesthouse) in 1878 in Obersalzberg and welcomed prominent guests like Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Mayer invested in her business(es) but also build better streets in the region putting Obersalzberg on the map for tourists.
1898: Louis Appia
Louis Appia (1818-1898) was a Swiss surgeon. Appia had a strong interest in military medicine and how to ensure (better) care for the wounded. In 1863, he was part of the “Kommitee der fünf” (Commitee of Five) which later became Internationales Kommitee vom Roten Kreuz (IKRK) whose symbol was a red cross on white, a reversal of the Swiss flag. Appia met Clara Barton in 1869, a meeting that inspired Barton to form the American Red Cross.
1929: Wilhelm von Bode
Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929) was a German art historian. Bode led multiple different museums, and expanded collections and departments of museums. In the early years especially, he relied on his many contacts to artists and collectors; the close ties to the sponsors were nicknamed “System Bode” and not without criticism. The Kaiser-Friedrich Museum on the Museumsinsel in Berlin was opened in 1904, based on Bode’s concept. The museum’s name today is Bode-Museum.
1930: Friedrich Karl "Fritz" Henkel
Friedrich Karl “Fritz” Henkel (1848-1930) was a German entrepreneur and founder of the Henkel company (1879). The company’s first product was a Universalwaschmittel (universal detergent). Their real success came with Henkel’s Bleich-Soda (bleaching soda), partly because they sold it in small packages and not loose like other companies did. In 1907, Henkel introduced Persil and marketed it as “erstes selbsttätiges Waschmittel der Welt” (first self-activating detergent in the world). The name Persil is derived from the two main ingredients: sodium perborate and sodium silicate.
Seasonal Events and Holidays
Meterological beginning of spring
2025: Schmalziger Samstag (Lardy Saturday), the Saturday before Ash Wednesday. The name is almost exclusively used in the Swabian-Alemannic Fasnet (Baden-Württemberg, Swabia, Switzerland). The people who blackened others with soot on the day before (Rußiger Freitag) have to make it up to them by providing baked (in lard) goods like donuts (Faschingskrapfen).
Sometimes the Saturday before Ash Wednesday is called Nelkensamstag (Carnation Saturday), following the other days: Tulpensonntag (Tulip Sunday), Rosenmontag (Rose Monday), and Veilchendienstag (Violet Tuesday).
Historical and Cultural Events
1879: German engineer, inventor and industrialist Werner (von) Siemens (1816-1892) installed an electric Kohlebogenlampe (carbon arc lamp) he developed as a streetlight at his house. Soon after, Berlin replaced the gas lamps at the crossing Unter den Linden and Friedrichsstraße with arc lamps. The Münchner Centralbahnhof (central train station) was the first electrically lit train station in Germany with arc lamps from Siemens & Halske.
1893: The first edition of the newspaper Hannoverscher Anzeiger was published. Today the Hanover paper is called Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung.
1901: The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn (Wuppertal’s Suspension Railway) in Wuppertal (North Rhine-Westphalia) officially opened its first track, Zoologischer Garten – Kluse. The suspension railway is still in operation today.
1925: The Schilling (schilling) replaced the Krone (krone or crown) as currency in Austria. 1 Schilling was 100 Groschen. Since 1999, Austria’s currency is the Euro. From 1938 until 1945, Austria used the German Reichsmark.
1950: The German-British nuclear physicist Klaus Fuchs (1911-1988) is sentenced to 14 years in prison for spying for the soviets. He was part of the Manhattan Project and also worked as a spy. When he was pardoned in 1959, he went back to Germany where he settled in the GDR.
1952: Great Britain returns the island of Heligoland (Helgoland) in the North Sea to Germany. The island had been occupied during World War II and was used as a bomb release area by the Royal Air Force.
1983: The Swiss company Swatch AG (subsidiary of Swatch Group SA) introduced its first collection of 12 Swatch watches in Zurich. Swatch is the name of the company as well as the watch itself, it’s a contraction of ‘second’ and ‘watch’. Swatches are usually inexpensive, battery-powered, quartz-regulated watches whose success helped save the Swiss watchmaking industry.
2015: The Nationalpark Hunsrück-Hochwald was founded. The national park in the states Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate covers over 10.000 hectares in the low mountain range Hunsrück, specifically Idarwald and (Schwarzwälder) Hochwald. The national park is part of the Saar-Hunsrück Naturpark.
Action Days and Invented Holidays
National Pig Day
National Sage Day
