I Sleep in Hitler's Room (42 page)

I look at him. No, he’s not the one who collaborates with Herrmann of the Köln Wailing Wall. No. I don’t think so.

We both look at the landscape, admiring it, and he tells me what he’s looking at.

Saxony’s Swiss Alps. Yep, that’s what they call the area on the horizon.

This man could be a child of a Rubble Woman, or so the thought runs through my head.

What a heavy history this country must constantly deal with.

On German TV and in the press they keep on talking about the Love Parade in Duisburg. The number of injured people rises to more than five hundred. And the international media get busy on this story as well.

The
Telegraph
reports: Mayor of Love Parade city mobbed as he visits site.

“You greedy idiot!” yelled one. “Resign, you coward,” yelled another. One man hurled rubbish at him from a street bin.

Adolf Sauerland is one of the funniest and most capable men I met during this journey. He works hard to please every segment of the population in Duisburg. But now he appears to be one of the most hated men there. How the fortunes of a man can turn so quickly!

The German media, as far as I read, calls for his ouster.

Maybe they’re right. But isn’t it too early to judge? Why jump to conclusions when the facts are so few? Couldn’t it be that the techno lovers, not known for their quiet manners, are responsible for what happened? Or, at the least, should share the blame? Weren’t they the ones who stepped over the others, crushing the weaker bodies to death?

That’s what really happened, isn’t it?

Were any of these people arrested? Interrogated for manslaughter? Not that I can tell.

Nobody in the media points an accusing finger at the actual people involved, the festivalgoers who smashed to death their fellow revelers. They don’t get their fair share of blame. They’re the victims, seems to be the overriding assumption of journalists, people who are not supposed to be judges to begin with.

Why can no one point a finger at the festivalgoers? Are they above blame just because they’re not officials?

I am never wrong, seems to be the motto, as long as I am just a citizen. It’s always the government. The authorities.

The leaders.

And the German media are dancing along.

I should ask Paul Adenauer for his thoughts on this.

Yesterday I skipped breakfast at the hotel I stayed at. It was a three-star hotel. I can’t eat that food. I got used to the food of the five-star Excelsior and Elephant. Food I deserve, like Adolfy. But the food yesterday was horrible. Good enough for third-class people, perhaps, but not for nobles like me. Today, in Dresden, I ‘m in a four-star hotel. Let’s see if it’s worthy for humans. I mean, real humans. The Select. The superhuman. The chosen.

Well, it’s OK. I mean, it’s edible. Not highly, though. Maybe I should have some fruit.

I should be a king. Kings have good food. Or a politician. I am sure Obama eats well. Merkel too. I’d love to be Ludwig, that king.

While thinking it over, how to establish my kingdom in Dresden, I decide I should start by practicing. No work today. No interviews. Just walking about town and being served. Why not?

And so I walk the streets of Dresden. To get a feeling for my people, the folks who will pay me taxes.

As I walk, analyzing my citizens, I check them out. Here are some beautiful girls who soon will be my maids, and there are some finely dressed men, soon my slaves.

And to my right, believe it or not, is the Hygiene Museum.

Who the heck invented that?

I enter, King Tuvia the First.

I thought, forgive my ignorance, that I’d find here a whole panoply of shampoos, soaps, toothpastes, and maybe a lemon or two.

But no. The first things I notice are kiosks. Yes. Computers abound in this museum.

Let me read what’s on the mind of my taxpaying people: “Per kiss, 12–18 calories are burned and 300 bacteria are exchanged.” “There is life after death for those who believe and for their relatives.” “Blue—the color of peace.” Is this scholarly research or the imagination of a sick of mind? Let me read more.

To promote one’s health: “A stable sense of self-worth.” “A positive relationship with one’s own body . . .” I can’t read anymore. After only half a normal breakfast, I can’t work my brain too hard. Any movies here? Oh yes. Here’s one about birth. A woman is giving birth. From
A
to
Z
, all the details. And all the blood. And the umbilical cord too. Just like this, and then the baby comes out. I have never seen anything like it.

And here is a big board with one question and many answers. About sex.

Question: Wie war dein erster sex? (How was your first sexual experience?)

“Scheiße,” says one. “Wie meine erste Fahrstunde” (Like my first driving lesson), says another. “Peinlich” (Embarrassing), says a third.

One room here has models of three naked women. In the next room: a man with a penis that’s almost as big as the rest of his body. Note: Kai Diekmann’s is bigger.

Moving along: There’s an exhibition about aging and death. Thank you.

In between, in case you have an inquiring mind, you can see here all kinds of body parts, cells, and DNA. If you ever wanted to see how your kidneys look, come here.

I leave this museum and go to my castle, in the center of town.

I stop at the Frauenkirche on the way. If I am to be a king, let me play a good Christian.

Everything in this church is beautiful. And clean. Great hygiene is practiced here, and I mean real hygiene.

This church might look like the church of ages ago, but it’s obviously new. Reconstructed.

Old churches convey a sense of glory and power that comes with age, but this church conveys beauty and youthfulness. The old churches, it would be fair to assume, radiated the same senses when originally built.

I go to the Zwinger, to see some
Alte Meister
(Old Masters).

Here’s The Trinity, by Lucas Cranach, 1516/18.

This one is a small painting, but it captures the idea of the Trinity precisely because it’s so small. Old Papa with a long beard, that’s God, having His son Jesus on one side and a dove, the Holy Ghost, on the other. The whole idea of Christianity in one striking visual image. A story: Papa, son, dove. End of story—and the start of faith.

And for this, millions upon millions died and will most likely continue to die. Striking!

You wouldn’t believe anybody would be killed for the images in this painting.

But you’d be wrong.

Beautiful.

Outside, a group of Israeli tourists pass by. I catch a conversation, held pretty loud, between a man and a woman.

He, pointing at the Zwinger: “This is the castle of the king.”

She: “You mean, like King Solomon?”

Funny, no one in this group finds this little dialogue absurd.

I check the news, as I have nothing better to do. Calls for Adolf Sauerland to resign increase, according to media reports.

It’s not so easy to be a king nowadays, the thought comes to me.

I think about my kingdom with fresh eyes and decide right here and now that I don’t want to be a king anymore. Unlike King Solomon, I would not be able to hoard concubines in the Zwinger if I were appointed king today. Imagine if they put my picture, next to my 999 women, in all the papers and blogs. All Germany would call for my immediate resignation.

I officially give up the idea of moving into the Zwinger.

Instead I take the tram, one of them, and take it to the last stop.

I am in Hallerau now. God knows what this place is all about. Small and medium-sized houses are all over, and no soul walking the streets and gardens. But wait, here’s a man and his dog. He speaks unto me: “This area was founded by Nazi Party members before the war. They used their money to invest after the rise of Hitler. They were sure that life would be good. They survived the bombardments of 1945, because they weren’t in the city. After the war, these Nazi officials fled to the west of Germany. To Frankfurt and other places. The houses they left behind were seized by the government and given to people who had lost their homes during the bombardment of Dresden in 1945. After the Wall came down, the government returned the houses to the original owners, or their families, if they could prove that they, or their families, owned them before the seizure. Of those, some came to live here and others sold their properties. My family, I am lucky, didn’t have to leave our house. Nobody asked for it, and the government offered the house to us to buy at a very cheap rate. My grandmother was a minister, from the Communist Party, before the war.”

Oh God, these people have a very complicated history. I board the tram again and take it back into the city of Dresden.

“Germans don’t enjoy life,” Peter Förster, artistic director of Sommer Theater Dresden, tells me. “Our parents teach us to be good at our work, to have a good education and to work hard. But nobody told us to sit down in the sun, drink good wine, and enjoy life.”

What’s the problem with the Germans? Why are the parents like this?

“They think it’s not important in life. They think life is about having enough money in the bank and about ensuring financial security in the future. They’re not like the Italians, who take off in the middle of the day to eat and drink.”

Why aren’t they like the Italians?

“Germans don’t know how to laugh. Looking at myself, I realize I learned to laugh only six years ago. It was very hard for me. What happened was that I had cancer and it was then that I learned to laugh. It was after the operation, for my cancer. I didn’t eat for three days, and then I was told I could eat. It took me ten minutes to walk from my bed to the table. A nurse came by and she took the shit from a patient in a bed next to me, just as I tried to put the food in my mouth. The smell was so horrible that I lost my appetite. And suddenly I burst into laughter. That’s when I learned to laugh. And I started writing comedies. That was the breakthrough. I became free. On the next day, I was very hungry. The nurse came and gave me my food. And then she took the shit from that man again. But I ate! I was laughing so hard, but I ate!

“That was my total deliverance!”

Does Germany need cancer, to learn how to laugh . . .?

“Could be . . .”

World War II was not enough?

“I didn’t do anything to deserve the cancer, but the German nation did. One actor I know, his grandfather was the man who constructed the crematoriums in the KZ. When I learned of it, at that moment the story of World War II became a personal story to me. In my parents’ generation they tried to shove these stories under the rug, and what they did is work hard at being perfect in their work and at their jobs. The result of this was that they were detached from their feelings. The effects of that behavior still haunt the younger generation of Germany today. Life, this system of thought says, cannot be beautiful. Not really.”

But there are beautiful places, like Meißen.

Do you know Meißen? I didn’t either, but now I am in Meißen.

An elderly couple stands at the window of their apartment on the second floor. They look out at the people below, me included, and they talk. Did they demonstrate against the GDR? I ask them. Yes, they participated in demonstrations for freedom during the GDR era, but “now we have freedom. Old people with freedom. If we didn’t demonstrate we might not have ‘freedom,’ but we would have good health care. We made a mistake, we didn’t know. They were better, those days.”

Of course, not everyone in Meißen has such a bleak outlook on life. Take, for example, Gottfried Herrlich, owner of Vincenz Richter here in town.

My psyche or, more precisely, my stomach demands good food, the five-star variety. If I don’t get it I might collapse. Yes. I was born to be rich, seriously.

“On Sunday afternoon,” Gottfried preaches, “when God was relaxed and felt very good, He created the Vincenz Richter restaurant.”

If you really want to know Germany, you have to go to a wine restaurant, like Vincenz Richter, and there you will find the German soul.