New Lives
Page 70
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22. He means his car, a Wartburg Deluxe.
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23. This letter presumes that some information about the trip to Offenburg, including T.’s impressions, had already been shared with his sister, evidently in phone calls from there.
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24. Skat and a factory for skat playing cards has been Altenburg’s claim to fame. During this same period the Offenburg town hall was inundated with packages filled with decks of skat cards. The backs were often female nudes. Most senders wanted to establish contact with families in their new sister city.
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25. Figure in a Russian fairy tale in which the youngest, and presumed dumbest, carries the day.
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26. The newsletter of the Altenburg New Forum, published by Michaela Fürst. Its five issues were considered the precursor of the Altenburg Weekly.
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27. Tiramisu.
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28. Until the end of 1989 Elisabeth Türmer had believed that, after V. T.’s departure for West Berlin in the summer of 1987, she had at last begun a career as an actor there.
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29. A coalition made up of the Christian Democratic Union, the German Social Union, and the “Democratic Awakening.”
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30. Herrmann Türmer died in 1968.
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31. There are just a few places where a strongly homoerotically tinged relationship between T. and Johann is suggested, and rarely is the implication as overt as it is here. Without knowledge of this fact, however, several passages would be incomprehensible.
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32. Candidate of the Socialist Unity Party.
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33. Between October 2nd and 8th there was a massive police deployment in Dresden. The initial cause was a fracas outside the Central Station, where trains carrying refugees from the German embassy in Prague had been passing through. Hundreds of people hoped to find a place on one of the trains. Cf. also the letter of May 25, ’90.
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34. Hanns Eisler, Johann Faustus (Berlin, 1952).
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35. A standard procedure at the time, as the editor himself learned firsthand.
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36. As children the two had had a Hungarian street map of Paris that they had tried to learn by heart.—Information provided by V. T.
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37. Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast.
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38. Built in Budapest at the end of the nineteenth century, it offers a view of the Danube and of all of Pest across the river.
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39. Train station in Dresden.
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40. For T. plastic cups were the symbol of the official world, from kindergarten to the army—information provided by V. T.
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41. Quote from André Breton’s Nadja.
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42. Café in Dresden.
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43. Military abbreviations: Short Leave of two days; Extended Leave of three days.
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44. At the end of this volume of letters the reader may perhaps see the occasion differently.
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45. The E.T. in Spielberg’s film of the same name becomes a lower-case Latin et, meaning “and.”
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46. Anna Seghers, The Trial of Jeanne d’Arc in Rouen, 1431, radio play (Leipzig, 1975); T. evidently means still photographs included in the book and taken from the silent film La passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928), directed by C. T. Dreyer.
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47. Sweater vest.
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48. The dating of this letter is problematic. There is hardly any way to make the details dovetail. T. is evidently mistaken about the date. “The day before yesterday” was Sunday, that is the same day on which they worked late into the night. An earlier date is likewise hardly possible. And yet discrepancies also arise for Wednesday and Thursday. The most probable time for the letter to have been written is Thursday morning, although it seems odd that there is no mention of the day on which the first issue was published.
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49. Volkspolizei, the People’s Police.
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50. Presumably he means on Tuesday of the previous week.
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51. Leipziger Volkszeitung [Leipzig National Newspaper].
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52. Martin Luther Church is at the opposite end of Market Square, a distance of about eight hundred feet.
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53. Two new residential developments, one with fifteen, the other with five thousand inhabitants.
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54. They had been preparing the second issue.
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55. T. wrote the majority of his letters, especially those to N. H., between five and nine a.m.
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56. The first two paragraphs of this letter reflect contradictory intentions. On the one hand T. describes letter writing as a pastime; on the other, the idea that he “has” to say something suggests that he regards it as his duty to report about his work. This ambivalence, despite whatever embellishments accompany it, is always present.
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57. One month previous, on Jan. 18th, T. had written that he owed his job at the paper to the “Prophet,” Rudolf Franck. “He initiated things and put in a good word for me.”
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58. The launching celebration was held on Feb. 2nd, the first day of sales.
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59. As a photographer Nicoletta Hansen had accompanied a journalist who was doing a story about the countless number of newly founded newspapers, especially in Thuringia and Saxony. When the article finally appeared there was no mention of the Altenburg Weekly. T. had asked the reporter for N. H.’s address.
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60. Apparently this was a bilingual edition of Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche (Leipzig, 1981), in which there were color photographs of the nine frescoes executed in 1838 by Moritz von Schwind for the music pavilion in Rüdigsdorf near Kohren-Sahlis.
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61. These additional plans evidently led nowhere.
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62. A specialty in Altenburg and Schmölln: pork roast (either rib or shoulder) marinated in marjoram and roasted on a spit over a birchwood fire.
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63. Large Neeberg Figure, by Wieland Förster.
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64. This is the first time that T. describes himself, however indirectly, as an artist/writer.
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65. Strangely enough, T. has chosen the least appropriate place here for his confessions, since he is advocating much the same thing as the lowbrow that he just threw out of the office a few hours before.
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66. This passage sounds the central motif of his letters to N. H. for the first time.
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67. If one applies this mode of thought to T. himself, one might well conclude that he has found a strong “drug” for himself.
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68. Despite various attempts to learn the nature of these accusations and what had preceded them, I am still in the dark as to the meaning of this passage.
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69. The piles of tailings at the Wismut mine.
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70. Miss Julie, by August Strindberg.
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71. Franz Flieder, director.
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72. General manager.
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; 73. The first performance of the remounted production took place on Sunday, March 4th.
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74. All quotes agree verbatim with the text, which may indicate that T. had a copy in front of him when writing this letter.
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75. At the time Johannes Rau was the prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, had been nominated as the Social Democratic candidate for chancellor in 1986, and was later elected president of the Federal Republic of Germany, 2000–2004.
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76. A local term for musical chairs.
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77. Clemens von Barrista, Living Money—Lebendes Geld (Heidelberg, 1987).
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78. Most of Goethe’s and Schiller’s ballads were written in 1797; it was also the year in which Hölderlin’s Hyperion was published.
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79. T.’s nickname for Barrista, taken from his “big black American cruiser,” a “LeBaron.”
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80. Crossed out: “without having first washed her hands,”
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81. Presumably T. means mousse and grappa.
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82. In order to protect the rights of privacy, no details can be provided.
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83. The proof room at the printing shop of the Leipziger Volkszeitung, where the Altenburg Weekly was read for corrections every Wednesday.
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84. Cf. the letters that follow.
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85. The question as to what extent these “susurrations” (cf. below) had anything to do with T.’s real experience is something each reader will have to decide for him-or herself over time. Quite obviously he is searching here for some reason to be writing these letters. A rather poor motivation.
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86. T. apparently expected that N. H. had written him before she even left Altenburg. The accident had happened only two days before.
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87. Here T. addresses the central theme of his letters to N. H.
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88. Willi Schwabe’s Attic—an East German television program. At the beginning of each episode Willi Schwabe, with lantern in hand, would climb the stairs to a kind of storage room. The background music was the “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.
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89. At the start of the second part of the letter it was still evening. Either T. had slept in the meantime or—though it is hardly likely—it had taken him all night to write it.
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90. Refers to a phone call that evidently came earlier than had been agreed on. T.’s letters to V. T. never made it to Beirut. Thus the only ones that still exist are those that T. made a carbon copy of, plus two faxed letters.
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91. Cf. footnote 2, The Letters of Enrico Türmer.
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92. He means the “ice crystals” of the shattered windshield.
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93. This surely must either be a wish or a fond hope. It is quite unclear what T. meant by this. There is no record of anything by N. H. ever being published in the Altenburg Weekly.
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94. T. had already noted in his letter to N. H. that the neck support had been removed.
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95. T. and N. H. knew each other for only a few hours, and those were full of misunderstandings and accidents. The fact that N. H. came from the Federal Republic of Germany must have played a major role in T.’s attraction to her. T. is explaining and justifying himself for a Western audience here, a quite typical stance in East Germany at the time.
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96. These words remind one more of the opening of a novel than of a letter. It remains unclear for whom this “painful story” is intended, for whom it is supposed to serve as a “cautionary tale.”
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97. An oilclothlike material that could be wiped off.
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98. T. doesn’t explain who lies concealed behind this we.
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99. It was quite common for people to give their cars names. One explanation might be that you drove, or better, had to drive, “your car” for ten years or more.
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100. Approximately one thousand very valuable volumes were removed from the Altenburg Council Library under the pretext of their needing repair, but were then sold in the West under the aegis of Schalck-Golodkowski’s Commercial Coordination.
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101. There were a good number of cases in which school principals were either demoted or fired.
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102. Presumably broken off because Barrista had appeared.
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103. The heroine in Rusalka had broken her leg. She continued to sing, but Michaela Fürst had to stand in for her onstage for several performances.
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104. The talking car from the TV series Knight Rider was named KITT.
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105. No literary work by Johann Ziehlke has been found among T.’s papers.
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106. More details of the argument between N. H. and Barrista can be found in later letters to N. H.
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107. The Alliance 90 (New Forum, Democracy Now, Initiative for Peace and Human Rights) received only 2.9 percent of the votes. That put the Citizens’ Movement out of the running for good. The Alliance for Germany (Christian Democratic Union, German Social Union, and Democratic Awakening) received 48 percent, the CDU taking 40.6 percent of that; German Socialist Party, 21.8 percent; Party of Democratic Socialism, 16.3 percent. Voter participation was 93 percent.
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108. For self-employed people like Piatkowski a position with the LPDP (German Liberal Democratic Party) would have offered a more likely “refuge” than the CDU.
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109. Nicoletta had sent T. some newspaper articles about Clemens von Barrista and marked up several paragraphs.
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110. Of course the correct verb at this point ought to be “read,” not “hear.”
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111. In Intershop stores Western goods could be purchased with foreign currency. The potpourri of odors from soap, detergent, coffee, chocolate, perfume, etc., created a special fragrance that no longer exists, but that at the time pervaded the immediate vicinity of these stores and was perceived by many as a promise of the “Golden West.” At no point, however, does Türmer consider the moral and social implications of such Intershop stores for the populace of the GDR.
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112. The painter Gerhard Ströch, born 1926 in Rödichen-Schnepfenthal, lived in Altenburg and in 1956 adopted the name Altenbourg; he died on Dec. 29, 1989, in a car accident near Meissen.
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113. A tar-processing factory in Rositz.
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114. In 1806, at the battle of Jena and Auerstadt, Napoleon’s troops defeated the armies of Prussia and Saxony. At Jena the French forces were larger, whereas at Auerstadt—to which Barrista was obviously referring—they were only about half as strong as those of their foes.
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115. According to information provided by V. T., the children first heard Frau Nádori use the word “Mamus” for Mother/Mama, which they then adopted.
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116. This sort of barter was customary inasmuch as citizens of the GDR could exchange their marks for only a limited number of forints.
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117. Since the family had previously always taken this trip during spring break, T.’s last trip to Budapest had occurred before his “Awakening.”<
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118. Ibrahim Böhme, the chairman of the East’s sister party to the West German SPD. Both he and, prior to him, the lawyer Wolfgang Schnur, one of the cofounders of “Democratic Awakening,” which then later became part of the CDU, had been denounced as spies of the former State Security.
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119. T. is perhaps too hasty here in insinuating a suspicion.
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120. It is difficult to recapture the provocation that T.’s election editorial is said to have represented in March 1990. T. concluded his hardly original commentary: “Certainly more important than the results is the fact that it was possible to hold an election at all.”
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121. The “illustrated volume” in question is Robert Oertel, Frühe italienische Malerei in Altenburg [Early Italian Painting in Altenburg] (Berlin, 1961). “The two centuries whose course we can survey in the Altenburg Collection were decisive not only for the future of Italian art, but also for the artistic spirit of Europe itself,” p. 50.
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122. At the time, twelve hundred D-marks were worth approximately three to four thousand East-marks. A comparable profit would have required an increase in sales of at least four if not five thousand additional copies.
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123. He is referring to the vespers sung by the choir of the Dresden Kreuzkirche.
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124. This is a misleading statement, since one of T.’s manuscript pages contained barely half the number of words found on a standard typed page.
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125. A consolidated high school (with grades nine to twelve) whose pupils also included the boys and young men of the Kreuzkirche choir (so-called Kreuzianer).
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126. The setting for the stories and novels of Hermann Hesse, who in 1892 fled from Maulbronn after only seven months there.
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127. Incorrectly quoted. “To the honor of God, in memory of its founders, and for the benefit and profit of the young.”
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128. The town in the Swiss canton of Tessin where Hesse lived from 1919 until his death in 1962.
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129. The nickname given Johann Ziehlke, although it is not quite clear just why. Apparently in the sense of “the last honest man standing.” The historical Geronimo (1829–1909) was the chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, who did not surrender until 1886, i.e., very late.