Meet the Germans | Rory's Berlin Blog | Goethe-Institut

    All travel writers face a terrible dilemma.  During our journeys around the globe and across irresistible clichés we will find the perfect, sun-kissed beach.  We will stumble upon the most special, undiscovered village that time forgot, perched on a hill beneath majestic, snow-capped mountains.  One day, at the end of a maze of narrow cobbled streets, we will happen upon a wonderful restaurant not listed in the guidebooks.  We will tuck in to the best meal of our lives, washed down with a glass of local wine.  We will realize that – in this busy, overpopulated globe – we’ve found a corner of paradise.



    So do we write about it?  Do we shout out the name of Andalusia’s hidden butterfly valley?  Do we flash across the web all of Macao’s best kept culinary secrets?  Do we broadcast the directions to Goa’s last undiscovered cove so that ten thousand tourists will trample its talcum-powder sand and turn it into yet another must-see destination?  Yes or no?  This is our moral dilemma.  Does the travel writer scoop and destroy, or simply let the place be?

    Last night I was taken to a secret, smoky bar in the heart of old Berlin.  I’ve started researching my next book on this city and – to ease me into its subject – a friend guided me along dark residential streets, up a crumbling flight of steps and through an unmarked door – into a hidden world.

    Inside the tiny, two-room bar one hundred people perched on sofas and crowded around tables.  A mellow techno beat oozed out of the speakers.  Every drinker talked in animated excitement.  Candles burned low in old gin bottles.  A vase of plastic roses was set on a shelf against the flock wallpaper.  The lone twentysomething bartender, wearing a jaunty yellow cap, flirtatious short skirt and leggings, asked for our order.  ‘Grosses,’ said my friend.  Big.  
    My friend then turned to me and revealed, ‘This pub used to be Berlin’s naughtiest bordello.  It was run by a mother and her daughter, both of whom were very fat.  Every time a newcomer arrived, the mother would call him over to the bar, grab his hand and press it against her breast.  “Touch it,” she’d say.  “Welcome!”.’
    ‘That would have broken the ice,’ I said.
    ‘Today it’s just a bar but...’  My friend hesitated.  ‘...there’s still something very special about it.’



    The great beakers of beer arrived with half-a-dozen photocopied sheets of paper.  As the music was turned down, the drinkers fell into separate groups and silence.  The MC – owner of the neighbourhood record shop – asked us to name our teams (we chose the former Madame’s working nom-de-guerre) and then the quiz began.  A gang of determined local authors – all dressed in black – focused themselves.  An opposing team of retired metallica bass players leaned forward in concentration.  The poets’ team – bearded and supported by the most enthusiastic cheerleaders – ordered another round.
    The pop music questions came fast and hard.  We identified obscure tracks by Mötley Crüe and Poison, listened to Japanese covers of Beatles’ classics, named five rock musicians who had died in air crashes.  I learned that Boy George’s real name is George Alan O'Dowd.  We wondered if Elvis Presley had a black belt in karate.  We guessed that Bryan Adams had worked as a dishwasher to save money to buy his first Fender guitar.  We stared at Lego figurine re-creations of famous album covers and tried to name the original (‘This is what Berliners make when they have too much free time,’ grunted the MC).

    As the quiz progressed – and time passed -- the pub grew noisy again.  Between rounds the MC calculated and shouted out the scores.  My friend called for more beer.  The authors’ team stayed focused – and lost out to the bass guitarists (by a whisker).  The prize was a jeroboam-sized bottle of vodka, which was poured out into a hundred shot glasses and distributed around the rooms.
    ‘The only problem with bars and nights like this is no sooner have you arrived then you look out the window and see the dawn,’ shouted my friend.
    I glanced at my watch.  It was past two.  The poets – who had the lowest score but seemed happiest -- started to dance with their cheerleaders.  I felt wide awake.  I could have stayed all night.  But I had an article to write in the morning.
    On the dark street outside a friendly stranger – perhaps the granddaughter of that infamous original resident -- smiled at me and said, ‘It’s cold outside tonight.’

    And the name of this remarkable Berlin pub?  Dear reader, I’m not going to tell you.  But in that great travel writing tradition of overused clichés and magnificent adjectives, I can assure you, I’ll be going back.

    Earlier this month Bishop’s Stortford, the Hertfordshire commuter town near London’s Stansted airport, broke its ties with Europe.  For over 46 years the community has been twinned with Friedberg in Germany and Villiers-sur Marne in France.  Now the mayor has cancelled the partnership, offering no explanation to his continental counterparts.



    In one of those coincidences that can make life seem as scripted as reality TV, I had lunch on Monday with my old friend Derek, who hails from Bishop’s Stortford.  Over a shared plate of Kartoffelsalat mit Würstchen, I asked him about the mayor’s decision.  Derek laid down his knife, a grave look clouding his eyes.
    ‘Mayor John Wyllie is a popular figure in town,’ he told me.  ‘I’ve never heard a bad word about him at either the Star or the Half Moon, which is saying something.  But this decision seems to have come out of left – or rather right – field.’
    ‘Wyllie is a Tory?’ I asked.
    ‘True blue,’ said Derek.  ‘Clever, connected and Conservative.’
    ‘But why on earth did he “un-twin” the town from Europe?’
    Although town-twinning dates back more than one hundred years, the idea caught on after the Second World War when Coventry was twinned with Dresden, Stockport with Heilbronn, Bedford with Bamberg.  Sherborne in Dorset, as a member of the Douzelage twinning association, came to be linked with 23 other towns, one from every European country.  In time tens of thousands of twinning agreements linked cities and towns across the continent, including 2,000 places in the UK.  But not Bishop’s Stortford where, apparently, ideas of municipal co-operation and European understanding are of little interest.
    ‘The Tories hold something like 16 of the 18 seats in town.  There’s a single Lib Dem councillor plus, I think, an independent.  Labour hasn’t been on the council since the Falklands – or perhaps the Boer – War.  There was no debate, no consultation; Wyllie  and his mates just told Friedberg and Villiers to bugger off.’
    ‘But this is Euroscepticism gone mad,’ I said to Derek.
    I’d read that Liberal Democrats had blamed the decision on a ‘visceral Tory hatred’ for the European Union.  Evidently two other right-wing councils – Doncaster in Yorkshire and Wallingford in Oxfordshire – have also voted to kill off twinning arrangements in recent years.
    ‘I think it’s fear,’ said Derek, his mood darkening.
    ‘Of the Euro’s collapse?’ I asked.
    He shook his head.
    ‘Of its future success?’
    Again Derek shook his head.
    ‘Then is it the Greek crisis?  German industrial strength?  The success of Bayern Munich?  An inability of Middle England to understand French New Wave cinema?’
    ‘No,’ said Derek, leaning forward until I felt his beery breath on my cheek.  ‘It’s sausages.’
    ‘Sausages?’
    ‘Wyllie, like all the rest of them, is protecting Britain.  How did Cameron put it when he vetoed the treaty changes last week?  “The treaty didn’t have sufficient safeguards for Britain, so I wasn’t prepared to support it.”’
    ‘What’s that got to do with sausages?’
    ‘The Great British Banger is under threat.’
    ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked.  
    ‘Berlin and Brussels have it in for our porkers.’
    ‘I don’t think anyone south of Dover gives damn about our sausages.’
    ‘Which is why Mayor John Wyllie is safeguarding British interests,’ said Derek, his voice swelling despite having drunk only a litre (or was it two?) of König Pilsener.  ‘Because you know what comes after sausages?’ he cried at me.
    ‘What?’
    ‘British bacon,’ shouted Derek.
‘Most of which is imported from Denmark.’
    ‘Our Sunday fry-ups are at stake, man, as is our beer and cheddar cheese and pork scratchings.’
    ‘You hate pork scratchings,’ I reminded him.
    He ignored me and shouted, ‘We shall fight for our haggis.  We shall fight for our kedgeree. We shall defend our baltis, whatever the cost may be.  We shall never surrender our rhubarb crumble and spotted dick.  And if, which I do not for a moment believe, our island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, we shall live off our Big Macs and deep-pan pizzas.  “Why?” you ask me.’
    I hadn’t asked why.
    ‘Because we are British.’



    Derek resumed his seat at the table.  Britain might be losing influence within the EU, and Friedberg will soon forget about Bishop’s Stortford, but all of Europe would be poorer without Britain’s sense of the absurd, or at least its most blatant porkers.
    The waiter approached our table.  He was concerned by Derek’s outburst, and the half-eaten plate of Kartoffelsalat mit Würstchen.  ‘Alles ist in ordnung?’ he asked.  Is everything OK?
    ‘Ausgezeichnet,’ replied Derek, who unlike his mayor made an effort to be understood by fellow Europeans.  ‘And these Würstchen – little sausages – are delicious.  May we have another half-dozen please?’



Frohe Weihnachten!

    Last month Sir Christopher Mallaby, the British Ambassador to Germany from 1988 to 1992, spoke at the Humboldt University’s Centre for British Studies.  His lecture, entitled ‘Germany 1990 – the then British Ambassador remembers and reflects’, reminded listeners of how close the world came to nuclear war, and how dramatically both Europe and Germany have changed in the last two decades.



    Sir Christopher gave almost forty years of his life to the British Diplomatic Service.  He was in Moscow at the height of the 1962 Cuban Crisis, at the moment when many considered nuclear war to be all-but-inevitable.  He worked as Head of the Arms Control department, then East European and Soviet department, and served first as Number 2 and later as Ambassador in Bonn.

    He reminded the audience of the heinous nature of Soviet autocracy, of a political and economic system able to improve itself only through revolution or cataclysm.   He called the Berlin Wall ‘the greatest admission of Communism’s failure’.  He spoke of the heroes who had brought down that wall -- Gorbachev, Reagan, the East German protesters – and those who had worked to reunite Germany’s severed halves: Chancellor Helmet Kohl, Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and American Secretary of State James Baker.  He recalled standing at Checkpoint Charlie in November 1989, watching the crowds flood between the eastern and western sectors of the city, and spotting a toddler towing a new, plastic London double-decker toy bus back to East Berlin.  He realised at that point that the Cold War was over.

    Most interestingly, Sir Christopher shed new light on the 1989/90 negotiations for reunification.  It’s no secret that the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was a bitter opponent of German reunification.  Helmut Kohl has written about the hostility he faced after unveiling his ten-point-plan.  At a December 1989 meeting of European leaders, Thatcher said, ‘We beat the Germans twice, and now they’re back’.  She wanted her government to resist – or at least to delay -- the historic development.

    In contrast Sir Christopher had signalled his support for reunification on the day the Wall came down. ‘My reporting was a faithful reflection of how things looked from Bonn at that time. I was convinced that a unified Germany would not be a danger again,’ he said.  ‘I told Mrs Thatcher we would not see a mixed model of East and West Germany. We would see the West German system extended over East Germany.  To me, West Germany was the most successful state in German history and the most successful state in Europe after 1945.  But there was not much agreement in this regard between the Foreign Office and No. 10 Downing Street.’

    Thatcher’s outspoken suspicions were inflamed by Francois Mitterrand, according to Sir Christopher.  In private the then-French President fuelled her mistrust, warning her that reunification would result in Germany gaining more European influence than Hitler ever had.  In secret notes he gloomily forecast of a return of the ‘bad’ Germans.  But Mitterrand – a more wily politician than Thatcher – kept his views to himself, so as to wrest concessions from Germany in the negotiations toward monetary union.

    As Sir Christopher pointed out, Thatcher’s views were publicity, not policy.  Foreign Office diplomats were considerably more farsighted than the Prime Minister, and the British government as a whole played a constructive role in German reunification.



    Coincidentally I received this week a copy of Images of Germany, a moving collection of foreign cartoons on united Germany published by Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.  ‘With more neighbours than any other country in the world, the Germans have every reason to look over the fence,’ wrote Hermann Schäfer, the president of the Foundation.  In the years following reunification, over 1,000 cartoons were collected from the international press, a selection of which are included in the book, the objective of which is in ‘motivating us to further improve our relations with our neighbouring countries’.

    Last month at Christopher Mallaby’s talk, the most provocative moment came during the concluding Q and A.  A Berlin historian reminded the audience that Sir Christopher had included the East German protesters among his heroes of 1989/90.  He then asked the former Ambassador, ‘Do you think that the East German protesters were dreaming of building a better East Germany, or of their country becoming part of a unified Germany?’
    That question went unanswered.

    In springtime the Cretan air smells of mountain thyme, wild mint, dictamos and almond blossoms which remind me of marzipan.  At Easter, as the priests’ censers clang and rattle, incense and jasmine mingle in the night breeze.  On Easter Monday every village tangs with the aromatic smoke of cooking fires and roasting lamb.  Sweltering summers bring the smell of baked earth, stinking fennel, the disorderly up-thrust of growth in the mulberry trees.  The first autumn rains hiss on the stone patios and walls, releasing pungent, ancient scents.  And everywhere on the island, at all times of the year, rises the rich, living sea salt smell of the sea.



    The vibrancy of Crete (where I lived for almost a year to write my book Falling for Icarus) moves me as it does Silke Wrobel, a German nurse who lives on the island.  Since 1988 Wrobel has channeled her love for Crete into caring for its animals, renting a tract of land on the Akrotiri peninsula, moving abandoned pets from official ‘sanctuaries’ to her remarkable Arche Noah Kreta (Noah’s Ark Crete).

    Over the years she has saved the lives of tens of thousands of cats, dogs, birds, even mules and hedgehogs.  She has facilitated the adoption of almost 8,000 animals by pet lovers across northern Europe.  She also founded the Tierfreunde Kreta e.V. and, for her accomplishments in animal protection, has been awarded the German Cross of Merit.  Now Wrobel’s example -- and those cute critters cared for by similar organisations like Cretan Animal Welfare Group, Friends of Animals, Cretan Cat-a-List and P.A.W.S. – can help to save the eurozone.

    Over the last decade Greece – along with Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland – have accumulated enormous government and private-sector debt, much of which is now not repayable.  These bad debts need to be written off, meaning someone has to take a loss.  Many Germans ask why they – who propelled the continent’s financial success through their hard work, prudent finances and strong exports – should pay for others’ reckless borrowing?  It’s a valid question.  But the truth is that Germany has benefited from the euro as much as other member states.  This country’s export success has been enhanced by the weaker, more competitive exchange rate that comes from sharing a currency with southern Europe.  If Greece (and say Portugal) were to leave the euro, the value of Germany’s currency – be it the euro, DM or Thaler – would skyrocket, with devastating consequences for its export-driven industry.  Plus German lenders would be big losers.

    So both Germany and Greece – along with the UK (as Europe is its largest trading partner) -- have a vested interest in a stable euro.  To achieve this debts must be written off.  But how to make the losses more attractive?   The answer is in Greece’s abandoned pets.



    Most northern Europeans and Americans are dotty about big-eyed puppies and softly purring kittens.  Most Greeks would like to be relieved of their flea-ridden mongrels.  To enhance the purchase of Greek debt, corporate investors could be offered Greek strays, at a price: a handsome Heraklion Siamese for $10,000,000 relief, a litter of cute Cycladian pooches for a cool billion.  In London, Frankfurt and New York, the world’s bankers would then begin to compete with one another to show their sensitive side, filling their Porsche Panameras with meowing moggies, extending their Cotswolds mansions with a canine annex.  Their wives (or boyfriends) would parade along Bond Street and Fifth Avenue, trailing two dozen Sporades spaniels, bragging in a nonchalant manner, ‘My sweet, sensitive Gavin saved these dear creatures as well as Skyros.’  At the same time the value of the unwanted beasts would be enhanced in Greeks’ eyes, ensuring that pets remaining in the country would be pampered, perhaps even becoming as venerated as holy cows in India.

    The idea may be a tad unorthodox but – at this time of year especially – it seems as realistic as any other suggestion.  And as the European Central Bank finds its new role as Kennel of Lasting Resort, both two- and four-legged Greeks will join the soft-hearted animal lovers of international high finance to celebrate a strong euro, a happier continent and a merry Christmas.

    In the halcyon days before the euro crisis, a Greek and a Spanish diplomat met at an embassy party in Berlin.  Over champagne the Spaniard, who was fascinated by languages, asked, ‘In Spanish we have the word mañana.  Do you have a similar word in Greek?’
    The Greek diplomat thought for a long moment and then replied, ‘Yes, we have many words with a similar meaning but none of them have – how shall I put it? – the same urgency as mañana.’



    Greece moves me, above all Crete.  My wife and I lived on the island for almost a year, in a huddled, intimate hamlet tucked away in a fold of hills, beneath the snow-capped peaks of the Lefka Ori, the majestic, lunar White Mountains.  Our village was a community of a dozen flat earthen roofed houses, of water tanks and clothes lines, lemon and olive groves, whitewashed walls and black-scarved yiayiáthes, grandmothers, wrinkled as walnuts, peeling potatoes by faded blue doors.  A single road ran along the rim of its shallow leafy basin and – at least once a day outside the kafeneon -- the village came to a complete stop, with two or three cars blocking the road, their doors ajar, coffee brewing and café owner’s wife leaning into driver’s windows, one after another, her rump stuck out into the street like a beach ball bollard, chatting, sharing news of tomato prices, dowries and adultery, calling out, ‘Ela, Dimitri, Vassili will grow mangoes in the spring and no one is to know.’

    We’d moved to Crete for me to research and write a book.  The Greek myths had always fascinated me and, on the island where Daedalus and Icarus had made man’s maiden flight, I wanted to build a feather-light aeroplane and attempted to fly.  The story is told in Falling for Icarus, published this month in a new edition with a introduction from Robert Macfarlane.



    During our time on the island, I learned that the ancient Greeks had no inclination for temperance.  They believed that excess was divine.  When something undefined and powerful shook man, then the Greek believed a god stood beside him.  Some of this ancient passion has trickled down through the ages and now gives modern Cretans their raw, unpredictable, admirable energy for life.  In Crete our neighbours, other villagers, even total strangers welcomed us in to their homes and their lives with enthusiasm, kindness and generosity.  Their passionate filoxenia – hospitality – was like a gift from the gods.

    Today’s debt crisis has cast a shadow over the German-Greek relationship, a shadow which has been darkened by xenophobia, ugly stereotypes as well as political posturing and greed.  To solve the crisis, politicians and economists are looking for ways forward but even Chancellor Merkel has admitted that ‘we have still not given a sufficient answer to the question of the Eurozone’s future.’  

    Perhaps Europe’s wise men and women should take as their model the remarkable network of Cretan animal welfare groups?  Greeks tend to differ from northern Europeans on matters of animal husbandry.  In rural areas dogs are used to guard farmers’ flocks and herds.  Cats are kept to control vermin.  Animals which serve no practical purpose are either cast out or killed, a practice which greatly distresses more-urbanised pet lovers.  To bridge the cultural gap, dozens of Germans and Brits have taken the initiative to form organisations – such as Förderverein Arche Noah Kreta (Noah’s Ark in Crete) – which rescue, feed and find homes abroad for abandoned cats and dogs.  Like the euro crisis, it is a highly emotive topic.  But on Crete a solution has been found which benefits Greeks, northern Europeans and the animals themselves.  Next week I’ll take a closer look at the model, and reveal how Greek puppies (or a gift from the ancient gods) can save the euro.