Let us build a new home for these reptiles

In general, Italy does not believe in exercise; still less in “outdoorsmanship.” Germany, on the other hand, claims that “hiking was invented in the Black Forest.” These mindsets have roots in antiquity: Rome was an empire of cities, with their walls, roads, houses, and even gate hinges having their own appointed deities; conversely, the historian Tacitus records that “none of the German tribes live in cities”; their cults and ways of life were rooted, rather, in the forest.

The idea of “nature conservation,” of taking care of local ecosystems, fits much better with the German “historical identity” than the Italian; or at least, Hitler thought so. His efforts to preserve Germany’s natural beauty were part of his cultivation of the myth of primeval forest, the soil of which “gave birth” to the German people. (Re)connecting with nature was primary among his cultural goals; for instance, the Third Reich’s Tierschutzgesetz was, when passed, the most comprehensive set of animal rights legislation in history.

All this to explain the following:

I was hiking in the mountains around Heidelberg this weekend, and among them found an unlikely series of monuments: a tower dedicated to Bismarck; two ruined monasteries; a memorial to Hölderlin, the Romantic poet; Celtic fortifications; a Roman temple. These are the marks of humanization; they testify to the ways that these mountains have been transformed into cultural landscapes. I was therefore surprised to also find, on the same mountain, this somewhat bizarre plaque:

Translation:

Wall Lizards: New Home for Reptiles

Here in the Fuchsrondelhütte [fox-turret-shack] stands a new living-space for wall lizards. It is one of the Ecological Compensation Areas for the new Bahnstadt district [of Heidelberg]. We created this protection concept for the lizards that lived there… The goal was to find and open up new habitats for these wall lizards.

Here is the result of the “protection concept”:

As far as I can understand: in order to atone for the building of a new city district, Heidelberg built a new structure in the mountains to serve as a home for displaced reptiles. There is, here, perhaps some idea of harmony: that the city and the landscape must be reciprocally balanced, that one is the negative image of the other. But it is also a strange reflex to counter building—of the city—with more building—of a makeshift wall in the middle of the forest. The presumption seems to be that it is our responsibility to act as curators both of the city and its environ, to destroy and then rebuild “nature” at a suitable distance from the city. This allows both for “preservation” and urban expansion simultaneously; it alleviates guilt. From what I’ve seen, such an impulse is far more characteristic of Germany than of Italy.

An final anecdotal example: I found a sign warning that an area I was visiting was a “Protected Habitat!" for “amphibians and their offspring.” The habitat in question was a manmade grotto, blasted into the ramparts of Heidelberg Castle to create a Romantic “landscape garden.” It pretends to be a natural cave; and now that “amphibians and their offspring” have moved in, it seems to have become one.

Needless to say, I did not spot a single animal—reptilian, amphibian, or otherwise—at either of these sites.