In Germany for Nexus Con, Part 2

digresssmlOriginally published December 14, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1465

The name of the restaurant in Berlin was, of all things, the American Western saloon. Never in a million years would have I gone anywhere near the place, even in America, but I had been doing my Q&A with the German audience at the Nexus Resurrection convention while my daughter Gwen had gone on ahead to get something to eat. This was the restaurant at the convention center. So that’s where they took her.

I walked in and was stunned.

The décor was beyond belief. The “saloon” was jam packed with all sorts of icons of the American west… such as the 1997 Queens phone book, or a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Clearly they’d simply decorated it with anything that vaguely smacked of America. What was even more bizarre, though, was the spectacle on the dance floor. Germans, about a dozen, clad in cowboy hats, boots, gaudy western shirts that looked like something you’d see on Grand Ole Opry, were out on the dance floor, and they were line dancing in perfect synchronization to “Achy Breaky Heart.”

I’m not a big fan of country western in general, and “Achy Breaky Heart” may in fact be one of the most annoying songs ever written. But there was so much entertainment value in watching these people so enamored of Americana that they were country line dancing that it provided serious giggle value.

The song ended. A new one started: “Islands in the Stream.”

To my horror, they started line dancing again.

To “Islands in the Stream.”

Now c’mon.

“Islands in the Stream,” you take your significant other and you slow dance. You don’t frickin’ line dance to “Islands in the Stream.” You don’t. It’s just wrong. But that’s precisely what they were doing. Watching people line-dancing to that number can’t help but put you in the mindframe of, “Well of course they’re dancing in unison to everything. They’re Germans. They can’t help it.” You don’t want to think that, but there it is right in front of you. Line dancing to “Islands in the Stream.”

Yeesh.

I know, I know, we have German restaurants in the states, and they might be just as laughable to a German citizen as an “American” restaurant is to us. But I submit that you’d have to look far and wide before you find a bunch of Americans going to the local German restaurant wearing Leiderhausen and doing the Duck Dance, even when it’s Oktoberfest.

I made my way past the eerily dancing Germans, joined Gwen at her table and had a hamburger. That turned out to be an unfortunate choice, for it remained a bosom friend in my stomach for much of the night, lying there like a rock. As I dealt with this apparently permanent addition to my digestive tract, not to mention some severe jetlag, I started flipping through German television at about 12:30 at night.

Whoa.

There were only three types of programming on that I could find: Sex. News channels. And dubbed versions of American sitcoms. So there I sat, with the remote, clicking rhythmically away. Sex. Sex. Sex. Larry King. Sex. Sex. Frasier. Sex.

Now it’s not as if I can’t stumble upon overheated passion if I’m channel surfing late night at home. But that’s a few channels out of, I dunno, seventy. This television had significantly fewer channels, but proportionately far more devoted to sex. Here was a woman having sex with a man. Here was a woman having sex with a woman. Here was a woman having sex with an electric guitar (seriously. I’m not making this up, right hand to God.)

I have no idea whether Germans are watching sex on TV to get them in the mood for the real thing, or whether the real thing is in short supply and TV is a substitute, or what. But I’m beginning to suspect that the reason the Berlin wall came down was because they were all looking for new people to have sex with. All the people in East Berlin saying, “What? There’s other people there we can sleep with? Great! Oh dámņ! There’s a wall in the way! Quick, knock it down!” Geez, I had no clue. I mean, you don’t generally associate Germans with hot bloodedness. Italians, French, okay, they have the rep for being sex obsessed, but Germans? Holy crow. But hey… it beats invading Poland, right?

The convention over the next two days was very interesting, as such things always are when one goes abroad. I was impressed by the number of people who bought my work in English, obviously feeling a tad superior to those who wait for the German-language editions.

I was tapped to be a judge for the masquerade. The weird highlight was a girl slathered in green make-up as an Orion dancing girl, doing a way-too-long gyration on stage. And, oh man, what is it with European women and underarm hair, will someone tell me? With the body make-up she was wearing, every time she raised her arms it was like she had seaweed billowing out of her armpits. I kept looking studiously at the scoring sheet. There were only eight contestants, so we wound up giving prizes to everyone so no one felt left out.

We also managed to get in some sightseeing. We went to the site of the Berlin wall, and Gwen stood on the small stone path in the street which is the only thing left of the former structure. She stood with one foot on either side, effectively straddling East and West Berlin. We swung by Checkpoint Charlie, once a forbidding place with guards and dogs. Now it’s a tourist attraction with mobs of schoolkids getting their photos taken and Checkpoint Charlie Souvenir shops.

We also took in the newly opened Jewish Museum. Because, you know, naturally, if you’re in Germany, you want to go to a Jewish Museum. I have to tell you, the Holocaust exhibit was tough to take. Rather manipulatively designed, the hallways were long and stark, and there were windows displays showing personal possessions of people who had died in the ovens or gas showers of the Concentration camps. Little things. Eyeglasses, or books, or children’s toys. Letters from two lovers writing to each other from separate camps, both doomed. I’ve never seen the word “murdered” used so many times in any museum piece as I did in the descriptions of the former owners which accompanied each display. At the end of one hallway, there was a large door and a guard, and he said, “Sorry, there’s people already in here, you have to wait.”

“What would I be waiting for?” I asked.

“It’s the Holocaust room,” he explained. “It simulates what it was like being put into the transports to the camp.”

I started to tremble. “I can’t deal with that,” I said simply, turned and walked away, seeking refuge in the upper floors of the museum which turned out to house fascinatingly detailed accounts of Jewish history in general.

One remains struck by a recurring theme throughout history: Blame the Jews. That’s why I get worried about the war in Afghanistan. I keep thinking that, sooner or later, Americans are going to turn around and say, “If it weren’t for Israel, we wouldn’t be in this situation, the World Trade Center would still be standing, and we wouldn’t be worrying about Anthrax. Ðámņëd Jews causing nothing but trouble.”

That evening we ate at an Argentine steak house. At one point the waiter brought me the entrée and, as he handed me the plate, said something in German. Turns out what he was saying was, “Be careful, sir, the plate is very hot.” I figured that out about two seconds after I dropped it with my hands sizzling. Actually, it was rather impressive. During the entirety of the convention, we wound up never eating in a restaurant that actually served German food.

All in all, it was a fairly positive experience. Still, as I stood on the corner of the street where my grandfather’s shoe store had once sat, I imagined I could hear glass shattering and the cries of “Juden!” filling the air. It seemed very real, and angered me. Modern Germans will say that they shouldn’t be held responsible or blamed for the sins of the fathers. There’s some truth in that, I suppose, but it gets very little sympathy from me. After all, it wasn’t until the late 20th Century that the Church got around to officially letting Jews off the hook for actions allegedly taken nearly two thousand years ago. When I was in Junior High, a kid I considered my best friend called me a Christ Killer and said he wished my parents had died in ovens. So apparently it’s human nature to hold a grudge.

Gotta try and do something about that.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

7 comments on “In Germany for Nexus Con, Part 2

  1. About the only thing I remember from my college German courses is that Germans LOVE westerns.

  2. I’m kinda sad about the impressions you got about Germany and its people when you were there. Berlin is a very atypical city for Germany, there is nothing like it again in this country.

  3. German Western enthusiasts know more about the real American West than most USAians do.

    There is (or was) an annual “Western Town” called (i think) “Little Hot Gun Town” – kinda like a Dodge City Ren Faire – and i remember someone quoting one of the participants twenty or more years ago to that effect; he said most Americans don’t even know Wild Bill Hickock’s real name.

  4. I tremble for the impressions I’m left with, either of modern Germany or of the American West.

    The American West was NOT full of gun play. Most people in the old West were ranchers or farmers, and if you want to know what that really was all about, pick up a book (like The Kearney & Black Hills) on American frontier railroading. Yes, Billy the Kid was great for a dime-store novel; but, seriously: Does anyone really believe that America in the Fifties was Metropolis and Superman?

    The same with the Old West. Wyatt Earp used his Buntline Special in Wichita primarily as a club against drunks — he hit them with it to knock them out. You don’t make the saloon owners happy by filling their customers with .44 slugs. The name of the game was to toss the rowdy cowboy into the pokey for the night until he sobered up — which is pretty much what one does today.

    As for the OK Corral, the entire incident filled less than a morning, and the actual gun fight took about 90 seconds — this in a life that was, itself, unusual and did not end till 1930!

    That is when Wyatt Earp died; John Wayne actually was at his funeral (and Tom Mix too). Earp actually made it to about 86.

    American Westerns are mini-morality plays, and “the West” is just the setting. The real West was something VERY different.

    Modern Germany also is very different, at least in terms of the Germany of Hitler. And, believe it or not, it is common among MOST European women not to shave their pineal hair (this is not a practice unique to Germany). Modern Germans take the Holocaust VERY seriously — it’s actually illegal in Germany to advocate Nazism today (something that is not true in Skokie, Illinois). The Holocaust Museum, Peter, is not a tourist trap; the museum exists primarily as a reminder to GERMANS.

    I read with interest Peter’s remembrance of his grandfather and Kristallnacht. And, it certainly is not wrong to remember the consequences.

    But, there is more to the Holocaust than endless photos of the gas chambers or the bodies. Had it not been for the consequences, Kristallnacht would have been viewed today more as a laughable farce than anything else. Yes, we do know the consequences (and should not forget them); but, does anyone reading this actually know the cause?

    The answer is more shocking than one might imagine. It would take too long to relate it all here, but pick up a copy of Robert Conot’s Justice at Nuremberg for an illuminating and concise account. What you’ll learn is that Kristallnacht was a government screw-up, and “fining” the Jews to make them pay for the “consequences” was merely the Nazis way to cover it all up. Yes, the Jews owned the businesses, and the riot was directed against them; but, a lot of the goods were gentile goods moving on Jewish credit, and a lot of the shops, themselves, were rented — from gentiles (the Nazis learned the next day they had broken a lot of their own windows!). Germany made no plate glass in those days; all of it had to be imported from places like Belgium (which did). And, the total amount of glass destroyed amounted to about one-fourth of Belgium’s annual production.

    Surprise: It was all insured! So, what the Nazis suddenly were facing was a very large bill from the insurance companies which could not be ignored without wrecking the companies; and, because Germany had been taken off the gold standard early in Nazi administration, things like plate glass had to be paid for with foreign exchange (the mark no longer had any international value).

    The solution was to blame the Jews for having had their shops wrecked and truck them off to concentration camp to “work off” the “debt.” The sign over Auschwitz reads, “Arbeit macht frei” — work makes you free. Gassing all those who couldn’t work — getting rid of “useless eaters” — came later.

    Concentration camps were not unique to Germany (there were camps in America too). Don’t tell me this is not true (friends of my family were in them). True: We gassed no one (that WOULD have been a clear violation of the Constitution); but, for want of having done that, the Supreme Court found a way to justify the rest. Read Korematsu if you don’t believe me.

    It is, of course, one of the very characteristics of socialistic government that it seeks out sacrificial victims to fund its operations. The name of the victimized group will change from regime to regime; the fundamental, underlying process will always be the same. Any government which robs Peter to pay Paul does so to gain the support of Paul. Germans BENEFITTED from the Nazis predatory practices. Yes, they could not vote on the matter, but never forget that almost 6 million of them were willing to die to make it so.

    That counts more to history than occasionally filling out a ballot.

    A modern Polish joke runs: “It’s all the fault of the cyclists and the Jews!” — the idea being to induce the listener to ask, “Why the cyclists?” Answer: “Why the Jews?”

    But, the inquiry should not stop there. To “why the Jews?” I would add, “Why the ‘Japs’ or, for that matter, why the one-percenters?” For, the moral failure is the same. The Germans were (and still are) among the most law-abiding people on earth. But, they either forgot or more likely never learned that there is a difference between law and mere form of law. What the Nazis offered was mere form of law — and it is that, standing alone, which makes possible the greatest of horrors.

    America is venturing down that path today. Of course, only an extremist would argue that Obama’s next stop after the Affordable Care Act is to lock up the “fat cats” and either work them to death or murder them outright. But, make no mistake about it: We have taken a significant step down that road. We’ve killed no one yet, sacrificed no group that can be isolated, nor is anyone expecting that we will.

    But, we have broken the glass.

    1. Wyatt Earp was a thug and the OK Corral was essentially a showdown between two gangs to decide which owned the turf.

      Yes, the West of movies is mythology, but there is a point to it.

      As to

      It is, of course, one of the very characteristics of socialistic government that it seeks out sacrificial victims to fund its operations.

      the “National Socialist” party was not what is generally meant by “socialist” in English.

      Say, rather, “of totalitarian governments” – in general.

      1. I readily would agree, Mike, that Hitler was far from a purist when it came to fascism. As Turner pointed out, Hitler believed in the primacy of politics, not economics, and the economics he favored in the moment was whatever kept him in power.

        In this sense, he was different from Mussolini, and that makes Hitler a limited example when it comes to criticising fascism.

        Racism or religious prejudice does NOT have to be attached to it.

        At the same time, fascism remains the German form of socialism (the other major form is communism). The differences are primarily administrative, and the internal requirement remains the same. There must be some Peter to rob to pay Paul. And, in all cases, it always will be possible to trot out legions of Pauls, who will glowingly describe how they were benefitted by the program.

        Surprise, surprise: Most of them WILL be telling the truth.

        Consider, however, the Nazi reaction to “the Jewish problem.” Here the Nazi might argue something like this:

        “Nazis never wanted to murder the Jews, just remove them from Germany. But, the international Jewish financial conspiracy and Jewish Bolshevism prevented Germany from accomplishing this by peaceful, legal means and, instead, plunged Germany into a war its people did not really want. Now the Volk are suffering, and its the fault of the Jewish financiers who arranged to bring on the conflict. Under such conditions, Germany can feed only 80 per cent of its people, and because some must starve in any event (given the continuation of the war), it’s only proper that those who pay the piper be those who caused the problem. So, if the Allies bomb Hamburg, and Germans lose their homes as a result, the German Government has full power and authority to seize a Jewish home, give that house to the suffering German, and send the Jew to a special place to work off the debt. ‘Arbeit macht frei,’ and as for those who cannot work (the weak, the infirm), they are naught but ‘useless eaters’ ultimately making the underlying problem all the worse.

        “Pass the Giftgas! (The teeth are full of gold.)”

        Which is pretty much my take on the Wannsee Conference.

        Well, wait a minute: This is not terribly civilized behavior; but, it is behavior which becomes possible when one STARTS with the assumption that, SOMEHOW, socialist-terrorist schemes should “work.” In Nazi Germany, the Jews were selected as the victims, but having JEWISH victims is not an essential element of fascism. Rather, that was just the historical feature attached specifically to Nazi Germany, as manifested in the personal prejudices of Hitler and, perhaps more importantly, some of the men around Hitler. Fascism in the United States was more diffuse, but it still requires SOMEWHERE a Peter to pay Paul.

        TANSTAAFL: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

  5. The German fascination with the American West goes stranger with some dressing as Native Americans with feathers and garb.

    Thanks for sharing your experiences at the Holocaust museum. I’m afraid antisemitism is forever. It might’ve been photoshopped but there was a Ferguson banner blaming the Jews for creating the tension.
    gah.

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