Freiburg memories: Schlappen and Bermuda Triangle

The first bar I visited in Freiburg was Schlappen – in mid September 1992. The sign is visible just behind the street light on the left. The word is generally understood to mean "slipper," but it could also mean someone who is exhausted – there is no slipper or other footwear on the sign.



As you see from the picture, this street divides up as a Y-junction. When I arrived in Freiburg, I do not believe there was a specific name for this place, but it became known later as the Bermuda Triangle. A quick Google search indicates that Bermuda Triangle was not widely used as a place name before 2005.

The Salatstube that you see in the center of the picture later moved to Schwarzwald-City (the closest thing downtown Freiburg has to a mall) and was replaced by a Burger King. Across the street from Schlappen was also a disco, and there was another one down the street.

By the late 2000s, this area had become a hangout for students. Increasingly, drunk people became violent. Eventually, alcohol drinking was banned from the Triangle, and a shoe store has replaced Burger King. I believe the Triangle has calmed down.

Schlappen remains, but it was renovated about a decade ago (not sure when). When it reopened, it began stressing the fact that the building was constructed over an 11th century latrine, which you can now see (you couldn't before) when you go to the john. When the weather is good, tables stand where the bikes were in the picture above.

Freiburg memories: Studentensiedlung (my dorm)

I came to Freiburg in 1992 as a student for one year. This was the view of the dorms from the stairwell on the 11th floor in my building.


Not much to look at, but the flat I shared with a Canadian was pretty cool.

This is what my building looked like, and I was on the penultimate floor to the top.



The building down at the bottom is the administration for all of the dorms. One morning, I locked myself out of my room – doors in Germany automatically lock when they close, and I wasn't used to that yet – so I had to go get the Hausmeister to let me back in. His office hour (singular!) was literally from 8-9 AM, and I arrived a few minutes before 9. He asked me why I had come so late, and I assured him I would lock myself out earlier next time. It was my first taste of local unfriendliness so appropriately (and unintentionally) expressed by the local saying, Es gibt Badische und Unsymbadische (meaning, essentially, if you're not from here, we don't like you).

But at least I haven't locked myself out of my own home since then – 23 years and counting.

If the building doesn't look like much, maybe this will make you feel better – the view of the nearby park from a tower (my dorm is visible on the water about three quarters over to the right):



Not much has changed here over the past 25 years, so there's not much to add. Couples had not yet begun attaching padlocks to the bridge over the lake, but otherwise it looks the same today.

Freiburg memories: train station

Vaguely, I remember the old train station in Freiburg. According to the German Wikipedia, Freiburg's train station was the first one completed after World War II – not surprisingly, given the city's proximity to France and its position within the then-French occupational zone. But the building was not much to look at. Originally conceived only as a provisional structure, it served Freiburg nonetheless for half a century.

This is what it looked like when I entered Freiburg through it in September 1992. That picture shows a construction site over to the left, where the new hotel is. Here is another view from 1970.

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Fotograf: Willy Pragher

As you can see, you walked out of the building and straight onto the street. But this photo is my favorite. The hotel is almost finished in that picture from 1992. It is very close to what I first saw in Freiburg.

A few years after I arrived, the city replaced it with the modern building we have today. It is further from the street, includes a mall, and has a tower with photovoltaics on the southern façade. At the top, there is a club where you can dance overlooking the town, and below it you can have brunch on Sunday – including a chocolate fountain. I was once interviewed there by BBC World. I took the picture below from the main solar tower towards the north. You can see the smaller tower on the left, which also has solar on the façade.


And here is the main Solar Tower as seen from the streetcar bridge:

Freiburg memories: Konzerthaus

As mentioned in yesterday's post, the Blue Bridge now leads to the Concert Hall. When the building was opened in the mid-1990s, I sang on stage. A number of the musicians I worked with had trouble participating because they had opposed the project, like quite a few Freiburg citizens who continue to oppose the modernization of the city. With some of these musicians, I also gave concerts at some protest events against the project (I was neither particularly for or against it, but just having fun making music).



Many people wanted the money devoted to better kindergartens, etc. The project was originally called the KTS (Kultur und Tagungsstätte). At some point, the name was changed, and the protesters kept the name KTS for their own counter project, which still exists in Vauban.

This is what it looked like when I arrived in Freiburg in September 1992 – and this was also the first thing that I saw coming out of the train station. I specifically remember it being a bunch of metal rods sticking out of the ground, so the picture must have been shot a few months before I arrived.

Freiburg memories: the Blue Bridge

I will remember the Blue Bridge. When I moved to Freiburg, the connection for cars had just been torn down (see this photo from 1992) to make it solely a pedestrian's bridge (including cyclists, of course). It leads straight from the Sacred Heart church in Stühlinger (visible in the second photo) to the new Konzerthaus (visible in the background of the top photo), which was only just barely a construction site when I arrived in Freiburg.

Officially renamed the Wiwilí Bridge in 2003 (after Freiburg's Nicaraguan partner city), it is now a popular place for young people to hang out. The bridge crosses over the main train tracks in town (directly overlooking central station, in fact). I have been here so long that I can remember when nobody ever thought of sitting on top, much less walking up there.

When I came out of the train station, the blue bridge was one of the first things I saw – on 15 September 1992.

Freiburg memories

This year will be my last full year in Freiburg, Germany. In the late summer of 2017, I'm moving to Berlin. By that point, I will have spent 25 years in Freiburg and the area.

I therefore like to revive this basically defunct private blog to share some photos and memories. What better picture to start with than the one I have had outside my window for the past seven years. I always wanted to have an apartment with Münsterblick. It's even nicer with the complete panorama of the city against the backdrop of the Black Forest.

This is what I woke up to this morning:



And after my shower.

One good thing about a possible "oxi"

My dear friend Tobi posted a rant today on the Greek crisis, replete with charges of “the facts… getting completely distorted by politicians, demagogy, journalists & propaganda often viewed ideologically.”

He recommends that we watch a 40-minute video to get the real story. The link takes you to a speech given by Junker. I kid you not – to get the “real story,” we are to listen to a single person deeply involved. The next time your children get into a fight, be sure to send one of them into the next room. I’m sure the other has the whole story.

Let’s be clear about this – we are talking about people acting like children. There is blame to go around, and those who speak German can start with Harald Schumann’s video.

Tobi writes that “18 democratically elected heads of state have been negotiating for five months with the Greek government.” Actually, negotiations and been going on for years, and they are held mainly with people from the troika: the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF. The latter two are not democratically elected to office, while Commission officials are appointed by elected representatives.

The fuller story starts before Greece enters the euro zone. In the 90s, Germany wanted a currency union with Benelux and France, but France wanted Spain and Italy as well, and Italy wanted Greece. Because the Greeks did not fulfill the requirements for the euro zone, they worked with Goldman Sachs to cook the books.

The troika, especially the Europeans, justifiably resent this fraud. Less justifiably, they now aim to “teach the Greeks a lesson” for this previous cheating, as US finance expert Tim Geithner once stated. The Greek public is learning the lesson, not the Greek politicians of yore.

Maybe Goldman Sachs should chip in to rescue Greece.

Not even experts know what will happen if the Greeks vote yes or no today. Both outcomes are unclear. The Greeks cannot legally leave the euro zone, nor can they begin printing their own second currency. Likewise, the EU cannot kick Greece out of the euro zone; they can simply stop providing it with money, at which point the Greeks would have no choice but to print their own, which they cannot legally do. I therefore do not know what to hope for from the referendum today.

But the real story is that debt held by private creditors has been shifted into governmental budgets. The troika is not bailing out the Greeks; it is bailing out big banks, especially French and German ones. Bloomberg summed up the picture nicely a few weeks ago.

Yes, the Greeks need to start collecting taxes properly, especially on the rich. Towards that end, European tax havens need to hand over Greek millionaire and billionaire tax invaders. Varoufakis claims that 80 billion euros is in Swiss banks alone. (Greek debt is around 330 bn.) There’s a lot of culpability to go around.

In the end, there is no clear decision for the Greeks to make today in the referendum, and the problems are not being dealt with anyway. The Greek public is suffering inordinately; big banks are practically completely off the hook. Yet, when a lender signs a loan with a borrower, there are two parties involved. The lender specializes in loans and should not be let off the hook. Greece was a bad borrower the whole time and should not have been given this money. Private banks should have to cover defaults without passing on these losses to taxpayers. We should not bail out banks. Indeed, there has never been a time in history when borrowers were forced to pay when they could not, as we know from books like Debt: the first 5000 years and documentaries like this one. Throughout history, debt was simply canceled when it got out of hand, as it certainly is now in Greece. After World War II, German debt was reduced by around 50 percent.

These private banks are big boys and knew what they were doing when they lent money to Greece. They should have taken a haircut – but now, taxpayers will take it. The signal to banks is: be as risky as you want, losses will be socialized.

The referendum in Greece today will not solve that problem, which is the real one. A “no” vote would merely tell the world that the Greeks have had enough. The other consequences might make this option undesirable, but it is hard to know what the consequences would be. And though it is easy for me to say from Germany, 2,000 kilometers from Greece, I wouldn’t mind the Greek public saying, “Enough!”