What does a pub landlord in 19th century Krefeld have to do with glamorous celebrities like Monaco's Princess Grace Kelly or actress Jane Birkin?
There is actually a direct connection between the three: the innkeeper's son,
Thierry Hermes
.
Born in 1801 in Krefeld on the Lower Rhine, he emigrated to Paris and founded a business there that soon produced luxury leather goods for the rich.
Among other things, handbags that Kelly and Birkin liked to show off with.
How exactly the route from Krefeld to the French metropolis ran was not really clear until now.
It was often assumed that Hermès, as he later called himself, was the son of Huguenots, French religious refugees who only lived briefly in Krefeld.
But that's wrong, two local historians have now found out: The Hermes (at that time without an accent) were real people from Krefeld and had lived in the town for generations.
And it was there that young Thierry learned his craft, with which he would later delight the
elite
on the Seine.
My colleague Fabian Hillebrand wrote down the story of the successful emigrant, and you can read about the German-French luxury treat here.
What
Vladimir Putin
has to do with Hermès is not certain, but Putin also has a German background, so there is a small overlap.
His work as a KGB officer in Dresden has been widely described.
Less well known is an episode that took place in Hamburg exactly 30 years ago.
At the time, Putin was deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg and was invited to the Matthiae Mahl, a traditional Hamburg dinner with many political celebrities.
The ceremonial speech was given by the then Estonian President Lennart Mari.
In it he warned against
Russia's desire for hegemony
in Eastern Europe.
His words faded away, only one person apparently took them seriously: Putin, who left the room in a rage and slammed the door behind him.
Rumms.
My colleague Katja Iken reconstructed the prophetic scene.
If you had just listened to the Estonian back then, you might have saved the world a lot.
And many people might still be alive, not just those who fell victim to the war in Ukraine.
Since Putin became Russian president, the number of deaths
among his critics has increased
.
Alexei Navalny has just died in a Siberian prison camp under
circumstances that are still unclear;
he was "murdered by Putin's regime," as Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck put it.
My colleague Anastasia Trenkler has compiled other cases in which Russian opposition members died in strange ways - the list is long.
Demonstrations against right-wing extremism and for democracy will take place again in many German cities this weekend.
If you still need argumentative ammunition against “remigration” fantasies and the like, we highly recommend the current issue of SPIEGEL History: What is German?
From the Middle Ages to the present: How a delicate question was answered again and again.
If you can't find it at the kiosk, you can order it here.
If you would like to make suggestions or criticism, you can reach us at spiegelgeschichte@spiegel.de, we will get back to you in two weeks, until then have a good time.
The editorial team at SPIEGEL History recommends:
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In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, drug smugglers and soldiers enriched themselves particularly shamelessly.
Did they also murder the landlady Zenta Hausner?
Germany and the Bomb:
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Roaring dreams of the future:
In the “Hyperloop” people should be able to travel through a tube at turbo speed.
Elon Musk made the idea big, but visionaries were already thinking up similar projects 200 years ago.
The Federal Republic's memory gap:
On February 13, 1970, unknown assailants set fire to a Jewish community center in Munich, killing seven people.
Police investigation files document the survivors' statements.