My century-old new dueling scar

I have always had a fascination with German student dueling fraternities, particularly those from the mid-1800s through about 1910. The thought of participating in the traditional fixed student ritual, standing a mere saber’s length apart from one’s opponent, required by the rules to remain rigidly in position without moving one’s torso while one’s opposite number slices downward and transversely across one’s face has never ceased to hold a deadly allure for me that doesn’t easily lend itself to description, or for that matter into an easy-to-understand translation for today’s smart-phone addicted, social-media obsessed individual.

The thought of all those sinister Germanic faces, heavily scarred by their Mensurschmiss (sabre scar…think famed German early film actor/producer Erich von Stroheim), imparts a romantic aura of olden times when personal honor and character were worn on the male student’s sleeve like an insignia. Sabre scars were indeed the tattoo of that era, except that instead of requiring a mere few minutes of mild discomfort, they were typically attended by substantial pain, copious bleeding and much attendant ceremonial suffering.

By contrast, anyone may be tattooed in our modern age, an unfortunate state of affairs which has afforded the majority of our pop-culture enfeebled puerile mentalities to mark themselves off, attempting in the doing to establish some sort of exclusive identity that sets them apart from the herd. Unfortunately, it ends up identifying them as being simply another of the human branded cows among many, a fact that while lost on the tattooes themselves, hasn’t been overlooked by the tattooers who make considerable amounts of money from catering to this deplorably puerile contemporary fad.

This morning, as I was preparing to attend a Viennese-themed fin de siècle social event at our local German-American club (the Sacramento Turnverein, or STV), I faced the mild perplexity of trying to decide what to wear that would suitably compliment a Wiener Kaffeehaus setting. Fortunately I have a closet full of interesting period garments, many of which are one way or another of Germanic derivation, so I was sorting through possible combinations when I noted a brief brushing sensation on the left side of my cheek (no, the FACE cheek, not the nether kind).

Startled by what seemed to be a mere nudge, I paid no real attention to this passing perception (it felt almost like a butterfly kiss) until I began to feel a warmish sensation, and looking in the bathroom mirror was startled to see a small trickle of bright red blood dripping off my face and onto my shirt.

It appeared to be an actual slice on my cheek some inch or so long, and then it dawned on me that one of the antique turn-of-the-century student dueling sabres that I have a small collection of had been the instrument inflicting this wound. Although the blade of the typical Glockenschläger (dueling sabre, or, as they say in Germany, ‘the racquet’) is normally not in itself sharp along its transverse length, the last few inches at the tip are. In fact they are usually about as sharp as a dull razor and as such are quite capable of leaving a nice little divot in the skin, when propelled by sufficient force. Even after 100 years a sword of this type can inflict serious damage when wielded inappropriately.

My dueling Glockenschläger are all hung along the outer surface of the closet doors, which slide open sideways to reveal the contents on hangers. While poking around in that repository of fabric ‘software’ I had inadvertently come into a lateral contact with one of these blade tips and ZOTZ, a nice little sliced cheek wound about 2 mm deep from some of that ‘hardware’ was the result.

Reflecting on this, as I selected what to wear for the Viennese Kaffeehaus affair, it was apparent that not only was I going to attend suitably attired, I was also going to appear complete with a genuine sabre scar rendered over a hundred years after the sabre in reference had been fabricated. That’s an impressive if odd thought, but not one of too terribly unusual significance, since while attending the Gulf War I (working for the Saudi Arabian Government as a consultant providing defensive capabilities to their civilian population against use of Iraqi CBRN…chemical & biological… agents) I had brought over with me a genuine and original 1917 German Army ‘stahlhelm’ (steel helmet) to use as protection against falling SCUD & Al Abbas missiles. It was probably the only WW1 vintage helmet ever used again in a war, more than 74 years after its original employment as trench protection for a German Landwehrsoldat (provincial soldier).

This time, my encounter with history was in the form of a ‘genuine’ German student dueling fraternity (‘Burschen’) scar (Mensurschmiss), rendered by perhaps some ghost hidden among all these artifacts I keep around me, as I was preparing to participate in a grand Viennese soiree at the club. Who can you say you know who would have a similar encounter (no, don’t tell me!)?

Isn’t circumstance fascinating? Believe me, my closest friends are never surprised to hear of these arcane and unusual brushes of mine with some fragment of the past. They well know that ‘Ole weird Kalikiano’ is undeniably some sort of singularly unique character who could have only been invented by some equally afflicted writer deity, perhaps suffering from heavenly writers’ block on an early, prematurely hot summer day, many decades ago!