The "White House" of the European Union

 Almost a decade ago, Nina Wolff wrote a biography of her father, based upon a trove of letters he gave her shortly before he died. Now she is writing the biography of an immense building in the Schuman area of Brussels which is arguably the "White House" of the European Union: the Residence Palace.

The building figures prominently in Wolff's book about her father. It was built in 1927 as a huge residential complex with a swimming pool, a 500-seat theater and all the services of a small city.  Wolff's family lived there before they began their arduous escape from Brussels to France to America from that building. 

During World War II, the huge building became the headquarters of the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe--Nazis took the best places for themselves in conquered countries.  Because the building was full of Nazis it attracted spies adding to its lore.

Much of the original structure has been replaced by modern buildings. Notable is a building with windows from all over Europe fit together in a giant jigsaw puzzle as a symbol of the European Union bringing together all of Europe.

 The book about Nina Wolff's father, his escape from Nazi-occupied France as a teenager and his service in the U.S. Army a few years later is in the book "Someday You Will Understand: My Father's Private World War II." I wrote about the book and how an Axl Rose t-shirt started a discussion about The Holocaust.

Waterloo: A Visit to the Museum and Battlefield

 

On a cold, clear, windy afternoon earlier this month I visited the museum and battlefield of Waterloo, Belgium: the scene of the final defeat of the Napoleon and his army in 1815.

When I visit the scenes of great battles, I try to imagine myself as the 20-year-old I was when I first made sergeant, leading a squad of men in the face of thousands of enemy soldiers. Chances of me reaching my 21st birthday look very dim in those moments.

The fields of Waterloo are open, flat and a horrible place to be a soldier.  At Gettysburg, I knew I wanted to be in the United States Army. To be in the rebel army, especially in Pickett's Charge, was to have run uphill into artillery behind stone walls.  

At Waterloo, everyone was on rolling open ground, the difference was timing and maneuver. The French were out-flanked, out-maneuvered and finally defeated.  Napoleon Bonaparte was neither the first nor the last general defeated in part by his own arrogance. 

The museum is beautiful and is all underground:

There is a delightful collection of contemporary propaganda:

A huge diorama places all of the armies on the field.  A fixed model can only capture a moment, not the complex maneuvering that led to Napoleon's defeat, but it is nice to be able to look at the model then go out and scan the field.

And in the gift shop, there is a Napoleonic War chess set and the t-shirt I came home with: