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Ampel time for East German signs

27th April 202427th April 2024 funtime65

Ja, they literally stop traffic and as we reflect on 35 years since the Fall of the Wall we do still have Ampel time for East German signs.

And other quirky stop-go ways of keeping motorists and pedestrians in sync around the world.

Berlin, East German and all Deutschland life today moves to the beat of the spritely little figure in the straw hat.

Which is for all its austerity the most resounding legacy of the GDR.

Along with the statues and wall reliefs of Communist icons in the German capital, Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz (Karl Marx Stadt) to remind the citizens of their history.

Put a straw hat on it

The Ampelmannchen, like much despite the interference of politicians, survived because of its popularity with the public.

He had been astride the East since traffic psychologist Karl Peglau came up with the idea in 1961.

With Ampelmannchen’s distinctive straw hat a nod to a summer photo leader Erich Honecker.

A small victory one would think for the oppressed East Germans to immortalise their Communist leader in bourgeoisie couture.

Capitalising on GDR icons

Come reunification there was clearly much to organise.

And despite the famous Teuton efficiency it was overlooked that there was a difficulty with differing signs and fonts between the two Germanys.

With the Western figure oddly more pencil-straight, regimental than the quirkier East German fave.

So while Westernisation swept over the East, the East hung on to their traffic signs and the West absorbed them.

The Ampelmannchen clearly would not be moved.

And as the ultimate signal of capital’s hold the Ampelmannchen has become synonymous with modern German life.

With shops proliferating around Berlin and around Germany, selling the little man with the straw hat.

Anything from ironically stationery to stickers to mugs to fridge magnets to mouse mats.

With mine taking pride of place at home now.

Signs of the times

Now I’ll clearly always have Ampel time for East German signs.. and their people.

And make instant judgements on a people by which quirky signs they choose to guide us on our way around their towns and villages.

Now it’s green lights to Berlin with EasyJet with a sample return ticket for £82.99.

Countries, Europe

In Chemnitz we find a history carved in stone

25th April 202425th April 2024 funtime65

Changing cities (and their names) bring changing figures on podiums… and in Chemnitz we find a history carved in stone.

We started this journey this week as all Chemnitzers and adopted Saxons do at Der Nischel ‘The Head’.

The Head being Karl Marx after the Father of Communism who the GDR renamed Chemnitz after the war.

We are set a flash quiz to give the size of the politico’s cranium… 23ft if you want to win the bookmark our guide was offering.

He’s a big head all right but Lev Kerbil’s bust of Karl is not the biggest Socialist.

His disciple Lenin craning higher at 25ft in Siberia.

While the undoubted face of the city, Karl, of course is no Chemnitzer, hailing from Trier in southern Germany.

Pppenguin pppodiums

Nor indeed are the penguins which at the other end of the scale have become synonymous with the Saxon city.

The genesis of the small island at the entrance to Innere Klosterstrsse, on the corner of Theaterstrasse is that Antarctica resembles the outline of Chemnitz.

The Peter Kalfells inscription points out that 15,000kms east are one of the largest colonies of emperor penguins in the world.

Strolling through today’s Chemnitz you’ll be struck by how the modern and historic cities fuse.

Ja Liegend

The Skulptur Liegender is a Johannes Schulze concrete-sculpture recliner from the early 80s GDR heyday.

To mark the inauguration of the boulevard so beloved by communists of the era.

While you’ll find a nod to German literary great Bertolt Brecht and his four poems of praise, Lob des Revolutionärs.

Karl Marx Stadt commissioned Martin Wetzel to erect the work ‘in praise of the party’ as part of the redevelopment of downtown.

Happy Kampfer

While further down the road, on the corner of Bahnhofstrasse is Johann Belz’s 1976 relief Kampf und Sieg der revolutionären deutschen Arbeiterklasse.

Which is, of course, a celebration of the German working class.

Der Baths time

The importance of the German Swimming Baths shouldn’t be underestimated either, nor do the Chemnitzers play that down.

With the Stadbadt the oldest and most-eyecatching of a chain of pools which includes outdoor areas for the summer.

Supported by Chemnitz architect Fritz Weber, city building director Fred Otto designed the functional building in 1925.

Initially opposed by the Nazis they jumped on board and in when they saw the Chemnitzers had taken to it.

You will, of course, be taken by the statues carved into the walls next to reception.

Of the full nude bodies beautiful of a young woman and man.

And that as an older lady she wanted it taken down but didn’t get her way.

So through the ages we see our story every day through what we put on podiums.

And here in Chemnitz we find a history carved in stone.

Countries, Culture, Europe

With ein little help from der Freunde

24th April 202424th April 2024 funtime65

So how do I feel by the end of the day? Well, I get by with ein little help from der Freunde in Berlin.

I am on the last leg (and my last legs) of my whistlestop tour of Deutschland for the annual travel convention, the German Travel Mart.

And as is my wont when left on my own I have gone off piste.

Despite the best efforts and planning of Nicole, my planner extraordinaire and Deutsche Mark as I’ll now know him.

My globetrotting English buddy and human sat-nav who I rely on every year at this convention.

Which last year took us to Essen in the Ruhrland and this year Chemnitz (or Karl Marx Stadt) in Saxony.

Strassed out

And so, pulled along by the German history in front of me and my wheelie rucksack, I over-reach when I see the sign for Charlottenburg.

And rather than double-back to go to the central station, the Haubtbanhof on Europaplatz.

For my simple eight-minute ride to Charlottenburg, my billet for the night I decide to march in.

I have done the de rigueur Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and Potsdam and got my picture in front of a block of the Berlin Wall.

Which this year has been down 35 years, longer than it was up, but worthy of commemorating and celebrating.

Which I have also done in Leipzig outside the church where the protests which triggered the revolution began.

A day in the strife

Emboldened by that spirit of freedom blowing through an icy April eve in the German capital I feel like taking on the world.

Literally… springing past the embassies of the world and always keeping the signs for Charlottenburg in my sights.

No going back now even when the guard at the booth at the Japan embassy alerts me to the fact that I am 5 miles from my destination.

Having my now trudged that distance in my excitement.

Ich bus ein Berliner

I am though blessed to see a part of Berlin few do.

And with a little help from der Freunde at a hotel and a bus stop I am pointed towards a stop where I can take another bus.

To Adenhauerstrasse where hopefully I will be able to find my hotel, the Yggotel Ravn, on Albrecht-Achilles Strasse.

Of course with low battery on my phone and no internet I cannot turn to Google Maps so I go old-fashioned.

And ask at the Apothekary where a helpful assistant (the first couldn’t speak English never mind Glaswegian) got me on track.

Berlin haul

Weary of bone I slumped on the desk of my hotel half an hour later.

And after booking in asked how best to get to the airport in the morning.

Only to be told it would be €70 by taxi.

Now working on the proposition that four heads are better than one I asked her colleague for help.

And the two travellers who had just arrived through the swing doors and I recognised from our Chemnitz party.

All of which would save me €65 and take just a 15-minute walk to the Charlottenburg S, or train station.

Of course I did a recce that night which took me around an hour and introduced me to the backstreets of the district and a Russian supermarket.

One way or another I did get my train to the airport the next day with ein little help from der Freunde.

Countries, Europe, Music

Der top brass of Chemnitz

22nd April 202422nd April 2024 funtime65

He’d rather be back home on his Gameboy but the little boy will look back on it all in future years when he becomes one of Der top brass of Chemnitz.

Well what child wants to dress like their dad?

Or worse still when he is in ceremonial dress.

But then we’ve all been there and where once I hated being decked in a kilt…

Now I don’t skirt any opportunity to flash a leg.

The Chemnitz miners share with our own Britons, who worked in the bowels of the earth, a love for brass music.

And costume and a drape to tell us of their mine’s proud tradition.

Blowing our own trumpets

As well as the birthright of Germans, a natural affinity with oompah music.

Which I have loved from the moment I first heard it.

As a 19-year-old at the Oktoberfest in Munich.

And decided to climb up on the bandstand, take the mic and belt out ‘My bonnie lies over the ocean’.

Before my body lay outside the Lowenbrauhaus, ejected by two bucksome Berthas.

Modern kraftverk

It’s taken a while to learn my lesson but here I am willing to let others take their deserved spotlight.

And so I let the miners’ brass band, the young orchestra, the street ballet dancers, Peace Ride cyclists and a mine host from Haddington take centre stage.

It’s kraftverk for the modern Saxony.

And it is all on show this week, a showcase for next year’s European Capital of Culture experience.

The miners’ story can be explored in the communes in the Oral Mountains above Chemnitz, 162 miles north of the Czechia border.

And here at the Kraftverkehr Chemnitz.

Captains of Industrie

Chemnitz, or Karl Marx Stadt as you might have known it back in Communist days, has reinvented itself as a post-industrial travel destination.

By putting the art into artisan as evidenced by the Industriemuseum which chronicles Chemnitz’s relationship with tools, motors and automobiles.

And to think that the burghers had drilled holes in the walls for dynamite to blow it up before it was salvaged.

The Industriemuseum boasts an array of artefacts automobiles.

And explores Chemnitz’s relationship with the Enigma code, Bauhaus and even a mummified body preserved appropriately by tar.

My own shell is similarly pickled these past three days by Marx and Gluck Auf beer.

And threatens to be further bolstered at the German Travel Mart closing event.

At the August Horch Museum Zwickau where we’ll tinker around classic Audis and East German Brabants.

All in the company of Der top brass of Chemnitz.

Countries, Europe

Shake off your Karl Marx Stadt Chemnitz

21st April 202422nd April 2024 funtime65

Shake off your Karl-Marx-Stadt Chemnitz you have only your given city name to lose.

Which is exactly what the good burghers of Saxony’s third biggest city did in the days around German unification.

The haste was understandable given they had waited 37 years to win their name back.

The original which defined them on account of it being the name of the river which runs through it.

It’s not as if the Father of Communism, Karl Marx, had ever been to Chemnitz, which is 162kms north of the Czech border.

But industrial Chemnitz was deemed the perfect stand-in to glorify Karl in 1953.

What’s in a name?

The year was a biggie behind the Iron Curtain as Stalin curled up his tache and his toes that year.

The GDR, the old communist East Germany, had been taken by surprise.

As they had just built a spanking new socialist city, Eisenhuttenstadt, which they had planned to rename after Marx.

Only to get the name Stalinstadt instead and industrial Chemnitz bequeathed with the Marx mantle.

Forward fast 57 years and the good people of Karl Marx Stadt struck a blow for freedom to call themselves exactly what they wanted.

And renamed themselves Chemnitz.

Also agreeing to keep the huge statue of the old dogmatist which is where we meet today to explore the city and region.

Lessons of history

It might seem strange that the Saxons should hold onto such a symbol of Communist oppression.

But, of course, I am reminded of the words of my guide from a previous German convention trip in nearby Dresden.

When I asked why the Dresdeners had not painted over a giant mural of Communist heroes on one of the walls.

And she informed me that as a child she had been taught that Saxon history only began with Communism.

And that to ignore it now would be to continue their lie and risk history repeating itself.

Today’s Chemnitz

Today’s Chemnitz is a vibrant city and the Chemnitzers a creative and forward-thinking people.

Rightly true to their past and proud of their future as a European Capital of Culture for 2025 along with its neighbouring town and countryside.

Through which I have been travelling today, the Purple Path, its mining heritage and the Ore Mountains.

As they say in these parts, and something they share with the Ruhr heartland, another former coal capital Gluck Auf.

Which means Luck Up which miners would say to each other in gratitude for getting back to the surface.

Now I’ve shaken off my own hangover after last night in the smoky rock bar The Hangover in Chemnitz I’m back.

Being a mine of information again and sharing with all how it came to be.

How you got to shake off your Karl Marx Stadt Chemnitz.