zgBerlin

By Marek Dutschke

During my lunch break recently, I had decided to walk to Berlin’s most prominent book store Dussmann in the Friedrichstrasse to purchase Barack Obama’s new book “Audacity of Hope”. I had just turned the corner at Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse, with Dussmann within my sight, that I saw a somewhat rounded, familiar looking elderly gentleman crossing the street. The gentleman whom I recognized was Germany’s former secretary of state, Vice Chancellor and political superstar Joseph Fischer, aka Joschka.

Joschka Fischer had a story book political career. He barely finished high school, never went to college and started his working life as a taxi driver in Frankfurt am Main. In the late sixties he joined the student movement, without being a student, where he participated in PLO conferences and all kinds of demonstrations. In the seventies he was part of a group known as the “Spontis”, who participated in fierce fights with police in the streets of Frankfurt. They were squatters and revolutionaries trying to change the world. After his early revolutionary years he joined the Green Party in the 1980’s, where his political career took off and he reached the very highest level of government.

Anyways, it was Joschka that I saw on the street and he did not look like how I remembered him. He was wearing an ugly suit, his hair was messy and white and he seemed to be really stressed out about crossing the street. I can still remember the Joschka who always wore an elegant grey suit with a vest, never let anything make him lose his composure and never had a bad hair day. In 2001, he even once invited me personally to a coffee at one of Berlin’s nicest cafés - “Café Einstein”. After sharing a coffee with him we walked around the block together, to the exact same spot, where I saw him crossing the street during my lunch break. Back when I walked around the block with Joschka, he had five bodyguards and 2 staffers surrounding him, everyone on the side walk was forced to move out of his way.

While I watched him trying to cross the street alone, I had to think of the third passage in Walt Whitman’s homage to Abraham Lincoln “O Captain! My Captain!”:

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won! Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

In many ways Joschka Fischer has fallen cold and dead for the political processes in Germany. The Green Party which he shaped and influenced to a very strong degree finished its voyage from being alternative party to becoming an established political party. It must be a humbling experience to reach the upper echelons of government and then to return back to your mortal status. Just imagine how Joschka used to jog around Berlin-Mitte with a car full of body guards following his every move and with a mere wave of the hand, they would drive up next to him and give him a blue bottle full water as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Those days are over, the captain has left the ship and to see the former captain cross the street, like your normal Joe, is nothing more than seeing the seasons changing, but still interesting to think about.