Weimar

Weimar is a fanmade character for ''Hetalia: Axis Powers. ''She represents the city of Weimar, Germany and is located in the middle state of Thuringia. Her human name is Greta Neidhardt.

Appearance
Rather plain at first sight, Weimar has fair skin, medium-to-short, slightly wavy brown hair that ends in a few curls due to a lack of brushing, and dark brown eyes. Because of her small population, she isn't very tall (but measures out to the average 5'5", or 165.1cm). Her normal attire is "something classy and neat," usually suits. She reserves dresses for warm days and her uniforms have been tucked away until needed again.

Personality and Interests
Greta is a proud soul and will never admit her feelings to anyone unless she's about ninety percent sure that she won't be rejected by them. However, she is tolerant of everyone and loves giving visitors a warm welcome if they ever stop by the Grand Hotel Russischer Hof, or Russian Court.

To the rest of the German family, she's extremely relaxed and slightly dull, a person who likes tradition and the days of old. She hasn't changed much over the centuries at all, and still has an old view of things and a "classy" sort of air at first glance (not remedied by her love of antique clothing). For the most part, she's rather quiet, though she can never resist the temptation to be a tour guide, especially when in the more rural areas where people might get lost easily. When being a guide, she doesn't exhaust herself even while pointing out all the buildings and going in-depth about their creations and history.

To others, she might come off as a bit of an eccentric. She's so used to being a tour guide that, even if you're not looking for one, she'll automatically be one - and she has deterred many potential friends by doing this. She comes across as being extremely haughty and boring, but once someone shuts her up and tells her to talk about herself as a person rather than herself as a city, she opens up a little more and gets embarrassed about the way she acted.

Greta is a small city and is not very strong consequently, but what she lacks in both logic and strength is made up for by her musical skills - the residence (for a short while) of Bach, Liszt, and Berlioz, this isn't much of a surprise. Her favourite place to relax is none of the buildings, but in the Park an der Ilm/Park on the Ilm. She often sits in silence and watches the people go by, or brings either Russian or German literature with her. Otherwise, she can be found near the Wittumspalais and Town Hall, drifting around and making sure nothing catches on fire.

Be warned that "proud" means it's up to the point where she'll brag about herself to other personifications. What she wants is to be recognised or acknowledged. Most of the time, when her name comes up, it's in direct relation to the Weimar Republic, which was not a happy time for Germany. The fact that some people just call it Weimar really upsets her, since she is more than just the central city of a republic in history.

She also likes to think of herself as an intellectual due to housing so many scholars and having such large collections of books in her libraries, but she really isn't as clever as she lets on. She likes reading and is definitely intelligent to some extent, but she is by no means brilliant or a genius.

Also, Greta holds a mild dislike for Weimar, Texas, even though the man who named it just really liked her city and decided to name something in America after it.

Name
Greta is a diminutive of "Margaret," meaning "pearl."

Neidhardt: from the medieval personal name Nithart, composed of the Germanic elements nit ‘ambition’, ‘hatred’ + hard ‘hardy’, ‘brave’, ‘strong’. (According to this site.)

History
The earliest records of Weimar date back to 899 AD.

An independent political unit called Weimar-Orlamünde lasted from 946 to 1346. During those four-hundred years, there was a lot of fighting among other political units, but Weimar was destroyed in many of its battles. 1346 is the year when the Weimar line was ended as an independent political entity.

The Emperor Otto III created a document in 975, June 3rd, considered the "birth certificate of the city." In 1410, it gained city rights. In In 1424, a devastating fire broke out that destroyed much of the city. Things had to be rebuilt, the castle of the House of Wettin fortified. In 1552, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous made Weimar the capital city of the duchy of Saxe-Weimar (or Sachsen-Weimar). In 1653, October fourth, the first Zwiebelmarkt (Onion Market) took place.

Next comes Weimar Classicism, during which the Duchess Anna Amalia and her son, Carl August reigned, encouraging artistic freedom - her very reign brought about the Golden Age of Weimar. Goethe, Schiller, Falk, Herder, and Wieland were just a few of the intellectuals who came to Weimar, either to visit or to live in for a period of time.

The Duchess encouraged intellectual development and as such set up Tafelrunden, or round tables, in the Wittumspalais from 1775 to 1809 (her death). They were held for discussion amongst artists and the like and, despite being held in the palace, were really quite lenient on if you were rich or poor, man or woman, of high birth or low. An enlightened idea, really!

Goethe was also fond of Weimar and spent long years there, often going out on walks and pondering, sitting on tree stumps and writing his thoughts down. He kept what seemed to be his own personal court and became something of Carl August's advisor. Well, he had more power than an advisor. In addition to having his own court, he shipped lowly soldiers to America to fight (you'll notice that this takes place in the time of the Revolutionary War) and cut Weimar's military power in half to five-hundred and twenty-three soldiers.

And then in 1816, the constitution of the state was written out. Art, poetry, music (especially music) and philosophy continued to bloom with Maria Pavlovna as Weimar's Grand Duchess (and her son, Carl Alexander ... and his wife, Sophie of the Netherlands). Here came Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner (which made Weimar close to becoming the musical capital of Germany). Realistic art was taught and statues/monuments were put up during this time. Labour movements came around, too. Wilhelm Ernst, successor to Johann Ernest II, supported fine arts as his father did and founded several schools vital to the field. Then the train/railroad came around to Weimar in 1846 during the Industrial Revolution. More roads were added in the next forty-one years.

However, on November 9, 1918, Carl August and his descendants were moved to Henryków.

Berlin's fall after World War I led Weimar to become the site of Germany's political activities after. From 1918-1933, that government was informally known as the "Weimar Republic." It failed greatly, inflation rising so much that Germany's marks were worth close to nothing. It was also attacked from all sides by the people who had fought Germany in WWI, and people from both leftist and rightist parties were constantly quarreling.

Yet the Bauhaus Movement began here during 1919, an attempt to develop and teach modernism. Many students interested in the arts accumulated at the Bauhaus Institution, but it was moved to Dessau in 1925 after funding was cut. Walter Gropius, who was responsible for the Bauhaus, was particularly upset with Weimar, who condemned and denounced him as a Communist.

The bourgeoisie of Weimar completely opposed the new republic, being a conservative town. They even went so far as to send people to riot against the constitution writers at the National Theater. Weimar didn't need a constitutional republic; it wanted absolute rule. Someone like the Grand Duchess Anna Amalia, who not so long ago had led their city into glory. The people of Weimar saw themselves as nationalists surrounded by socialist filth, but could do nothing about it. Hitler's arrival changed all of that.

Weimar opened itself to him and his party willingly, its lack of restrictions on public speaking proving ideal to the future dictator. While they thumbed their nose at Social Democrats, they allowed Hitler and his Nazis to come into the city without any obstacles.

In WWII, Weimar faced a different situation, as it played a major part in allowing Thuringia to become the first German state with a fascist government. In the earlier years of the Third Reich, Hitler visited the city over forty times and a rally was even held at the club "Crossbow" and founded the NSDAP Hitlerjugend, or Hitler Youth.

The boys in the Hitler Youth had a peculiar teaching: they were taught to fight for "Weimar and Germany" and they were told that Goethe was the most German of all Germans. As a result, Weimar was fiercely supportive of Hitler and elected the very first National Socialist minister in the whole of Germany - an individual by the name of Wilhelm Frick. Hermann Giesler, an architect, was ordered to redesign the city as a plan to "beautify" it, so to speak, but the plans were never finished.

In 1937, merely eight kilometers from its center, the labour camp Buchenwald was built where Goethe once sat to ponder. Over the entrance was a sign with the words "Jedem Das Seine," or "to each his own." During that time, the people of Weimar were only mildly curious about it, but lived an otherwise content life. More than two hundred fifty-thousand people from over fifty different nations were imprisoned there and made to work. On 11 April 1945, it was liberated by American troops, who forced a thousand residents to walk through the camp; they were horrified upon realizing exactly what was going on in the camp. After 1945 and until 1950, it was used by the Soviets to contain social prisoners. As of now, it is a memorial museum.

From 1949 to 1990, Weimar was a part of the German Democratic Republic. However, while a great deal of East German cities seemed to suffer under the rule of the Soviet Union, it was better off - leaders were never from the Socialist party and jewelry became a strong sale under the GDR. Perhaps the only notable thing about Weimar under the GDR was that its population experienced a decrease.

Germany / Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Weimar is a part of Germany itself. She always finds herself treating him with the utmost respect and using her stiffest voice around him. She really looks up to him and wishes that he could be more proud, as the one time she really mattered was the Weimarer Republik, or the Weimar Republic, during which she was the capital of Germany. Inflation during that time became so high that it was necessary to carry Marks in wheelbarrows to the store just for a piece of bread. If this is ever mentioned, she will go into a depression.

Prussia / Preußen / Deutsche Demokratische Republik
Got closer to him during the German Democratic Republic and made fun of him sometimes. They play pranks on others together. The unfortunate victim of these pranks is almost always Germany. Weimar still thinks he's awesome and is of the opinion that he's one of the best military strategists around, which is probably true.

Russia / Rossiyskaya Federatsiya
A relationship that went up and down all throughout history. The late 18th-19th century (c. 1797-1862) is the amount of time during which Russia and Weimar had the most contact. Those years brought Weimar a lot of gifts from Russia, even a church that the nation had taken from its own soil. Thus, Greta had a little crush on him during that time and when it is mentioned, she will drift off in remembrance. However, the same doesn't apply to present-day or Soviet Ivan. During the Soviet occupation of Germany, she was part of the GDR (German Democratic Republic, or Deutsche Demokratische Republik) from 1949 to 1990. In her case, being under Ivan's rule wasn't all that bad (her leaders carefully kept her away from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, instead settling for the Christian Democratic Union), but admits that it was better being united with everyone under Germany.

The Netherlands / Nederland
One of her Dukes was once married to a princess of the Netherlands' (Princess Sophie of the Netherlands), so she's friendly to Netherlands (and slightly fond of him). ("...[Sophie] was very different from her husband, and, though extremely ugly, was a most imposing Princess. She was clever, too, and upheld the reputation of the Weimar family. She was a Princess of the Netherlands by birth...and kept and maintained at her court the traditions in which she had been reared. Notwithstanding her want of beauty, moreover, she presented a splendid figure, being always magnificently dressed and covered with wonderful jewels, among which shone a parure of rubies and diamonds that were supposed to be the finest of their kind in Europe." ~Catherine Radziwill)

America / The United States of America
America scares her ... badly. His Air Force dropped nine-hundred sixty-five tons of bombs on her on February 9th and 27th and March 10th, 1945. However, she also has a deep-seated admiration for him.

Twin Towns and Sister Cities
Trier, Germany; Blois, France; Shiraz, Iran; Siena, Italy; and Hämeenlinna, Finland. She gets along with all of them fairly well because she's promised to help them all whenever they're in need.

Humans

 * Hates that she used to be friends with Ilse Koch.
 * Hermann Giesler, an architect, was supposed to redesign the city (the plans were never finished).
 * Admires the following people: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Duchess Anna Amalia, Carl Friedrich (Charles Frederick), Maria Pavlovna, Carl August, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, and Walter Gropius.

Trivia

 * Greta loves onions due to her annual Onion Market, which allows people from all different places come over with onion products. INFORMATION ON THE ZWIEBELMARKT (Onion Market): Very old (358 years old, first taking place in 1653 with but five-thousand inhabitants.) It takes place on the second weekend of October. This is the time of the year when she's happiest and up to one hundred twenty-thousand people PER DAY visit the onion stalls (in total, up to three hundred fifty thousand).
 * She is afraid of fire and detests it. First was the 1424 fire; then the Duchess Anna Amalia library burned in 2004, some forty or fifty thousand books from the collection being destroyed and irretrievable. It pisses her off, due to the fact that the library is one of the oldest libraries in Europe and contains - or used to contain - more than one million texts. There have been several major fires in the past, too, one of which drastically affected the town's growth - so please, no fire or she'll just freeze up and, eventually, faint.
 * Plays the violin.
 * Her birthday is August 28th, the same birthdate as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
 * Proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998.
 * This OC is the property of Lenient-Overdose.