Biking in Beethoven's Home Town

Bonn is the home town of Ludwig von Beethoven, and there is a museum at the house where he was born. A statue stands outside another house where his family once lived. I found a little spare time to rent a bike and cruise the streets, visiting the cathedral that was in ruins after World War II. While posing in front of a tower from the old city wall, I managed to drop the bike on my leg and will probably limp for the rest of the trip. A small price to pay!

Although it is no longer the capital of Germany, Bonn is a very livable city looking for a new sense of purpose. The DHL delivery firm is based here and Bonn is agressively tryng to lure agencies from the United Nations, the EU and NATO with mixed results. The highlight of the bike ride was the path along the river, which led to a delightful park. A family of swans frolicked in a peaceful lake in view of DHL's high-rise headquarters.

Making Connections

Michael Lippin, a Washington-based reporter for Voice of America, is perhaps the hardest working person in our RIAS group. He reported on the environmental conference and other EU issues for VOA's international audience, in contrast to most of the others in the group who didn't have an assignment from their home news organizations. It was different in 2001 when a lot of the people in my group were filing broadcast reports. That's a sad commentary on the fact that US news organizations don't do enough these days to keep Americans informed about global developments and why programs like RIAS are so badly needed. Michael photographed and interviewed Erik Betterman, the head of Deutsche Welle and a member of the RIAS board. I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Betterman, who has spent some time in the US and understands American media very well. He was kind enough to introduce me to the representatives of the Deutsche Welle Akademie, which conducts highly respected media training programs all over the world. I've benefitted from the resources on their website in the past and it was great to connect with the people behind the effort. I would welcome any opportunity to collaborate with DW Akademie in the future.

Views of History

The cruise on the Rhine between Bonn and Cologne offered amazing views of ruined castles and mansions once used by diplomats when Bonn was the German capital. One official guest house hosted former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who was given a \mercedes as a gift and then crashed it while trying to drive it down the hill.

Another important historical site: the ruins of the bridge at Remagen. It was a strategic point in World War II as the last remaining bridge over the Rhine River. A US flag still flies there as a tribute to the Americans who died defending it.

Party Boat on the Rhine

No environmental conference would be complete without a party yacht. No worries about carbon footprint; the organizers announced that they purchased credits to offset the emissions.

The top deck was a great place to mix and mingle with my RIAS mates, such as former NBC and ABC correspondent Bob Jamison. He even scored an entire bottle of red wine from the friendly waiters, who kept the drinks flowing. Other RIAS fellows made some new friends among the climate change experts as a jazz band recalled the sounds of the Big Band era when RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) was a lifeline to East Germans craving news from the other side of the Berlin Wall.

The party switched into high gear when "Germany's best party band" rocked the dance floor. The techno-pop hits attracted dancers of all ages and you didn't need a partner to hit the floor. You haven't lived until you've cruised the Rhine while dancing to the Black-Eyed Peas' hit "I've Got a Feeling," After wearing myself out,I retired to the sidelines, only to meet a lovely young man from Ghana who insisted I "dance with the prince." This was a real "Dancing with the Stars" moment as the guy proceeded to toss me in the air and spin me around while others cleared out of the way. Unfortunately, no one bothered to take a photo!

Media and the Environment

Germany ended up with an extra parliament building in Bonn, which was planned and under construction when the Berlin Wall came down. They decided to build it anyway and the Bundestag actually met here a few times before moving to Berlin. The building, featuring transparent glass architecture to symbolize open government, now serves as a conference center.
We attended a conference on Media and the Environment, sponsored by Deutshe Welle, Germany's counterpart of Voice of America. However, the content of the conference was based on the assumption that journalists must advocate in favor of action to combat climate change, rather than approach the story with the idea that there may be more than one side to it. A few of the workshops offered tips on how to deal with climate change "skeptics."
After working in the Maldives for several years, I have come to be skeptical of the whole issue. There is no hard evidence that the low-lying islands of Maldives are "sinking" due to rising sea levels, although the Maldivians held an underwater cabinet meeting to publicize their alleged plight and plead for a "fund" to deal with their problems. I attended an interesting session with academics who had studied coverage of the climate change issue in developing countries and was encouraged to see that the trend is toward blaming China and India for high pollution output, rather than bashing the US. However, I met plenty of people who are convinced that it's the developing world's "turn" to pollute because the industrialized countries did it for 200 years, and on top of that we should PAY them to do so while we strip our economies down to the bone.
Europe, and Germany in particular, have led the way in reducing emissions, which was relatively easy for them to do when all the smoke-belching factories of the Communist bloc shut down. Europe also leads in developing green technology, so when they preach the gospel of climate change, there is a direct economic incentive to do so.
One thing the climate change crowd is good at: traveling around the world to have meetings, despite the insane carbon footprint of people flying to the conference!
Just to clarify my own position, I'm in favor of reducing pollution because it's the right thing to do for future generations.

Welcome to Bonn, the surplus capital

When east and west combined, Berlin ended up with more than one of everything from city halls to zoos to airports. Now Hitler's famed Templehof airport, later used for the post-war Berlin airlift, is closed and the abandoned runways are a public park. West Berlin still has Tegel airport and this is the former East Berlin's airport called Schonefeld. It the home of low-cost airlines like German wings and has none of the former Nazi mystique of the old Templehof terminal.
Germany also ended up with two capital cities. The RIAS group flew from Berlin to Bonn, which is Germany's surplus capital now that the seat of government has moved to Berlin. The Rathaus or City Hall was all dressed up for the World Cup and we enjoyed a match in a bistro that had great pizza and holds English conversation nights once a week. The football commentary on Sky News featured a young hottie with an ancient guy who seemed to actually know something about the game. Good times and lots of "koelsch," the local beer made in nearby Cologne.

Random parting shots from Berlin

My return RIAS visit to Berlin went by too quickly in a city that is filled with politics, art, culture and history. From vistas of the river Spree to the random classical street musician, every turn provided a new surprise or insight.
And of course many venues for sharing a drink! Getting to know the other RIAS fellows made the experience even more enjoyable. Here are few more parting shots before we move on to new adventures in Bonn and Brussels.

Sans Souci

RIAS saved the best for last on our Potsdam tour: Sans Souci is the palace where King Fredrich the Great could escape his worries in Berlin, surrounded by enchanting gardens, fake ruins and even a "Chinese" tea house that provided a cool photo opportunity and seemed especially fascinating to visitors from Asia.

The grounds are much more spectacular than the interior of the palace, so we didn't wait around for a look inside and spent our time outdoors. People leave potatoes on the king's grave because he released farmers from slavery and allowed them to own their land, requiring only that they grow potatoes. That decision later saved the country from a famine.

Cold War Footsteps

After World War II, the Allies met to divide Europe. The Potsdam conference was held in Schloss Cecilienhof, the summer home of a Prussian royal couple. You can see the round table where the lines of the Cold War were drawn.
Stalin used this study as his office. There was some disarray in the American and British ranks and the French did not attend, so Stalin was able to wield a lot of influence here.
The building itself is a cross between an English country house and a Bavarian castle and it now houses an upscale hotel. Again, it's hard to believe that the Berlin wall once ran through the yard, blocking the view of the river.
Nearby is a famous bridge between East and West Germany, where spy exchanges were carried out.
On the way back to our hotel, the bus passed along the Karl Marx allee, a showcase of Soviet-style apartment buildings that is designed to portray the workers' paradise. We also drove through endless blocks of gray concrete block buildings that were closer to reality for most East Germans.

The Wannsee Decision

Wannsee, a charming lakeside town filled with vacation villas, was the site for the Nazi's "Final Solution" to the Jewish "problem." Built in 1914 as a businessman's vacation home, it was used as a conference center and guest house for the SS from 1941-45. Nazi leaders met here on Jan. 20 1942 to plan the Holocaust. The documents on display contain such chilling details as how to determine the percentage of a person's Jewish blood, which would determine whether they would be killed immediately, worked to death in forced labor camps, or allowed to live. The building is now an educational center devoted to the memory of the victims.

Stasi Prison

This trip has been filled with amazing moments, but none more sobering than a tour of a former prison operated at various times by the Soviets and the East German secret police, known as the Stasi. We saw the Soviet-era cells in the "submarine" underneath a former kitchen building, where the Russians held many German teenagers from Hitler's brownshirted Nazi youth, some as young as 14 and pressed into combat in the desperate final days of the war. Despite the Geneva Convention, those imprisoned here didn't last long. Inmates froze to death in "cold cells" or were crammed into "warm" cells with a single bucket for a latrine. Certain cells were devoted to water torture and an especially insidious torment was a space in which a prisoner could not stand up, turn around or sit down. The whole idea was to force people to "confess" without leaving any physical evidence of torture. The prison expanded when the Soviets left post-War Berlin and the Stasi took over. Our guide, Vera, dispassionately explained how guards would dehumanize the prisoners, transporting them in a van with isolation cells, and then not allowing them to speak or even see other inmates, and even requiring them to sleep in a certain position. The tour took a strange turn when she matter-of-factly announced that she had once been an inmate of this horrifyng place! She was part of an East German resistance movement that met secretly in the sanctuaries of Lutheran churches and she dared to attend a government-sanctioned demonstration with a sign showing a phrase from the East German constitution about the people's right to free speech. When pressed for details, she related how she was put through a sham trial and forced to confess to a lesser charge that resulted in her deportation to the west after about a month in the prison. She was a young mom with three kids at the time and is now a member of Parliament. The interrogation rooms here would look familiar to anyone who has seen the Oscar-Winning German film "The Lives of Others," which was filmed here. I highly recommend this film to anyone who wants to understand the terrible price East Germans continue to pay for a society in which everyone was spied upon by their neighbors and even family members. Thousands of Germans have now had a chance to see their own Stasi files, which are kept in a creepy archive that I toured on my last trip. These meticulously typed files contain such notations as "Is he an alcoholic?" if someone had a few glasses of wine. Doctors shared intimate details about their patients in exchange for priveleges such as attending foreign conferences. Our prison tour guide told us that the former guards and interrogators still live in the middle-class houses they were given on the other side of the prison wall. You can see the roofs in the above picture, right next to the former guard tower. Far from being bitter about the free housing given to her former tormentors, Vera is glad they will not be moving in next door to her anytime soon! The Wall may be gone, but two decades later the walls of the mind are still very much a part of the former East Germany.