A
few weeks ago, as part of my occasional series 'Shit to look at in
Berlin'*, I recently visited the abandoned Besucherbergwerk
F60 mine in Lausitz, and spent a productive few hours on a lengthy tour in, on
and up the 3000 tonne, 780-wheeled, 27MW powered, 700m long and 70m
high overburdened conveyor bridge, the "Liegender
Eiffelturm der Lausitz",
or, literally, the 'Fallen Eiffel Tower of Lausitz.
The
huge craney thing in that there picture there underneath.
We
travelled there from the mainline station on a specially-commissioned
Schienenbus, a grand old
light-diesel railcar from the 1950's and 60's, with an admirable lack
of any discernible suspension and a jolly driver straight out of a
Thomas the Tank Engine episode. Although it would be impossible not
to be happy if your job was driving a little toytown railcar up and
down a rusting track through a beautiful forest all day.
The
Leigender, a just enormous behemoth, looms up over the
surrounding countryside like a crashed intergalactic space-cruiser,
an alien metal monster resting in rural Germany, about 130km south of
Berlin, in the kind of spectacular woodlands that would have
Wordsworth jumping out of his grave to scribble a few verses about
trees and hills and that.
'18..19...20...coming ready or - you're behind the bush.'
The
name Liegender Eiffelturm der Lausitz comes from the
'celebrated' fact that if this Soviet beastie was sat up on its end,
it would be considerably taller than the Eiffel Tour.
Here's
the process, I think: one end of Birtha here scoops up millions of
tons of top soil/rock using enormous diggers, exposing the brown coal
seams underneath ready to be mined.
The
topsoil is lifted up into the machine, then transported on a huge
industrial conveyor belt to the other end, where it is spat out to
form long ridges of dirt on the opposite bank from where the coal is (on the righthand side, on the picture below).
It
doesn't actually do any of the mining itself – that is for other
men and other machines. This monstrous workhorse merely exposes the
brown coal.
The Soviet energy structure, certainly in
East Germany at least, was based around the burning of brown coal, a
horrid inefficient pollutant that, never-the-less, made cheap fuel. So, the Soviets
ploughed substantial money into this project. It took 2 solid years, thousands of
men, and goodness knows how much to build.
And here's the wonderful part:
Liegender
Eiffelturm der Lausitz finally began working in 1991. Then the Wall came down, and the Soviet Union crumbled. Capitalist West took over East Germany, and the arse fell out of the brown coal market. Liegender
Eiffelturm der Lausitz ceased operations in 1992. It was used for a little over a year. It's never been switched on since.
The
mine and the conveyor bridge is now used just as we used it last
month: as a tourist destination for nerdy people with a unabashed
love for human ingenuity and insurmountable folly.
* It wasn't in Berlin. It is 130km outside of Berlin. That's not in Berlin.
'Er ist Wieder Da' (Look Who's Back) - film review As
I wrote in an earlier post, a new comedy film in Germany has caused
tremendous controversy and not a little soul-searching among the
German people.
Er
ist Wieder Da is the half film, half mocumentary-style adaptation
of the 2012 bestselling German satirical novel about Adolf Hitler by
Timur Vermes. The book was published in the UK as Look Who's Back.
Marketed very much as a comedy, the
film uses the monster from Germany's past as a comedy
tool with which to explore the German (and European) people's
darkening attitudes to multiculturalism and immigration, pitching
parallels with pre-fascist 1930s Germany with razor sharp clarity.
In
2011, Adolf Hitler wakes up in a small patch of scrubland in Berlin,
with no memory of anything that happened after 1945. Initially
unaware of the intervening years he determines to continue his plans for Europe to fruition, interpreting everything he sees in 2011
from a Nazi perspective (for instance, he assumes that Turks in
Germany are an indicator of Karl Dönitz having persuaded Turkey to
join the Axis) — and although everyone recognises him, nobody
believes that he is Hitler; instead, they think he is either a
comedian, or a method actor. He meets a documentary film-maker who
sees comedy potential and seeks to cash in.
So
far, so fish-out-of-water slapstick funny: Hitler discovers the
internet and, when invited, searches Wikipedia for 'world
domination'. He laments with a dog-breeder about how the German
Shepherd eventually loses its identity when it reproduces with other
breeds. He pours utter disdain on modern-day German politics, but
sees hope in 'a bunch of oddballs called the Green Party',
misintepreting their ecological policies for a desire to preserve the
pure Germanic hinterland – although, 'of course, their rejection of
atomic energy is absurd!'
A
TV channel, realising the ratings potential of their new star, puts
Hitler on as many of their shows and internet platforms as possible.
Of course, this gives him access to millions of German viewers,
allowing him to transmit his propaganda of German nationhood, Aryan
purity and National Socialism in ways that, as he notes while
sneering at the banality of daytime TV, Nazi propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels could barely dream
of.
In
a remarkable performance, actor Oliver Masucci plays Hitler dead
straight from the opening scene, not as a comedy send-up, but as a
shrewd and charismatic political operator and orator.
21st
Century Germany celebrates what it sees as a post-modern satirical
performance on their TV, a ridiculous character designed to mock and
traduce the national collective memory of Hitler. The videos of his angry rants become hugely
successful on YouTube, and he achieves modern celebrity status as a
performer. You can almost feel the German people laughing with relief
at being given the chance to finally puncture the pomposity of the
figurehead from their darkest history. “Look at how ridiculous
he was! How did people ever fall for it all?”
But
as the film goes on, the story begins to turn, pivoting darkly around
Hitler, the politician.
On a tour of Germany, filmed as a documentary, ordinary real-life
Germans open their hearts to Hitler, often expressing prejudiced
views about foreigners and immigrants and 'bearded men' (Muslims) in
their country, complaining that if they ever say anything about it
then they are labelled a racist. One man even suggests bringing back
work camps for homeless immigrants.
What
is remarkable here is that these views aren't coming from radicals or
fringe lunatics, but from normal, middle class people simply
confronted by a chap dressed as Hitler.
Our
Hitler's determination to continue where he left off in 1945 sees him
meet the genuine leaders of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany
and the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, has selfies taken
with sieg heil-ing football fans, encouraging a physical attack on a
young antifascist, and talks with one particular man who asks for the
camera to be turned off before replying, 'If you were real, I would
do anything for you.'
In one
memorable (thankfully fictional) scene, Hitler is confronted by a terrified elderly Jewish
woman, her fear and hatred and memories cutting through her dementia.
'It's just satire. It's comedy,' says her granddaughter, trying to
calm her agitated grandmother. 'That's what everyone thought then,
too,' replies the grandmother, 'until it was too late.'
Very
slowly, a nicely-polished looking-glass turns to reflect a simmering
and resentful Germany back at its modern, confident self.
Berliner
Morgenpost,
one of Berlin's major newspapers, says of the film, "A
fake Hitler, a small moustache ... allowed insights into Germany's
dark side." Hitler,
it said, "in a figurative sense,never
really left...The far-right ideology smoulders to this day.”
After a failed assassination attempt, Hitler looks his assailant, and the camera, in the eye and says, 'You can't kill me. I am a
part of you. I am a part of all of you,' reminding the watching audience that
Hitler, far from overthrowing the Government of the time and
installing himself as Chancellor, was in fact democratically elected by the German
people in 1933 on an explicit and well-publicised anti-Simitic Nazi
manifesto.
The film was
made in 2013/14, before the Syrian and Middle East refugee tragedy
brought hundreds of thousands fleeing war and violence to Europe's borders. Following the public and political backlash to the crisis and the arrival of the refugees, the film seems prescient. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The final, terrifying scene sent a cold chill straight down my spine, and should act as a
call-to-arms for antifascists and right-thinking people everywhere:
real-life, recent news footage of violent racist attacks, mass
demonstrations across Europe against immigrants and asylum-seekers,
huge far-right rallies, rightwing and Conservative political parties
pushing anti-immigrant policies and using dangerous rhetoric to whip
up xenophobia and fear - all shown against Hitler being driven
through the streets, smiling at waving Berliners and, with some
satisfaction, declares:
