WHAT... WOLFSBURG ?

Wolfsburg ? Where or what is Wolfsburg ? A German beer… a cliff-perched fortress… a lupine location… a Nintendo video game ? None of the aforementioned…

Antoinette and I were invited to the 40th birthday party of one of Antoinette’s girl pals dating back to her pre-London days, when she was traveling on Continental Europe. Bettina, actually from Germany, eventually married Bruce Harwood from England and settled down in… Wolfsburg of the former GDR (GDR meaning Global Depositary Receipt ? hmmm… no… actually it is the acronym for the German Democratic Republic which was about as democratic as the Pope was pagan ! ). This charming rural town with its vast expanse of greenery (trees, forest and shrubs) actually could be mistaken for a NYC chic suburb. And who would have imagined that Wolfsburg is implanted in the ex-East Germany of pre-1990 ?

So on the morning of Saturday, September 9th, 2006, we had to wake up in Paris around 5 AM so that we could be on our 7:15 flight from Orly Airport. We had reserved tickets on our “favorite” airline… Easyjet, the Europe’s equivalent to Southwest Airlines, with its first come, first serve at the check-in counter (for seating… does SWA do this ? ), paying meals and drinks, etc… previously used for our trips to Naples and Pisa. Easyjet allows travel to Europe’s “lesser” regions and offers interesting prices (and even more absurd departure times) only if you can reserve several months ahead of time. But direct to Wolfsburg? Alas no, but the closest EJ destination happened to be the most upcoming city in Europe today… Berlin.

We left on time and arrived even earlier at Schönefeld, Berlin’s quite modern Flughafen (airport) located to the southeast of the city. Instead of taking a taxi, we took the S-Bahn, a local train/metro (but never went underground) about a five minute walk from the terminal. The 40-minute trip curved to the northeast and allowed us to enter Berlin by the “dilapidated” eastern section. Dilapidated? Cranes, tarps, scaffoldings were everywhere!! A city in transition… sure the staid gray and concrete tenement buildings still pockmark the geography but the modernization is definitely under way. We slowly trained on the elevated railways until arriving at the Hauptbahnhof, just north of the center of Berlin. Probably one of the most modern train stations in the world and rising four floors off ground level, the Hauptbahnhof is a glassy behemoth with the tracks on the upper floor and a mall filling up the other three. It had been opened just in time for Germany’s hosting of soccer’s World Cup just this past summer.

We had no time to leave the station and visit Berlin as our “bullet train” (yes, even here!) was to leave 45 minutes later for Wolfsburg. So not having had a real breakfast, we decided to visit a “haunt” that neither AA (short for Antoinette Azzurro) or I had been able to experience in several years. We searched the mall and found a… Burger King, one of the chains to have fled France about ten years ago due to lack of profitability versus the king of crap, McDonalds. After an 11:30 AM burger, we boarded the 10-minute delayed glossy white high-speed train (tickets had been purchased a long time in advance) and underwent several more unscheduled starts and stops leaving Berlin… it could have been the “snail” train (the trip was an originally anticipated 55 minutes)… and we never knew why (no loud speaker). We finally arrived in Wolfsburg 40 minutes late… where Bruce’s parents, Gordon and Mary (very affable and fun) had been waiting for us. We thought that they had known about the delay… but we found out the next day that they had waited the entire time. German inefficiency as to poor communication?

From the train station, we could immediately seem the emblem for which Wolfsburg has its fame. W is the home to Germany’s largest automobile plant for the Volkswagen brand (remember the “peoples’ car”?) and it abuts the W train station. Four giant smokestacks can be seen it seems for miles around… W is a chic town since the VW employees happen to be some of the best paid in Germany (for factory workers). We never saw the center of town but it seemed that all the town’s citizens owned houses…

We arrived at the Harwoods (ten minute ride) where we met Bettina, Bruce’s sister and male friend and Bruce himself who was involved in the preparation of the ensuing night’s activities. Bruce’s parents had already been visiting for several weeks (in from Manchester, England) helping out in taking car of their children Jonas (8) and Emily (5). After a late spaghetti lunch, we were driven to our hotel (half mile away) which happened to be across from the birthday party in a local municipal “chateau”.

As you can imagine, we were “neckered” so we were able to get some shut-eye before the 8 PM bash. The Harwoods had rented a portion of the chateau and we were about 45 invitees to the party. I had not been to a German party since Freiburg (or even Oktoberfest in Munich) back in the late 1980s so I did not know what to expect. Bottles of all kinds of Beck’s beer (normal, Gold and lime… I felt the need to try all three for comparison purposes… actually French beers hold up well, and that is not saying much) were in ice-lined wash basins… there were also German white and red wines (did I have to compare them with the French?) and three quarters of the way through dinner, Bruce put on his special bartender’s cap and prepared killer capirinhas (there were two bottles of cachaca or Brazilian rum, plus sugar, ice, and lime wedges). And after two bottles of rum, there were about 10 bottles of vodka used…) The dinner was a sit-down buffet from the kitchen with a barbecue stand to boot outside with sausages, roasted meats and garlic/herb-filled fish. We were at a table with Bettina’s mother and her “new” mate (she was divorced and could not speak English or French… just like her mate) plus Bruce’s parents… as well as Bettina’s homosexual brother (and his mate)… we were eventually joined by the most interesting chap, a German architect studying to be a Buddhist who was involved romantically with his associate (another woman at the party who was accompanied by her husband… complicated, no ?)… these Germans know how to have fun… there was also their fourteen year old son who towered above me in height and stature… and spoke very good English. Fourteen year old Christel (already tall for her age) would have reached as high as his man breasts. The architect had been working on a new discothèque that was going to open the following weekend in Berlin.. and to be owned and managed by… Bettina!!!! Of course Bruce chipped in and the concept of course came from Bettina’s brother. As of today, we have no idea how the opening ceremonies went but I am sure that AA will want me to return to Berlin and “check out” the new enterprise. Bruce who was in media (involving VW of course) may eventually leave Wolfsburg if the concept is a success. The bar is exceptionally located in the heart of the gay quarter in Berlin.

We ate to our heart’s content and danced later into the night. AA left a bit earlier as the hotel was only a hop, skip and a jump away. An interesting story occurred halfway through the party : AA met a guest Dave Cooper visiting from the south of France. He happens to be a very good friend of the Simandls (Chris and Christine… long-time mutual friends, Chris himself having grown up in Rye) who are now living near Grasse, the perfume capital of the world, just north of Cannes. When Bruce and Bettina learned of this, they could not believe it either since they had visited C & C in southern France recently (Chris had worked on a consulting contract with VW in Wolfsburg in the past). Small world!! I was with the final departing party at 2:30 AM.

We missed morning breakfast, checked out, and met all the Harwoods in the castle reception room to help them clean up and eat some leftovers. Our next destination (driven there by Mr. Harwood) about 20 minutes away was to nearby Lehre to visit Antoinette’s uncle (Adamo, her mother’s brother) who had been in Germany and invested in one of the most reputed pizzerias in the area (must be that Italian origin) called Pizzeria Anna. There was also his son Maurizio, son-in-law and grand daughter (we were not able to meet AA’s cousine Daniela as she had just given birth in the local hospital)… we were very nicely offered lunch (communication was difficult as AA’s family conversed with AA in slangy old Italian and I was a bit lost… as I guess they had not learned much English and my German was about as sharp as a wet noodle… Adamo was very jovial and according to AA had lost mega-pounds so he no longer looked like the typical doughboy behind the ovens) and Maurizio drove us back to the Wolfsburg train station for our bullet ride home (at one point on the autobahn, he must have been cruising over 120 mph… only for a few seconds… just shows the power of the German cars and the lack of speed limits). This time all worked well and we arrived only “five” minutes late. We had three hours ahead of us (from the Hauptbanhof) before having to take the half hour airport express (a faster ride) to Schönefeld Airport.

AA had already visited Berlin since the downfall of the wall… so she knew of the major tourist destinations. We walked south from the station, crossed the river Spree which serpents across (much more than the Seine in Paris) Berlin from east to west. We passed in front of the Reichstag, a monster of a gray building which is also the seat of German federal parliament. It now has a distinctive plexi-glass (??) dome with a spiraling staircase inside à la Gugghenheim Musuem in NYC. In front of the Reichstag is a large area (almost like the Champ de Mars between the Eiffel Tower and the Ecole Militaire) now under re-planting which supposedly was the site of the final battle of WW II versus the Soviets. One block away, we saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe (or the Holocaust Memorial covering 4,7 acres), a sloping sunken site of over 2 700 rectangular concrete blocks of all sizes, ugly and not surprisingly highly controversial (a much bigger, more compact and uglier version of the round Buren columns near the Palais Royal in Paris). According to its architect Peter Eisenman, the blocks are “designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason” (‘nuff said). Here is the link which you can paste into your browser if you would like to see some details : www.war-memorial.net/mem_det.asp?ID=104. Just a few minutes away is the Brandenburg Gate which literally split the Berlin into east and west just sixteen years ago. Many remember the Brandenburg Gate with its four-horse chariot (Quadriga) as a symbolic area where thousands of Germans partied when the wall crashed.

We continued our adventures further south where I caught my first glimpse of the wall.. with its memorable graffiti to commemorate the past. There are not many areas in Berlin with the wall still standing and most are now under protection as it is needed as museum pieces for the horrible separation it represented. According to the senator of urban development “it is our duty to retain proof of this madness to guard against any possibility of its return”. On our furthest point south, we bumped into the location of Himmler’s SS & Gestapo Headquarters (near Potsdamer Platz)… all has been razed to the ground (partially damaged by bombing in the final phases of WW II and entirely demolished by 1956) but there was an open-air museum with pictures and details of their grisly undertakings… an exhibit suitably called the “Topography of Terror”. The area eventually became part of West Berlin (the wall still standing for about 200 yards was on the other side of the street from the old HQ).

We then passed by Checkpoint Charlie (part of “No Mans Land”), the well-known (spy movies galore) controlled gate and area where the Stasi (secret police) and CIA spied on each other and escape attempts both botched and successful (mostly people hidden in cars) occurred. In all, 5075 escape attempts succeeded while victims totaled 178. We saw exhibits on the street with pictures (mostly black and white… and this was less than 20 years ago!) of the GDR control towers, the stories of the different escapes (the sad story of the two guys who were gunned down one day before the wall was to fall)... as the Border Command still followed the orders of “shoot to kill” than allow the heinous crime of “flight from the Republic” along the famous “Deathstrip”. The typical geography was the wall and on the eastern side followed by a ditch (a car obstacle covering 66 miles), then a patrol road, lamp posts, 302 different watch towers (or “shooting podiums”), anti-personnel mines, tank traps (wooden tripods), an electrified alarm fence (mesh covering a total of 80 miles) and a final eastern wall (more mesh) fence… all in all an elaborate system to keep many unhappy east Germans in their totalitarian state of shock. Some of the more original escape tactics were the following : reconstructed cars with hidden positions in front of the stick shift for example, hot-air balloons, home-made motor-powered kites equipped with Trabant engines, hiding in loudspeakers, and of course the eventual escape tunnel.

If anybody is interested in a little bit of Berlin history, here it is… in May 1945, the German Reich surrendered, the Allies then separating Berlin into four zones with the Soviets getting almost the entire eastern half while the French, Brits and US portioned off the rest. On August 13th, 1961 (two years before I was born), the 96 mile Soviet boundary is closed off with barbed wire and a few days later the Berlin Wall is built (over 27 miles between the two Berlins and 70 miles separating West Berlin and the GDR)… the metro continued into East Berlin but all their stations were closed down and passed without a stop (except for one where there is a checkpoint). On August 24, 1961, the first escapee is already shot down. In December 1963, the first passes allow West Berliners to visit the East for one day. In 1968, the makeshift wall is replaced step by step by the 3,6 meter high (11,8 feet) and 1,2 meters thick (over 3,9 feet) reinforced concrete wall with its characteristic pipe-shaped top. In September 1971, the first “treaty” is signed between the two states regulating the flow of transit traffic. In October 1989, Gorbachev comes to Berlin to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR. Within one month (November 4th), about one million East Germans assemble on Alexanderplatz (actually far from the wall) to cause an uprising. And on November 9th, the Wall is open !! In July 1990, monetary union occurs and all border controls are removed… and finally on October 3rd, 1990, the newly founded states of the GDR (as you know, there was an East Germany outside of Berlin) become members of the Federal Republic of Germany (“federal” being an improvement over “democratic” clearly).

Other places we did not have time to visit : Hitler’s suicide bunker, Goering’s Air Defense Ministry, Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry (but maybe who cares about these two ? ), Alexpanderplatz, and the overall nightlife (Berlin is known as the party city of Europe with its bars, cocktail lounges, clubs and biergartens. There is a great bike ride we may have to try once if we ever return… to party in Berlin with the Harwoods.

Just a few personal thoughts : I found Berlin to be extremely modern and almost too modern… as it needed to be rebuilt after Allied bombing I suppose and also the scads of money needed to be invested for their eastern brethren after breaching the ugly wall. I was mesmerized by the black and white pictures of the trenches and watch towers (snow on the ground) as this was not even twenty years ago as we were merrily prancing along out of college and into our more “serious” lives without really realizing that fellow Europeans were being shot down like chickens fleeing the coop… how morbid and it makes one wonder…