Each morning that I’m doing guidebook research, I scramble to get to the hotel lobby to meet my local guide by 10:00. I write until the wee hours, and I’m determined to stay healthy and get my beauty rest. Coming down a few minutes late one morning, I apologized to my Leipzig guide. He said, “Let’s not be too German. It’s just a couple of minutes.”
On this trip, I’ve been enjoying several cities that are new to me — and Leipzig is no exception. Noting all the construction throughout Germany, my guide explained that many of the post-WWII buildings, erected on the cheap in the 1950s and 1960s, are now due for replacement. Western Germans are still paying a “solidarity surcharge” of 6 percent of their taxes for building and rebuilding the East to bring it up to Western standards. Imagine the uproar it would cause if two-thirds of the USA were paying to spiff up the poorest third of our country. But rather than complain about the taxes, Western Germans are more likely to grumble that the former East now has even better streets than the former West.
My guide is a Westerner living in the East. Later that day, we sat down to dinner with his wife, who grew up in the communist DDR (the official name for East Germany). The conversation was fascinating.
There’s still a surprising gap between the psyches of the East and West in Germany. My guide said that only about 1 percent of Germans are in “mixed marriages” between Easterners and Westerners. And more than 20 years after reunification, half of all Western Germans still have never been to the East. His wife added, “Psychologically, people don’t want to confront their prejudices.” The German government celebrates the “reunion” of East and West. But let’s be honest: The East was effectively annexed by the West, on Western terms.
We talked about the people of Leipzig rising up against the communist government. The government knew that the security forces were likely to sympathize with the people. It was standard operating procedure that border guards and police would work in pairs. That way, if one lost their nerve and didn’t shoot, the other would — or report on the one who didn’t.
During those courageous days before the Berlin Wall fell, all eyes were on Berlin, but there was plenty happening in Leipzig — the second city of the DDR. I remarked how courageous protesters must have been to gather in solidarity inside St. Nicholas’ Church, not knowing how the soldiers and police would respond when they went outside. My guide’s wife was there, and spoke of leaving the church cupping candles with both hands to let the soldiers know they were unarmed. (Today, this is symbolized by white cobbles scattered among the black ones around the church.) She said people brought their babies and held them in their arms as human shields. Her husband did a double-take — he’d never heard her admit to that.
I never considered the importance of capturing, and then sharing, images of a popular uprising. While plenty of international news cameras were there to broadcast images of Germans partying on top of the Berlin Wall, Leipzig’s protests took place mostly at night, under cover of darkness, deep inside East Germany, where it was particularly dangerous to be seen with a camera. Organizers sent one photographer up the church spire, where he got some of the only grainy images of the streets of Leipzig filled with people bringing down their communist regime.
I remember being in West Berlin as a child in 1969. There were riots in the streets. Even as a kid, I was aware that the government effectively bottled it up and didn’t let any images be shown on TV. In some ways, if you stage a revolution and nobody sees it, it didn’t happen.
As the conversation rolled around to American politics, I complained about how obstructionist I thought the Republicans in our government are these days. She said, “Opposition is good… we’ve tried government without.”
Asking them what they thought of the political discourse in our country, they were both frustrated by how many Americans confuse social programs with “socialism.” They were offended that some Americans, who don’t really understand how the German health care system works, would use it to make the case that nationalized health care is ineffective and a bad idea. Quite the contrary: These two Germans couldn’t imagine an affluent, developed nation without a nationalized, single-payer system.
Their other peeve: They explained how in 1949, the USA and other WWII victors wrote a constitution for postwar Germany, requiring that the country remain non-aligned. Then, after 9/11, President Bush declared, “You are either with us or against us” — in essence suddenly requiring Germany to become aligned.
Noticing that I’d left the blood sausage on the side of my plate, my friends chided me for not being adventurous. I told them that just the thought of it made me queasy. They said, “What the farmer doesn’t know, he doesn’t eat.”
If the wealthy, politicians, and their favored allies can opt themselves out of nationalized healthcare, then I shouldn’t be subjected to it either.
Mr. Steves, this post infuriated me like no other that you have written… the audacity, that you can’t get over your prejudices. You had the chance to eat Blutwurst and you passed it up? It’s delicious! It’s like meat-flavored cake.
I seem to recall some that the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra played some crucial role in preventing the DDR police from violently cracking down on the protestors, but I forget exactly what happened.
My German former colleagues may have changed but they complained bitterly to me about the unification of east and west Germany during several dinners 20 years ago because of what it was going to cost them in increased taxes.
Say what you want, but from first hand experience I am 100% Italian and anytime even flying through Germany they are very prejudice to me. The first trip we tried to figure out why all the stares and rudeness then as years went by and more things happened we realized this was the case. My husband is 1/2 German (gets along fine in Germany), but when he starts getting very precise with his thinking but needs to be more flexible I always say “I see the Helga gene is coming out”!
Rick,
You stirred up a hornet’s nest with this post. The worst government is one where only one party is in control. The best government is where one party is, as you say, ‘obstructionist’. The US also had government without opposition (2009 and 2010) and that was not good. Your prejudices need to be smoothed out in travel writing. You
need to be more flexible.
I think more of these comments could quite possibly be coming from folks who have not visited Germany. Rick, in our eight visits to Germany with four of them in the East your observations are “on the money.” We have had many conversations with Easterners and have heard these same thoughts and even the same complaints from the Westerners. It is very important to talk with the locals, not just pass through and look around.
Well I for one have a degree in International Studies and was an exchange student living in Germany during the period before the Berlin Wall came down, so I have firsthand experiences living and working in Germany, and I disagree with Rick.
“Imagine the uproar it would cause if two-thirds of the USA were paying to spiff up the poorest third of our country.”
you should check out the percentage of people that pay income tax sometime.
Thank you, Rick Steves, for reporting from Eastern Germany! I am watching your reports on TV always with great interest. As a fan of yours, I wanted to suggest already to you to visit THE OTHER GERMANY! There is so much history, so many cultural sites and resources: the land of Martin Luther (Eisenach), Johann Sebastian Bach (also Eisenach and Leipzig) Goethe, Schiller and so many more. My hometown Quedlinburg is more than a thousand years old with houses from several centuries. The FIRST GERMAN REICH was founded there! Romanesque basilicas and great gothic cathedrals, beautifully restored in recent years are worth seeing and reporting from. Thank you, and keep traveling! Margot Szalay
West Germany joined NATO in 1955, when W was nine years old. Reunited Germany stayed in NATO. When Bush said “You are either with us or against us” he was talking to countries aiding terrorists, which doesn’t include Germany. After 9/11 Germany proposed an International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to help the United States. Germany provided troops. The German people have long been aligned with us, of their own free will.
Relax. Obama recently changed welfare and immigration law without going through Congress. There will be more of the same if he is reelected.
His problem isn’t GOP obstructionism, but basic math. Obama promised to cut the deficit in half. He said the stimulus would prevent unemployment from reaching 8 percent. Instead, it has long been over that number. Under Obama the economy has added about 2.6 million jobs. Over 3 million have gone on disability. He has the reverse Midas touch. Obama’s reelection campaign is reduced to playing to envy and resentment. He’s gone from hope and change to fear and smear.
As far as health care is concerned, America counts babies who die shortly after birth as infant mortality; Europe doesn’t. If one factors out things not related to the health care system, such as drug abuse, murder, and auto accidents, Americans have the highest life expectancy in the world. How does the single payer system work in Cuba?