Harz of Darkness

It’s Friday the 29th of April and I’m climbing southwards away from the bloodlands of central Europe. My possessions are personal items, camping equipment, my guitar, a small stack of songbooks, and a bundle of loose-leaf pages of songs that will be needed in particular for this May-day festival.
For this weekend I am a folk musician and I have been invited to sing and play for the largest of a new breed of völkisch festival.

The flat, gently rolling plains of what was once the old Hanseatic league give way to the hills and mountains of the ancient deep valleys of central Germany. Autobahns give way to Landstraße and Landstraße to winding country roads. Towns become smaller, and the public signage grows ever more more 𝖋𝖗𝖆𝖐𝖙𝖚𝖗𝖊𝖉. Despite being deep in the territory of old East Germany, ugly concrete almost entirely disappears from view as gorgeous red brick and ancient preserved fachwerk fill the windows of your car as you drive through the narrow streets, guarded occasionally by immaculately maintained Trabants, the national animal of the East.
I meet an old man by the side of the road selling sheep pelts. We strike up a conversation and I mention in the course of things that I’m not vaccinated, it takes all of 5 minutes of outwardly innocent idle chat while perusing wares before he states that Germany and the German people are in a poor state today and that it was better before. “Before?” I probe “Do you mean the DDR?” already knowing the answer.
“Nein” he says wryly, “𝔅𝔢𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱…”.
We conclude the transaction with a handshake and I leave with a new lambskin for my infant daughter as I once had when I was her age.
Continuing upwards, finally the oaks and broad leafy trees by the roadside disappear as I drive higher into the mountain hillsides and pine trees.

Blick auf den Brocken
I arrive at the destination, an 1800s hotel overlooking a grand vista of the Brocken, a mountain of ancient spiritual and cultural importance.
The hotel itself had clearly seen better days, but there was still a lot there. Another victim of 1960s renovations, DDR edition. No matter where you live you probably know the sort of renovations – the nice old timber was covered up, windows were bricked, internal walls were added unnecessarily and outside verandahs were turned into stuffy inside seating areas, character and spirit exterminated under the march of practicality and the drive for immediate comfort. A shadow of what was shown in the hundred and fifty year old pictures on the wall, but it did still have a dance hall, and that’s why we were here.

Out of the car and straight to introductions. First day was a lot of shaking hands and chit chat over kaffee und kuchen, coffee and cake consumption somehow being intrinsic to the lifestyle of the German. We’re all here for a revival of German culture. A Tanz in den Mai festival. An ancient tradition of celebrating the defeat of winter and the birth of a new year, a fertility festival, a time of laughing and living, eating, drinking, and dancing. Eternally renewed youth and energy.

The old hotel abuts a grassy commons where we pitch a large black canvas yurt, the yurt is as much a member of the team as the man who leads these events. The man is Nikolai Nerhling, an ex Berlin school teacher who was once as shitlib as they came and believed it all, believed that everyone was welcome in Germany and that underneath the skin, we were all the same fundamentally. It was however his foreign students that ironically taught him his first great lesson: “We will never Germans!” they proudly proclaimed “You are the German, but we will always be Turks!”. He points to this as the moment that his worldview and his belief cracked for the first time.
This crack only grew as he noticed and investigated more, eventually searching for what it meant to actually be a German. Searching is a dangerous activity in the Bundesrepublik and he quickly found unwelcome answers and discovered those who were ultimately responsible, all the time sharing what he learned with a growing group of followers under the moniker ‘Der Volkslehrer’, the Volk Teacher.

He was inevitably fired from his job and so committed himself full time to his new task of rediscovering and reviving the German Volk.
Seeking at first, then realising that there were few people to turn to, he accepted that he had to become the leader that he himself sought. He learned instruments, songs, dances, culture, history, and mythology. With the help of others he rediscovered and reinvigorated religious practices and festivals, always learning, practising, then teaching and finally hosting. The whole time too, he was acting as an investigative journalist, and a spokesperson for the cause of the Deutschen under the modern state religion of the BRD that is the Schuldkult – the Guilt Cult. If you have ever heard of Ursula Haverbeck’s side of the story, then you have surely already been exposed to the work of Der Volkslehrer.
As Nikolai has moved more into creating events and organising festivals, the need for accommodation has only grown, hence the yurt, as once again the local rooms are entirely booked out for the weekend’s activities.

With the overflow bedding in place, more families arrive. Nikolai corrals everyone into the hotel and we sing some songs to get us in the mood for the weekend to come of which I begin my part as the musician. We are invited by the local volunteer fire station up the street to hoist the town’s Maibaum as is their local tradition, we sang some more songs, drank some warm beer(why do people say this is an English thing? I’ve had enough warm beer in Deutschland to last me a lifetime of hiccuping), and got to sit in the firetrucks like the big boys we were. We also took a big group photo in front of the Maibaum which landed the firefighters in trouble because of course you’re not allowed to be smiling and happy around one of Germany’s most famous rechtsradikaler with 50 of your good looking friends and their families.

We head back to the hotel as it’s getting late. Abendbrot is soon served by some of our number and around the table we hold hands in a circle, beginning with (recently learned) Mai and Frühling songs and moving on to speeches and giving thanks in the spirit of the various European faiths in attendance, openly acknowledging their contributions to the history of the German volk. There’s no talk of kikes on a stick or LARPagangs. Everyone’s here for the right reasons.

Attendance however, was underestimated, and the dinner was totally inadequate for the number of people who had arrived, what space was left empty by insufficient stew was filled with an overabundance of alcohol so I guess it all worked out.

We’ve been here barely an afternoon and already we’ve done so much;

Hands: shook
Coffee and cake: consumed
Yurt: erected
Firefighters: In trouble
Dinner: demolished

Dance lesson time.
The tribe of families and festival-goers assembles in the dance hall, ancient dusty floorboards creaking, children scampering, screaming, and sliding around.
A speaker system has been set up and a professional musician in these scenes is organising the technical side. His glasses, facial hair and thin comb over give a distinct Heinrich Himmler impression. We take our positions with Der Volkslehrer providing instruction and Himmler on the accordion.
A quick demonstration is shown, accordion oom pah pah music begins… there’s no sound. A child has unplugged the extension cord. Anschluss completed, the music starts up and the orders start being barked, Take partner like so, right foot like this, Tap taptap Tap taptap Tap…, the Walz, easy. Pairs of mismatched dancers immediately careen and stomp across the dance floor without control.
The music stops and we take stock of our situation.
10% can dance well. 60% can dance enough with a bit of practice, and 30% are a danger to society.
A new battleplan is drawn up by the general staff and we start again.
Slowly the crowd of students moves through the different dance routines and we practice into the evening.

We continue our practising, with occasional breaks for water(there was simply never enough, I became the self-styled Gauleiter für Wasserauffüllung, a term and position that I made-up) dancing until the early hours, before most headed off to bed and a music circle was established in the hall. Unfortunately it had been a long week for me and I retired to the yurt before too long, but not before finally hearing guitar, accordion, and a dozen voices singing marvellous old volkslieder, a memory that I will forever cherish.

I was very fond of camping in Germany before the Corona restrictions, but it has been two years since that all started and all of my old clubs have shuttered or been gutted. This was the first time for camping since and, wer rastet der rostet, and man was I rusty. I know it will be cold camping on a hillside I say, but I’ve camped in the cold before. No worries. I was shockingly wrong.
I had packed improperly. It was a cold restless night with the frigid Siberian wind blowing across my face and neck. Not a good start for someone who’s there explicitly to sing. The singing and music playing into the early morning are nonetheless a lullaby drifting out from the ancient building’s windows and icy fields.

Samstag
Today was the big day. Up at the crack of 09:00 and straight into the coffee pot and a thermos of fresh cut ginger tea that I thankfully brought with me. Mostly ginger, some hot water in the gaps. Only to discover that my phone strongly objected to the cold of the night and fell victim to a known manufacturing defect, half of the screen was now black and could only function again when stuck on a heater until uncomfortably warm. In retrospect it was good that the thing finally karked it. I spent the rest of the weekend without the nightmare rectangle.

We arrange ourselves again in a circle around the tables, we sing some songs to get our vocal chords warmed up and Nikolai lays out today’s plan. Breakfast was hosted by the resident bent-double old crone managing the hotel. 10 Euros (we were promised 7 the week before, ‘inflation’ apparently)… 10 Euros for a bread roll, cheeses and coffee. We were not allowed to host our own as a part of the rental contract, being locked in to her talmudic prices instead. We don’t know why she was so cantankerous and ill-mannered for the weekend maybe it’s because Walpurgisnacht was historically when they burned witches like her.
Dance lessons to begin the day got the blood flowing and drove off the remaining threat of hypothermia. You know what’s great about old dance floors? The dust that makes you slip and slide when you’re throwing your body around at high speed. Lets your inner-ear know that it’s not going the way of the appendix and that it’s still a vital organ. New dances, new songs, you find out who you can dance well with as the practice rounds go on. Confidence and fun grows as you almost get the hang of it all.

Following the final chance for dance practice, we move on to a seminar by the mythologist, clad in the garb of an Elizabethan era scholar, large white ruff and all. Studier of all things religious, ritualistic, and occult. Super autistic. We walk into a side hall to be greeted by a wall of incense that claws at the mucus membranes of the respiratory system, windows are opened and the seminar begins at a blistering rate of syllables per minute as the room tries to drink from the firehose of Germanic mythology that is this man. We are taught about the confluence of holidays that occur around this time of year, the meanings and symbology behind the items, traditions, and dances, and a quick comparative study on the differences between the competing festivals, all the while interspersed with songs and a humorous reading of Shakespeare.
Some are clearly a bit puzzled but that doesn’t last for long as lunch is almost ready.

I get called in with a group to help prepare for lunch. The chef is a scrawny guy with very strong esoteric leanings, happy to illegally go maskless and talk loudly on Berlin public transport about all of the fun topics that get you in trouble in Germany. He’s also a classical-trained piano teacher by trade but loves to cook for others when someone else is paying for the ingredients. Also has an intense death-stare when he gets passionate about something.
Lessons were learned and there’s no shortage of food today. An incredible meal of baked Salmon in a creamy tomato sauce, a betroot, cheese and almond salad, and over fifty kilos of pasta for some reason. For an event in Germany, land of the bread roll and bland buffet, this is a true feast.

Again comes the ceremony of singing, music, talks and thanks before the meal bringing everyone, now close to 80 of us plus a dozen children, together. Despite the growth in the crowd, nobody goes hungry today.

Phase one of the real ceremony begins on full bellies and a Jovial mood, with a trek into the woods so the men can find and cut down a suitable Maibaum and so that the women and girls can find flowers and supple branches to make crowns with. For me and my porters this is 3km of carrying a guitar, songbooks, and a music stand up hill all the way, only for the tree chopping to be done in 30 seconds flat and for the music to be over and done with in a pretty anticlimactic way.

We march back, singing all the way and set to raising the Maibaum in the commons, a task that took an hour longer than we first though after the knot of silk ribbons at the top failed in the breeze and we had to send for a very long ladder in order to make repairs at height on a fairly unsecured birch tree. OSHA is probably a jewish plot to stop the white man from having fun anyway.
Maibaum repaired, and the women and girls now wearing pretty crowns of flowers and leaves, weaved in the meantime, the task of dressing the pole then became a saga, forever trying to get the ribbons right because half of the dancers were children under 6yo with all of the attention and coordination of children under 6yo.
In order to keep up moral upon this chilly commons, through which apparently the entirety of the Ostwind was being funnelled up the valley before us, I led the music section in keeping spirits high. Said music section consisting of, two ladies, Himmler and myself, belting out volk tunes with guitar, accordion, and strong voices. As the afternoon ticked by and the May themed songs ran short, eventually we just fell back on the ol’reliables of Westerwaldlied, Panzerlied, and *inhales* E-RI-KA.
Finally a pattern was found that all of the dancers could do and the pole was quickly dressed in pretty pinks and whites as we went back over the well-trodden Maisongs at this point with renewed enthusiasm and frozen fingers.

Maibaum dressed, the more typical German ritual of stuffing your face with coffee and cake on our return commenced (one cake was shaped like a swastika, much to the humour of all in attendance). It’s at this point where some locals came in to check on the horrible stories they had heard about the ‘nazi festival’ sullying their town, only to find well dressed, polite, and cheerful men, women and children (We did however hide the swasticake). Glycemic indecies appropriately raised, we went back to the tree to do the full Maifest ceremony and had the competition for the Maikönig and the Maikönigin. A gruelling series of challenges lay infront of the participants. Two jump rope challenges designed to strip a man of his dignity, a pushup challenge, and a trial by combat whilst balanced on a wobbly log. I came 4th place out of a dozen. Came 2nd place last year. Not a good growth curve.
The Maikönig and the Maikönigin were then rightfully crowned after their respective trials and were kitted up in the finest loose branches and crowns of flowers
Dinner once more, the chef fed everyone like a twitchy racist Jesus, with little more than some fish and some bread.

Everyone now retreats to their rooms, yurts, and camper vans to get dressed for the big event.

I take a bit longer preparing than I thought and arrive at the front door of the hotel just after 20:00, pausing to hear the sound of the festivities just beginning. This is the bit that will stick with me for the rest of my life.
Forty couples of beautifully dressed people, all dancing through the hotel and onto the dance floor, accordion music blaring and everyone singing. Smiling, happy people, all dressed in various forms of traditional dress. Dirndls, suits and jackets, lederhosen, long socks, whathaveyou. The women were beautiful, the men were handsome, the children were glowing, all dancing through the hotel in a line towards the hall in a living celebration of German culture.

Having arrived without a partner, I was left to merely observe as the conga-line(Deutsch Tanzania line?) wound it’s way through the old building before spilling out onto the dance floor, all the while being led by the Volkslehrer and his partner. The line wound and spiralled across the dance floor before turning into various types of pre-practiced and pre-arranged tunnels, zig-zagging and threading into eachother in a chaotic sea of singing, laughter, and revelment. Not a scowl nor phone to be seen.
The opening act of the dance lasts 20 minutes, before the line paired off and conventional dancing began, all the while I stare on in vicarious amazement. It was only after the speeches of the Maikönig and the Maikönigin inaugurating and blessing the night’s revelries in the second act that I was able to steal my way in before dancing the rest of the night away.

The 30th of April drew to a close and we gathered outside beside a now-roaring bonfire, midnight approached rapidly and I set off in charge of the firework battalion (consisting of myself and one rocket) which proceeded at the stroke of midnight to get stuck in on something at launch and explode at ground level behind me in a bright flash. This was apparently hilarious and considered a great highlight of the night by the attendees, but I may never emotionally recover.

Songs were sung, speeches were made, and a toast to the health of Deutschland and the Deutsches Volk was hailed with great enthusiasm with only a mild caution needed to keep everything loud within the laws. Well wishes for the coming year were made, and even a Walpurgisnacht witch made an appearance, running around the fire, cackling and causing a ruckus before we shooed it away on threat of public immolation. If only our other problems were as easily solved.

The festivities ended with people and couples jumping over the fire that had now come to burn low, as a traditional ritual for fertility and good fortune.
The night drew on and I retired to the (now very packed)yurt, somewhat more prepared than last night. The sounds of singing still softly filled the air.

Sonntag
The morning began much as the last one did. Late. Awake and already packing away my kit, we greeted each-other over the shockingly expensive mandatory breakfast and began the coffee IV transfusions before setting out on a Maiwanderung, a first of May wander through the nearby hills, forests, and fields. But not before first witnessing a more modern Mai tradition of Eastern Germany, a motorcade of several hundred if not a thousand East German era vehicles, Trabants bearing the DDR flag in the lead, supported by squadrons of mopeds and motorcycles. As all of them were powered by essentially the same three-cylinder two stroke engine, the smell and sound was incredible, like a swarm of oil burning cicadas. All waving at us, and us returning the greeting, but the cold weather clearly got to a lot of our number that morning. Arms and hands were a bit stiffer than usual.

Making off for our trek and having learned my lesson about carrying extraneous musical equipment, I had lightened my load somewhat and we proceeded to sing and play guitar throughout the hills, talking some times, quietly admiring the beautiful world in spring around us at others.

As the crowd thinned and people started returning home, we finished with a meal of leftovers (mostly pasta) and started our goodbyes. We packed up the Yurt, unwound the Maibaum, and cleaned up the field before finishing with a last song. The eternal Brocken overlooking us all in the far distance. Final gifts(protip: always bring gifts) and contacts were exchanged and starting the car with a deep sigh, I drove off down the mountain, accordion music in my mind’s ear the whole way home, with little more than memories and a number of new Telegram contacts to remind me that the thing had occured at all.

Maybe it was for the best that there was not a digital recording taken of the ceremonies, the music, or the dances, a matter of simple standard-practice infosec. But really, it was just too special to be captured by something so concurrently absolutely literal and utterly unreal as a photograph. In a world otherwise flooded by so much cynicism and irony, 80+ men, women, and children dancing in traditional dress through a hotel on the side of a hill in the middle of the Harz will forever remain with me as one of the most real nights of my life.

Im Rückblick
Looking back now to the night’s events, arriving through the door too late to be a participant might well have been fate, for without it I perhaps might not have found the deeper understanding which has since cemented this weekend’s memory, instead simply being swept up in the night’s happenings. But looking out over the dance floor that night allowed me to see for the first time a glimpse of what was taken from us and what we can all have again.

Or maybe it was just the old gods keeping the only non-German in attendance out of their party.
I may never know.