Weimar, the Second Time Around

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and the opening of the border between West and East Germany, my friend and colleague working at the Nuclear Research Center near Karlsruhe invited Professor D. for Radiation Protection Physics at Dresden's Technical University.

She arrived at the beginning of December for the usual semi-annual meeting of our West German working group, "On the measurement of ionizing radiation. " We had long and good conversations, feeling strange, for in previous years, when we met East German colleagues at international conferences, they were not allowed to talk to us. We all were overwhelmed by the new German-German togetherness.

So, in a follow-up, Professor D. invited three working group members to her annual International Symposium on Radiation Physics at Gaussig, a cozy castle east of Dresden used by the Technical University (TU) for meetings or on other occasions.

During the winter, I prepared my paper, Personal Neutron Monitoring in an Accelerator Environment, and was eagerly looking forward to my visit to Germany's heartland. At the end of March, I called my host in Dresden and asked her whether she needed anything I could take along. Well, the seminar participants organize at least one party, and any contribution would be welcome.

A Bocksbeutel, half full (©Wikipedia/Mussklprozz)

An empty Bocksbeutel  (©Wikipedia/Prince Grobhelm)

So I decided the best would be to furnish some wine they possibly had not tasted behind the Iron Curtain. The day before I crossed the now-open border into the still-existing German Democratic Republic (GDR), I stopped at Iphofen's winery. I loaded the trunk of my car with six boxes of Franconian wine bottled in Bocksbeuteln.

Then I took a night's rest at Bad Hersfeld and, heading east, reached the border in the gray of dawn. I approached a wooden shed lost in the middle of nowhere, bordering a tared strip as an ersatz for the non-existing road. Two sleepy border guards looking out of a window rounded up the surrealistic scene when they, utterly bored, nodded at me to pass. Border guards under the Ulbricht regime would have taken my car to pieces. Apparently shocked by the lift of the iron curtain, they even refused to ask for my passport.

I am going to my first stop: Eisenach, the place of a German myth, the Wartburg. The oncoming traffic was heavy, with one two-stroke engine Trabi after the other heading west, filling the air with the typical smell of burned oil. People suddenly were free and eager to travel to the capitalistic enemy territory, buying goods they did not find in the GDR.

Entering Eisenach, the smell changed to the typical taste of sulfur dioxide caused by the burning of lignite, the only energy source the GDR had plenty of. I parked my car near one of the ascents to Wartburg and climbed up the hill in beautiful sunshine. It was still early in the morning, but streams of people were already flowing in both directions.

German History on Wartburg Stamps

Weimar Republic

1923: Inflation, a stamp of 5000 marks

1932: Great Depression,
a semipostal of 4+2 pfennigs

Nazi Germany

1933: Wagner's Tannhäuser or the Wartburg song contest
(Der Sängerkrieg auf der Wartburg), a semipostal of 3+2 pfennigs

Divided Germany

1966: Agnostic GDR commemorating
the 900th anniversary of the Wartburg

1967: Religious FRG commemorating the
450th anniversary of the Reformation.
Luther concealed at the Wartburg
translated the Bible into German

I wanted to buy some picture postcards. The vendors only accepted Western currency. How did they know I was not a Bürger der DDR (citizen of the GDR)? I rushed through the historic site: Luther's study, the Kemenate (Cabinet room) of Elizabeth of Hungary, and the hall (19th century) of the Wartburg song contest overdecorated with mosaic.

At lunchtime, I tried to be in Weimar, but potholes slowed my progress while Trabis*, ignoring them, overtook me flying by. Eventually, at noon, I parked my car near Weimar's central marketplace on an abandoned bomb site. I walked to the Elephant Hotel for lunch at its famous Elephantenkeller, the basement restaurant. Entering the place, a doorman stopped me: We are jam-packed. I asked for the second service. There is none. I handed him over a 10 DM bill. Becoming friendly, he told me to come back in twenty minutes.
*Small cars made in the GDR from plastic with two-stoke sting engines officially named Trabant

Warmed by the April sun outside, I suddenly felt hungry as the smell of Thuringian bratwurst filled the marketplace. I could not describe my feelings when I took my first bite. Still overwhelmed by the first all-German food, I approached the entrance of the Elephant in time. The doorman guided me to a single seat on an otherwise fully packed round table.

When I sat down, all conversation stopped, for the men around the table smelled the Westerner. I greeted them friendly, starting to talk about this year's early spring. Slowly, they became confident, and suddenly, I listened to an argument: who of them following the Wende (political turnaround) had first taken off his United Socialistic Party (SED) party badge? They took me into their political discussion, so I do not remember what I had for lunch.

In the evening, I reached Dresden, and the following morning, Professor D. showed her three West German invitees around her TU institute. Two facts immediately were undeniable: too many people worked on research projects, of which half would never have been funded in the West. What followed over the following years was a dramatic reduction in staff doing useless or socialistic research. Now we know that one of the reasons for the fall of the Berlin Wall was that the GDR was bankrupt. No wonder. No capitalist government would have paid relatively high salaries to so many "researchers."

The symposium in Gaussig developed into an extraordinary experience wet with tears and wine. I will spare you the scientific details but will mention two nostalgic moments:

1. For the first time, after more than twenty years of abstinence, I tasted salt potatoes (Salzkartoffeln). In contrast, Elisabeth always boils potatoes in the skin (Pellkartoffeln) to conserve their natural taste and nutrients.

Salzkartoffeln (Photo Wikipedia)

Pellkartoffeln (Photo Wikipedia)

The change in food culture was palpable. While in the East, potatoes were still regarded as Sättigungsbeilage (a staple food in GDR-German), potatoes in the West had transitioned to a vegetable bought at the grocery in selected varieties and small quantities daily.

My teacher, classmates, and me peeling staple food potatoes
during a fortnightly stay at a youth hostel in 1948.
Red Baron is just in the middle (the fifth from both left and right).

I still remember those men carrying potatoes in sacks of 50 kilograms (one Zentner, i.e., hundred German pounds) into our basement in the fall, filling up aired wooden boxes. Although these potatoes were stored in a cool, dark environment, their quality deteriorated in the following year so that they had to be peeled, taking off nearly half their mass in cutting deep.

2. In 1942, I spent the summer in a small place near the Elbsandsteingebirge (Elbe Sandstone Mountains) called Lichtenhain, famous for its artificial waterfall.

Lichtenhain's waterfall (Photo Wikipedia)

Bastei panorama in the Elbesandsteingebirge

Driving my host and colleagues to the Bastei on the International Symposium's free afternoon, we made a detour to the place of my youth. We found the house where I once stayed easily:

During the summer of 1942, my friend Dieter and I lived in the house located in the photo.
 in the lower right corner

In the photo, you see Dieter and me from left to right.
You recognize our house in the distance.
Dieter was stricken with mytrophy, therefore (?) a precocious child.
I drove my parents crazy, always talking back and putting their words into question:
But Dieter said ...  

Dieter's father, a lawyer, and highly decorated First World War veteran, looked like an old man to me with his white mustache - my father was just 36. He took the above photo and some more with a Leica, developed the films, and made the prints himself. During the war, I lost track of Dieter and his family. 

Entering the house where I had spent a couple of weeks of my early youth, everything seemed so small, including the room where I once slept, but nothing had changed. Even the water faucet halfway up the narrow staircase where I had my morning wash was still in place.

I knocked at a door, and from the inside, somebody said: Herein! I opened the door. There, the whole family was sitting around a table manufacturing Easter decorations. I knew people were already working on decorations for Christmas in the West. I bought some Easter bunnies, paid with Western currency, and handed the purchased souvenirs to my colleagues.

It's all history.

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