Obama for Kanzler

So, HE was here. About 200,000 people came to the so-called “fan mile” in the heart of Berlin to see Barack Obama. More people than came to any politician’s speech in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland before, if I am to believe the TV commentator. “Obamania” in full bloom, right in the middle of Old Europe.

Usually, the “fan mile” on the Straße des 17. Juni – a name honoring the violently suppressed uprising of East German workers against the GDR’s Soviet-backed regime in June 1953 – is put up to watch the German national soccer team play in a major championship on huge TV screens. Or to watch a Live-8 Concert when Herbert Grönemeyer and Chris de Burgh sing for a good cause.

Granted, some of these 200,000 must have been US expatriates. But the majority were Germans celebrating their somewhat bizzare love affair with Barack Obama. “Obama for Kanzler”, Obama for German Chancellor, one sign sticking out of the crowd read in hopeless Denglisch, this mixture of German (Deutsch) and English that has become so common in this country, transcending decent bakeries, zu Deutsch: Bäckereien, into “Back-Shops”.

There are several reasons why Germans tend to feel so strongly about US elections in general, and US elections with charismatic candidates (Clinton – eh, Bill –, Obama) in particular. First, we think that after watching “Dallas”, “West Wing” and other trailblazing US soaps on TV for decades, we know America and the Americans better than they know themselves. Second, after two terms of George W. Bush, we think that we’d also vote better in US presidential elections than the Americans themselves.

And last but not least, I’m dead sure there is political romanticism in abundance in this country, even if home-bred political personnel like Angela Merkel (the Conservative Chancellor), Kurt Beck (her Social Democrat partner in an uneasy “grand coalition”) or Oskar Lafontaine (the former-Social-Democrat-turned-populist-figurehead-of-the-extreme-left) somewhat fail to inspire such broad-felt romantic encounters right now.

So, why not put one’s heart out to a charming, good-looking, rhetorically gifted young man aspiring to be leader of the US and, yes, of the so-called free world?! Especially as he is not only the first black guy standing a realistic chance to become President of the United States – therefore being the politically most correct candidate, of course –, but reminds people of JFK on top of everything, whom Germans and especially “Berliners” tend to glorify…

Are those 200,000 (and the rest of us, who at least contemplated going, if only we had had a babysitter), then, would-be believers longing to see a new political messiah, as some media spectators had it all figured out? Can Obama – or: Obamania – inspire some new bonding between Americans and Germans, those estranged allies?

To be honest, the rage about Obama at the Siegessäule reminded me more of the hype around baby polar bear Knut in the near-by Berlin zoo two years ago. People found Knut “cute” and went to see him in droves. Now, people find Obama “cool” and come to see him in the Tiergarten park. Which is a synonym for zoo, by the way.

After all, Obama is a phenomenon, inspiring the bright and the young; making more and more people curious, drawing them to the stadiums in tens of thousands. He is a celebrity, huge scale. “Welcome to the show”, one of his many self-declared helpers covered with “Yes, we can!” stickers, called out to people approaching the stage in Berlin.

But should Obama really become the 44th. President of the United States, people will probably react not much different from the way they did when they came to see Knut, the cute fuzzy baby bear, a couple of month after his international media career had started – and found a dirty, bad-tempered adolescent polar bear instead. “This is not the cute white Knut we used to know”, they protested, turned around, and left.

“This is not the cool black Obama we used to know”, Germans might find, should we look at a President Barack Obama in a couple of months. And turn our backs on him, too, sinking back into our good old habit of Politikverdrossenheit.

Not that he’d care much, probably. But don’t count on promotionally effective pictures of cheering crowds in Berlin any more, Obama, once you step down from the Olympus of celebrity and into the flats of realpolitik!

Summer in Germany: The Palatinate

Bad Bergzabern

Burg Landeck




Views from Burg Landeck

Borderland: Between Germany and France

Weißenburg - Wissembourg

A Master of His Universe

When J. drives his Volkswagen Touareg through the vineyards and sees his empire beyond, stretching from the mountains of the Pfälzerwald out into the valley of the Rhine, he loves to listen to Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. Can't be loud enough.

Looking down at row after row of Riesling, Weißburgunder, Dornfelder grapes. Perfectly planted, perfectly cut they stand, like an army of extremely well trained soldiers. Growing on one of the country’s best soils for vineyards, at the flank of the hills rolling out to the Southwest for an optimum of sun.


Not a monoculture, mind, as there are lots of shrubs, small trees, and meadows, surrounding the vineyards. A good vintner knows that the best wine needs an intact ecosystem, needs birds and insects and plants to provide for the perfect environment that no chemicals or genetic engineering could ever replace.

J. is a vintner with the best theoretical and practical education one can get. And he is one of the most successful vintners of this small town in the southwestern corner of Germany, right on the French border. He is not the type for understatement, even if he is nothing like a nouveau riche kind of guy. Short grey curls, designer stubble. Checkered shirt with short sleeves, hanging loosely over his shorts, nothing fancy. Socks in sandals, even.

While J. points out the different grapes and explains his “philosophy” of wine making, his wife serves at their vineyard's Strausswirtschaft, as the typical local mix between a wine bar and a restaurant is called. Her smile seems a little tight at times.

In the kitchen, J.’s mother reigns. She has been cooking her famous Bratwurst and Bratkartoffeln (roast potatoes) here for almost half a century. A lot of habitués come here for her cooking exclusively. The meat she serves is from pigs that are slaughtered by a butcher in her yard, right under her critical eye.

But he is the aspiring young vintner who transformed the small family vineyard into a cleverly managed business, who refined his vintner's expertise as well as his marketing after he had taken over from his father a couple of decades back.

The winery’s buildings are beautifully renovated, the heavy oak portal opens four days a week to restaurant guests and wine customers, many of them from the upscale region of Karlsruhe across the river Rhine. In J.’s huge cellar, wooden barrels stand next to stainless steel tanks, tradition and high tech mingle in these cool, quiet halls.

J. has three sons. The eldest is already studying viticulture, so the succession is assured. During the last two centuries, a lot of young people left the Palatinate, as the land, split too often among too many offspring, in many cases hardly delivered enough to provide for one family. Many of these younger siblings that couldn’t be provided for, tried to make their own way overseas, and settled in Pennsylvania or other parts of the US.

Today, many wine growers send their children to California – to study different methods and traditions of viticulture in the Napa Valley and other famous wine regions. But it is clear that J. would never consider leaving his home region for good. America? Not for him, and it is clear that he almost feels sorry for us for having to live there, as he sees it.

His pride and his interest are focused on his product, on his peers. He and maybe a handful of other outstanding vintners have brought prosperity to their village that had seen less fortunate times before. He is successful in his world, and what lies behind that world’s limits? – He couldn’t care less.

"All creatures drink joy At the breasts of nature", goes Schiller's text that Beethoven chose for his Ninth symphony, and: "Kisses gave she us, and wine"...


J. may never get as rich as some deftly calculating start-up entrepreneur who sells out to financially potent investors at a certain point. He may never become a cosmopolitan with a refined understanding of or taste for different cultures. But maybe this is a price worth paying for an imperturbable self-confidence?

Joy, beautiful spark of gods...

Summer in Germany: The Rheinland

City on the Rhine I: Cologne

Köln Hauptbahnhof: the central train station

Cologne Cathedral and the Ludwig Museum

river promenade

"Südkai": My favourite lounge

Lukas Podolski´s new apartment will be right here: Kranhäuser in Cologne


City on the Rhine II: Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf´s skyline


Mannesmann tower

The new harbour


Waterside promenade