Rudow underground station, the closest to Berlin’s
Schönefeld Airport, is one of the first things anyone sees arriving in Berlin
as it is where one joins the Soviet-looking tube to the city centre. Rudow
station looks like the kind of place the Stasi designated as a secret
underground torture corridor – a subtle yet masterful form of excruciation
whereby the tawny walls and bright lighting would slowly spiral detainees into
suicide. In fact it is the end of U-bahn Line 7.
Berlin likes to vaunt itself as ‘sexy but poor’ and the
latter is evident as the stained, yellow train belts on past such
Anglo-friendly stations as Lipschitzalle. For those who have been bought up in
the western world, the bus or train from Schönefeld Airport to the centre of
Berlin will let you discover the Soviet Union: The sallow, sulphurous colour of
bricks and the air; boulevards as wide as airfields with not a soul in sight.
Everything rigid and unbranded, yet so appealing.
This is the beginning of what I call Sallowism, a common
affliction or pseudo- devotion most non native Berliners catch and sustain. Sallowism
is nostalgia for anything collective or communist in a fast-moving, consumer world. Sallowism harps back to single-issue light
bulbs, odd shoes and empty supermarket shelves. Sallowism thinks it can have
communism without Stalin, Ceausescu or Siberia. The Germans call it Ostalgie: Eastalgia, or nostalgia for the east.
Most foreigners in Berlin are Sallowists. The best way for you to join this
Trotsky-toting community is not to visit or live somewhere in the former
eastern bloc. No, this will make you too clever too quickly. The best way for
you to get into Sallowism is to walk around Kreuzberg with a copy of Gramsci's The New Order, write
an obtuse blog about brewery surfaces and only drink soya milk.
My own journey into Sallowism began at Teufelsberg in 2007,
an old NATO listening station on the Devil’s Mountain in West Berlin. Built on
a mound of WW2 junk, the flapping broken windows of the disused radomes are an
ideal initiation into Sallowism’s decadent charm. The abandoned Cold War listening
station has the perfect ingredients for a Sallowist honeymoon – it was once a
bastion of espionage, a peeping hole catching whispers and orgasms from east of
the wall, yet it now has a harmless, decadent aura.
It even has a Nazi history (vital if you’re a building and want to be taken seriously
in Germany) - Hitler wanted to
make it the World Technical University of the Third Reich and he built
underground bunkers for 1700 officers. One can still smell the scent of
espionage in the complex’s empty corridors (or this is something you can tell
people once you’ve posted the pictures on Facebook). Known as the last hill
before Moscow, this is where the British and the Americans eavesdropped their
Russian counterparts (this’ll be a great conversation starter after watching Tinker,
Tailor, Soldier Spy). It is a necessary
pilgrimage for any new Berliner.
Germans are compulsive hoarders, especially when it comes to
history. It’s a brooding nation full of memorials. The wall was up for thirty
years and caused dozens of casualties, but twenty years after its fall, it’s a
town-favourite for graffiti artists and tourists.
![]() |
Berlin's biggest balls. |
The Berliners parade the wall
like a reformed uncle who once held the family ransom but is now benevolent and
harmless and more of a curiosity than anything else. One of the Germans’ most attractive qualities is that it hurts them
to forget: they are Europe’s leading recyclists and renewable energy
producers and history is simply treated the same way.
You’ll soon get used to this. Memorials remember everything,
everywhere. Even the streets are filled with posters that say Wir vergessen
nicht, ‘We don’t forget,’ to remind you
that Germans have an elephantine memory. These political posters are confusing,
for both anarchists and Nazis use them.
The original neo-Nazi poster uses the slogan to remember the
allied bombing of Dresden and create a sense of national victimization. The anarchists
invert it to remind their neo-Nazi countrymen of the crimes the nation
committed in their name.
Do not think you can just ignore these.
Germans are incredibly sensitive and well-versed when it comes to their political opinions and you will be required to know your unconditional-basic-income policy from your history of German terrorism. While Germans do conservatives, liberals and centre-left like anyone else, they
really come into their own when affiliated to a group on the far edges of
society.
In the 1970s, Red
Zora, a feminist organization, targeted 142
patriarchal institutions, men-only clubs & corporate boardrooms, taking no
casualties.
Germans do terrorism how it should be done – as a mental
challenge.
But let us stick to Sallowism and its citrine glow. After you’ve been to Teufelsberg, in
West Berlin, you might want to kill two classic birds with one stone and go and
bathe naked with some Germans in the lake below. This is a favourite pastime
for anyone over 40 from East Germany. Bathing naked in public lakes is just
unmissable fun for the German Ostalgist,
because when everything is dangling about, they say, is the true synergy of
socialism. Freikörperkultur or Free body culture.
“Are you into FKK?” my soon-to-be girlfriend asked me after
I arrived in Berlin.
Not understanding, I presumed it was some radically
fashionable new political manual and of course instantly answered “Yes.”
Minutes later I met German socialism penis-to-penis.
Berlin is quite simply the perfect landscape for Sallowism, one that
never forgets. Abandoned breweries and old ice cream factories are landmarks in
Berlin tour guides. Every brick of the Berlin Wall is kept. You can even own a
bit: they sell it at the Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie, certified of
course.
Germans keep their history like mothers keep their children’s fallen
teeth, as souvenirs. Placards everywhere advertise terrible crimes committed
within their vicinity, like directions to your local town centre or sports
hall.
How do you deal with this onslaught of history? Here is a
list of key survival tips.
- Never mention Nazism (ps: if mentioned, emphasize importance of repentance and acknowledge any you see)
- Wear a t-shirt carrying the outline of a lesser-known political figure in chains or self-immolating alive to try and give off the impression you are more history than anyone else and thus ward off pests
- Read (if nothing else, this blog's forthcoming chapter on the 3 big Ns not to pack when you come to Germany)
- Break a leg.
Some interesting points but completely shoddy logic. Losing at analogies when comparing waste recycling with German history and "children's fallen teeth". Boring, outdated stereotypes of Germans and their history which you can hear at every open mike in town. Might do Britain some good if its population had a better understanding of their own history of ruling the world at gunpoint for 300 years.
ReplyDeleteThough all sorts associated with introspection usually are good for you, a number of are more effective in comparison with other people for distinct conditions. Should you be stressed as well as stressed, next figuring out the top introspection means of stress offers you the fastest possible opportunity to relax.Receitas Vegetarianas
ReplyDelete