This is part 2 of 16 of a journey through my home country: Germany.

I invite everyone to take a closer look at what I call home. I will show you sides of today-Germany you didn't know of - especially when you are not German.
A lot of "foreigners" (actually I don't really like this word) connect Germany with beer, cars, lederhosen and sauerkraut. I admit these are parts of Germany and important ones too (especially the beer and the cars), but they by far are not everything!

This article serie will show you the 16 countries of Germany, some quite similar to each other, some totally different. Sure, this serie will mainly feature photography, but perhaps I will link to other styles of art like modern German music or so.

Our journey leads us through (click the ones in italic to see that article):

_{Bavaria
Saxony
Brandenburg
Berlin
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Schleswig-Holstein
Hamburg
Lower Saxony
Saxony-Anhalt
Thuringia
Hesse
Baden-Wuerttemberg
Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland
North Rhine-Westphalia
Bremen}

Please, come and see...

Part 2 of 16 - Saxony (Sachsen)

From our last stop in Bavaria, we will now move a little north into East Germany and visit Saxony.
Most of you will connect this term with words like 'anglo-saxon', but there is no connection between todays Saxonians and the Anglo-Saxons that lay ground for the British nation. Those Anglo-Saxons mostly lived on ground that is now called Nordrhein-Westfalen and Niedersachsen (we will hear more about these states in later articles). The reason for this swapping of terms can be found - as so often - in history: Through wars, feudes and politics the crown of saxony somewhen came to the House of Wettin, who ruled large parts of todays Eastern Germany. They founded Saxony, which is a Free State today.

The capital of Saxony is Dresden, once called "the Florence at the Elbe", because it was supposed to be one of the most beautiful major cities of the world.

Then came WWII an with it came the bombs. In February 1945, the USAF and the RAF bombed the city which hosted 600,000 refugees plus further 600,000 inhabitants. While most of the old city was destroyed, industrial and military sites mostly stayed untouched. The bombs and the weather created a devastating firestorm, more than 25,000 people died.
Today, the bombing of Dresden is widely remembered by Germans and British/American pilots who were involved in the bombing. Yet, some far-right groups in Germany use these events for promote their hate on foreigners and to justify the evildoing of the Nazi Regime - they call the bombing the "Bomben-Holocaust".
The most prominent victim - and a great symbol of reconstruction and for the friendship of the Americans and British with the German people is the Frauenkirche:

The other big city in Saxony is Leipzig. This city is a kind of important one in German history. Not only has it been home for famous classical musician Johann Sebastian Bach, it also has a big fair (GamesConvention anyone?!) and before all hosted the socalled Montagsdemonstrationen (Monday Demonstrations) in the late 1980's, which played a very important role in the collapse of the communist GDR, which led to our Reunification, finally.

In the news, Saxony is often called "Silicon Saxony" when it comes to the economy. This resembles of Silicon Valley? Right! AMD, Quimonda and other big microchip makers came to Saxony after the Reunification and built up quite impressive factories there.
Other companies followed, such as BMW for example. DHL built it's new hub in Saxony and is planning to make it the world's largest cargo-hub: the Airport Leipzig/Halle, which is also used as a hub for the US transferring soldiers into Iraq.
So, Saxony today is called the most successful state of the new federal states (which means those that were part of the GDR before 1990).

Besides all that, Saxony is full of great and impressive nature.
First of all, we have the Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains, which has a long tradtion in mining and lies close to the Czech Republic. The Erzgebirge is not like the Alps or other well known Mountains, it's more or less a landscape of smooth hills and some rocks.
The people and the traditions may appear a little Bavarian to those who don't know the differences.

A little different from that is the Sächsische Schweiz or Saxony Switzerland (believe it, that's the name!). It is a landscape with interesting rock formations an with the Elbe running through.

After that, we have the Vogtland in Saxony, which kind of resembles the Erzgebirge a litte, it just is way smoother. And finally, to conclude the major regions of saxony, there still is the Lausitz, a region neighboring Poland and the Czech Republic and therefore a region full of interesting and multicultural influence. Cottbus can be seen as the best known city of the Lausitz.

With only 18,000km² and about 4.2 million people, Saxony is one of the smaller states of Germany. As you can see, it's landscape is mostly made of smooth mountains and hills, with the Elbe as the most important river.

Saxonians are sometimes made fun of their accent, as it is seen as the prototype-accents for East Germany, especially in Television. Yet, for it's rich culture, Saxony is one of the most popular holiday destinations for Germans travelling their own country.
At the same time, Saxony is one of the few states with the far-right NPD in the parliament, which shows that Saxony has a problem with exaggerated nationalism - a fact that is supposed to be connected to the relatively high rate of unemployment...

Now, this was only a very, very short trip through Saxony an I know I missed a lot (if not almost everything). But this is supposed to be a short, informative journal and not a travel guide. I hope you like the pictures - if you do, please give the artists a visit and/or a fav, they really deserve it.

If you have any questions about this station of our trip or Germany as a whole: please ask, I'll try to answer as quick as possible.
And if you have any suggestions about how to make this trip any better, please don't hesitate to write me, either.

Artists featured in this article

Looking forward for your comments - and the next station of this trip...
Malte