Plenty of Nothing

La Décapole: Seltz

If you thought that perhaps seltzer water comes from Seltz, it doesn't, it comes from Selters in Hesse. Source.

Himmelserscheinung

On this date in 1561 residents of Nurenburg observed a UFO battle in progress. Carl Jung later wrote a book about it. Source.

La Décapole: Wissembourg

Maison de Sel, Wissembourg.

Source.

La Décapole: Landau

The landau was invented in Landau. Source.

Brunonia

Brunonia is the personification of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony. Source.

Heinrich XIV, Prince Reuss Younger Line

The recent coup plot in Germany has shone a light on Reuss, which was the smallest principality within the Germany Empire (it was about half the size of Kings County, Nova Scotia) and was divided into Younger and Elder halves to accommodate the two branches of the ruling house, a family that for centuries had only ever named its male children Heinrich. This coin worth two marks was struck in 1884 in the time of Heinrich XIV of the junior line. Source.

Sylvester (1924)

Lupu Pick's 1924 film Sylvester takes place on New Year's Eve, or Sylvester as they call it in Germany. Source.

Dragon's Teeth

Moss-covered tank obstacles near Saarbrücken, a remnant of the Seigfried Line. Source.

Spatenbräu

I once purchased an Octoberfest-scale beer stein just because it had this attractive logo on it. It's the trademark of the Munich brewery Spatenbräu and was designed in 1884 by Otto Hupp, an artist who specialized in 16th-century German heraldry. That shovel really looks like it was drawn by Albrecht Dürer or one of his contemporaries. The GS stands for Gabriel Sedlmayr who bought the medieval brewery in 1807 and started it down the road to lager supremacy. Check out Hupp's series of Kaffee HAG albums here.

Walhalla

Commissioned by Ludwig I and opened in 1842, this copy of the Parthenon is located near Regensburg, Bavaria and contains busts of exemplary Germans. Compare the one in Nashville. Source.