Carson Varner
For a view of typical
Germany, jump on
Bundesstrasse No. 1
E
ven Germans who don’t speak
much English know the phrase “Get
your kicks on Route 66.” America’s
highway is well known in song and
story in German; less well known there
is the Bundesstrasse No. 1 or the B-1,
Germany’s federal highway.
But I call it Germany’s Route 66. It
is not the country’s Autobahn or
Romantic Road. It attracts few tourists
but is full of history, and like Route 66,
represents typical Germany.
I have spent 40 years traveling the B1 visiting family scattered in towns big
and small from Cologne to Berlin along
this two lane 100 kilometers per hour
(62 mph) highway.
My wife and I were there to visit
Illinois State University’s partner school
in Paderborn and then on past Hameln,
of Pied Piper fame, to Hildesheim for
our aunt’s 80th birthday. Let us cruise
the B-1 and see what’s new.
Cologne, as the name implies, was a
Roman colony. Three Roman legions
overreaching into “Germania” marched
along what is now the B-1 to their doom
in he Teutoburger Walk near Paderborn.
Germans still celebrate this 11 A.D.
victory over the invading Romans.
In the Middle Ages, the B-1 was a
route between Hansa cities. The
countryside was controlled by robber
barons and warlords but some cities
banded together creating a common law
for merchants. It was an early
European common market from which
Lufthansa, the German airline, takes its
name.
In modern times Napoleon improved
the road in his fateful march to the East.
It remains the straightest road in all of
Germany.
That is history but what about 2008?
I have long been the American
optimist. But even with $8 gas and 8
percent unemployment the Germans are
really upbeat, while we seemingly
wallow in misery.
The farming villages near the B-1
were created before time began.
Houses, barns and stables were
clustered together for protection and
workers went to the fields by day. The
church where we were married in 1968
is unchanged but the town grocery store
was boarded up.
I watched that store grow from a tiny
corner store to a respectable sized
supermarket over the years. On the
next corner the largest farmhouse in
town was gone and a big box store was
going up. Germans have voted with
their very strong Euros for the
efficiency and the large product
selection of the big box over the
intimacy of mom and pop.
An instant on TV is really always on
using electricity. German TV’s have a
short warm up period. Virtually all
lawns in Germany are what we call
natural. Bigger weeds are pulled by
hand and little weeds along with tiny
plants and flowers coexist with the
grass.
Property lines are marked by
chainlink-type fences or bushes that
grow well in this cooler, moist climate.
Trees must be planted with a setback so
the branches don’t intrude in to a
neighbor’s airspace. We are at 51
degrees north and shade is not as
welcome as in Bloomington’s 40
degrees.
C
SECTION
MONDAY
August 25, 2008
Germany leads the worlds in solar
power. My niece’s southern roof is all
solar panel. It might be too far north but
they are trying.
In this cooler climate, air conditioning
means opening a window. German
windows don’t have screens! Sticky
flypaper controls the insects.
What we call a yard is in British
English or German a garden, even if it is
all grass. Thirty-some years ago there
was little grass. The kitchen garden
occupied almost every square inch of the
yard. It was necessity, not hobby.
Home-grown potatoes and other
produce were the bases of the family
diet. My sister-in-law raised about 40
percent of the food consumed by her
family. Kitchen gardens may be the rage
in America today but she remembers a
lot of unromantic hard work and is glad
grass and flowers have replaced the
potato patch and bean poles.
In the village fields, American-style
corn unknown 40 years ago is now half
the planted acreage. It does not mature
and the whole plant is harvested as
animal fodder or silage.
Learning German was a struggle for
me but it has been a window into a new
world and family where little English is
spoken.
Carson Varner is a professor of finance,
insurance and law at Illinois State University.