Boppard, Germany

We departed the Netherlands on Thursday and arrived in Boppard, Germany, after a four-hour drive to the southeast. Boppard is a small town on the Rhine about 75 miles west of Frankfurt in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz.

Our AirBnb covers the second floor of this 500-year-old house on the corner of Pützgasse and Bingergasse within the old city walls of Boppard. It’s cozy with big beds, a nice kitchen and within easy walking distance of the shops and restaurants along Oberstraße (literally “high street”).

We can walk out the front door and inspect interesting details on the old Fachwerkhaus (half-timbered house) just across the street.

You’ll notice many old German timbered buildings get progressively larger as you go up in floors. In the distant past, taxes were levied on the size of the footprint of the building. Basically, many owners built a loophole.

Located strategically along the Rhine, Boppard features Roman ruins, medieval city walls and once hosted an emergency bridge constructed by the American army in 1945 as it drove into the heart of Nazi Germany.

Just a couple doors down from our house is the former Jewish synagogue. It now houses an optician. Built in 1867, it was a place of worship until the early evening of November 10, 1938, when SA men sacked it during Kristallnacht.

Many synagogues were burned across Germany that night but Boppard’s survived. It was deemed too close to other buildings. Instead, religious objects from inside the building were burned in the courtyard.

Nearly 100 Jews lived in Boppard when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Many moved away or emigrated as conditions worsened. In April 1942, the remaining 32 Jewish inhabitants were rounded up and shipped to camps.

I’ve written about this before but we came across two Stolpersteinen (stumble stones) on the main street. These were fairly new, placed earlier this spring. They commemorated two women, Sally Siegler, who fled to the United States in 1941, and Lina Mayer, who was murdered in Eastern Europe in 1942.

We read online later that just two days after installation, under cover of night, someone removed them. They were quickly replaced.

Also just down the street, we came across this sticker on a wall. It read “Nationalism is no alternative”. If you’ve followed the news, you know Germany has its first far-right party in the Bundestag since 1945: the AfD, Alternative für Deutschland.

That’s the fascinating thing with Germany. There’s significant history around every corner and yet this is a modern country, grappling with current issues.

After our walk through Boppard, we hopped in the car and drove south along the Rhine exploring a few small towns and castles.

Later in the evening, we ventured out to walk through Boppard’s tiny Christmas market.

We had a busy day so we didn’t stay too long out in the cold night air. We’re planning to visit larger markets in Rüdesheim and Mainz.

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