Last week I mentioned that fun little story about what the first prime minister of Baden-Württemberg did when all the representatives had finished signing the new constitution which officially joined the regions of Baden, Württemberg, and Hohenzollern.

It was April 25, 1952, and the new prime minister pulled his pocket watch from his pocket, looked at the time, and declared that 12:30pm – the time on his watch at that moment – marked the birth of the new region.

They have the watch on displayed at the Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg (the Baden-Württemberg history museum) in Stuttgart. The pocket time-piece is housed in a plexiglass glass case where it permanently hangs over the signed constitution document.

What baffled and bemused my classmates and me, though, was that the watch does not permanently display “12:30.” On Saturday when we saw it,  it read 9:50. The actual time at that moment was more like 2:30pm, so the time on the watch wasn’t even the correct time. We asked a guard/interpreter what the deal was with the watch, and he explained that they wind the watch every day to keep it running, and so the time gets off.

OK. But then, why not just set it back to the correct actual time if you’re going to want to show that it is still running?

But more to the point, why keep it running at all? It seemed to all of us that the reason to have it hanging there is to illustrate the story that is famously told about the watch. And the point of that story was that it marked a particular moment in time, right? I mean, when you see the watch in an official photo for the event, it’s always set to the historically important time:

Photo from: http://ww2.heidelberg.de/stadtblatt-alt/stbl1702/lmzg.jpg. I’m assuming this is the original Baden-Württemberg government, since there’s the watch shown above them.

Of course, maybe this is why they don’t allow you to take photos in the museum yourself, since I have no way to show that their display of the historical record seemed just a little bit off on Saturday.

*****

Well,  what should have been the perfect Broadway show tune for this topic is the song This is the Moment, from the musical Jekyll and Hyde. However, it doesn’t really fit with the museum not having the right time. However, click here to see Robert Cuccioli from the original Broadway cast singing it, since it’s a nice song anyway.