Bomb design.

The primary system.

The "Castle Bravo" device was housed in a cylinder that weighed and measured in length and in diameter.  The primary device was a "COBRA" deuterium-tritium gas-boosted atomic bomb made by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, a very compact MK 7 device. This boosted fission device was tested in the "Upshot Knothole" "Climax" event and yielded (out of 50–70 kt expected yield range). It was considered successful enough that the planned operation series "Domino", designed to explore the same question about a suitable primary for thermonuclear bombs, could be cancelled. The implosion system was quite lightweight at, because it eliminated the aluminium pusher shell around the tamper and used the more compact ring lenses, a design feature shared with

Deuterium and lithium.

The device was called SHRIMP and had the same basic configuration (radiation implosion) as the "Ivy Mike" wet device, except with a different type of fusion fuel. "SHRIMP" used lithium deuteride (LiD), which is solid at room temperature; "Ivy Mike" used cryogenic liquid deuterium (D), which required elaborate cooling equipment. "Castle Bravo" was the first test by the United States of a practical deliverable fusion bomb, even though the TX-21 as proof-tested in the Bravo event was not weaponized. The successful test rendered obsolete the cryogenic design used by "Ivy Mike" and its weaponized derivative, the "JUGHEAD", which was slated to be tested as the initial "Castle Yankee". It also used a 7075 aluminium ballistic case 9.5 cm thick. Aluminium was used to drastically reduce the bomb's weight and simultaneously provided sufficient radiation confinement time to raise yield, a departure from the heavy stainless steel casing (304L or MIM 316L) employed by contemporary weapon-projects.  The "SHRIMP" was at least in theory and in many critical aspects identical in geometry to the "RUNT" and "RUNT II" devices later proof-fired in "Castle Romeo" and "Castle Yankee" respectively. On paper it was a scaled-down version of these devices, and its origins can be traced back to the spring and summer of 1953. The United States Air Force indicated the

"SHRIMP"'s indirect drive.

Attached to the cylindrical ballistic case was a natural-uranium liner, the radiation case, that was about 2.5 cm thick. Its internal surface was lined with a copper liner that was about 240 μm thick, and made from 0.08-μm thick copper foil, to increase the overall albedo of the hohlraum. Copper possesses excellent reflecting properties, and its low cost, compared to other reflecting materials like gold, made it useful for mass-produced hydrogen weapons. Hohlraum albedo is a very important design parameter for any inertial-confinement configuration. A relatively high albedo permits higher interstage coupling due to the more favorable azimuthal and latitudinal angles of reflected radiation. The limiting value of the albedo for high-"Z" materials is reached when the thickness is 5–10 g/cm, or 0.5–1.0 free paths. Thus, a hohlraum made of uranium much thicker than a free path of uranium would be needlessly heavy and

The secondary assembly.

The secondary assembly was the actual "SHRIMP" component of the weapon. The weapon, like most contemporary thermonuclear weapons at that time, bore the same codename as the secondary component. The secondary was situated in the cylindrical end of the device, where its end was locked to the radiation case by a type of mortise and tenon joint. The hohlraum at its cylindrical end had an internal projection, which nested the secondary and had better structural strength to support the secondary's assembly, which had most of the device's mass. A visualization to this is that the joint looked much like a cap (the secondary) fitted in a cone (the projection of the radiation case). Any other major supporting structure would interfere to radiation transfer from the primary to the secondary and complex vibrational behavior. With this form of joint bearing most of the structural loads of the secondary, the latter and the hohlraum-ballistic case ensemble behaved as a single mass sharing common eigenmodes. To reduce excessive loading of the

Use of boron.

Boron was used at many locations in this dry system; it has a high cross-section for the absorption of slow neutrons, which fission U and Pu, but a low cross-section for the absorption of fast neutrons, which fission U. Because of this characteristic, B deposited onto the surface of the secondary stage would prevent predetonation of the "spark plug" by stray neutrons from the primary without interfering with the subsequent fissioning of the U of the fusion tamper wrapping the secondary. Boron also played a role in increasing the compressive plasma pressure around the secondary by

Detonation.

The device was mounted in a "shot cab" on an artificial island built on a reef off Namu Island, in Bikini Atoll. A sizable array of diagnostic instruments were trained on it, including high-speed cameras trained through an arc of mirror towers around the shot cab.  The detonation took place at 06:45 on March 1, 1954, local time (18:45 on February 28 GMT). When Bravo was detonated, within one second it formed a fireball almost across. This fireball was visible on Kwajalein Atoll over away. The explosion left a crater in diameter and in depth. The mushroom cloud reached a height of and a diameter of in about a minute, a height of and in diameter in less than 10 minutes and was expanding at more than. As a result of the blast, the cloud contaminated more than of the surrounding Pacific Ocean, including some of the surrounding small islands like Rongerik, Rongelap, and Utirik.  In terms of energy released (usually measured in TNT equivalence), "Castle Bravo" was about 1,000 times more powerful than each of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. "Castle Bravo" is the fifth largest nuclear explosion in history, exceeded by the Soviet tests of "Tsar Bomba" at approximately 50 Mt, "Test 219" at 24.2 Mt, and two other ≈20 Mt Soviet tests in 1962 at Novaya Zemlya.

High yield.

The yield of 15 megatons was 3 times that of the 5 Mt predicted by its designers. The cause of the higher yield was an error made by designers of the device at Los Alamos National Laboratory. They considered only the lithium-6 isotope in the lithium-deuteride secondary to be reactive; the lithium-7 isotope, accounting for 60% of the lithium content, was assumed to be inert. It was expected that the lithium-6 isotope would absorb a neutron from the fissioning plutonium and emit an alpha particle and tritium in the process, of which the latter would then fuse with the deuterium and increase the yield in a predicted manner. Lithium-6 indeed reacted in this manner.  It was assumed that the lithium-7 would absorb one neutron, producing lithium-8, which decays (through beryllium-8) to a pair of alpha particles on a timescale of seconds, vastly longer than the timescale of nuclear detonation. When lithium-7 is

High levels of fallout.

The fission reactions of the natural uranium tamper were quite dirty, producing a large amount of fallout. That, combined with the larger than expected yield and a major wind shift, produced some very serious consequences for those in the fallout range. In the declassified film "Operation Castle", the task force commander Major General Percy Clarkson pointed to a diagram indicating that the wind shift was still in the range of "acceptable fallout", although just barely.  The decision to carry out the Bravo test under the prevailing winds was made by Dr. Alvin C. Graves, the Scientific Director of Operation Castle. Graves had total authority over detonating the weapon, above that of the military commander of Operation Castle. Graves appears in the widely available film of the earlier 1952 test "Ivy Mike", which examines the last-minute fallout decisions. The narrator, the western actor Reed Hadley, is filmed aboard the control ship in that film, showing the final conference. Hadley points out that 20,000 people live in the potential area of the fallout. He asks the control panel scientist if the test can be aborted and is told "yes", but it would ruin all their preparations in setting up timed measuring instruments. In Mike, the fallout correctly landed north of the inhabited area but, in the 1954 Bravo test, there was a large amount of wind shear, and the wind that was blowing north the day before the test steadily veered towards the east.

Inhabited islands affected.

Radioactive fallout was spread eastward onto the inhabited Rongelap and Rongerik atolls, which were evacuated 48 hours after the detonation. In 1957, the Atomic Energy Commission deemed Rongelap safe to return, and allowed 82 inhabitants to move back to the island. Upon their return, they discovered that their previous staple foods, including arrowroot, makmok, and fish, had either disappeared or gave residents various illnesses, and were again removed. Ultimately, 15 islands and atolls were contaminated,

"Daigo Fukuryū Maru".

A Japanese fishing boat, "Daigo Fukuryū Maru" (Lucky Dragon No.5), came in direct contact with the fallout, which caused many of the crew to grow ill due to radiation sickness. One member died of a secondary infection six months later after acute radiation exposure, and another had a child that was stillborn and deformed. This resulted in an international incident and reignited Japanese concerns about radiation, especially as Japanese citizens were once more adversely affected by US nuclear weapons. The official US position had been that the growth in the strength of atomic bombs was not accompanied by an equivalent growth in radioactivity released, and they denied that

Bomb test personnel take shelter.

Unanticipated fallout and the radiation emitted by it also affected many of the vessels and personnel involved in the test, in some cases forcing them into bunkers for several hours. In contrast to the crew of the "Lucky Dragon No. 5", who did not anticipate the hazard and therefore did not take shelter in

US Navy ships affected.

The US Navy tanker was at Enewetak Atoll in late February 1954. "Patapsco" lacked a decontamination washdown system, and was therefore ordered on 27 February, to return to Pearl Harbor at the highest possible speed. A breakdown in her engine systems, namely a cracked cylinder liner, slowed "Patapsco" to one-third of her full speed, and when the Castle Bravo detonation took place, she was still about 180 to 195 nautical miles

International incident.

The fallout spread traces of radioactive material as far as Australia, India and Japan, and even the United States and parts of Europe. Though organized as a secret test, Castle Bravo quickly became an international incident, prompting calls for a ban on the atmospheric testing of thermonuclear devices.  A worldwide network of gummed film stations was established to monitor fallout following Operation Castle. Although meteorological data was poor, a general connection of tropospheric flow patterns with observed fallout was evident. There was a tendency for fallout/debris to remain in tropical latitudes, with incursions into the temperate regions associated with meteorological disturbances of the predominantly zonal flow. Outside of the tropics, the Southwestern United States received the greatest

Weapon history.

The Soviet Union had previously used lithium deuteride in its Sloika design (known as the "Joe-4" in the U.S.), in 1953. It was not a true hydrogen bomb; fusion provided only 15–20% of its yield, most coming from boosted fission reactions. Its yield was 400 kilotons, and it could not be infinitely scaled, as with a true thermonuclear device.  The Teller–Ulam-based "Ivy Mike" device had a much greater yield of 10.4 Mt, but most of this also came from fission: 77% of the total came from fast fission of its natural-uranium tamper.  Castle Bravo had the greatest yield of any U.S. nuclear test, 15 Mt, though again, a substantial fraction came from fission. In the Teller–Ulam design, the fission and fusion stages were kept physically separate in a reflective cavity. The radiation from the exploding fission primary brought the fuel

Health impacts.

Following the test, the United States Department of Energy estimated that 253 inhabitants of the Marshall Islands were impacted by the radioactive fallout. This single test exposed the surrounding populations to varying levels of radiation. The fallout levels attributed to the Castle Bravo test are the highest in history. Populations neighboring the test site were exposed to high levels of radiation resulting in mild radiation sickness of many (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea). Several weeks later, many people began suffering from alopecia (hair loss) and skin lesions as well.  The exposure to fallout has been linked to increase the likelihood of several types of

In popular culture.

The 1957 novel "On the Beach" by Nevil Shute is about a nuclear war that released so much radioactive fallout that all the life in the Northern Hemisphere disappeared, while the Southern Hemisphere awaited a similar fate. The American government voiced a criticism of this premise—a threat of extinction from nuclear war—because they did not have enough nuclear weapons to cause human extinction.  The Castle Bravo detonation and the subsequent poisoning of the crew aboard "Daigo Fukuryū Maru" led to an increase in antinuclear protests in Japan. It was compared to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Castle Bravo test was frequently part of the plots of numerous Japanese media, especially in relation to Japan's most widely recognized media icon, Godzilla. During the opening scene of the 2014 American "Godzilla" reboot and in the prequel comic "Godzilla: Awakening", the Castle Bravo nuclear test was an attempt to kill Godzilla and a prehistoric parasite called "Shinomura". Godzilla survived the "test", despite humanity believing otherwise, while the Shinomura was incinerated. In, Castle Bravo becomes the call sign for Monarch Outpost 54 located in the Atlantic Ocean, near Bermuda.  The Donald Fagen song "Memorabilia" off his 2012 album "Sunken Condos" mentions both the Castle Bravo and Ivy King nuclear tests.  In 2013, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency released "Castle Bravo: Fifty Years of Legend and Lore".

Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of "Operation Castle". Detonated on March 1, 1954, the device was the most powerful nuclear device detonated by the United States and its first lithium deuteride fueled thermonuclear weapon. Castle Bravo's yield was 15 megatons of TNT, 2.5 times the predicted 6.0 megatons, due to unforeseen additional reactions involving lithium-7, which led to the unexpected radioactive contamination of areas to the east of Bikini Atoll. At the time, it was the most powerful artificial explosion in history.

Castle Bravo je krycí jméno doposud nejsilnějšího amerického testu termonukleární zbraně, který byl proveden 1. března 1954 na atolu Bikini na Marshallových ostrovech Spojenými státy. Byl to první test z dlouhé série testů nukleárních zbraní v rámci operace Castle. Neočekávaný radioaktivní spad z výbuchu zasáhl posádku japonského rybářského člunu a vyvolal silný mezinárodní odpor proti atmosférickým termonukleárním testům, test měl být původně tajný.


Etymology.

The word "dolmen" has an unclear history. The word entered archaeology when Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne used it to describe megalithic tombs in his "Origines gauloises" (1796) using the spelling "dolmin" (the current spelling was introduced about a decade later and had become standard in French by about 1885). The "Oxford English Dictionary" does not mention "dolmin" in English and gives its first citation for "dolmen" from a book on Brittany in 1859, describing the word as "The French term, used by some English authors, for a cromlech...". The name was supposedly derived from a Breton language term meaning "stone table" but doubt has been cast on this, and the "OED" describes its origin as "Modern French". A book on Cornish antiquities from 1754 said that the current term in the Cornish language for a cromlech was "tolmen" ("hole of stone") and the OED says that "There is reason to think that this was the term inexactly reproduced by Latour d'Auvergne [sic] as "dolmen", and misapplied by him and succeeding French archaeologists to the "cromlech"". Nonetheless it has now replaced cromlech as the usual English term in archaeology, when the more technical and descriptive alternatives are not used. The later Cornish term was quoit - an English language word for an object with a hole through the middle preserving the original Cornish language term of 'Tolmen' - the name of another dolmen-like monument is in fact Mên-an-Tol'stone with hole' (SWF: "Men An Toll".  Dolmens are known by a variety of names in other languages, including, Galician and, Bulgarian: Долмени Dolmeni,, Afrikaans and,,, Adyghe Ispun, "dysse" (Danish and Norwegian), "dös" (Swedish),

A dolmen () is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more vertical megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BC) and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus. Small pad-stones may be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance. In many instances, the covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone "skeleton" of the mound intact.

Dolmen (z bretonského "dol" – stůl a "men" – kámen, tedy „kamenný stůl“) prehistorická megalitická stavba z velkých nepravidelných kamenných bloků, zpravidla gigantických rozměrů, patrně zbytek vnitřního prostoru pohřebních mohyl. Dolmeny jsou dochovány v různých částech světa, v Evropě (především západní) od neolitu po dobu bronzovou. Zhruba v 10. tisíciletí př. n. l. byl v hrobce magdalénského člověka poblíž Saint-Germain-la-Riviere nalezen kamenný podklad pod hlavou pohřbeného ve tvaru menšího dolmenu. Henri Breuil tento úkaz nazval microdolmenem bez gigantického provedení. Dá se to pokládat za předvoj velkých megalitických staveb.


Early life.

Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig on 16 October 1927, to Wilhelm Grass (1899–1979), a Lutheran Protestant of German origin, and Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898–1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin. He referred to himself as Kashubian. Grass was raised a Catholic and served as an altar boy when he was a child. His parents had a grocery store with an attached apartment in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz). He had a sister, Waltraud, born in 1930. Grass attended the Danzig gymnasium "Conradinum". In 1943, at age 16, he became a "Luftwaffenhelfer" (Air Force "helper"). Soon thereafter, he was conscripted into the "Reichsarbeitsdienst" (National Labour Service). In November 1944, shortly after his 17th birthday, Grass volunteered for submarine service with Nazi Germany's "Kriegsmarine", "to get out of the confinement felt as a teenager in his parents' house", which he considered stuffy Catholic lower middle-class.  The Navy refused him and he was instead called up for the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg in late 1944. Grass did not reveal until 2006 that he was drafted into the "Waffen-SS" at that time. His unit functioned as a regular "Panzer" Division, and he served with them from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945. He was captured in Marienbad (now Mariánské Lázně, Czech Republic) and sent to a U.S. prisoner-of-war camp in Bad Aibling, Bavaria.  From 1946 to 1947, Grass worked in a mine and received training in stonemasonry. He studied sculpture and graphics at the "Kunstakademie Düsseldorf". He also was a co-founder of Group 47, organized by Hans Werner Richter. Grass worked as a writer, graphic designer, and sculptor, travelling frequently. In 1953 he moved to West Berlin and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. From 1960, he lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein. In 1961 he publicly objected to the erection of the Berlin Wall.  From 1983 to 1986, he held the presidency of the Academy of Arts, Berlin.

Personal life.

Grass's 1954 marriage to Anna Margareta Schwarz - a Swiss dancer - ended in divorce in 1978. He and Schwarz had four children: Franz (born 1957), Raoul (1957), Laura (1961), and Bruno (1965). Separated in 1972, he began a relationship with Veronika Schröter and had a child with her, Helene (1974). He also had a child with Ingrid Kruger, Nele (1979). In 1979 he married Ute Grunert, an organist, to whom he was still married at his death. He had two stepsons from his second marriage, Malte and Hans. He had 18 grandchildren at his death.  Grass was a fan of Bundesliga Club SC Freiburg.

Major works.

Danzig Trilogy.

Grass's best-known work is "The Tin Drum" (German: "Die Blechtrommel"), published in 1959 (and adapted as a film of the same name by director Volker Schlöndorff in 1979). It was followed in 1961 by "Cat and Mouse" (German: "Katz und Maus"), a novella, and in 1963 by the novel "Dog Years" (German: "Hundejahre").  The books are collectively called the Danzig Trilogy and focus on the rise of Nazism and how World War II affected Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), which was separated from Germany after World War I and became the Free City of Danzig (German: "Freie Stadt Danzig"). "Dog Years" (1965) is considered a sequel of sorts to "The Tin Drum", as it features some of the same characters. It portrays the area's mixed ethnicities and complex historical background in lyrical prose that is highly evocative.  "The Tin Drum" established Grass as one of the leading authors of Germany, and also set a high bar of comparison for all of his subsequent works, which were often compared unfavorably to this early work by critics. Nonetheless, in the West Germany of the late '50s and early '60s the book could be controversial, and its "immorality" prompted the city of Bremen to revoke a prize it had bestowed upon him. When Grass received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1999 the Nobel Committee stated that the publication of "The Tin Drum" "was as if German literature had been granted a new beginning after decades of linguistic and moral destruction"

"The Flounder".

The 1977 novel "The Flounder" (German: "Der Butt") is based on the folktale of "The Fisherman and His Wife", and deals with the struggle between the sexes. It has been read as an anti-feminist novel, since in the novel the magical flounder of the folk tale, now representing male triumphalism and the patriarchy is caught by a group of 1970s feminists, who put it on trial. The book interrogates male-female relations from the past and the present through the relationship between the narrator and his wife, who as the wife in the folk tale, insatiably craves more. In spite of the fact that the book could be read as a defense of women and a denouncement of male chauvinism, the book was harshly critiqued and rejected by feminists, partly due to its portrayal of violence, sexualization and objectification, and what the feminists perceived as male narcissism and gender essentialism.

"My Century" and "Crabwalk".

The 1999 book "My Century" (German: "Mein Jahrhundert") was an overview of the 20th-century's many brutal historic events, conveyed in short pieces, a mosaic of expression. In 2002, Grass returned to the forefront of world literature with "Crabwalk" (German: "Im Krebsgang"). This novella, one of whose main characters first appeared in "Cat and Mouse", was Grass's most successful work in decades. It dealt with the events of a refugee ship, full of thousands of Germans, being sunk by a Russian submarine, killing most on board. It was one of a number of works since the late 20th century that have explored the victimization of Germans in World War II.

Memoir trilogy.

In 2006, Grass published the first volume in a trilogy of autobiographic memoirs. Titled "Peeling the Onion" (German: "Beim Häuten der Zwiebel"), it dealt with his childhood, war years, early efforts as a sculptor and poet, and finally his literary success with the publication of "The Tin Drum". In a prepublication interview Grass for the first time revealed that he had been a member of the Waffen-SS, and not only a "Flakhelfer" (anti-aircraft assistant) as he had long said. On being asked what caused the need for public confession and revelation of his past in the book he answered: "It was a weight on me, my silence over all these years is one of the reasons I wrote the book. It had to come out in the end."  The interview and the book caused critics to accuse him of hypocrisy for having hidden this part of his past, while simultaneously being a strong voice for ethics and morality in the public debate. The book itself was also praised for its depictions of the German postwar generation and the social and moral development of a nation burdened simultaneously by destruction and a deep sense of guilt. Throughout the memoir Grass plays with the frailty of memory, for which the layers of the onion are a metaphor. Grass second-guesses his own memories, throws his own autobiographical statements into doubt and questions whether the person inhabiting his past was really him. This struggle with memory comes to represent the struggle of the German people during the same period with Germany's Nazi past.

Main themes and literary style.

A main theme in Grass's work is World War II and its effects on Germany and the German people, including a critique of the forms of ideological reasoning that undergirded the Nazi regime. The place of the city of Danzig/Gdańsk and its ambiguous historical status in between Germany and Poland often stands as a symbol of the ambiguity between ethnic groups, also found in Grass's own heritage which includes both German and Slavic family members who fought on opposite sides of the war. His works also show a sustained concern for the marginal and marginalized subjects, such as Oskar Matzerath, the dwarf in "The Tin Drum" whose body was considered an aberration unworthy of life in the Nazi ideology, or with Roma and Sinti people who were also deemed impure and unworthy and subjected to eugenics and genocide.  His literary style combines elements of magic realism, with a penchant for questioning and complicating questions of authorship by intermingling realistic autobiographical elements with unreliable narrators and fantastic events or happenings that creates irony or satirizes events to form social critiques.

Reception by critics and colleagues.

Grass's work has tended to divide the critics into those who have considered his experiments and style to be sublime and those who have found it to be tied down by his political posturing. Particularly American critics such as John Updike have found the mixture of politics and social critique in his works to diminish its artistic qualities. In his various critiques of Grass's works, Updike wrote that Grass had been consumed by his "strenuous career as celebrity-author-artist-Socialist" and about one of his later novels that "he can't be bothered to write a novel; he just sends dispatches... from the front lines of his engagement". Even if frequently critical of Grass, Updike considered him to be "one of the very, very few authors whose next novel one has no intention of missing".  Grass's literary style has been widely influential. John Irving called Grass "simply the most original and versatile writer alive". And many have noted parallels between Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "The Tin Drum". Similarly, Salman Rushdie has acknowledged a debt to Grass's work, particularly "The Tin Drum", and many parallels to Grass's work have been pointed out in his own oeuvre.

Social and political activism.

Grass was for several decades a supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and its policies. He took part in German and international political debate on several occasions. During Willy Brandt's chancellorship, Grass was an active supporter. Grass criticised left-wing radicals and instead argued in favour of the "snail's pace", as he put it, of democratic reform ("Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke"). Books containing his speeches and essays were released throughout his literary career.  In the 1980s, he became active in the peace movement and visited Calcutta for six months. A diary with drawings was published as "Zunge zeigen", an allusion to Kali's tongue.  During the events leading up to the reunification of Germany in 1989–90, Grass argued for the continued separation of the two German states. He asserted that a unified Germany would be likely to resume its role as belligerent nation-state. This argument estranged many Germans, who came to see him as too much of a moralizing figure.  In 2001, Grass proposed the creation of a German-Polish museum for art lost to other countries during the War. The Hague Convention of 1907 requires the return of art that had been evacuated, stolen or seized. Some countries refused to repatriate some of the looted art.  On 4 April 2012, Grass's poem "What Must Be Said" (German: "Was gesagt werden muss") was published in several European newspapers. Grass expressed his concern about the hypocrisy of German military support (the delivery of a submarine) for an Israel that might use such equipment to launch nuclear warheads against Iran, which "could wipe out the Iranian people". And he hoped that many would demand "that the governments of both Iran and Israel allow an international authority free and open inspection of the nuclear potential and capability of both." In response, Israel declared him "persona non grata" in that country.  According to Avi Primor, president of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, Grass was the only important German cultural figure who had refused to meet with him when he served as Israeli ambassador to Germany. Primor noted: "One explanation for [Grass']s strange behaviour might be found in the fact that Grass (who despite his poem is probably not the bitter enemy of Israel that one would imagine) had certain personal difficulties with Israel." Primor said that during Grass's earlier visit to Israel, he "was confronted with the anger of an Israeli public that booed him in successive public appearances. To be sure, the Israeli protestors were not targeting Grass personally and their anger had nothing at all to do with his literature. It was the German effort to establish cultural relations with Israel to which they objected. Grass, however, did not see it that way and may well have felt personally slighted."  Grass was a supporter of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.  On 26 April 2012, Grass wrote a poem criticizing European policy for the treatment of Greece in the European debt crisis. In "Europe's Disgrace", Grass accuses Europe of condemning Greece to poverty, a country "whose mind conceived Europe."  Just a few days before he died Grass completed his last book, "Vonne Endlichkait". The title is in East Prussian dialect, the native dialect of Grass, and it means "About Finitude." According to his publisher Gerhard Steidl, the book was "a literary experiment", combining short prose texts, poems and a pencil drawings by the writer. The book was published in August 2015.

Awards and honours.

Grass received dozens of international awards; in 1999, he was awarded the highest literary honour: the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy noted him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history". His literature is commonly categorised as part of the German artistic movement known as "Vergangenheitsbewältigung", roughly translated as "coming to terms with the past."  In 1965, Grass received the Georg Büchner Prize; in 1993 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature In 1995, he received the Hermann Kesten Prize.  Representatives of the city of Bremen joined together to establish the Günter Grass Foundation with the aim of establishing a centralized collection of his numerous works, especially his many personal readings, videos and films. The Günter Grass House in Lübeck houses exhibitions of his drawings and sculptures, an archive and a library.  In 2012, Grass received the award European of the Year from the European Movement Denmark (Europabevægelsen) honoring his political debates in European affairs.

"Waffen-SS" revelations.

In August 2006, in an interview about his forthcoming book, "Peeling the Onion", Grass said that he had been a member of the "Waffen-SS" in World War II. Prior to that, he had been considered a typical member of the "Flakhelfer generation", one of those too young to see much fighting or to be involved with the Nazi regime beyond its youth organizations.  On 15 August 2006, the online edition of "Der Spiegel", Spiegel Online, published three 1946 documents from U.S. forces verifying Grass's "Waffen-SS" membership.  After an unsuccessful attempt to volunteer for the U-boat fleet in 1942, at age 15, Grass was conscripted into the "Reichsarbeitsdienst" (Reich Labor Service). He was called up for the "Waffen-SS" in 1944. Grass was trained as a tank gunner and fought with the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg until its surrender to U.S. forces at Marienbad.  In 2007, Grass published an account of his wartime experience in "The New Yorker", including an attempt to "string together the circumstances that probably triggered and nourished my decision to enlist." To the BBC, Grass said in 2006: "It happened as it did to many of my age. We were in the labour service and all at once, a year later, the call-up notice lay on the table. And only when I got to Dresden did I learn it was the Waffen-SS."  Joachim Fest – German journalist, historian and biographer of Adolf Hitler – remarked, to the German weekly "Der Spiegel", on Grass's disclosure: "After 60 years, this confession comes a bit too late. I can't understand how someone who for decades set himself up as a moral authority, a rather smug one, could pull this off."  As Grass was for many decades an outspoken left-leaning critic of Germany's failure to deal with its Nazi past, his statement caused a great stir in the press. Rolf Hochhuth said it was "disgusting" that this same "politically correct" Grass had publicly criticized Helmut Kohl and Ronald Reagan's visit to a military cemetery at Bitburg in 1985, because it contained graves of "Waffen-SS" soldiers. In the same vein, the historian Michael Wolffsohn accused Grass of hypocrisy in not earlier disclosing his SS membership.  Others defended Grass, saying his involuntary "Waffen-SS" membership came very early in his life, resulting from his being drafted shortly after his seventeenth birthday. They noted he had always – after the war was lost – been publicly critical of Germany's Nazi past. For example, novelist John Irving criticised those who would dismiss the achievements of a lifetime because of a mistake made as a teenager.  Grass's biographer described the controversy as resulting in "the end of a moral institution". Lech Wałęsa initially criticized Grass for keeping silent about his "Waffen-SS" membership for 60 years. He later withdrew his criticism after reading Grass's letter to the mayor of Gdańsk, saying that Grass "set the good example for the others." On 14 August 2006, the ruling party of Poland, Law and Justice, called on Grass to relinquish his honorary citizenship of Gdańsk. Jacek Kurski, a Law and Justice politician said, "It is unacceptable for a city where the first blood was shed, where World War II began, to have a Waffen-SS member as an honorary citizen." But, according to a 2010 poll ordered by city's authorities, the vast majority of Gdańsk citizens did not support Kurski's position. The mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, said that he opposed submitting the affair to the municipal council because it was not for the council to judge history.

Death.

An avid pipe smoker for most of his adult life, Grass died of a lung infection on 13 April 2015 in a Lübeck hospital at the age of 87. He was buried in a private family observance on 25 April in Behlendorf, 15 miles south of Lübeck, where he had lived since 1995.  U.S. novelist John Irving delivered the main eulogy at a memorial service for Grass on 10 May in the Theater Lübeck. Among those who attended were German President Joachim Gauck, Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, federal Commissioner for Culture Monika Grütters, director Volker Schlöndorff and Paweł Adamowicz, mayor of Gdańsk. Grütters, in remarks to mourners, noted that Grass through his work championed the independence of artists and of art itself. Adamowicz said Grass had "bridged the chasm between Germany and Poland," and praised the novelist's "unwillingness to compromise."

Bibliography.

Collections in English translation

Günter Wilhelm Grass (; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German-Kashubian novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Günter Wilhelm Grass (16. října 1927 Danzig, dnes Gdaňsk, Polsko – 13. dubna 2015, Lübeck, Německo) byl přední německý spisovatel. V roce 1999 obdržel Nobelovu cenu za literaturu. Proslul zejména románem "Plechový bubínek", jenž se řadí ke klíčovým textům evropské poválečné literatury.


Applications.

Bidets are primarily used to wash and clean the genitalia, perineum, inner buttocks, and anus. Some bidets have a vertical jet intended to give easy access for washing and rinsing the perineum and anal area. The traditional separate bidet is like a wash-basin which is filled with clean water, and may then used for many other purposes such as washing feet.

Types.

Bidet shower.

A bidet shower (also known as "bidet spray", "bidet sprayer", or "health faucet") is a hand-held triggered nozzle, similar to that on a kitchen sink sprayer, that delivers a spray of water to assist in anal cleansing and cleaning the genitals after defecation and urination. In contrast to a bidet that is integrated with the toilet, a bidet shower has to be held by the hands, and cleaning does not take place automatically. Bidet showers are common in countries where water is considered essential for anal cleansing.  Drawbacks include the possibility of wetting a user's clothing if used carelessly. In addition, a user must be reasonably mobile and flexible to use a hand-held bidet shower.

Conventional or standalone bidet.

A bidet is a plumbing fixture that is installed as a separate unit in the bathroom besides toilet, shower and sink, which users have to straddle. Some bidets resemble a large hand basin, with taps and a stopper so they can be filled up; other designs have a nozzle that squirts a jet of water to aid in cleansing.

Add-on bidets.

There are bidets that are attachable to toilet bowls, saving space and without the need to plumb in an additional unit. A bidet may be a movable or fixed nozzle attached to an existing toilet on back or side toilet rim, or replacing the toilet seat. In these cases, their use is restricted to cleaning the anus and genitals. Some bidets of this type produce a vertical water jet and others a more-or-less oblique one. Other bidets have one nozzle on the side rim aimed at both anal and genital areas, and other designs have two nozzles on the back rim. The shorter one, called the "family nozzle", is used for washing the area around the anus, and the longer one ("bidet nozzle") is designed for washing the vulva.  Such attachable bidets (also called "combined toilets", "bidet attachments", or "add-on bidets") are controlled either mechanically, by turning a valve, or electronically. Electronic bidets are controlled with waterproof electrical switches rather than a manual valve. There are models that have a heating element which blows warm air to dry the user after washing, that offer heated seats, wireless remote controls, illumination through built in night lights, or built in deodorizers and activated carbon filters to remove odors. Further refinements include adjustable water pressure, temperature compensation, and directional spray control. Where bathroom appearance is of concern, under-the-seat mounting types have become more popular.  An add-on bidet typically connects to the existing water supply of a toilet via the addition of a threaded tee pipe adapter, and requires no soldering or other plumbing work. Electronic add-on bidets also require a GFCI protected grounded electrical outlet.

Usage and health.

Personal hygiene is improved and maintained more accurately and easily with the use of both toilet paper and a bidet as compared to the use of toilet paper alone. In some add-on bidets with vertical jets, the use of toilet paper can be avoided as the water amount used is so little. Addressing hemorrhoids and genital health issues might also be facilitated by the use of bidet fixtures.  Because of the large surface of the basin, after-use and routine disinfection of stand-alone bidets requires thoroughness, or microbial contamination from one user to the next could take place. Bidet attachments are sometimes included on hospital toilets because of their utility in maintaining hygiene. Warm-water bidets may harbor dangerous microbes if not properly disinfected.

Environmental aspects.

From an environmental standpoint, bidets can reduce the need for toilet paper. Considering that an average person uses only of water for cleansing by using a bidet, much less water is used than for manufacturing toilet paper. An article in "Scientific American" concluded that using a bidet is "much less stressful on the environment than using paper". "Scientific American" has also reported that if the US switched to using bidets, 15 million trees could be saved every year.

Society and culture.

In Islam, there are many strict rules concerning excretion; in particular anal washing with water is required. Consequently in Middle Eastern regions where Islam is the predominant religion, water for anal washing is provided in most toilets, usually in the form of a hand-held "bidet shower" or "shattaf".

Prevalence.

Bidets are becoming increasingly popular with the elderly and disabled. Combined toilet/bidet installations make self-care toileting possible for many people, affording greater independence. There are often special units with higher toilet seats allowing easier wheelchair transfer, and with some form of electronic remote control that benefits an individual with limited mobility or otherwise requiring assistance.  Bidets are common bathroom fixtures in the Arab world, West Africa, predominantly Catholic countries, southern European countries, Italy (the installation of a bidet in a bathroom has been mandatory since 1975), Spain (but in recent times new or renewed houses tend to have bathrooms without bidets, except the luxurious ones), and Portugal (installation is mandatory since 1975). They are also found in Southern Eastern Europe in countries like Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Greece. They are very popular in some South American countries, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Electronic bidet-integrated toilets, often with functions such as toilet seat warming, are commonly found in Japan, and are becoming more popular in other Asian countries.  In northern Europe, bidets are rare, although in Finland bidet showers are common. Bidet showers are most commonly found in South-East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East.  In 1980, the first "paperless toilet" was launched in Japan by manufacturer Toto, a combination of toilet and bidet which also dries the user after washing. These combination toilet-bidets (washlet) with seat warmers, or attachable bidets are particularly popular in Japan and South Korea, and are found in approximately 76% of Japanese households. They are commonly found in hotels and some public facilities. These bidet-toilets, along with toilet seat and bidet units (to convert an existing toilet) are sold in many countries, including the United States.  Bidet seat conversions are much easier and lower cost to install than traditional bidets, and have disrupted the market for the older fixtures.  After a slow start in the 1990s, electronic bidets are starting to become more available in the United States. Their popularity is steadily increasing in the US, Canada, and United Kingdom, in part because of their ability to treat hemorrhoids or urogenital infections. In addition, shortages of toilet paper due to the coronavirus pandemic has led to an increased interest in bidets.

Etymology.

"Bidet" is a French word for "pony", and in Old French, "bider" meant "to trot". This etymology comes from the notion that one "rides" or straddles a bidet much like a pony is ridden. The word "bidet" was used in 15th century France to refer to the pet ponies that French royalty kept.

History.

The bidet appears to have been an invention of French furniture makers in the late 17th century, although no exact date or inventor is known. The earliest written reference to the bidet is in 1726 in Italy. Even though there are records of Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily, requesting a bidet for her personal bathroom in the Royal Palace of Caserta in the second half of the 18th century, the bidet did not become widespread in Italy until after WWII. The bidet is possibly associated with the "chamber pot" and the "bourdaloue", the latter being a small, hand-held chamber pot.  Historical antecedents and early functions of the bidet are believed to include devices used for contraception. Bidets are considered ineffective by today's standards of contraception, and their use for that function was quickly abandoned and forgotten following the advent of modern contraceptives such as the pill.  By 1900, due to plumbing improvements, the bidet (and chamber pot) moved from the bedroom to the bathroom, and became more convenient to fill and drain.  In 1928, in the United States, John Harvey Kellogg applied for a patent on an "anal douche". In his application, he used the term to describe a system comparable to what today might be called a bidet nozzle, which can be attached to a toilet to perform anal cleansing with water.  In 1965, the American Bidet Company featured an adjustable spray nozzle and warm water option, seeking to make the bidet a household item. The fixture was expensive, and required floor space to install; it was eventually discontinued without a replacement model.  The early 1980s saw the introduction of the electronic bidet from Japan, with names such as Clean Sense, Galaxy, Infinity, Novita, and of non-electric attachments such as Gobidet. These devices have attachments that connect to existing toilet water supplies, and can be used in bathrooms lacking the space for a separate bidet and toilet. Many models have additional features, such as instant-heating warm water, night lights, or a heated seat.  The shortage of toilet paper due to mass isolation and panic buying during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 saw a rise in bidets within domestic homes across the globe.

A bidet ( or ) is a bowl or receptacle designed to be sat on for the purpose of washing the human genitalia, perineum, inner buttocks, and anus. The modern variety includes a plumbed-in water supply and a drainage opening, and is thus a type of plumbing fixture subject to local hygiene regulations. The bidet is designed to promote personal hygiene, and is used after defecation, and before and after sexual intercourse. In several European countries, a bidet is today required by law to be present in every bathroom containing a toilet bowl. It was originally located in the bedroom, near the chamber-pot and the marital bed, but in modern times is located near the toilet bowl in the bathroom. Fixtures that combine a toilet seat with a washing facility include the electronic bidet.

Bidet je nízko umístěný typ umyvadla uzpůsobený pro omývání vnějšího genitálu a řitního otvoru. Zpravidla je využíván po použití záchodu – po vyprázdnění (močení nebo defekaci) – nebo při intimní hygieně ženy při menstruaci.


Life and work.

Early life and education.

Rachel Carson was born on May 27, 1907, on a family farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania, just up the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh. She was the daughter of Maria Frazier (McLean) and Robert Warden Carson, an insurance salesman. She spent a lot of time exploring around her family's farm. An avid reader, she began writing stories (often involving animals) at age eight and had her first story published at age ten. She especially enjoyed the "St. Nicholas Magazine" (which carried her first published stories), the works of Beatrix

Early career and publications.

At the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Carson's main responsibilities were to analyze and report field data on fish populations, and to write brochures and other literature for the public. Using her research and consultations with marine biologists as starting points, she also wrote a steady stream of articles for "The Baltimore Sun" and other newspapers. However, her family responsibilities further increased in January 1937 when her older sister died, leaving Carson as the sole breadwinner for her mother and two nieces.  In July 1937, the "Atlantic Monthly" accepted a revised version of an essay, "The World of Waters", that she originally wrote for her first fisheries bureau brochure. Her supervisor had deemed it too good

Relationship with Dorothy Freeman.

Carson first met Dorothy Freeman in the summer of 1953 in Southport Island, Maine. Freeman had written to Carson welcoming her to the area when she had heard that the famous author was to become her neighbor. It was the beginning of an extremely close friendship that would last the rest of Carson's life. Their relationship was conducted mainly through letters, and during summers spent together in Maine. Over the course of 12 years, they would exchange somewhere in the region of 900 letters. Many of these were

"The Edge of the Sea" and transition to conservation work.

Early in 1953, Carson began library and field research on the ecology and organisms of the Atlantic shore. In 1955, she completed the third volume of her sea trilogy, "The Edge of the Sea", which focuses on life in coastal ecosystems, particularly along the Eastern Seaboard. It appeared in "The New Yorker" in two condensed installments shortly before its October 26 book release by Houghton Mifflin (again a new publisher). By this time, Carson's reputation for clear and poetical prose was well established; "The Edge of the Sea" received highly favorable reviews, if not quite as enthusiastic as for "The Sea Around Us".  Through 1955 and 1956, Carson worked on a number of projects—including the script for an "Omnibus" episode, "Something About the Sky"—and wrote articles for popular magazines. Her plan for the next book was to address evolution, but the publication

"Silent Spring".

"Silent Spring", Carson's best-known book, was published by Houghton Mifflin on 27 September 1962. The book described the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment, and is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement. Carson was not the first, or the only person to raise concerns about DDT, but her combination of "scientific knowledge and poetic writing" reached a broad audience and helped to focus opposition to DDT use. In 1994, an edition of "Silent Spring" was published with an introduction written by Vice President Al Gore. In 2012 "Silent Spring "was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society for its role in the development of the modern environmental movement.

Research and writing.

Starting in the mid-1940s, Carson had become concerned about the use of synthetic pesticides, many of which had been developed through the military funding of science since World War II. It was the United States federal government's 1957 gypsy moth eradication program, however, that prompted Carson to devote her research, and her next book, to pesticides and environmental poisons. The gypsy moth program involved aerial spraying of DDT and other pesticides (mixed with fuel oil), including the spraying of private land. Landowners on Long Island filed a lawsuit to have the spraying stopped, and many in affected regions followed the case closely. Though the suit was lost, the Supreme Court granted petitioners the right to gain injunctions against potential environmental damage in the future; this laid the basis for later successful environmental actions.  The Audubon Naturalist Society also actively opposed such spraying programs, and recruited Carson to help make public the government's exact spraying practices and the related research. Carson began the four-year project of what would become "Silent Spring" by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT. She also attempted to enlist

Content.

As biographer Mark Hamilton Lytle writes, Carson "quite self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress that defined post-war American culture." The overriding theme of "Silent Spring" is the powerful—and often adverse—effect humans have on the natural world.  Carson's main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; they are more properly termed "biocides", she argues, because their effects are rarely limited to the target pests. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides come under scrutiny as well, many of which are subject to bioaccumulation. Carson also accuses the chemical industry of intentionally spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Most of the book is devoted to pesticides' effects on natural ecosystems, but four

Promotion and reception.

Carson and the others involved with publication of "Silent Spring" expected fierce criticism. They were particularly concerned about the possibility of being sued for libel. Carson was also undergoing radiation therapy to combat her spreading cancer, and expected to have little energy to devote to defending her work and responding to critics. In preparation for the anticipated attacks, Carson and her agent attempted to amass as many prominent supporters as possible before the book's release.  Most of the book's scientific chapters were reviewed by scientists with relevant expertise, among whom Carson found strong support. Carson attended the White House Conference on Conservation in May 1962; Houghton Mifflin distributed proof copies of "Silent Spring" to many of the delegates, and promoted the upcoming "New Yorker" serialization. Among many others, Carson also sent a proof copy to Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas, a longtime environmental advocate who had argued against the court's rejection of the Long Island pesticide spraying case (and who had provided Carson with some of the material included in her chapter on herbicides).  Though "Silent Spring" had generated a fairly high level of interest based on prepublication promotion, this became much more intense with the serialization in "The New Yorker", which began in the June 16, 1962, issue. This brought the book to the attention of the chemical industry and its lobbyists, as well as a wide swath of the American populace. Around that time Carson also learned that "Silent Spring" had been selected as the Book of the Month for October; as she put it, this would "carry it to farms and hamlets all over that country that don't know what a bookstore looks like—much less "The New Yorker"." Other publicity included a positive editorial in "The New York Times" and excerpts of the serialized version in "Audubon" magazine, with another round of publicity in July and August as chemical companies responded. The story of the birth defect-causing drug thalidomide broke just before the book's publication as well, inviting comparisons between Carson and Frances Oldham Kelsey, the Food and Drug Administration reviewer who had blocked the drug's sale in the United States. In the weeks leading up to the September 27, 1962, publication, there was strong opposition to "Silent Spring" from the chemical industry. DuPont (a main manufacturer of DDT and 2,4-D) and Velsicol Chemical Corporation (exclusive manufacturer of chlordane and heptachlor) were among the first to respond. DuPont compiled an extensive report on the book's press coverage and estimated impact on public opinion. Velsicol threatened legal action against Houghton Mifflin

Death.

Weakened from breast cancer and her treatment regimen, Carson became ill with a respiratory virus in January 1964. Her condition worsened, and in February, doctors found that she had severe anemia from her radiation treatments and in March they discovered

Legacy.

Collected papers and posthumous publications.

Carson bequeathed her manuscripts and papers to Yale University, to take advantage of the new state-of-the-art preservations facilities of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Her longtime agent and literary executor Marie Rodell spent nearly two years organizing and cataloging Carson's papers and correspondence, distributing all the letters to their senders so that only what each correspondent approved would be submitted to the archive.  In 1965, Rodell arranged

Grassroots environmentalism and the EPA.

Carson's work had a powerful impact on the environmental movement. "Silent Spring", in particular, was a rallying point for the fledgling social movement in the 1960s. According to environmental engineer and Carson scholar H. Patricia Hynes, ""Silent Spring" altered the balance of power in the world. No one since would be able to sell pollution as the necessary underside of progress so easily or uncritically." Carson's work, and the activism it inspired, are at least partly responsible for the deep ecology movement,

Posthumous honors.

A variety of groups ranging from government institutions to environmental and conservation organizations to scholarly societies have celebrated Carson's life and work since her death. Perhaps most significantly, on June 9, 1980, Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. A 17¢ Great Americans series postage stamp was issued in her honor the following year; several other countries have since issued Carson postage as well. In 1973, Carson was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.  The University of California, Santa Cruz, named one of its colleges (formerly known as College Eight) to Rachel Carson College in 2016. Rachel Carson College is the first college at the University to bear a woman's name.  Munich's Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society was founded in 2009. An international, interdisciplinary center for research and education in the environmental humanities and social sciences, it was established as a joint initiative of Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the Deutsches Museum, with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.  Carson's birthplace and childhood home in Springdale, Pennsylvania, now known as the Rachel Carson Homestead, became a National Register of Historic Places site and the nonprofit Rachel Carson Homestead Association was created in 1975 to manage it. Her home in Colesville, Maryland where she wrote "Silent Spring" was named a National Historic Landmark in 1991. Near Pittsburgh, a hiking trail, called the Rachel Carson Trail and maintained by the Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy, was dedicated to Carson in 1975. A Pittsburgh bridge was also renamed in Carson's honor as the Rachel Carson Bridge. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection State Office Building in Harrisburg is named in her honor. Elementary schools in Gaithersburg, Montgomery County, Maryland, Sammamish, Washington and San Jose, California

External links.

Carson-related organizations

Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist whose book "Silent Spring" and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.

Rachel Louise Carsonová (27. května 1907 poblíž Springdale, Pensylvánie – 14. dubna 1964 Silver Spring, Maryland) byla americká zooložka a mořská bioložka.


Concepts.

Network-based theories.

Gabriel Dupuy applied network theory to the field of urbanism and suggests that the single dominant characteristic of modern urbanism is its networked character, as opposed to segregated conceptions of space (i.e. zones, boundaries and edges).  Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin argue that we are witnessing a post-urban environment where decentralized, loosely connected neighborhoods and zones of activity assume the former organizing role played by urban spaces. Their theory of "splintering urbanism" involves the "fragmentation of the social and material fabric of cities" into "cellular clusters of globally connected high-service enclaves and network ghettos" driven by electronic networks that segregate as much as they connect. Dominique Lorrain argues that the process of splintering urbanism began towards the end of the 20th century with the emergence of the gigacity, a new form of a networked city characterised by three-dimensional size, network density and the blurring of city boundaries.  Manuel Castells suggested that within a network society, "premium" infrastructure networks (high-speed telecommunications, ‘smart’ highways, global airline networks) selectively connect together the most favored users and places and bypass the less favored. Graham and Marvin argue that attention to infrastructure networks is reactive to crises or collapse, rather than sustained and systematic, because of a failure to understand the links between urban life and urban infrastructure networks.

Other modern theorists.

Douglas Kelbaugh identifies three paradigms within urbanism: New Urbanism, Everyday Urbanism, and Post-Urbanism.  Paul L. Knox refers to one of many trends in contemporary urbanism as the "aestheticization of everyday life".  Alex Krieger states that urban design is less a technical discipline than a mind-set based on a commitment to cities.

Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, which is the profession focusing on the physical design and management of urban structures and urban sociology which is the academic field the study of urban life and culture.

Urbanismus je disciplína, jejímž cílem je zkoumat a plánovat vytvořené prostředí za účelem rozvoje sídelních útvarů (města, vesnice) ve společensky funkční a udržitelné celky. Urbanistické projektování navrhuje uspořádání sídel, jejich částí a navazujících částí krajiny a navazuje tak na architekturu, popřípadě krajinnou architekturu. Ve střední, jižní a východní Evropě se pod termín urbanismus zpravidla zahrnuje i plánování sídel, které je složkou územního plánování. Od 20. století je urbanismus rovněž komponentem disciplíny urbanistická sociologie (nauka o urbánním životě a kultuře). Urbanistická sociologie se zabývá hranicí mezi kulturou a přírodou. Ta by měla být vedena tak, aby byla pro společnost co nejvíce efektivní. Kvůli rozvoji vědy a techniky se rozšiřuje možnost působení a dochází často k upřednostňování panství kultury před přírodou.


Description.

A typical "koinobori" set consists of, from the top of the pole down, a pair of with a ball-shaped spinning vane, that looks like a windsock. The number and meaning of the carp socks or "koinobori" that fly beneath the streamer has changed over time. Traditionally, the set would contain a black "koinobori" representing the father, followed by a smaller, red "koinobori" representing his eldest son. This is why, according to the Japanese American National Museum, in the traditional "children's song," the red one (higoi) represents the eldest son. If more boys were in the household, an additional blue, green and then, depending on the region, either purple or orange "koinobori" were added. After the government's decree that converted Boy's Day (Tango no Sekku) into the present Children's Day (Kodomo no Hi), the holiday came to celebrate the happiness of both boys and girls. As a result, the red "koinobori" came to represent the mother of the family and it is not uncommon for the color to be varied as pink. Similarly, the other colors and sizes of carp came to represent all the family's children, both sons and daughters. At present, the "koinobori" are commonly flown above the roofs of houses with children, with the biggest (black) "koinobori" for the father, next biggest (red or pink) for the mother, and an additional, smaller carp of a different color for each child in decreasing order by age.  These "koinobori" range from a few centimetres to a few metres long. In 1988, a 100m long "koinobori" weighing 350kg was made in Kazo, Saitama.

History.

According to the Japanese American National Museum, the koi fish was chosen as a symbol for Boys' Day because "the Japanese consider it the most spirited fish -- so full of energy and power that it can fight its way up swift-running streams and cascades. Because of its strength and determination to overcome all obstacles, it stands for courage and the ability to attain high goals. Since these are traits desired in boys, families traditionally flew Koinobori from their homes to honor their sons." The streamers also pay homage to a myth from the late Han Dynasty about a golden koi fish that swam up a waterfall at the end of the Yellow River and became a dragon.  In addition, there are many different theories about the origins of Children's Day itself. One source states that "Boy's Day, now Children's Day, has been celebrated for more than 700 years, but no one knows exactly when or why it began. Another source says that it started in the year 1282, as a celebration for a victory won by samurai warriors in a battle with invaders". Asia Kids Society has another theory that "Until 1948, May 5 was called Tango no Sekku and only honored boys. A separate holiday called Hinamatsuri or "Dolls' Day" celebrated girls on March 3. Even now, on this day girls still receive dolls that had been passed down to their grandmothers and mothers". This fact led to a combination of holidays, and as described by AKS, "For many families, May 5 still centers on boys. Some people say that Hinamatsuri for girls should become an equal holiday instead of combining them into one". Whilst both sources have different theories, no one truly knows when the holiday actually began.  Today, along with the raising of Koinobori in each household, Asia Kid Society states that children also "indulge in kashiwa mochi", sticky rice cakes wrapped in oak leaves, and other sweets. As a tradition, throughout Children's Day, children also thank and show respect for relatives, parents, and teachers for support throughout their life.

"Koinobori" song.

A famous "Koinobori" song often sung by children and their families. It was published in "Ehon shōka haru no maki" (Picture Songbook, Spring) in 1932. The lyrics are by Miyako Kondō (), the composer is unknown.

, meaning "carp streamer" in Japanese, are carp-shaped windsocks traditionally flown in Japan to celebrate, a traditional calendrical event which is now designated a national holiday; Children's Day (Kodomo no Hi, 子供の日). These windsocks are made by drawing carp patterns on paper, cloth or other nonwoven fabric. They are then allowed to flutter in the wind. They are also known as.

Koinobori (:, こいのぼり) jsou vlajky ve tvaru kaprů, které se v Japonsku tradičně vyvěšují na vysoké stožáry na oslavu Dne dětí (5. května). V Japonsku je kapr tradičně asociován s chlapci kvůli síle, kterou kapři projevují při plavbě proti proudu prudkých řek. Vlajky se vyrábějí z papíru nebo z látky, na kterou se nakreslí pestrý obrázek kapra. Na stožárech se pak nechávají volně třepetat ve větru.


Geographical setting.

Wiesbaden is situated on the right (northern) bank of the Rhine, below the confluence of the Main, where the Rhine's main direction changes from north to west. The city is across the Rhine from Mainz, the capital of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Frankfurt am Main is located about east. To the north of the city are the Taunus Mountains, which trend in a northeasterly direction.  The city center, the "Stadtmitte", is located in the north-easternmost part of the Upper Rhine Valley at the spurs of the Taunus mountains, about from the Rhine. The landscape is formed by a wide lowland between the Taunus heights in the north, the Bierstadter Höhe and the Hainerberg in the east, the Mosbacher Mountain in the south, and the Schiersteiner Mountain in the west, an offshoot of the Taunus range. The downtown is drained only by the narrow valley of the Salzbach, a tributary of the Rhine, on the eastern flanks of the Mosbacher Mountain. The city's main railway line and the Mainz road ("Mainzer Straße") follow this valley. Several other streams drain into the Salzbach within the city center: the Wellritzbach, the Kesselbach, the Schwarzbach, the Dambach, and the Tennelbach, as well as the outflow of many thermal and mineral springs in the "Kurhaus" (spa) district. Above the city center, the Salzbach is better known as the Rambach.  The highest point of the Wiesbaden municipality is located northwest of the city center near the summit of the Hohe Wurzel, with an elevation of above sea level. The lowest point is the harbour entrance of Schierstein at above sea level. The central square (the "Schlossplatz", or palace square) is at an elevation of.  Wiesbaden covers an area of. It is from north to south and from west to east. In the north are vast forest areas, which cover 27.4% of the urban area. In the west and east are vineyards and agricultural land, which cover 31.1% of the area. Of the municipality's -long border, the Rhine makes up.

Climate.

Wiesbaden has a temperate-oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) with relatively cold winters and warm summers. Its average annual temperature is, with monthly mean temperatures ranging from in January to in July.

History.

Classical antiquity.

While evidence of settlement at present-day Wiesbaden dates back to the Neolithic era, historical records document continuous occupancy after the erection of a Roman fort in 6 AD which housed an auxiliary cavalry unit. The thermal springs of Wiesbaden are first mentioned in Pliny the Elder's "Naturalis Historia". They were famous for their recreation pools for Roman army horses and possibly as the source of a mineral used for red hair dye (which was very fashionable around the turn of BC/AD among women in Rome).  The Roman settlement is first mentioned using the name "Aquae Mattiacorum" (Latin for "Waters of the Mattiaci") in 121. The Mattiaci were a Germanic tribe, possibly a branch of the neighboring Chatti, who lived in the vicinity at that time. The town also appears as Mattiacum in Ptolemy's Geographia (2.10). The line of Roman frontier fortifications, the Limes Germanicus, was constructed in the Taunus not far north of Wiesbaden.  The capital of the province of Germania Superior, Mogontiacum (present-day Mainz), base of 2 (at times 3) Roman legions, was just over the Rhine and connected by a bridge at the present-day borough of Mainz-Kastel (Roman ""castellum""), a strongly fortified bridgehead.  The Alamanni, a coalition of Germanic tribes from beyond the "Limes", captured the fort around 260. Later, in the 370s, when the Romans and Alamanni were allied, the Alemanni gained control of the Wiesbaden area and were in charge of its defense against other Germanic tribes.

Middle Ages.

After the Franks under Clovis I defeated the Alamanni in the Battle of Tolbiac in 496, the Franks eventually displaced the Alamanni in the Wiesbaden area over the course of the 6th century. In the 8th century, Wiesbaden became the site of a royal palace of the Frankish kingdom. The first documented use of the name Wiesbaden is by Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne, whose writings mention "Wisabada" sometime between 828 and 830.  When the Frankish Carolingian Empire broke up in 888, Wiesbaden was in the eastern half, called East Francia (which would evolve into the Holy Roman Empire). The town was part of Franconia, the heartland of East Francia. In the 1170s, the Count of Nassau, Walram I, received the area around Wiesbaden as a fiefdom. When Franconia fragmented in the early 13th century, Nassau emerged as an independent state as part of the Holy Roman Empire.  In 1232 Wiesbaden became a Reichsstadt, an imperial city, of the Holy Roman Empire. However, in 1242, during the war of Emperor Frederick II against the Pope, the Archbishop of Mainz, Siegfried III, ordered the city's destruction.  Wiesbaden returned to the control of the House of Nassau in 1270 under Count Walram II, Count of Nassau. However, Wiesbaden and the castle at Sonnenberg were again destroyed in 1283 in conflict with Eppstein.  Walram's son and successor Adolf would later become king of Germany from 1292 until 1298. In 1329, under Adolf's son Gerlach I of Nassau-Weilburg the House of Nassau and thereby, Wiesbaden, received the right of coinage from Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Bavarian.  In 1355, the County of Nassau-Weilburg was divided among the sons of Gerlach. The County of Nassau's holdings would be subdivided many times among heirs, with the parts being brought together again whenever a line died out. Wiesbaden became the seat of the County of Nassau-Wiesbaden under Count Adolf I (1307–1370), eldest son of Gerlach. It would eventually fell back to Nassau-Weilburg in 1605.

Modern era.

Due to its participation in the uprisings of the German Peasants' War of 1525, Wiesbaden lost all its privileges for over 40 years. During this time, Wiesbaden became Protestant with the nomination of Wolf Denthener as first Lutheran pastor on January 1, 1543. The same day, the first Latin school was opened, preparing pupils for the gymnasium in Idstein. In 1566, the privileges of the city were restored.  The oldest remaining building of Wiesbaden, the old city hall, was built in 1609 and 1610. No older buildings are preserved due to two fires in 1547 and 1561. In 1648, at the end of the devastating Thirty Years' War, chronicles tell that Wiesbaden had barely 40 residents left. In 1659, the County of Nassau-Weilburg was divided again. Wiesbaden became part of the County of Nassau-Usingen. In 1744, the seat of Nassau-Usingen was moved to Biebrich. In 1771, the Count of Nassau-Usingen granted a concession for gambling in Wiesbaden. In 1810, the Wiesbaden Casino (German: "Spielbank") was opened in the old Kurhaus. Gambling was later outlawed by Prussian authorities in 1872.  As a result of Napoleon's victory over Austria in the Battle of Austerlitz, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1805. On July 12, 1806, 16 states in present-day Germany, including the remaining counties of Nassau-Usingen and Nassau-Weilburg, formally left the Holy Roman Empire and joined together in the Confederation of the Rhine. Napoleon was its "protector". Under pressure from Napoleon, both counties merged to form the Duchy of Nassau on August 30, 1806.  At the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the Duchy of Nassau joined the German Confederation. The capital of Nassau was moved from Weilburg to Wiesbaden, and the city became the ducal residence. Building activity started to give the city a magnificent appearance. Most of the historical center of Wiesbaden dates back to this time. In the Revolutions of 1848, 30,000 citizens of Nassau assembled in Wiesbaden on March 4. They demanded a constitution from the Duke, which they received.  In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Nassau took Austria's side. This decision led to the end of the duchy. After the Austrian defeat, Nassau was annexed by Prussia and became part of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau. The deposed duke Adolph of Nassau in 1890 became the Grand Duke of Luxembourg (see House of Nassau). This turned out to be a fortunate change for the city, as it then became an international spa town. A rise in construction commenced after the aristocracy followed the lead of the Hohenzollern emperors, who began annual trips to Wiesbaden. The period around the turn of the 20th century is regarded as the heyday of the city. Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the city regularly in summer, such that it became an unofficial "summer residence". The city was also popular among the Russian nobility. In the wake of the imperial court, numerous nobles, artists, and wealthy businessmen increasingly settled in the city. Many wealthy persons chose Wiesbaden as their retirement seat, as it offered leisure and medical treatment alike. In the latter part of the 19th century, Wiesbaden became the German city with the most millionaires.  In 1894, the present Hessian State Theater, designed by the Vienna architects Fellner and Helmer, was built on behalf of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Weimar Republic and Third Reich (1919 to 1945).

After World War I, Wiesbaden fell under the Allied occupation of the Rhineland and was occupied by the French army in 1918. In 1921, the Wiesbaden Agreement on German reparations to France was signed in the city. In 1925, Wiesbaden became the headquarters of the British Army of the Rhine until the withdrawal of occupying forces from the Rhineland in 1930.  In 1929, an airport was constructed in Erbenheim on the site of a horse-racing track. In 1936, Fighter Squadron 53 of the Luftwaffe was stationed here.  In the Kristallnacht pogrom on November 10, 1938, Wiesbaden's large synagogue on Michelsberg was destroyed. The synagogue had been designed by Phillip Hoffmann and built in 1869. Another synagogue in Wiesbaden-Bierstadt was also destroyed. When the Nazis came to power in Germany, there were 2,700 Jews living in Wiesbaden. By June 1942 nearly all of them had been deported to the death camps in Poland.  General Ludwig Beck from Wiesbaden was one of the planners of the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler. Beck was designated by his fellow conspirators to be future Head of State (Regent) after elimination of Hitler. The plot failed, however, and Beck was forced to commit suicide. Today, the city annually awards the Ludwig Beck prize for civil courage in his honor.  Lutheran pastor and theologian Martin Niemöller, founder of the Confessing Church resistance movement against the Nazis, is an Honorary Citizen of Wiesbaden. He presented his last sermon before his arrest in Wiesbaden's Market Church.

World War II.

In World War II, Wiesbaden was the Headquarters for Germany's Wehrkreis XII. This military district included the Eifel, part of Hesse, the Palatinate, and the Saarland. After the Battle of France, this "Wehrkreis" was extended to include Lorraine, including Nancy, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The commander was "General der Infanterie" Walther Schroth.  "Wehrkreis" XII was made up of three subordinate regions: "Bereich Hauptsitze" Koblenz, Mannheim and Metz.  During the war, Wiesbaden was, between August 1940 and the end of 1942, bombed by the Royal Air Force and from 1943 through to March 1945, was attacked by both RAF and United States Air Force bombers on 66 days. In the attacks, about 18% of the city's homes were destroyed. During the war, more than 25% of the city's buildings were damaged or worse and 1,700 people were killed.  Wiesbaden was captured by U.S. Army forces on March 28, 1945. The U.S. 317th Infantry Regiment attacked in assault boats across the Rhine from Mainz while the 319th Infantry attacked across the river Main near Hochheim am Main. The attack started at 0100 and by early afternoon the two forces of the 80th U.S. Infantry Division had linked up with the loss of only three dead and three missing. The Americans captured 900 German soldiers and a warehouse full of 4,000 cases of champagne.  After the war's end, American rock artist Elvis Presley was stationed in Friedberg and often visited Wiesbaden.

Cold War and contemporary history.

After World War II, the state of Hesse was established (see Greater Hesse), and Wiesbaden became its capital, though nearby Frankfurt am Main is much larger and contains many Hessian government offices. Wiesbaden however suffered much less than Frankfurt from air bombing. There is a persistent rumour that the U.S. Army Air Force spared the town with the intention of turning it into a postwar HQ, but USAAF sources claim this to be a myth, arguing that Wiesbaden's economic and strategic importance simply did not justify more bombing. Wiesbaden was host to the Headquarters, U.S. Air Forces, Europe based at the former Lindsey Air Station from 1953 to 1973.  American armed forces have been present in Wiesbaden since World War II. The U.S. 1st Armored Division was headquartered at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield, just off the Autobahn toward Frankfurt, until the Division completed relocation to Fort Bliss, Texas, in 2011. Wiesbaden is now home to the U.S. Army Europe Headquarters and Mission Command Center.

Bathing and gambling.

Wiesbaden has long been famous for its thermal springs and spa. Use of the thermal springs was first documented by the Romans. The business of spring bathing became important for Wiesbaden near the end of the Middle Ages. By 1370, 16 bath houses were in operation. By 1800, the city had 2,239 inhabitants and 23 bath houses. By 1900, Wiesbaden, with a population of 86,100, hosted 126,000 visitors annually. Famous visitors to the springs included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, and Henrik Pontoppidan. In those years, more millionaires were living in Wiesbaden than in any other city in Germany.  Gambling followed bathing "en suite", and in the 19th century, Wiesbaden was famous for both. Its casino ("Spielbank") rivalled those of Bad Homburg, Baden-Baden, and Monaco. In 1872, the Prussian-dominated imperial government closed down all German gambling houses. The Wiesbaden casino was reopened in 1949.

Demographics.

The population development of Wiesbaden is as follows: List of largest groups of foreign residents of Wiesbaden:

Main sights.

The Palace Square.

The "Schloßplatz "("palace square") is situated in the center of the city, surrounded by several outstanding buildings. The ducal palace was begun under William, Duke of Nassau. Its foundations were laid in 1837 and it was completed in November 1841 (two years after William's death). For the twenty-six remaining years of ducal authority it was the residence of the ruling family. It later served as a secondary residence for the King of Prussia 1866 to 1918. It was later used as a headquarters for French and British occupying forces after World War I, then as a museum. Since 1945, the building has served as Landtag (parliamentary building) for the federal state of Hesse. The site of the palace had been that of a castle, probably from the early Middle Ages, around which the city had developed. While nothing is known of the former castle, remains of it were uncovered during excavations after World War II. The new town hall was built in 1887. Engraved in the paving in front of the town hall are the heraldic eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, the lion of Nassau, and the fleur-de-lis of Wiesbaden. The old town hall, built in 1610, is the oldest preserved building in the city center and now is used as a civil registry office.  The Protestant "Marktkirche" ("market church") was built from 1852 to 1862 in a neo-Gothic style. Its western steeple is in height, making the church the highest building in the city.

Kurhaus and Theater.

The monumental Neo-Classical "Kurhaus" ("spa house") was built at the request of Kaiser Wilhelm II between 1904 and 1907. Its famous "Spielbank" (casino) is again in operation.  In front of the Kurhaus is a lawn known as the Bowling Green. To one side of the Bowling Green is the Kurhaus Kolonnade. Built in 1827, the 129 meter structure is the longest hall in Europe supported by pillars. To the other side is the Theater Kolonnade, built in 1839. It is adjacent to the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, built between 1892 and 1894.

St. Bonifatius.

St. Bonifatius, the first church for the Catholic community after the Reformation, was built from 1845 until 1849 by Philipp Hoffmann in Gothic Revival style and dedicated to Saint Boniface.

St. Elizabeth's Church.

The Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Elizabeth was built on the Neroberg from 1847 to 1855 by Duke Adolf of Nassau on the occasion of the early death of his wife Elizabeth Mikhailovna, who died in childbirth. The architect was Philipp Hoffmann.

Other sights.

Another building from the regency of Duke Wilhelm is the Luisenplatz, a square named for the Duke's first wife. It is surrounded by Neoclassicist buildings, and in the middle of the square is the Waterloo Obelisk, commemorating the 683 Nassauers who died on 18 June 1815 near Hougoumont Farm in the respective battle against Napoleon. Apart from the palace in the center, the ducal family had a large palace on the banks of the Rhine, known as Schloss Biebrich. This baroque building was erected in the first half of the 18th century.  North of the city is the Neroberg. From the top of this hill it is possible to view a panorama of the city. The Nerobergbahn funicular railway connects the city with the hill.  One of the three Hessian state museums, Museum Wiesbaden is located in Wiesbaden.  Other churches are the Bergkirche, completed in 1879 in Gothic Revival style, and the Lutherkirche, finished in 1910 in Jugendstil. The church Mariä Heimsuchung is a tall concrete landmark in the Kohlheck suburb.  Oriental Christianity is also represented with the St. Isaiah Syriac Orthodox Church on the Willi-Juppe-Straße in Dotzheim, built 2016 by Suryoye-Assyrians.  The Warmer Damm park is a 4.5-hectare park on the east side of Wilhelmstrasse and south of the State theater and Kurhaus which features a lake, a fountain, various statues, and large grassy areas. The park was created in 1859–1860 and is named after the medieval fortifications around a pond into which the warm waters of the town's 26 warm springs flowed.

Boroughs of Wiesbaden.

The city of Wiesbaden is divided into 26 boroughs: five in the central city and 21 suburban districts. The 21 suburban districts were incorporated in four phases from 1926 to 1977. The former right Mainz suburbs Amöneburg, Kastel and Kostheim have belonged to Wiesbaden since 1945.

Mayors.

The information up to 2007 was retrieved from "Die Wiesbadener Oberbürgermeister seit dem Bau des neuen Rathauses (1886)" (The Wiesbaden Mayors since the construction of the new town mayor hall (1886).)

Transport.

Roads.

Wiesbaden is well connected to the German motorway ("Autobahn") system. The Wiesbadener Kreuz is an Autobahn interchange east of the city where the Bundesautobahn 3 (A 3), Cologne to Würzburg, and the Bundesautobahn 66 (A 66), Rheingau to Fulda, meet. With approximately 210,000 cars daily it is one of the most heavily used interchange in Germany. The Bundesautobahn 66 (A 66) connects Wiesbaden with Frankfurt. The Bundesautobahn 643 (A 643) is mainly a commuter motorway which starts in the south of the city centre, runs through the southern part of Wiesbaden crosses the Rhine via the Schierstein Bridge and connect in the northwestern part of Mainz to the A60. The Bundesautobahn 671 (A 671) is a very short motorway in the southeastern part of Wiesbaden which primarily serves as a fast connection between the city centre and the Bundesautobahn 60 to serve the cities like Rüsselsheim, Darmstadt and the Rhine-Neckar region (Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg).  The downtown area is bordered on the north side by Taunusstrasse, which has once featured many antique stores. The east side is constrained by Wilhelmstrasse, created by Christian Zais. This 1,000 meter-long street is named after Archduke Wilhelm, not Emperor Wilhelm II, as many mistakenly believe.  The streets of central Wiesbaden are regularly congested with cars during rush hour. Besides some areas, especially the Ringroad and not directly in the centre, and the southern arterial roads like the Mainzer Straße, Biebricher Allee and Schiersteiner Straße.

Rail.

Wiesbaden's main railway station and several minor railway stops connect the town with Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Mainz, Limburg, and Koblenz via Rüdesheim. Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof is connected to the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line by a 13-kilometer branch line. Hamburg, München, Leipzig, Dresden, Stuttgart, Mannheim, and Hanover are connected directly to Wiesbaden via long-distance service of the Deutsche Bahn. More services to locations outside the immediate area connect through Mainz or Frankfurt Airport or Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. Regional trains and bus services are coordinated by the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund.  Wiesbaden is connected to the Frankfurt S-Bahn network and served by three lines (S1, S8 and S9) which connect Wiesbaden with the densely populated Rhine Main Region. All routes have an at least 30 minute service during the day, in the rush hour partially every 15 minutes schedule. It provides access to nearby cities such as Mainz, Rüsselsheim, Frankfurt, Hanau, and Offenbach am Main, and smaller towns that are on the way.  The city's public transportation service ESWE Verkehr connects all city districts to downtown by 45 bus lines in the daytime and 9 bus lines in the night. Five more bus lines, operated by the public transportation service of the city of Mainz, connects Wiesbaden's districts Kastel and Kostheim to Mainz downtown.  The city can be accessed from around the world via Frankfurt Airport ("Flughafen Frankfurt am Main") which is located east of Wiesbaden. The airport has four runways and serves 265 non-stop destinations. Run by transport company Fraport it ranks among the world's 10 busiest airports by passenger traffic and is the second busiest airport by cargo traffic in Europe. The airport also serves as a hub for Condor and as the main hub for German flag carrier Lufthansa. Depending on whether total passengers or flights are used, it ranks second or third busiest in Europe alongside London Heathrow Airport and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. Passenger traffic at Frankfurt Airport in 2011 was 56.5 million.

Airports.

The airport can be reached by car or train and has two railway stations, one for regional and one for long-distance traffic. The S-Bahn lines S8 and S9 (direction "Offenbach Ost" or "Hanau Hbf") departing at the regional train station take 30 minutes from the airport to Wiesbaden Central Station, the ICE trains departing at the long-distance railway station take also 30 minutes to the central station.  Despite the name, Frankfurt Hahn Airport ("Flughafen Frankfurt-Hahn") is not located anywhere near Frankfurt but is instead situated approximately from the city in Lautzenhausen (Rhineland-Palatinate). Hahn Airport was a major base for low-cost carrier Ryanair, and now this has been moved to Frankfurt Airport. This airport can be reached by car or bus. The nearest train station is in Traben-Trarbach, it is ca. from the airport, on foot. The roads are not lit.

Port.

There are small container port operations nearby on the rivers Rhine and Main.

Military.

Lucius D. Clay Kaserne (Formerly Wiesbaden Army Airfield or WAAF) is located adjacent to Wiesbaden-Erbenheim and is home to the US Army in Europe (USAREUR) headquarters, the 5th Signal Command and the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade. The airfield was one of the points of origin for flights to Berlin in support of Operation Vittles (the Berlin airlift) during the Soviet blockade of Berlin. General Clay, the commander of the US occupation zone in Germany, was the architect of the airlift.  The United States Army runs a garrison in Wiesbaden. The facilities for US soldiers and families are spread across various locations including: Aukamn, Hainerberg, Mainz-Kastel and the Wiesbaden Army-Airfield, where the names of the streets are named after servicemen and women who sacrificed their lives during the Berlin Airlift.

Economy.

Wiesbaden hosts a number of international companies, which have their German or European headquarters there including Abbott Laboratories, DXC Technology, Ferrari, Federal-Mogul, Melbourne IT, Norwegian Cruise Line, and SCA. Several German companies also have their headquarters in Wiesbaden, including SGL Carbon, Dyckerhoff, KION Group, DBV-Winterthur, and R + V Versicherung. Wiesbaden is also home to the "Industriepark Kalle-Albert", an industrial park in the southern quarter of Biebrich. It is one of the largest in Germany with over 80 companies from the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, including Agfa-Gevaert, Clariant, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, and Shin-Etsu Chemical. The park was founded by chemical company Hoechst AG in 1997.  The Federal Criminal Police Office and the Federal Statistical Office of Germany are both based in Wiesbaden, along with many Hessian ministries such as the Hessian State Criminal Police Office.  At approximately €77,500, Wiesbaden has the second largest gross domestic product per inhabitant in Hesse, after Frankfurt, making it one of the richest cities in Germany. The purchasing power per inhabitant is €22,500.

Culture.

Wiesbaden's most important stage is the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden. Concert halls include the Friedrich-von-Thiersch-Saal of the Kurhaus. Wiesbaden has a State Library and a conservatory, where Max Reger studied and taught as a young man. Choirs such as the Wiesbadener Knabenchor, Schiersteiner Kantorei and Chor von St. Bonifatius are known in the region and even internationally.

International May Festival.

The International May Festival is an annual arts festival presented by the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden every May. Established in 1896, it is one of the most distinguished international theatre and music festivals in the world. The festival features performances of plays, musicals, operas, and ballets. Concerts from a wide array of music are featured, as are artistic circus acts and modern dance presentations. Lectures, recitals, cabaret performances, and readings are also featured.

Rheingau Wine Festival.

The wines and sparkling wines of the close Rheingau are presented annually at the ten-day festival in August, "Rheingauer Weinwoche" (Rheingau Wine Week) around the Wiesbaden City Hall, on the Schlossplatz (Palace Square), the square "Dern’sches Gelände" and in the pedestrian area. At 118 booths, Rheingau and Wiesbaden vintners offer their wine and sparkling wine and invite to discover the already well known and favored, but also new vintages. Every year thousands of visitors use this opportunity to get acquainted with Rheingau Riesling wines and all their various facets and flavors. Regional specialities compatible with the wines are offered as well. A diversified musical program entertains the wine festival guests. Initiated more than 30 years ago by the Rheingau vintners, this wine festival has a long tradition.

Shooting Star Market.

Wiesbaden's Sternschnuppenmarkt is located at the central Schlossplatz and the neighbouring streets of the parliamentary building, old town hall, and market church. The Sternschnuppenmarkt takes place from the end of November until December 23 every year and is open from Monday until Thursday 10:30 – 9:00 pm, Friday and Saturday 10:30 – 9:30 pm, and Sunday 12:00 – 9:00 pm.  The market is related to the city arms of Wiesbaden: the colours blue and gold and the three lilies are characteristic. Four gates and an illuminated floral roof symbolizing Fleur-de-lis, consisting of twelve over ten metre high and twelve metre wide luminous lilies, emboss the Sternschnuppenmarkt.  Over 110 booths are decorated in oriental style, coloured blue and gold, offering Christmas style goods, arts and crafts as well as nostalgic carousels and a toy train. A Christmas tree more than tall is decorated with 1000 blue and golden ties, 2500 electric bulbs and 30 flash bulbs. The nativity scene displays life-sized wooden figures.

Rheingau Musik Festival.

From the beginning in 1988 the Rheingau Musik Festival has staged summer concerts in the Marktkirche and in the concert hall of the Kurhaus now named Friedrich-von-Thiersch-Saal.

Sport.

Since 2007 Wiesbaden has been home to SV Wehen Wiesbaden, an association football team that formerly played in nearby Taunusstein.  EVW 5 Lakes Wiesbaden has won the German bandy championship in 2016 and 2017.

Twin towns – sister cities.

Wiesbaden maintains official partnerships with 14 cities. Town twinnings between Wiesbaden and other cities began with Klagenfurt in 1930, one of the first town-twinnings in Germany.

Coat of arms.

Wiesbaden's coat of arms features three fleurs-de-lys, stylized representations of the city's heraldic symbol, the lily. The blazon is: "Azure, two and one fleurs-de-lys Or".

Notable residents.

Notable people born in Wiesbaden include:  Others who have resided in Wiesbaden include:

Rivalry with Mainz.

Mainz, on the opposite side of the Rhine, is Wiesbaden's archrival – the two cities are the capitals of their respective Bundesländer, and citizens of both cities jokingly refer to those on the other one as "living on the wrong side of the river".

Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse., it had 289,544 inhabitants, plus approximately 19,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area is home to approx. 560,000 people.

Wiesbaden [vísbádn] rozkládající se na pravém břehu Rýna, je hlavním městem německé spolkové země Hesenska. Sídlí v něm hesenská zemská vláda ("Hessische Landesregierung") a zemský parlament ("Hessischer Landtag"). Po Frankfurtu nad Mohanem je Wiesbaden druhé největší město Hesenska. Ve Wiesbadenu je také sídlo německého Spolkového kriminálního úřadu a Spolkového statistického úřadu.