German Memoirs in Asia - Austria & Divided German States

Andrea was narrating various issues about Austria. When I asked Andrea how most of the Austrians identify themselves as Austrians or Germans, she said, "there are complex issues. We have a unique culture in Austria. So we feel comfortable when we identify ourselves as Austrians". She also said, "We are less in number compared to those who are in Germany and that is the primary reason why we like to identify ourselves as Austrians".

That the German Nation and its people should be divided was a notion held by many European nations. Foreign powers had long interceded in German affairs, pitting one German principality against the other.

In the 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars and the fall of the Holy Roman Empire (of the German nation), Austria and Prussia emerged as two opposite poles in Germany, trying to re-establish the divided German nation. In 1870, Prussia attracted even Bavaria in the Franco-Prussian War and the creation of the German Empire as a German nation-state, effectively excluding the multi-ethnic Austrian-Habsburg monarchy. From this time on, the connotation of Germans came to shift gradually from "speakers of the German language" to "Imperial Germans."

The dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire after World War I led to a strong desire of the population of the new Republic of Austria to be integrated into Germany. This was, however, prevented by the Treaty of Versailles.

Trying to overcome the shortfall of Chancellor Bismarck's creation, the Nazis attempted to unite "all Germans" in one realm. This was welcomed among ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, Danzig and Western Lithuania, but met with resistance among the Swiss and the Dutch, who were perfectly content with their perception of separate nations established in 1648, and the Dutch, in particular as they had never even spoken a form of the modern Germanic language.

Before World War II, most Austrians considered themselves German and denied the existence of a distinct Austrian ethnic identity. It was only after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II that this began to change. After the world war, the Austrians increasingly saw themselves as a nation distinct from the other German-speaking areas of Europe, and some polls in 2000 indicated that no more than ten percent of the German-speaking Austrians saw themselves as part of a larger German nation linked by blood or language.

Germans, would hold that they belong to the German culture, which is what decides if someone is considered a German or not. On the other hand, Austrians often prefer to see the same persons and institutions as Austrian. Particularly, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven - who spent most of their lives in what is Austria today - may be considered to have been central within the German culture but may nevertheless often be characterized as Austrians, not as Germans.

The beginnings of a divided Germany may be traced back much further; to a Roman occupied Germania in the west and to Free Germania in the east. Starkly different ideologies have many times been developed due to conquerors and occupiers of sections of Germany. Poets talked of Zwei Seelen in einem Herz (Two souls in one heart).

German Memories in Asia - A Visit to Indian Ocean's Kayts Islands

Torsten Kapeller, is a student from Stuttgart, Germany. He traveled in the war-torn North and East of the island on a tsunami-relief mission to provide tsunami warning sirens and telling various stories on his mission.

The tsunami sirens were brought from Germany and could be operated manually to alert the coastal villages up to a few hundreds meters.

Torsten said his mission to North was exhaustive. He visited a beach and was struck by the beauty of its shallow sea-bed. From his description, I guessed it was the "Saddi" beach in the Kayts Islands.

Visiting Kayts Islands from the Jaffna Peninsula, crossing a mile-long narrow way had been a fascinating experience since my school days. We could see the shallow sea on both sides of the way, which is an extension of the Palk Strait connecting the Gulf of Mannar and the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean.

We could always see in the shallow seas, the sea-gulls, the Brahmin kites and other birds of different varieties busily fishing all the time. Some of the large Brahmin-kites used to rest on the top of fixed fishing nets everywhere in the sea. It was fascinating to see their take off from the nets and I was surprised in my early school days how large birds like them could uplift their bodies using their wings.

When Torsten was sharing his experience about his travel to Kayts, my thoughts went back to the Dutch Sea Fort, which was built by the Portuguese and then reconstructed by the Dutch in the sea off Kayts Islands.

The Portuguese not only constructed Forts in the island but also in other parts of Asia.
The Portuguese, Dutch, English, Danish, French even German and other European cultures and architecture heavily influenced Asian art, culture and architecture and my maternal ancestors' house in Kayts resembled that of a small Dutch Fort with inside gardens and large rectangular verandahs and corridors, which made me to wonder about the different types of architecture.

Torsten was telling about the soothing climate of the Peninsula. As the Jaffna Peninsula sets a breeze from the Bay of Bengal and Indian sub-continent by its close proximity, there is an effect on the humidity, the climate and even on the monsoon system.

German Memories in Asia - An Exploration Into Ancient Jaffna

When we reached Jaffna, the German students were gazing at the surroundings of the Jaffna city. My mind went far back when looking at those war-ravaged buildings to the times where the Naga Kingdom was flourishing in various parts of the Jaffna Peninsula.

But the Jaffna Peninsula since then had a hazardous time for long periods as history tells us.

It is said that Lord Buddha visited Jaffna to resolve a crisis over a jewel between the Naga Chieftains and introduced Buddhism to them. Archeological findings in Kantharodai, Nagadeepa, and Vallipuram areas in the Jaffna Peninsula are evidences to prove the existence of Buddhism. Long before Buddhism crept into some areas of the Jaffna peninsula the Nagas who lived in Jaffna were worshiping Lord Shiva. The Nagas were good sea traders and Ptolemy who lived between 85 A.D. and165 A.D. and travelled around the Island observed that one of the oldest seaports of Sri Lanka was in the Northern part of the Jaffna Peninsula and was used since 6th century B.C.

Though the Nagas ruled the North of the Island, a formal Jaffna Kingdom came into being by the ambitions of two chieftains, one Kalinga Magha from Orissa, India and Chandrabhanu from Malacca in the Malay Straits region of Malaysia.

In 1215 the aggressive Kalinga Maga conquered Sri Lanka with his powerful army from Kalinga. Kalinga was an ancient Indo - Aryan Kingdom of central-eastern India, in the province of Orissa. The kingdom had a formidable maritime empire with trading routes linking Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Bali, Sumatra and Java. Colonists from Kalinga settled in far away places such as Sri Lanka, Burma as well as the Indonesian archipelago. Even today Indians are referred to as Klings in Malaysia because of the early Indian invasions from Kalinga into Malaysia. Many Sri Lankan kings, both Sinhalese and Tamil, claimed to have descended from Kalinga dynasties.

TheYakkas and Nagas might have become the outcasts as bondsmen and slaves, after the Indo-Aryan immigrants conquered them and became the lords and aristocrats. And finally they might have assimilated within the dominant society.

What happened to Nagas and Yakkas in the Island points to the ultimate cause of the rise and fall of the civilizations are according to their racial homogeneity and nothing else - a nation can survive wars, defeats, natural catastrophes, but not racial dissolution.

Jaffna Peninsula under Kalinga Maga's rule was so controversial. His rule was the worst marauding regime that had existed in the Island according to historians.

In 1247 Chandrabhanu invaded the Island with the aid of Indian armies from the Malayan peninsula and inflicted heavy damages on the Kalinga Maga domain. Although Chandrabhanu's invasion was repulsed in 1263 he managed to capture the areas in the Jaffna Peninsula that were then under Kalinga Maga.

The Jaffna Kingdom was dominated by the South Indian Pandyan Empire, a dravidic empire in the 13th Century after they defeated Chadrabanu. The development of the Dravidic tribes in the past twenty centuries gave rise to states like Pallava, Pandy, Chola, Chera and Vijayanagar kingdoms in Southern India. From time to time one or the other of these Dravidian states reached pre-eminence but indubitably the greatest of these was the Chola Empire, which encompassed not only south India but the entire region up to the Ganges in Northern India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives to the south to Malaya and Sumathra in the east.

The political socio-economic and cultural impact and influence of this empire was very great. All these Dravidian kingdoms had a lasting political socio-economic and cultural impact and influence on Sri Lanka and in the region to a very great extent.

After lasting for over 400 years the Dravidian influenced Jaffna Kingdom finally lost its independence to the Portuguese in 1621. The Portuguese captured the King of Jaffna Sangili Kumaran and had taken him to Goa in India along with his sons. After trial, the Portuguese found him guilty of treason and hanged him along with his sons. With the Jaffna Kingdom's demise, the only indigenous independent political entity that was not Sinhalese and Buddhist in character came to an end in the Island.

While we were moving along the Jaffna streets, the repercussions of the fall of Jaffna Kingdom seemed to reverberate with a mysterious silence everywhere.

German Memories in Asia - The Portuguese Jaffna

When we joined with the German relief team in a few minutes, Dr. Jayalth and Dietmar Doring were in a rather relaxed mood planning the day's mission.


Having finished our breakfast, a delicious Jaffna dish quickly, we all started to move towards the Bishop House of Jaffna.

While I was walking in the back corridor of the church with the German university students, my memories went back to my meeting with then Bishop of Jaffna Dr. Thiyogupillai in my school days several years ago. His caring nature very much impressed me though I did not belong to the Catholic religious sector but had a faith in Jesus.


The Bishop of Jaffna Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundranayagam had a lengthy chat with all of us in the conference hall and praised the students for their kind service to the tsunami victims.


While I was returning in the corridors with the students, I was reminded of the era of Portuguese rule and how Catholism was introduced into Jaffna.


The conquest of Jaffna by the Portuguese under Captain General Constantine de Sa under the command of Philip de Oliveira in 1620-21 spelt the demise of the independent Kingdom of Jaffna. A pretext to capture Jaffna presented itself when the King of Jaffna, cruelly murdered about six hundred newly baptized Catholics in the Island of Mannar. Constantine de Braganza led an expedition and captured Mannar in 1560.



The King of Jaffna sued for peace and promised to pay tribute, so that the King could remain independent in Jaffna. But the tributary status came to an end in 1591 and the Portuguese undertook the missionary work of conversion despite the obstruction from the Kings of Jaffna. After the last ruler of Jaffna was captured in 1620, Jaffna became part of the Portugal's Overseas Empire.


The main contribution of the Portuguese rule in Jaffna was the introduction of Roman Catholicism.
The Portuguese wantonly destroyed quite a number of Hindu temples and introduced many other measures against the Hindus. At one time historians say during the Portuguese rule in the 17th century, the Tamil-speaking Jaffna peninsula, a bastion of orthodox Shiva worshipping Hindus was entirely Catholic. Fernao de Queiros, the renowned Portuguese chronicler described Jaffna as being "wholly Christian".


The reasons for the en masse conversion of Jaffna Tamils were the unquestioned military and political power that the Portuguese exercised over the population of Jaffna, due to a variety factors one of which was that the Jaffna masses were non-aggressive, non-militarised and leaderless. Although St Francis Xavier had begun conversion in 1543 itself, it was only after the complete takeover of Jaffna that the conversions took place on a mass scale.


In order to increase the number of converts rapidly, they resorted to "general baptism".
A typical case of general baptism in a village was first the announcement of the arrival of the
Portuguese missionaries made by tom-tom. The villagers in question would be asked to assemble and then a missionary would ask them to reject their "false" gods and accept "one true God". It was not a request; it was almost a command backed by the authority of the Portuguese government. This is because the missionary would invariably be accompanied by the local Portuguese officials and the native chiefs who supported them. Fear of a fine or corporal punishment with cane and stock would ensure their regular attendance at church on Sundays and feast days.

An un-named writer is quoted as saying that the Hindus believed under force that there were different paths to salvation and that there was nothing wrong in accepting Catholicism.


The Portuguese rule ruined Jaffna and burdened the Jaffna peasant as he had to pay heavy taxes, which the Portuguese kept hiking from time to time. The cash from the Jaffna treasury was being used to fund Portuguese settlements elsewhere. Nothing was ploughed back into the local economy. According to Fernao de Queiros, the people of Jaffna had been "reduced to the utmost misery" under
Portuguese rule.


In the absence of the possibility of waging war or revolting, the only option for the people was to migrate. They migrated to the Wanni jungles in the South of the peninsula and by crossing the Palk Strait to India.


The people of Jaffna were immensely relieved when the Dutch overthrew the Portuguese in June 1658.
The refugees not only came back to Jaffna, but shed Catholicism and reverted to Hinduism en masse. Some of course, took to the Protestant religion of the Dutch.


The converts who believed there were different paths to salvation, reverted back to Hinduism. Only the people from coastal areas of the Gulf of Mannar and some coastal areas in the Jaffna Peninsula saw Catholicism as a liberating path and stuck to it.


Though the Jaffna Peninsula today is a Hindu-dominated area in population, the Bishop of Jaffna is highly respected by all communities irrespective of their religious differences. And still the Church is playing a powerful, influential and healthy role in the life of the Tamils in the Peninsula.

German Memories in Asia - Crossing the Elephant Pass

The highway and the surroundings were once heavily mined areas. When we were passing the once strategic military camp and the destroyed tanks were telling signs of the war. The horrors of the war and the heat of the battle could be seen around the Elephant Pass Camp which was finally lost to the hands of LTTE in 1999.

The German Praktikum (Internship) students were looking at everywhere the area of the once fortified Camp area and recalling the terror in their motherland some decades ago.

Elephant Pass has come a long way from being a stretch of shallow waters that separated the Northern Jaffna Peninsula from the rest of the island in pre-colonial days and has now evolved into a military epicenter of the civil war.

The shallow waters through which elephants once carried goods into the Jaffna peninsula, giving it the name Elephant Pass, have been a silent witness to the ebbs and flow of the northern conflict. Elephant Pass, the terrestrial gateway to the Jaffna peninsula, is now under the control of the Tigers. The fall of Elephant Pass has changed the military course of the whole conflict. The Dutch colonialists first built a small fortress in 1776, which was converted in modern times into a rest house for tourists. After Independence a permanent garrison was set up there to check illicit immigration, smuggling and unlawful transport of timber.

As the intensity of the ethnic conflict escalated, the strategic importance of Elephant Pass also increased. The small camp gradually expanded into a sprawling complex. At one time, the Elephant Pass base and the satellite camps covered an area of about 23 km long and 8-10 km wide. While we were proceeding along in close proximity to Elephant Pass the Jaffna Lagoon on both sides of the high way triggered my thoughts back to many of the personal experiences in the Jaffna Lagoon. I had traveled a number of times crossing the lagoon from the mainland to the peninsula and vice versa as travel through Elephant Pass was prohibited in 1995.

The presence of the Sri Lankan military at the Elephant Pass made passage unsafe what with heavy land mines laid everywhere around the camp area.

Even traveling on the lagoon was unsafe as the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Navy were warring with each other with heavy casualties on both sides. The small boats used to start just before midnight, as the journey through the lagoon would be invisible. The three hours journey crossing the lagoon was enjoyable to me with lot of thrill and suspense until we reached the other end. LTTE monitored the lagoon passage as they controlled both coasts, the Kilali in the peninsula and the Nallur in the mainland.

Crossing the Elephant Pass was more than a crossing and going back into the past to me!