Waldwanderungs- kulturlustzeit

( T I M E F O R E N J OY M E N T O F T H E C U LT U R E O F WA L K I N G I N T H E W O O D S )

Venture among wooded slopes and medieval towns in Germanys Black Forest to

meet clockmaking artisans, and to find out what makes the locals tick

WORDS OLIVER SMITH l PHOTOGRAPHER MATT MUNRO

The church and hamlet of

Sankt Roman near Wolfach
in the Black Forest

88

Lonely Planet Traveller February 2015

February 2015 Lonely Planet Traveller

89

XXXXXX

FOR ME, A
T I C K I N G C LO C K
IS A COMFORTING
SOUND

C U LT U R E I N T H E B L A C K F O R E S T

The town of Triberg,

home of the world's
largest cuckoo clock.
right Annika and
Johanna in the forest
near Mummelsee

Oli Zinapold, surrounded by

cuckoo clocks in his shop in Triberg

Pnktlichkeit
(PUNCTUALITY)

One cold winter long ago, when the pastures were

smothered in deep, fluffy snow, the farmer folk of
the Black Forest were bored. It was a boredom
particular to winter days trapped indoors in a time
before jigsaws and TVs where the only thing to do was watch
snowflakes gather on the windowsills and await springs thaw.
It was on one such tedious day in the 18th century that
an unknown farmer decided to pass the time messing
around with bits of wood and metal in his workshop. This,
legend tells, was how the glorious tradition of Black Forest
clockmaking started out and from it was born a sacred
German icon: the cuckoo clock.
It is curious to think that every 15 minutes around the
world across time zones, continents and date lines a
giant flock of wooden cuckoos emerges, cuckooing to an
audience of millions the virtues of German punctuality,
before disappearing into their dusty homes. No-one
knows precisely when, why or by whom the cuckoo clock
was invented. Many, however, have fled the nest from the
workshop of Oli Zinapold in the town of Triberg, deep in
the heart of the forest.
For me, a ticking clock is a comforting sound, explains Oli,
pausing as he crafts a brand new clockface out of linden and
maple in his workshop. It says that all is well with the world.
For 20 years, Oli has been part of the two-century tradition
of clockmaking in the Black Forest. At one point, a third of
all clocks in existence ticked their first second in this region,
and though industrial-scale clock manufacturing is long
gone, artisans like Oli still thrive. Timekeeping has, of
course, always been the secret to German genius from
winning international football matches in the last seconds
of stoppage time to the crisply-timed quavers opening
Beethovens 5th Symphony (da-da-da dum). It is true what
they say we are a punctual nation, says Oli, inspecting the
swirling grains of wood before him.
Aside from the basic components of two tiny bellows
(producing the cuc- and the -koo respectively), designs for
90

Lonely Planet Traveller February 2015

cuckoo clocks take many forms. Some feature intricate

hunting motifs, castles or cabins. Others feature
toadstools, rabbits or even the Virgin Mary. But most
of Olis clocks take inspiration from the landscapes
outside the workshop.
More than anywhere else in the country, the
Black Forest resembles the Germany depicted in fairytales,
on biscuit tins and Christmas cards: higgledy-piggledy
villages where the Pied Piper might have skipped through
the streets, green landscapes of beehives and barns where
cotton-wool clouds snuggle into the dimples of valleys.
Its not a place of grand, vaunting mountains like the Alps
(which often appear as a smug silhouette on the horizon)
but humble, minding-their-business hills that rise and
dip gently, seemingly in kind consideration of the rivers
and the railway lines that pass through. And, of course,
there are the woods vast and mighty, resonating with
the chorus of birdsong. I ask Oli if hes ever heard a cuckoo
chirruping outside his window.
Actually, I dont think Ive ever heard one, he says with
Teutonic matter-of-factness. I do believe we are too high
for cuckoos in the Black Forest.

Freizeit

(LEISURE TIME)

Every spring, cuckoo-clock-makers would emerge from

farmsteads across the Black Forest, passing a winter's worth
of freshly made products on to travelling salesmen. Sporting
knee-high socks and top hats, the clock salesmen roamed the
backroads of the Black Forest and out into the wider world in
search of custom. They walked from the Russian steppe in the
East to English downs in the West. They slept in barns as their
cargo tick-tocked and chirruped manically throughout the
night. Wherever they made a sale, they left behind heirlooms
that would count down the lives of many generations.
Centuries on, the habit of wandering in the region
endures, not least with the walkers who descend on the
trails from spring. Among them are Annika and Johanna
February 2015 Lonely Planet Traveller

91

C U LT U R E I N T H E B L A C K F O R E S T

PERHAPS MORE THAN

A N Y O T H E R N AT I O N A L I T Y,
GERMANS FEEL AN
I N N E R G R AV I TAT I O N A L
PULL TO THE WOODS

Antique clockmaking
components in a
Black Forest farmhouse

students from Freiburg with the curious,

supernatural ability of German hikers to look
pristine, irrespective of how much mud theyve
stomped through. On the spur of the moment,
they resolved over breakfast to ditch a day writing
their dissertations, jumping into their car and driving
to the wooded hills near Mummelsee.
The first word is always the hardest to write, says Annika.
So we decided wed rather be up in the countryside. The
forest feels cosy you feel you belong here.
Striking away from the busier trails, its very feasible to
find yourself quite alone in the Black Forest deep in the
domain of red deer, boar and lynx, in places where there
is no sound but the rustle of leaves underfoot. Its said
the Black Forest got its name for the darkness beneath the
canopy, and its easy to see why. Mighty trees tower
overhead as I walk through trees whose ancestors might
have been chopped down and fashioned into cuckoo clocks
long ago. Only sometimes does the sunlight wink through
the boughs, casting a spotlight on the ferns below.
Forests, it has been said, cast a powerful spell on German
culture. It was in the forests that Wagner set Siegfried, where
the Brothers Grimm had Hansel and Gretel follow a trail of
pebbles by moonlight. It was in very real forests not far from
here that Germanic hordes sprung from the foliage to defeat
invading Roman centurions in the 1st century AD. Perhaps
more than any other nationality, Germans feel an inner
gravitational pull to the woods.
Soon my trail arrives at a small glade, dotted with withered
tree stumps. The path meanders vaguely amongst puddles
and bracken, before vanishing altogether and suddenly
there comes a brief, childlike-sensation of losing ones
bearings in the woods. This experience is more surprising
given the location of the Black Forest, close to central
Europes industrial heartland.
92

Lonely Planet Traveller February 2015

On the edges of these forests are autobahns with

supersonic speed limits. Not so far away are production
lines making lightning-fast German sports cars in Stuttgart,
and manic stock exchanges in Zrich. And yet, preserved
in the midst of all this is the Black Forest a place
where time itself seems to pass in slow motion.

Zeitgeist
(SPIRIT OF THE AGE)

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time to the 18th

century, says Ingolf Haas, looking out of his workshop
window in the late afternoon sunshine. Then I could
have seen reactions to the very first cuckoo clocks. Did
people think there was something alive in there? Was it
a living, breathing thing?
Ingolf Haas is the closest the cuckoo clock community has
to a revolutionary in its ranks. A member of the fourth
generation of a venerable clockmaking dynasty in the town
of Schonach, Ingolf admits to experiencing a minor crisis of
confidence in his creations back in 2006.
I started to ask myself whether the cuckoo clock was still
relevant to people, he says, inspecting the spring-mounted
mechanism of one little cuckoo. I wanted it to be something
cultural, not something kitsch.
The result of many sleepless nights was a new, radically
different generation of clocks. Ticking and tooting on the wall
of his workshop are minimalist cuckoo clocks; Bauhaus-style
cuckoo clocks; cuckoo clocks painted neon pink or green.
A few are studded with diamonds, and a few are shaped like
pyramids. The new designs surprised locals. They offended
traditionalists (You are killing the emotion of the cuckoo!
exclaimed one critic). But, more importantly, they took off.
Where foreigners once accounted for the entire cuckooclock market, the new designs have seen a boom in domestic

A walker pausing in a forest

glade just outside Wolfach

February 2015 Lonely Planet Traveller

93

C U LT U R E I N T H E B L A C K F O R E S T

from far left

Modern day
timber-rafters in
Wolfach; Ingolf
Haass cuckoo clocks;
a view over the
Gutach valley

Half-timbered houses,
looking like oversized
cuckoo clocks, line the
market square in Schiltach

from left A shop

sign in Triberg; a lady
showcases a
Bollenhut at the
Black Forest Open Air
Museum (see p96);
a timber rafting
mural in Wolfach

sales. Among the proud owners are World-Cup

winning football coach Joaquim (Jogi) Lw and
Chancellor Merkel herself (she offered one as a gift
to President Putin, which now may or may not be
chirruping reproachfully in a corner of the Kremlin).
Amid all the noisy cuckoos in Ingolfs store, one bird
stands out: a silent imperial German eagle emblazoned on
a clock. Local journalists have hailed the new clocks as an
emblem of a 21st century Germany. A new identity that has
risen above World War shame and Cold War division,
reasserting itself with economic might, cultural brilliance
and a profound, discreet cuckoo.
When I was growing up we were ashamed to say we were
German, or to fly our flag, says Ingolf. Now this is changing.

Vergangenheit
(OLDEN TIMES)

There was a time before clocks tolled the hours in the Black
Forest. From the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th
century, announcing the time was the job of nightwatchmen
citizens who would wander the town walls under darkness,
singing the hours to the burgers who slept within its confines
(they also had a sideline looking out for drunken scoundrels).
Its a tradition thats been revived in Wolfach a Black Forest
town full of medieval townhouses that look like giant cuckoo
clocks where nightwatchman Kurt Maurer takes an evening
ramble armed with a hefty spear and a bugle.
Keeping good time will get you far in life, he says, glancing
impatiently at his watch. Being 20 minutes early is better
than being one minute late!
Perhaps more than anywhere in Germany, this is a region
that fiercely guards its traditions. In this same village are
men who have resurrected the Black Forest art of timber
rafting tethering together mighty logs to form a raft,
originally a way of transporting wood downstream, and
doing their best to stay on top as it rushes over perilous
94

Lonely Planet Traveller February 2015

rapids. In the neighbouring village, women can, on

certain special occasions, be seen wearing Bollenhte
pom-pom topped-hats which have been in use since
the 18th century. For a region that has exported
timekeeping to the world, the Black Forest does its
utmost to resist the passage of the years.
Kurt ambles the cobbled streets to announce the hours
(keeping an eye out for ruffians on the way). In truth, its hard
to imagine somewhere that would yield fewer civil
disturbances. Seen in the dwindling evening light, the Black
Forest looks every bit as ordered as a model railway. Little red
trains burrow into hillside tunnels and whoosh on the other
side. Cars glide along mountain roads tarmac that might
have been precisely custom-built for an Audi advert, riding
the spines of the green hills before plunging majestically to
the valley floor. Not far away watermills are turning, cable
cars whirring along hillsides. All are features in a landscape
that seems to tick along as rhythmically as clockwork.
Soon the sky turns grey, and Kurt blows his bugle to make
the last announcement of the day to the burghers of Wolfach.
I wont sing too loudly because people have to go to work
tomorrow, he says, before bellowing out in a deep baritone:
Listen all you gentlemen
Our clock in the tower has struck ten
Ten Commandments did the Lord decree
That we should stick to faithfully
Lord in your strength and might
Wish us all a good night!
And with a quick glance at his watch, it is time to go home.

Oliver Smith has been a Germanophile since studying A-level

German at school. He recently won 1st prize at the German Tourist
Board travel-writing competition, for a story on Ludwig II of Bavaria.

from far left

A 16th-century
farmhouse dining
room in the Black
Forest Open Air
Museum; a street
in Gengenbach;
nightwatchman Kurt
Maurer in Wolfach