An Irishman writes from East Germany
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The View from Here
August 2000
Chemnitz, Germany
It's ten years since the fall of the Berlin wall, the revolution which swept the Communists
out of power in the GDR and reunited the peoples of East and West Germany after forty
years of separation. During that eventful autumn of 1989, while those brave souls were
marching on the streets of Leipzig, I was a student in Dublin going into the third year of my
science degree. Little did I know how the events taking place in Eastern Europe would one
day mean much more to me than a headline in a newspaper.
After finishing my postgraduate work in Dublin, I took up my first job in the area of
microelectronics in University College Cork. For the next four years I really enjoyed living and working in Cork.
Working at the university meant I could take part in lots of the student activities that I didn't
find the time for while studying myself. It was during this time that I met a girl called Claudia
who was spending a year in UCC as an exchange student. She was the first person I had met
who was from the former East Germany, and the story of her life and the way she saw us in
the west was fascinating to me. It didn't take long for us to get together, but when she
eventually had to go back to Germany to finish her education I had a big decision to make -
stay or go. I weighed it all up and decided to go. I think James Joyce said, "Adventures
cannot be found at home, they must be sought abroad", so off I went, destination Leipzig,
Germany.
Leipzig is the second largest town of the state of Saxony. About 600,000 people lived there
before 1989, but when the border opened up many left to find work in the west. The
university where Claudia was studying English was founded in 1409 and the town was home
to Bach and Mendelssohn. Some parts of the town had been destroyed by Allied bombs
during the war and the Communists rebuilt some areas with 'plattenbau', grim concrete blocks
that we might always associate with eastern European countries. These have largely been either
replaced or repaired, so that Leipzig today is beautiful, with a great town square lined with bars outside
which the students gather in the warm summer evenings.
I started work as an English teacher at several business English schools. This was a real
change for me, but I have to say I enjoyed it and met lots of people. At the same time I was
busy sending off job applications to find something more in my line of work. However, unlike
the Celtic Tiger at home, the unemployment rate was almost 20%. This, coupled with the fact
that I had practically no German at all meant it was a year before I found a job. We reluctantly
packed our bags, left Leipzig and moved to the town of Chemnitz where we both now work.
Chemnitz is a smaller town in Saxony, only about 50km from the border with the Czech
Republic. In fact we are closer to Prague than Berlin which is great as we can easily head
down there at the weekend. Chemntiz has not had the same level of investment that Dresden
and Leipzig have received, and so there is still lots of reconstruction work to be done. During
the GDR period it was renamed Karl Marx Stadt, and there is still a huge statue of Karl
Marx's Head in the city centre - practically the most famous tourist attraction!
For the last year I have been working as a Research Engineer at the Technical University of
Chemnitz. I am doing research and development work on new materials for computer chips,
spending much of my day in the cleanroom. We have to wear special clothes, not to protect
us but to protect these materials from us! It's the pace of this development which leads to the
rapid improvement in the performance of personal computers, and conversely, their almost
instant obsolesence. The work is quite close to that which I did at UCC, and in fact I
sometimes meet my old colleagues at conferences.
I've had no choice but to finally learn some German. Many of my colleagues here speak little
English as Russian was taught instead. As Claudia is working as an English teacher we speak
mainly English at home, except when we have an argument and then some colourful German is
exchanged! It's still hard for me to follow general conversations though so I really have to
focus on learning more German this year.
The stereotypes of different nationalities are based, to greater or lesser extents, on their real
characteristics, and so it is here. Whereas the Irish are generally thought of as a friendly race,
some Germans can occasionally seem stand-offish, valuing their privacy. What really struck me was
how unfriendly people like waiters and shop assistants can sometimes be here. I think this is a
hangover form the GDR period when customer service was not even considered - you'll take
what you're given! Another thing which surprises me is the lack of business acumen - taking
advantage of a commercial opportunity. There are, for example, only two pubs in the area
surrounding the university, and I've often dreamt of the wild sums of money I could make if I
opened up a little Irish bar there!
Having said that, people here are having to come to terms with a whole new reality. All of
their state run companies were privatised after the revolution and many people lost their jobs.
The shift from full and lifelong employment in the GDR to massive unemployment now is hard
for people to take. This problem, added to the immigration of large numbers of 'auslanders'
into what was a previously closed country, has created fertile ground for
ultra-nationalist politics. Thankfully racism is seen as abhorrent by most Germans, as they are
painfully aware of where such sentiment has lead in the past. In fact Germany is still examining
its role in history through events such as Kulturstadt '99 Weimar, the European Cultural
Capital. Many exhibitions and performances dealt with the paradox of the writer
Goethe's humanity alongside the horror of Hitler's inhumanity. The Germans are still asking
themselves what it means to be German, and what they should take with them into the next
century.
All these things mean that it is not only an interesting place to live, but it's also an interesting
time to be here. Of course there are lots of things which I still miss about Ireland, family and
friends, the sense of humour, the pint of Guinness. But as we intend to return home in the next
year or so I am also catching myself already asking what I'll miss about Germany. I think it will
be our new friends, the culture, the weather and the fact that the busses run on time! I think
what I am learning most from living here is what it means to be Irish, to see Ireland from
abroad, to try to explain all our mad inconsistencies. And to still love it.
August 2000
Chemnitz, Germany
It's ten years since the fall of the Berlin wall, the revolution which swept the Communists
out of power in the GDR and reunited the peoples of East and West Germany after forty
years of separation. During that eventful autumn of 1989, while those brave souls were
marching on the streets of Leipzig, I was a student in Dublin going into the third year of my
science degree. Little did I know how the events taking place in Eastern Europe would one
day mean much more to me than a headline in a newspaper.
After finishing my postgraduate work in Dublin, I took up my first job in the area of
microelectronics in University College Cork. For the next four years I really enjoyed living and working in Cork.
Working at the university meant I could take part in lots of the student activities that I didn't
find the time for while studying myself. It was during this time that I met a girl called Claudia
who was spending a year in UCC as an exchange student. She was the first person I had met
who was from the former East Germany, and the story of her life and the way she saw us in
the west was fascinating to me. It didn't take long for us to get together, but when she
eventually had to go back to Germany to finish her education I had a big decision to make -
stay or go. I weighed it all up and decided to go. I think James Joyce said, "Adventures
cannot be found at home, they must be sought abroad", so off I went, destination Leipzig,
Germany.
Leipzig is the second largest town of the state of Saxony. About 600,000 people lived there
before 1989, but when the border opened up many left to find work in the west. The
university where Claudia was studying English was founded in 1409 and the town was home
to Bach and Mendelssohn. Some parts of the town had been destroyed by Allied bombs
during the war and the Communists rebuilt some areas with 'plattenbau', grim concrete blocks
that we might always associate with eastern European countries. These have largely been either
replaced or repaired, so that Leipzig today is beautiful, with a great town square lined with bars outside
which the students gather in the warm summer evenings.
I started work as an English teacher at several business English schools. This was a real
change for me, but I have to say I enjoyed it and met lots of people. At the same time I was
busy sending off job applications to find something more in my line of work. However, unlike
the Celtic Tiger at home, the unemployment rate was almost 20%. This, coupled with the fact
that I had practically no German at all meant it was a year before I found a job. We reluctantly
packed our bags, left Leipzig and moved to the town of Chemnitz where we both now work.
Chemnitz is a smaller town in Saxony, only about 50km from the border with the Czech
Republic. In fact we are closer to Prague than Berlin which is great as we can easily head
down there at the weekend. Chemntiz has not had the same level of investment that Dresden
and Leipzig have received, and so there is still lots of reconstruction work to be done. During
the GDR period it was renamed Karl Marx Stadt, and there is still a huge statue of Karl
Marx's Head in the city centre - practically the most famous tourist attraction!
For the last year I have been working as a Research Engineer at the Technical University of
Chemnitz. I am doing research and development work on new materials for computer chips,
spending much of my day in the cleanroom. We have to wear special clothes, not to protect
us but to protect these materials from us! It's the pace of this development which leads to the
rapid improvement in the performance of personal computers, and conversely, their almost
instant obsolesence. The work is quite close to that which I did at UCC, and in fact I
sometimes meet my old colleagues at conferences.
I've had no choice but to finally learn some German. Many of my colleagues here speak little
English as Russian was taught instead. As Claudia is working as an English teacher we speak
mainly English at home, except when we have an argument and then some colourful German is
exchanged! It's still hard for me to follow general conversations though so I really have to
focus on learning more German this year.
The stereotypes of different nationalities are based, to greater or lesser extents, on their real
characteristics, and so it is here. Whereas the Irish are generally thought of as a friendly race,
some Germans can occasionally seem stand-offish, valuing their privacy. What really struck me was
how unfriendly people like waiters and shop assistants can sometimes be here. I think this is a
hangover form the GDR period when customer service was not even considered - you'll take
what you're given! Another thing which surprises me is the lack of business acumen - taking
advantage of a commercial opportunity. There are, for example, only two pubs in the area
surrounding the university, and I've often dreamt of the wild sums of money I could make if I
opened up a little Irish bar there!
Having said that, people here are having to come to terms with a whole new reality. All of
their state run companies were privatised after the revolution and many people lost their jobs.
The shift from full and lifelong employment in the GDR to massive unemployment now is hard
for people to take. This problem, added to the immigration of large numbers of 'auslanders'
into what was a previously closed country, has created fertile ground for
ultra-nationalist politics. Thankfully racism is seen as abhorrent by most Germans, as they are
painfully aware of where such sentiment has lead in the past. In fact Germany is still examining
its role in history through events such as Kulturstadt '99 Weimar, the European Cultural
Capital. Many exhibitions and performances dealt with the paradox of the writer
Goethe's humanity alongside the horror of Hitler's inhumanity. The Germans are still asking
themselves what it means to be German, and what they should take with them into the next
century.
All these things mean that it is not only an interesting place to live, but it's also an interesting
time to be here. Of course there are lots of things which I still miss about Ireland, family and
friends, the sense of humour, the pint of Guinness. But as we intend to return home in the next
year or so I am also catching myself already asking what I'll miss about Germany. I think it will
be our new friends, the culture, the weather and the fact that the busses run on time! I think
what I am learning most from living here is what it means to be Irish, to see Ireland from
abroad, to try to explain all our mad inconsistencies. And to still love it.
