Sometimes when I get a little down in the dumps, I try to remember the amazing things around me, that connect me to a wider history, and my spirits soar.

This is Kloster Denkendorf, about twenty minutes drive from me. 🧵 Sometime in the 1120s, a 'Bertholdus', perhaps Berthold, Count of Hohenberg & Lindenfels, returned from a trip to the Holy Land and donated a small monastery and a church to the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, who sent a prior to Southern Germany. 🧵

With #InternationalWomensDay on the 8th of March, here's who you can thank for its existence: Clara Zetkin! 🧵 Clara was born in the kingdom of Sachsen in 1857. In the 1870s she became involved with rhe SPD while studying to become teacher.

Her politics veering further leftwards, she spent time in Switzerland and Paris, dodging bans on socialist and communist orgs. 🧵

I tweeted that the inventor of the first real automobile, Gottlieb Daimler, died #onthisday in 1900.

Not many know this, but Daimler had a habit of scaring the bejesus out of his neighbours. I'd like to honour that. 1/4 When Daimler was putting his 'grandfather clock' engine onto a carriage chassis, the noise from his greenhouse in Bad Cannstatt was alarming his neighbours so much that his gardener eventually led the police in - they'd suspected him of running a counterfeiting operation! 2/4

One thing that I don't think gets talked enough with folks experiencing ADD and/or living on the spectrum is the financial hit.

And I don't mean in a 'oops, didn't pay that bill way', but what years of grappling with if does to your job history and career progression. There's loads of financial tools out there to help you keep track of where money is going - believe me, I use several.

However, there's not much that can be done when career progression has slowed due to ADD/ASD, but costs keep rising.

Working *harder* isn't an option.

#ValentinesDay tomorrow. You may not know this, but I am, in fact, @TheLocalGermany's love guru, in addition to Southern Germany correspondent, culture observer & ad creative.

So, you want to date a German? Let me offer you 10 rules for wooing, and dating a German. 10. Don't worry if your German is sub-par, you'll barely get a chance to use it.

Many Germans are keen to practice their English, and while this may seem a rich seam of laughs, it's best to keep a straight face.

Anyway, how many language do *you* speak?

Edward Berger's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (DE: 'Im Westen Nichts Neues') has gathered nine nominations for the 2023 Oscars - including Best Picture, the only non-English film to make the cut. It is third adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's seminal anti-war novel, and the first German-language version.

It stars Felix Kammerer as Paul Bäumer - an enthusiastic volunteer to the Imperial German Army in 1917, as World War One rages.

On Boxing Day, I caught a bus out to Weilheim an der Teck, about 40 minutes out of Stuttgart. The Peterskirche is full of 16th century wall paintings - including this depiction of sinners being fed to Hell. Man, does it say a lot. The artist has made it abundantly clear that bishops, cardinals, even the pontiff himself are being escorted by demons down the Hell-gullet.

This painting dates from very much smack-bang in the midst of the Reformation, so really not a surprise.

Let me tell you what has eroded civilization, Mr Musk, especially in the last hundred years.

What has eroded civilization, what is outrageous and obscene and will never be forgotten is how fear and hatred have been amplified, and information distorted.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1602734819225571328

Every single atrocity of the 20th century, starting with antisemitic pogroms and ending with the massacres of the Yugoslav civil wars, began with scaremongering around 'the other'.

The 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' is a classic example.

Who is 'Heinrich XIII', the German member of a noble family who was going to be 'regent' in the event of a successful #Reichsbürger coup?

Heinrich Reuss, born 1951, is a real estate entrepreneur, who lives near Frankfurt am Main - and a big deal in the Reichsbürger scene. Reuss' first significant appearance on the scene came when he addressed the Worldwebforum in Switzerland. During the speech, he accused the Rothschild banking family and the Freemasons of attempting to eradicate European monarchies.

Massive raids across Germany to arrest at least 25 military figures who were conspiring to launch a coup. An EMP was going to signal the attempt. It sounds like a bad novel, but this is being reported in German media - and there was just a pulse on BBC Breaking News.

Hey! Hey you! Need some Christmas cards? Need to buy some? How about some with a story? I'm putting a few on @redbubble. 🧵rdbl.co/3HeNrNN First, the Alte Rathaus in Esslingen, near Stuttgart. Esslingen was a Free Imperial City, a centre of commerce and faith. It survived WW2 & is relatively undiscovered by tourists.

Each year it holds my favourite Christmas market - it's medieval-themed! 🧵rdbl.co/3VoSn6L

I am very much looking forward to receiving a pre-action letter, because I referenced your words that were widely-reported upon.

To wit: "Depends on the child, doesn’t it? The ancient Greeks were pederasts. It was considered to be normal. It was mentoring."

https://twitter.com/Sargon_of_Akkad/status/1597284782634737667

Words that were reported upon by @TheSun. thesun.co.uk/news/8956117/t…

In celebration of @Obsidian's #Pentiment being released, I decided to put together a list of the things every small German town seems to have. #everysmallgermantown The inhabitants of every small German town have a bizarre nickname, related to some obscure historical event.

Within fifty kilometres of my home, we have the 'Onion Eaters', the 'Moon Extinguishers' and the 'Corpse Rollers'.

Next week, at @MuseumHalle_E, the world will learn more about one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever made in Germany, and one of the most fascinating figures you'll ever hear about.

If you haven't heard of her, let me introduce the Shamaness of Bad Dürrenberg. In 1934, in Bad Dürrenberg, a spa town in the modern state of Sachsen-Anhalt, maintenance workers discovered an archaeological sensation - a burial from the stone age, from the deep past.

Here's to a real one, Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart. In an age when you were advised to keep your mouth shut, this motherfucker talked shit about everyone, whenever the opportunity arose. When this dude was training to be a teacher, he was given the opportunity to preach a little - so he talked shit about every priest in the district, elucidating how hypocritical they were.

He nearly got clapped in irons for dictating a very subversive poem to his students too.

There is a couple of reasons why @ElonMusk tweeting memes featuring Nazis is not only reprehensible, but insanely irresponsible.

I mean, his gaff, his rules, but while there's still the opportunity to call shit out, we should be obligated to take it. 🧵 Posting an image of a Nazi soldier isn't an innocuous act - it's a choice. To show a Wehrmacht soldier in the service of whatever joke he's trying to make, he's engaging in the 'mainstreaming' of Nazis, their symbols and their beliefs.

It 'de-dramatizes' a genocidal force. 🧵

Seriously, look guys: Peter III of Russia - ostensibly ruler, left the heavy lifting to others.

Elon Musk, billionaire, bought a bunch of companies and claimed credit for all the whizz-bang tech. Peter III: Hated everyone around him, treated them like garbage, didn't get enough love from his parents, idolized the Prussians.

Elon: Hates everyone around him, treats them like garbage, didn't get enough love from his parents, idolizes racists, Trumpists, 4chan.

Absolute rot. The 'Vikings', though raiders and slavers - as pretty much everybody else was, to an extent, at time - exhibited several qualities that we'd understand as 'woke' - that is, attempting to understand, to tolerate, to exchange ideas.

https://twitter.com/dcsandbrook/status/1588086648750964737

They weren't insular, ignorant white supremacists. They weren't even all Scandinavians. A study by Nature in 2020 revealed a surprisingly diverse genetic base. nature.com/articles/s4158…

The Facebook likes of Andy Leak, who firebombed an immigration processing centre in Dover, are a real cocktail of anti-Islam, conspiracy theory pages and pages with a nationalist theme. 1/🧵 Didn't take long until I found posts being shared from Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO), extreme Far Right thinktank Traditional Britain group (@TradBritGroup) and RT stalwart George Galloway (@georgegalloway) 2/🧵

I've been on Twitter since the beginning, for years before I left Australia.

In many ways it's defined my adult life and it's allowed me to do incredible things.

I've shared my latest nerdy obsessions, taught a couple of history lessons & butted heads with the Far Right... 1/🧵 I've been.very lucky - I found a platform where I could speak to the world, and have dialogues that I simply couldn't have in person.

I opened up about my struggles, and the support I received was incredible.

I'm not kidding when I say this place saved my life at times. 2/🧵

One hundred years ago yesterday, on October 23rd 1922, a train pulled out of Stuttgart towards Aalen, officially opening the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof to the public.

Here's a few fun facts about our beloved (🤣) old girl. Just shy of two thousand years ago, the site of the Hauptbahnhof was home to Romans, who liked to drink wine and make bricks, apparently.

Excavations for the Stuttgart 21 project revealed dwellings along the small Nesenbach creek.

Later, Alemannic tribes rolled in on the spot.