Don't walk on the grass
Germany was once famous for making rules. In the 1960s, we went liberal in a rather orderly sort of way. Now, we aren't quite sure. But as I stand on an upper floor of the Reichstag looking down over the lawn stretching from the Reichstag towards the brand new Chancellory (known as the washing machine), I see that something is stirring. Little men in blue workmen's outfits are erecting a metal fence around the lawn. People, you see, have been walking on it.
They used to do more than walk on it. The patch of grass in the shadow of the enormous, pompous, ruined Reichstag became, in the 1970s, a haven of anti-pomposity. West Berliners used it for picnics, for kickabouts and frisbee tournaments, as if thereby exorcising the bad spirits of the place. There was always some kind of party going on here, long before Reagan came up and the wall came down, before Christo wrapped the Reichstag and before Norman Foster put that funny glass dome on it. It all stopped when the place was turned into a huge building site. They needed to fit in a couple of major roads, train tunnels, metro stations and parking decks under the Reichstag. But after the upheaval, it was all going to be as it had been before.
It is not. Football is not good for the lawn, the authorities now say. Not good for political grandeur, is what they probably mean (can you imagine football in the Horse Guards Parade?). Berlin has no money to care for the lawn, they argue, so Berlin doesn't want the grass damaged. A raging discussion filled the Berlin papers for weeks. The football enthusiasts threatened to take legal action. The footballing trespassers were, in turn, threatened with a police fine of E50 per head. It stopped the kickabouts, but didn't make the lawn look any better. This was noted in the highest places. The grass is "stressed," specialists discovered. A metal fence was ordered as a destressing device.
These little arguments-and bigger ones too-have a way of getting out of proportion in Germany. The country has been in a particularly bad mood these past few months as another round in the economic reform debate has trundled on weighed down with the usual hyperbolic stuff about "crisis," "collapse" and "outrageous" attacks on the welfare state.
The Social Democrats have been agonising for months about whether to back another reform package, supposed to loosen up the system. A very small package. A very big agonising. Even so, the phrase "general strike" has been heard from some union leaders. It is all quite ridiculous, of course. Gerhard Schr?der's reform will not end the welfare state, nor the economic sluggishness of a sated land.
Germany needs a good kick up the pants, no question. But autobahns are still built, trains run on time, the rubbish is collected (after being divided into different recyclable categories) and public buildings are well maintained. A German Maggie Thatcher is not on the horizon, however many handbags the opposition leader Angela Merkel may swing around. Germany's political system of intricate checks and balances would not allow a Maggie-indeed it does not allow very much at all. Which means that every small reform has to be accompanied by a huge amount of huffing and puffing and a game of political multidimensional chess. It is all very ennervating, but it seems to be how Germany creeps forward.
The footballers who want to kick about in front of the Reichstag have finally relented. They will find themselves another piece of lawn to torture for a while, before the Berlin authorities can provide the new sports ground they have promised close by. The public "Reichstag football ground" should be open in two or three years. Its ground will be drained, the lawn especially fortified. It will cost roughly ?10m to build. Crisis? What crisis?
The strange death of a liberal
There is still a violent and tragic streak beneath the banal surface of German public life. It was only a bit over ten years ago that two leading businessmen were assassinated and an attempt was made on the life of Oskar Lafontaine. Now J?rgen M?llemann, the former Free Democrat economics minister, has killed himself in a bizarrely exhibitionist manner: at some 1,500 metres and falling, he apparently freed himself from his parachute and fell. This being Germany, the Nazi past is not far beneath the surface. M?llemann was a passionate supporter of the Arab cause and challenged Germany's unwavering support for Israel, which he attributed to "Holocaust guilt." In the final stages of last September's general election campaign he arranged for 8m leaflets to be distributed in North Rhine Westphalia. The leaflets were not only highly critical of Ariel Sharon but of Michel Friedman, a prominent German Jew. This caused a storm and M?llemann was accused of pandering to the far right. His political career was over. Moreover, in early June parliament lifted his immunity so the police could investigate his tax affairs and the whole question of who paid for those leaflets. It seems that rather than face all this he took the final jump of his life.
