Attention, Donald Trump: Mayor on a hint on Washington

When does Donald Trump come now? Since Chancellor Friedrich Merz invited the American president to the village from whom his German ancestors come, Thomas Jawowerk has been asked again and again. Jawowerk is the local mayor of Kallstadt, the 1250-soul community in the Palatinate, where Trump’s grandparents were born and grew up.

But now the story is experiencing a surprising turn: the president does not come to Kallstadt at first – the mayor travels to Washington.

Thomas Jaworek, 57, comes from Bavaria. In 1998 the graduate chemist moved to the Palatinate, since then has worked as a manager at BASF. In 2004 he moved into the municipal council of Kallstadt, in 2014 the CDU man was re-elected and since then without opposing candidates. If he has important obligations in this function, his employer releases him.

The obligation is particularly important in a few days. Then Jawowerk is climbing the plane to the US capital with the Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Alexander Schweitzer. Rhineland-Palatinate is organizing the celebrations for the day of the unit at the German Embassy this year. Schweitzer also plans political discussions about the whereabouts of the US soldiers stationed in Rhineland-Palatinate and their families. And about Donald Trump’s customs policy, which also meets the land of his ancestors: for some winemakers in Rhineland-Palatinate, the United States is the second largest sales market to Germany. This problem also affects Kallstadt and the mayor Jawowerk.

Kallstadt, last Thursday. The streets between the historic half-timbered houses are narrow, The Beast, the famous armored vehicle of the US president, would not have easy to maneuver. Kallstadt lives from tourism, wine economies everywhere invite hikers and other tourists with their sunny farms to linger.

Thomas Jaworek leads the Prime Minister Schweitzer on his summer trip with some journalists through Freinsheimer Straße. Almost casually he rightly points to the grandfather’s house, diagonally opposite that of the grandmother. Friedrich Trump, born in 1869, went to America as a teenager, while the gold rush in the northwest of the United States as a restaurateur and returned to Kallstadt, where he held around the hand of the neighboring daughter Elisabeth Christ.

Together they both moved back to the USA, this time to New York. A new return became Frederick Trump, as he now called himself, from the authorities – the Palatinate belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria at the time: he was held to hold his first departure for military service.

Donald Trump did not meet his grandfather. Frederick Trump died of the Spanish flu in 1918. The real estate empire, from which the grandson also benefited, primarily created the grandmother. She also kept contact at home, in 1960 she celebrated her 80th birthday in Kallstadt.

Donald Trump tells different stories about his father. Sometimes the president claimed that the father was born in Germany, sometimes he came from Sweden. The right thing is that just three months after the grandparents had to leave Germany, her son, also called Frederik, was born in New York. Later he deceptively deceived a Swedish origin in order not to risk any business disadvantages during the Nazi era and the Second World War because of his German ancestors.

Thomas Jaworek is now in the village church. Opposite the altar you can see the organ, built by the Franconian organ builder dynasty Geib, a flagship of the small community. The church and the instrument also stand out for the ambivalent relationship of Donald Trump to the home of his ancestors. A donation of Trump for the parish from 2001 is documented, far before his political career. The donation came in the form of a check for $ 5000, at that time more than 11,000 D-Mark, as the church broadcaster Domradio.de reported in 2017.

A few years later, Trump was asked again to donate to the renovation of the GEB organ, but this time he nested.

It is unclear how Donald Trump stands for his German origin. Angela Merkel tried to loosen up the relationship with the US President in his first term with a reminiscence to his family history. She presented Trump the colored copper engraving of a map of the Palatinate from 1705, on which Kallstadt is also drawn. Even then, there were rumors that Trump could visit the home of his ancestors soon, especially since James Herman Kallstadt, who was at the time, had visited Trump a few months before Merkel’s meeting. But then nothing came of it.

Trump has repeatedly mentioned his family history in recent years, spoke of “great feelings” for Germany. At a G7 meeting in Biarritz 2019, Trump said that he “had German blood”, whereupon the Chancellor Merkel sitting next to him broke up shortly before laughing. When he visited, Friedrich Merz gave Trump a copy of the grandfather’s birth certificate and also invited him to Kallstadt.

But it has not yet occurred to a visit to Germany and it is not foreseeable either, probably because Trump does not feel welcome: “The Germans loved Obama, not me,” he said in the latest election campaign.

In Kallstadt, for the time being, people no longer expect the US president. The brimborium around it, the safety precautions and probably also Trump’s personality make the locals rather skeptical. He believes, says Thomas Jaworek frankly, the majority of the Kallstadt hoped “that the chalice passes us”. The Prime Minister also has no evidence of a state visit. But of course Trump will be received properly, serving hems, as Helmut Kohl liked to do. He can also imagine a detour to the Hambacher Castle, says Schweitzer, which is considered the birthplace of German democracy. He heard that democracy was also an issue in the United States, jokes the Prime Minister.

Will Thomas Jorek meet President in Washington? Rather not. The celebrations on October 3 take place in the garden of the residence of the German ambassador. There are speeches and Palatinate specialties. Of course, representatives from US politics are also invited. It is very unlikely that the president stop by the highest, especially since you can’t lure him with Palatinate wine – supposedly does not drink alcohol. But you never know at Donald Trump.