The Two Germanys

There are two Germanys. I’m not talking east and west, either. They were allegedly reunited a quarter century ago.  I’m also not talking about the old and the young Germany – the ticking time bomb due to explode in about another 25 years when the last of the boomers is unable to look after themselves.

I’m talking about the heretofore unacknowledged two Germanys. There is the pedestrian, the perambulant Germany in which one is free to roam the hillsides, the forests, the valleys, the fields in peace and relative tranquility where one often meets with the environment-friend, the bio-disposer, the bird watcher, the walking stick trekker, the cyclist even. Everything is slow, neat, low-impact. People have patience. They smile and say “Guten Morgen” or “Gruss Gott”. They let their dogs wander through flower stands and piss on tree trunks. 

Then there is the other Germany. The one that happens only inside of automobiles. 

People are vicious, brutal, impatient. They are bullies and brutes. They hassle you, worry you this way and that. They urge you, jeer at you to make some manouvre that would risk not only your life but theirs as well. If it were possible they would make you disappear, disintegrate. 

Truth be known you are not their problem. 

They are their own problem but because you are in front of them they bounce their frustrations off of you. 

They are unable to figure things out. How the world works. How the laws of physics operate. They don’t understand that driving at ever faster speeds will only ever get you to the ass of the next car ahead, and then the next and the next. And at every stress-filled union there exist the seeds of both tragedy and traffic jam. They don’t understand that driving at ever faster speeds requires ever more space to operate in in which unforeseen situations are unable to occur. They do not account or accommodate anyone or anything else that is not them. 

If you are not actually them you are therefore part of the problem. 

It is a singular way to view the world and in fact it excludes the world. 

In truth it is a way of ensuring that since everyone and everything who isn’t you is somehow wrong then you must be therefore somehow infallible, supra-heroic, preternatural, godlike. 

But it is when the two Germanys meet, when they coalesce, in a matter of seconds, of microseconds, that one begins to feel deeply ill at ease. 

Because the calm mountain trekkers, the spaced-out flower-pickers, the dog huggers are one and the same as the car-driving maniacs. Only in the act of opening or closing the door of a parked car is there any semblance of balance, of sanity, of sense while they morph from one extreme to its polar opposite.

Doppelgangers And StevenSpielbergville

It is no coincidence that one of the few german words in reasonably common useage in the english language is “doppelganger”.
Now, I said “reasonably common,” useage. Cos from time to time I get into conversations about language and philosopy and sociology and linguistics and stuff and occasionally – because I have some connection to Germany, my wife is German, we live there now – the question arises… Is german a difficult language to learn?
My reply is usually: “as soon as I learn it, I will let you know.”
There then follows a discussion about english and german words which seem to come from the same root – Glas/glass, Bier/beer, Fuss/foot, Hand/hand, Finger/finger, Haare/hair – and the like. The main difference in these words being that the Germans like to capitalise their nouns as often as possible to let you know they are things that actually exist.
There are many english words that have made it into german, and many many other languages, of course, but it is quite rare for the opposite migration to take place.
That’s because german words suck. That’s because they were all arrived at via an oblique mathematical process of random-letter-selection, and as we all know, using maths to build equations made entirely of letters, is either algebra, or asking for trouble, or both. The vast majority of german words, when you see them written out on a page, look like alphabet-train wrecks. And I’m here to tell you, when I try to wrap my lips around them, there ain’t no survivors.
But one of the rare instances in which a german word, in popular common useage in german, has made the journey deep into english without any changes or vaccinations, is doppelganger.
A doppelganger is a ghost of someone which usually hangs around, looking exactly like that someone, and often haunting that person’s flesh and bones and possibly driving them mad.
The slightly looser translation is that a doppelganger is somebody’s double. Simple. A twin, totally unrelated, and yet existing on earth in some other town, society or culture, living a completely other life to yours but looking the spitting image of you.
Berlin is full of them. Here is a list of the doppelgangers I have seen here in Berlin since September last year.
The first was Elliot Gould. I saw him at a Saturday morning market over on the Strasse des 17 Juni back in September when we first arrived. I was stunned by two things. Firstly, that Elliot Gould should be dressed so casually and be able to strut about so freely, out in the open, at a Sunday market in Berlin; and secondly, that he should have negative-aged by 30 years. He looked 35. I saw him and I thought to myself: “Jesus those Hollywood types really know how to look after themselves…that’s incredible.”
Then I thought: “Hang on…isn’t he, like, not dead exactly, but at least really tired?”
Then I realised, it wasn’t him. It was his double.
I have also seen roaming around Berlin in various states of dress, age, and implosion, Vic Morrow, Placido Domingo, River Phoenix, Tom Cruise, Katie Couric, and Johnny Carson.
On Tuesday this week I saw Steven Spielberg riding a push bike with a little grey back pack on his back. He almost ran over me at an intersection. I almost reached my arm out and slapped him on the shoulder and called out “Hey Steve! Love your work. What the hell are you doing in town?” but then I realised A: I don’t even know Steven Spielberg and it would be inappropriate to seem so buddy-buddy, and B: it probably wasn’t even him, it was his doppelganger.
Then I started looking at the people around me, just walking along, and cycling by, minding their own business, and I realised almost every second dude in Berlin looks exactly like Steven Spielberg. It is StevenSpielbergville.
When I got home I read an article about how Heath Ledger had won an oscar and it hit me… no way would Steven Spielberg be cycling around Berlin with a little grey backpack during Oscar Week. No way, he’d be partying on in Tinseltown, probably drop in to Elliot Gould’s house…