The Tale of a Cloth: Fortresses Facing Germany during World War I

Today's (this week's? turned out to be this year's!) wondering stems from trying to figure out what the map to the right is. Unlike what one may expect on a quick glance, it is not a map of Europe, but mostly north central Europe: eastern Germany, western Russia, and northern Austria-Hungary. In addition, the big bold-faced names are not those (with some exceptions) of major European cities. So what is it?

It is part of of what had been a fairly sizable collection of World War I materials saved by my great aunt. So, although undated, I have always known that it as some World War I German thing. In deciding to unburden ourselves of more stuff, I needed to figure out finally what the map is all about, so this is where I wandered.

The facts: the map is made of some sort of line, and it measures 16 1/2" x 16 1/2" (42 cm square). In looking at closely, I see that there is both a key (for distance) at the top and (perhaps) a title: the word "Festungen". So first things first, is the Google translate which gives me "Forts"; in parallel, Wikipedia takes me to Fortification. 

This lists fortresses (Festungen) in existence in eastern Germany, western Russia, and northern Austria-Hungary, presumably at the beginning of the war. Undated, published by Verlag Sander & Gronau, Hamburg.

So now that I can see that each of the symbols denotes a fortress, my wandering takes me to each of them (roughly going from North to South) on the map. The big question, however, will still be why this map and who was it for!

My First Driving Lessons

Another clipping from a scrapbook kept by mother brings back much fonder memories--learning street signs and how to navigate. I cannot remember if there are photographs of us, but I believe there may be, but will have to add them later (if and when I find them). 

This is a story from the U.S. Armed Forces newspaper, The Stars and Stripes, from September 5, 1958. My first Googling was to see if these were available online, and it turns out that they are, but for a fee. However, without buying in, I was able to capture a slightly buggy OCR transcription, so I didn't have to type it all:

NIghtmares Revisited... or a Trip to Bad Canstatt

Over a year from my last wandering! Today's was started by finding this clipping in a scrapbook of my mother's that I am disassembling to preserve what matters most. But, what was this clipping? One of the "failures" of my education has been not learning German, so I have to resort to Google Translate to start this search. While I didn't type it all in, I did get enough from the beginning:

For the carnival parade on Sunday

Traffic orders from the police headquarters

During the carnival procession in Bad Canstatt on Sunday, February 1, like the police headquarters, around 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The Brunnenstrasse between Wilhelmstrasse and Schmiddener Strasse, Hofener Strasse ...

OK, more street closings and a map. I have no idea what my mother intended by saving this, but yikes it brought me back in time ... to a time when I had a recurrent nightmare brought on my attending a parade. Well, this was obviously the parade.