The Berlin Wall of Wilshire Boulevard

Hey, somebody’s got to do it, I guess. And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I’ve been told.

“In what government and arts officials are calling the most ambitious commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany, a symbolic re-creation of the wall that once separated East and West Berlin will be erected across Wilshire Boulevard in November.

The Wall Project, painted by professional and amateur artists, will close Sunday afternoon traffic on one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares for three hours on Nov. 8 beginning at 3 p.m… It will be made up of two parts: The “Wall Across Wilshire” will have as its adjunct the “Wall Along Wilshire — Eastside Gallery West,” which will have a somewhat longer life in front of the 5900 Wilshire Blvd. building, remaining in place from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14.”

The location is “highly symbolic,” said Justinian Jampol, president and founder of the Wende Museum. “It connects downtown to the ocean, those two cultural anchors to the city.

Crime finally does pay

Dangerous communist East German movies are still being released to this very day. Dangerous to Communism, I mean.

“While the GDR, we learn, has the lowest crime statistics in the world, Wolkenheim (literally Cloudland – suggesting a place that has no connection with reality), the town where Holms is stationed, boasts the lowest crime statistics in the GDR. Even the disappearance of a pet rabbit causes him excitement – he hopes it has been taken hostage – until he discovers it has merely escaped to a nearby lettuce patch. So, when Holms’ drinking acquaintance Pinkas hatches a plan to snatch a monument from the plinth in the main square and flog it to an antiques dealer, Holms seizes the opportunity to make his mark – and of course, discovers love in the process.”

This comic film (Hands Up Or I’ll Shoot), which gently mocks the premise that crime ceases to exist in a fully fledged communist state, was banned in 1966 by the regime’s thought police, who were unhappy with its ironic criticism of the system. It has now been dusted off and put on general release for the first time, to the delight of German cinemagoers – who have made much of the fact that this is the last remaining banned film from the old East Germany.

Goebbels’ films rock too?

August 3, 2009 By Hermann Observer in History Tags: Film Leave a comment

So what do you do now, German Intelligenzia? Nothing Quentin Tarantino does or says can do or say no wrong, right? But to call himself a fan of Nazi propaganda films, uh, isn’t that a little over the top? Even for him, I mean?

I understand the Leni Riefenstahl thing, although she’ll always stay caught between a rock and the hard place. But Joseph Goebbels? Whatever. Now at least I know why I’ve never liked his (Tarantino’s) films. Or the violence in them, I should say.

“Sie war die beste Regisseurin, die jemals lebte.“

PS: I just happened to be on the British Airways flight that he was on when he flew to Berlin last Sunday. Talk about a normal looking and talking and seeming-like dude. That should only make one all the more suspicious. Damn, what a name dropper I am, right?

Jackson tested East German organ

July 31, 2009 By Hermann Observer in History Tags: Michael Jackson Leave a comment

Subversive influence brought down the Berlin Wall after all, in 1988 already, or something.

“Youths are prepared to go to any lengths to experience this concert around the area of the Brandenburg Gate [next to the wall],” the Stasi report said, adding that the aim of the clash was to “test the limits of the security organ”.

The Stasi considered Jackson, like most western pop stars, to be a subversive influence on its youth.

But they also helped document the fact that he liked girls too, sort of.

“The day before the concert it monitored his visit to the Allied Checkpoint Charlie, at the heart of the then divided city. On a report card next to his name and date of birth, it detailed how he got out of a limousine at 2.52 pm, and was accompanied “at all times by a 25-year-old female.”

“Live life off the wall.”

Warmer, warmer…

June 24, 2009 By Hermann Observer in History Tags: German-American Relations Leave a comment

No, not really. German-American relations at the top, I mean. Angie’s visit to Washington this week will only be another reminder of how Washington and Berlin don’t see the big issues eye to eye, or the ways to combat them – not even now (or especially now) that Mr. Good Guy (Mr. Right?) Himself is in office. What is more, Washington seems less and less inclined these days to even care about what Germans have to think about it.

It’s family history in the end, I suppose. Especially when it comes to how the two countries are tackling the financial crisis. Germans, cautious as ever, are being as cautious as ever. Americans, behaving as if their backs are up against the wall, are less so.

“Archaic fears, combined with the memories of two different years, are at the root of the two countries’ fundamentally different positions on the purpose and tools of monetary policy. The Americans remember the 1929 global economic crisis with horror. For them, there is nothing worse than a shrinking economy, which they see as the epitome of hunger, hardship and ruin. The Germans, on the other hand, think of 1923, when hyperinflation destroyed assets and plunged many into poverty.”

Good that history never repeats itself, right?

“In the new world order, Europe is looking increasingly irrelevant for the US.”

All dressed up with nowhere to go

June 8, 2009 By Hermann Observer in History Tags: German elections Leave a comment

After the latest decimation of German Social Democracy as we (which means you) know (or knew) it, SPD chancellor candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier made a pretty sorry showing on the German TV politico-talk show Anne Will last night. He looked so, well, so lonely.

Yesterday’s EU election slug fest (in more ways than one) left the German SPD at a heart-warming all-time low of 20.8 percent of the vote. And so what if only 43% of the Europe-weary electorate even bothered to turn up? It’s the thought that counts.

Mr. Steinmeier must certainly being doing a lot of thinking about things these days at any rate. Things like: What was I thinking of or how did I get here or how the hell do I get out of here again? You know, thoughts like that.

„Ich bin Kanzlerkandidat der SPD, der Kanzler werden will.“

How much longer is it going to take to read all this stuff?

May 27, 2009 By Hermann Observer in History Tags: Spying Leave a comment

As long as it takes, I guess. After an accidental discovery in the Stasi spy archive put an interesting new twist on a shooting “that changed West Germany” forever (back in 1967), everyone is wondering again just how many more dark and dirty unread secrets are still buried there. And please keep in mind; these archives have been researched by hundreds of thousands of Germans for nearly twenty years now.

Someone found out that a West-Berlin cop who shot a demonstrator at an anti-Shah of Iran demonstration was not the capitalist lackey of the evil reactionary West German establishment he was supposed to be but an East German Stasi agent instead. This shooting is said to have ignited the more militant German left-wing protest movement which then followed, by the way.

Hmmm. Makes you wonder, or it makes me wonder. But I’m always wondering about stuff like this so who cares. Anyways, about 100,000 Germans apply each year to get a look at their own Stasi files, but the director of the archive says that even extensive rifling through these old folders barely makes a dent in the whole collection. Germans have always been good at keeping records, you see. They’re just not very good at destroying them. And this is a good thing.

“It’s said that if the files were lined up in a row, they would stretch for well over 100 km.”

A Disneyland, a falsification of history, a tasteless mockery?

May 21, 2009 By Hermann Observer in History Tags: Checkpoint Charlie Leave a comment

Wait a minute, let me think. Sure, I guess it is.

“Even we notice the crisis,” one of them (one of two painted figures who stand as if frozen in front of the Brandenburg Gate) complained during a rare coffee break in which they were allowed to open their mouths. “We’re not getting the trade that we used to.” The pair were charging tourists €1 apiece to be photographed with them.

At the former Checkpoint Charlie site, the desires of undiscerning Berlin visitors are even better catered for. The area is awash with tour buses. Hot dogs are being churned out by a fast food bar called “Snackpoint Charlie” and a replica wooden hut surrounded by sandbags simulates the original Allied checkpoint.

“In an attempt to cash in on a perceived “Ostalgie” or nostalgia for the former Communist state in the east, politicians have come forward with revisionist remarks about its former regime.”

We can hardly wait

May 12, 2009 By Hermann Observer in History Tags: Demjanjuk 4 Comments

Nobody in Germany really wants this guy here, of course. But…

„Ultimately Mr. Demjanjuk’s advanced age and poor health serve as reminders, regardless of the outcome in court, of how the living memory of the crimes committed during World War II is on the verge of disappearing. Mr. Demjanjuk’s case might well be the last major war crimes trial in Germany, marking the end of an era that began in Nuremberg in 1945.“

Is that a bright side?

„Allerdings muss noch geklärt werden, ob der 89-Jährige verhandlungsfähig ist.“

Bundeswehr to move north again

April 14, 2009 By Hermann Observer in History Tags: Bundeswehr Leave a comment

After yesterday’s devastating surprise Easter attack on Bundeswehr military vehicles in the southeastern German city of Dresden, German politicians have decided to move all remaining Bundeswehr forces to the more stable northern regions of the country.

Although under pressure by the NATO to station more German combat troops in southern Germany to help fight the German peacenik-led Easter insurgency there, officials maintained that such a risky military presence would simply not be politically viable at this time.

After Easter vacation, Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to visit German troops stationed at an undisclosed location in the north, provided she can find them of course, and will stress Germany’s strong commitment to reconstruction efforts in that once war-torn country so very long, long, long ago.

“The official could not give details of her movements for security reasons but said she was not expected to travel to Kabul, or Kiel.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: History