The story goes that around about 1850 Otto von Stauffenberg found himself in Tasmania hunting for 'gold' and 'exotica' much of which was destined for the family Wunderkammer back in Germany. On the way to Tasmania he spent some time in Africa collecting 'animal and bird bits and pieces' for his brother Carl – horns, tusks, tails, feathers, claws, fur etc. Carl was something of a 'gentleman taxidermist' who apparently had a sideline making 'wolperdinger' – something best understood by Bavarians apparently.
It seems that Otto was something of a tearaway and his family consigned him the the 'Great South Land' win his fortune. For some reason he imagined that both the gold
miss Sharples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_von_Stauffenberg
Augsburg (UK: /ˈaʊɡzbɜːrɡ/ OWGZ-burg,[3] US: /ˈɔːɡz-/ AWGZ-,[4] German: [ˈaʊksbʊʁk] (
listen); Swabian German: Augschburg) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around 50 km west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben with an impressive Altstadt (city centre). Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is the third-largest city in Bavaria (after Munich and Nuremberg) with a population of 300,000 inhabitants, with 885,000 in its metropolitan area.[5]
After Neuss, Trier, Cologne and Xanten, Augsburg is one of Germany's oldest cities, founded in 15 BC by the Romans as Augusta Vindelicorum, named after the Roman emperor Augustus. It was a Free Imperial City from 1276 to 1803 and the home of the patrician Fugger and Welser families that dominated European banking in the 16th century. The city played a leading role in the Reformation as the site of the 1530 Augsburg Confession and 1555 Peace of Augsburg. The Fuggerei, the oldest social housing complex in the world, was founded in 1513 by Jakob Fugger.
In 2019, UNESCO recognized the Water Management System of Augsburg as a World Heritage Site
Cabinet of curiosities
Cabinets of curiosities (also known in German loanwords as Kunstkabinett, Kunstkammer or Wunderkammer; also Cabinets of Wonder, and wonder-rooms) were collections of notable objects. The term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings), and antiquities. The classic cabinet of curiosities emerged in the sixteenth century, although more rudimentary collections had existed earlier. In addition to the most famous and best documented cabinets of rulers and aristocrats, members of the merchant class and early practitioners of science in Europe formed collections that were precursors to museums.
Cabinets of curiosities served not only as collections to reflect the particular curiosities of their curators but as social devices to establish and uphold rank in society. There are said to be two main types of cabinets. As R. J. W. Evans notes, there could be "the princely cabinet, serving a largely representational function, and dominated by aesthetic concerns and a marked predilection for the exotic," or the less grandiose, "the more modest collection of the humanist scholar or virtuoso, which served more practical and scientific purposes." Evans goes on to explain that "no clear distinction existed between the two categories: all collecting was marked by curiosity, shading into credulity, and by some sort of universal underlying design".[1]
Wolpertinger
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In German folklore, a wolpertinger (also called wolperdinger or woiperdinger) is an animal[1] said to inhabit the alpine forests of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany.
Description[edit]
It has a body comprising various animal parts - generally wings, antlers, a tail, and fangs; all attached to the body of a small mammal. The most widespread description portrays the Wolpertinger as having the head of a hare, the body of a squirrel, the antlers of a deer, and the wings and occasionally the legs of a bird.
Stuffed "wolpertingers", composed of parts of actual stuffed animals, are often displayed in inns or sold to tourists as souvenirs in the animals' "native regions". The Deutsches Jagd- und Fischereimuseum in Munich, Germany features a permanent exhibit on the creature.
It resembles other creatures from German folklore, such as the Rasselbock of the Thuringian Forest, the Dilldapp of the Alemannic region, and the Elwedritsche of the Palatinate region, which accounts describe as a chicken-like creature with antlers; additionally the American Jackalope as well as the Swedish Skvader somewhat resemble the wolpertinger. The Austrian counterpart of the wolpertinger is the raurakl.
According to folklore, Wolpertingers can be found in the forests of Bavaria. Variant regional spellings of the name include Wolperdinger, Woipertingers, and Volpertinger. They are part of a larger family of horned mammals that exist throughout the Germanic regions of Europe, such as the Austrian Raurackl, which is nearly identical to the German Wolpertinger.[2]
