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Germany
by Adam Petty
Features Editor
FILE PHOTO
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To start at the end: when arriving at the Detroit airport at the end of our trip, I overheard a woman carrying a large suitcase say clearly, in English, “Oh my gosh, that’s heavy.” After mentally translating this into, “Ach, es ist so schwierig,” I realized that I could immediately understand what this woman, a stranger, was saying, without having to do a quick grammar review. After a month of hearing only German spoken in public places, it was unusual to have such an instance of effortless comprehension. I was home again, and it felt strange.
It could be said that this was part of the intention of our program. Our leader, Professor David Smith, made it a point of reminding us that we were in Germany not to be tourists, but rather to be guests. We were there in order to familiarize ourselves with what might have been strange, and consequently, when we returned home, to strangify, I suppose, what is familiar. (I’m sure the Germans have a word for that somewhere, as they have a word for everything.) Seeing a country as a foreigner, things that those living there may take for granted seem unusual and intriguing. It was this kind of vision that our group tried to cultivate, and to return home with.
For me, the most effective and enjoyable occasions of seeing with a foreigner’s eyes were our two stays with host families, which lasted four and three days, respectively. The first was in Husum, a small town near the North Sea, and the second in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Catholic church in town. As interesting as one may have been, no Lutheran/Calvinist turf war broke out while we were there.)
A good home life appeared very important to the families that I stayed with, and their preferred way of bringing the family together was to eat together as often as possible, oftentimes four and even five meals a day. Once while we were in Wittenberg, I felt an unaccustomed sensation in my chest, and then realized what it was:
hunger.
(As a side note, while we were in Wittenberg the photo below was taken for the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, the newspaper for the area. This photo appeared on the front page and was seen by one million subscribers.)
But beyond the most immediately recognizable aspects of German life lie complexities difficult for even those living there to understand. Between Nazism, Communism, and the reunification of the former East and West Germany, the country saw some of the worst and the best that the 20th century had to offer. On tours of cities and in conversations with people, we were constantly reminded of the sheer historical weight which Germans consider it their duty to carry. Hardly a week goes by when some documentary on Nazism or the Holocaust does not air on German television. Both concentration camps and East German Communist prisons are now used as museums to educate the German and international public about what occurred in Germany’s past. Our tour of a Communist prison in Berlin was actually led by a former prisoner, something of an unreal experience for myself, so I can hardly imagine what it was like for him.
Throughout our trip, we tried to speak with Germans in their own language whenever we could, however haltingly. My German is passable, but by no means am I close to fluency. Still, most Germans seemed patient with our speech, and often said that they were pleasantly surprised to have Americans even try to speak German with them. (Many Germans speak English well, especially those with jobs involving tourism.) Though there were times when I did feel frustrated with my German, it was nice to know that the efforts we did make were noticed, and furthermore, appreciated.
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