Thank God that she never got a German passport either.
The magic word is simply adaptation.
During the time, which I believe was almost forty years altogether, in which I had my permanent residence abroad here and there, I had to integrate and adapt myself there. In almost all countries, I had to leave the country and re-enter the particular country at least after five years. I also was allowed to do business only with the participation of a local person.
I had forty-nine percent stakes, my partner had forty-nine and two percent was a neutral part, for example, held by a notary public or a lawyer. And you could buy that, if you wanted to have the majority shares. I believe that it is not the case anymore today. We are globalized.
I also notice globalization through the many new occupational titles.
I still cannot get used to the fanciful designations for a job. Where is the handcraft in our golden soil?
Are we not proud any more to be German?
To whom are we continuing to selling ourselves? What do we get in exchange for not having an identity anymore? A production assistant was formerly called a worker. Who knows a Food Designer or a Food Agent? And what is the meaning of this name?
As a chef in the kitchen I would now be called Food Production Manager - what on earth is that? Earlier you could see chefs wearing a white chef’s jacket but now they wear black, like chimney sweepers.
Even TV chefs have dingy T-Shirts and smelly sneakers in a kitchen.
Thank God we cannot smell through television, not to mention the rings and watches on their hands. From this point of view, one should not be surprised if a whole nation gets the epidemic.
I see how chefs wear latex gloves that is very good. But they do everything wearing these gloves, right up to going to the toilets. What is the sense of it?
There are now thousands of terms, which I cannot begin to comprehend. If it were at least English or pure Chinese, you could look them up in a dictionary. But the best that is available on the market it is the so-called "intern"- I would say: cheap workers.
As a foreigner to demonstrate for your religious rights for example in Egypt - unthinkable. Child benefit? Where is that available in the Orient? Health insurance? Yes, if you have money. And not to mention other things. Tolerance is a beautiful word. If it is exercised, it is even better.
However, tolerance should not be just one-sided. I wonder what would happen if you wanted to build a Christian church in Saudi Arabia.
Its tower should however be higher than a minaret, there should be a cross on the spire and of course there should be at least five huge bells, which would be rung once every hour. What would happen? Why is it that the few Christians who actually exist in Islamic countries, always draw the short straw?
Why are only the Copts responsible for waste disposal in Cairo, for example? No, not in a car, but with the donkey and carrying the garbage in rubbish bins on their heads from the houses.
If a foreigner is living in Germany for thirty years, he knows with certainty how we are wired. So I know what is going on in certain countries. Life in this world is not easy.
Why do so many want to go to Europe, Germany? Certainly not because they love us. They just love the Euro and the social benefits.
Although I was respected abroad, no one had loved me, except for a few women, but that is a different story. You can say that I am an individual case. But that doesn't matter. I know the mentality of the people in the country, where I am a guest. And I respect them and adapt myself there.
Why don’t we hear just negative things about Indians or other minorities? Why can these races adapt themselves? Although I speak Arabic, Greek, and English almost perfectly, I can also speak some Turkish and Urdu as well as Sinhala and Hindi.
I never needed an interpreter and I can get along with the “multi-culti”.
Only my Spanish is absolutely preposterous. I am probably too old.
If you have been living abroad for forty years, mainly in Arabic-speaking countries, you know the people to some extent. Those who did not make it in Germany or elsewhere in the West and had come back, were not impressed and were also no longer fans of the West. I had some trouble with such people.
Only as a foreigner, you had to eat humble pie. In contrast to Germany, where the foreigners living here in this respect have even more rights than you as a German.
That is how it appears to me, in any case.
I am thinking of the story with my friend Dahoud from Afghanistan. He was doing splendidly in Germany after all.
Or the doctor from Herat, who had studied in the West and the young cowherd.
Already forgotten? I have not. I have a whole list of complaints on my part with regard to our society and politics. Especially, politicians should go abroad, no matter where, and try to survive there as common private individuals for some time, without having a large machinery behind them.
We do not need to prove that we are overloaded with guilt anymore, as Germans. Or allow ourselves to be blackmailed. But we do not have to throw the money that belongs to the taxpayers out of the window. Just because some politicians still have feelings of guilt or have let themselves get persuaded and wish to make reparations with money.
It is increasingly clear that politicians do not rule a country but the industry and the financial world. I am pleased to note that our relationships to our neighbors have already improved considerably since I have not been called as “Nazi pig” for a quite a long time now. I can let go and forget the past; others cannot. Again and again you will be reminded that you are a German.
Sometimes I feel as if I am not one any more.
After all, I was born in Czech Republic; if I had been born in America, I could have even become the American president.
The eternal sense of guilt and the fuss of remembering it does not bother me anymore, instead I flatly contradict people. There are many nations on this globe, who are laden with guilt and still many more, who will become so. During my storm-and-impulse time I may have violated some civil laws, which I also confess that I am guilty of.
Has life changed me so much?
During a discussion, an Englishman once told me:
The Germans are a diligent, satisfied, good-natured people. You can hurt them and they quietly tell you that you should not do that again. You can also hurt them a second time and they say again that you should not do that. And the third time, they only say that that was enough. But then the fourth time, there is no mercy. They would hurt their tormentor so much that they can never recover again. He would die.
Germans did not have any mediocrity, they could not engage in a dialogue. They wanted either everything or nothing. They would have to learn that there were also partners, and perhaps also people with equal rights.
But the Germans always want to be at the top.
Yes, that is what an Englishman told me. He just needed to say that!
It is definitely very bad if others badmouth about a person.
But what was that all about the mote and the beam? Regarding this, I am thinking of a program, in which one denounces and shows how children work in a textile factory in Bangladesh.
Do you also know why this is so? If no one is doing anything about the fact that there are so many children without hope, is it not better that the children are pursuing an activity rather than to starve?
But the same evening, I was able to see on another channel how fathers and mothers compelled their children to work with a lot of pressure. I am speaking here of fashion and beauty contests for little girls and boys. Why do they do this? Are they starving in in any way otherwise?
I do not know if there are statistics in Bangladesh on how many children are abused. But in Germany there is one and tells us that every fifth child experiences violence.
I have myself worked as a road builder for a German company when I was thirteen years old. I must admit that I lied at that age and had pretended that I was a few years older. But I needed the mon
ey because my parents did not have any.
Once I wanted to really have enough to eat. That was before I made my confectioner training. I had to do heavy physical work on a road embankment.
I was glad that I had got 32.82 DM per week. With my first money I bought food for the
family and a ring-shaped pastry with sausage for myself, which I could eat all by myself. And I bought a record for myself with the title: Ein Schiff wird kommen (A ship will come). I believe, the name of the singer was Liselotte Malkovsky or something similar.
This was on October 7, 1955. On October 30, I was 14 years old.
I have been able to keep the bill for this safe over all these years. I have lost many more important papers. Coincidence?
But on the other hand I also know that Germans are welcome, if employees for top positions are sought abroad in a company.
So German can’t be such monsters, as they are depicted by some countries. But all this should not really interest me anymore. I should enjoy every day that I spend on the roof terrace.
But if I see certain news on my foreign TV channels, I become very sad. For example, I enjoying watching CNN, BBC, CNBC, Russia Today, NHK, the Japanese channels, Tehran and Al Jazeera. I want to know what others think and spread. If there are not such goods to be reported about Germany, the other countries bring up the subject two or three days before our German news. Especially when a German soldier had to bite the grass again in Kunduz. If I then hear that this Afghan madness alone had cost the Americans already over one hundred billion dollars, I wonder how long this will still go on and what would be achieved in the end.
Just like the Greeks, the Persians, the Mongols, the English and the Russians had left, the current occupiers will also disappear.
They could have done something better for the country with these one hundred billion dollars. Just because Uncle Sam had leaned out of the window too far and had received a blow on his hat with stars, many had to die.
Others should grapple with these problems, I do not have to any longer. My problems relate to the lesser evil, I must see how I mange with my small pension and remain healthy for a long time.
I think that I have had a very interesting and diversified life. Despite the many hurdles, which I have however mastered well and am still mastering, I have had and do have joy in life. And I would like it to remain so under all circumstances. At the age of seventy, I do not have to blame myself for having lived as if I had bypassed life.
Also I do not have to write any book at the age of eighty about what I had not experienced and about fantasies on what I would have liked to have experienced.
The others do that and write even bestsellers with that!
Amazing how many broken people are there but they do exist. But that is why I sit on the roof terrace and have to say something. Often I indulge in memories. I could tell my grandchildren so much. But because of their absence, I have put some of the chapters of my life on paper.
Perhaps so that others do not make the same mistakes that I did.
Something that my father had always said: Think of your age!
Do something for your protection!
But I never thought that I would really become so old!
But now I have - whether it was due to my faith?
Faith in myself?
Acknowledgments
“My dream of my own book" would have remained a dream, without the support of some dear people.
With help and advice, as well as financial help, “Mein Traum frei zu sein” (“My dream to be free”) became a real book.
Special thanks and my sincere admiration go to my life-partner Renate Danzer, who herself was ravaged by a serious illness, always encouraged me and told me not to give up.
I would like to thank all my readers that they hopefully like my book. Since this book has almost 700 pages, no photographic material has been added.
For this, I have a picture gallery - without copyright - at my Homepage.
I wish you relaxation and fun in reading my book.
Your Author and Life Artist
Juergen Stollin, May 2013
Pictures with regard to the book:
https://jstollin.com/
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