German Autumn

Bombed Cemetery

Bombed Cemetery On a bridge in Hamburg there is a man standing selling a little gadget: fastened to an ordinary knife, it is meant to give a more economical method of peeling potatoes. He puts on such a show when he demonstrates how using this new invention the potato-peel can be as thin as anyone could want, that all of us, who have been standing at the railing watching how heavy black barges loaded with rubble are poled up the canal, turn away and gather round him. No one is likely to satisfy his hunger by joking about it, even in Hamburg, but to be able to laugh at it provides an entertaining form of forgetfulness which the people of this hungry land are seldom willing to forgo. The man on the bridge holds up his solitary little demonstration-potato in the autumn sun and announces that it's a devil of a job peeling potatoes as big as those allowed by the rations ... A fishmonger near by shows the same kind of humour when he puts up a huge, indignant notice in his empty shopwindow : 'Imagine raising the fish rations now when we're so short of wrapping-paper.' He gets the laughers on his side, if not the buyers, yet. But at one end of the bridge there is a tram-stop. A 27 little old woman with a big sack of potatoes has just mounted the platform when the tram sets off. The sack tips over, the string loosens, the old lady screams as the tram rolls by us and the potatoes begin to drum on the roadway. A violent stir is felt among those crowded about the street-seller and when the tram has passed he is standing almost alone by the railing while his audience scuffle over the potatoes among hooting English army cars and Volkswagens in war-paint. Schoolchildren fill their satchels, workers stuff their pockets full, housewifes open their handbags for Germany's most sought-after fruit, and two minutes later, laughing and eager to buy, they have surrounded the seller of the device intended to procure Germany's thinnest potato-peel - after one of those abrupt switches from fury to friendliness which make the people of Hamburg so exciting and so risky to mix with. But why does Fraulein S. not laugh? As I leave the bridge with her I ask her right out why she did not laugh, but instead of answering she says bitterly: 'That's Germany today - risk your life for a potato.' But in fact not laughing at the need on the streets of Hamburg is only what could be expected of Fraulein S. Since the collapse of Germany she has been working in a labour office in Hamburg but before that she had a fishmonger's shop that was burnt up in the celluloid bombing in 1943. Now she spends two hours each day inspecting a district of ruins, checking that those capable of work are at work, and seeing to it that those who cannot look after themselves are cared for. The person who introduced me to Fraulein S. confided in me that she is one of the many Germans 28 who are Nazis without knowing it and who would be mortally offended if anyone dared to suggest that her views were similar to those of the Nazis. Fraulein S. is said to be very bitter but at the same time grateful for a job that gives her the chance of keeping her bitterness on the boil. She is undoubtedly an energetic and go-ahead person, but she is also a confirmation of the idea held by many, though of course not all, anti-Nazis: that dubious opinions are the price of energy in today's Germany. It is tempting to talk politics with someone who does not realize that one knows something about them, especially if that someone is German and is supposed to have Nazi sympathies without being aware of the fact. Which party does such a person vote for? (Local elections have just been held in Hamburg.) Fraulein S. answers without a moment's hesitation. For her there was only one party, 'the Social Democrats of course', but on further questioning - 'why exactly them?' - she can give no more rational explanation than the majority of SDP voters. In fact like most Germans of her way of thinking Fraulein S. chose...