Still Trying to Become Part of Germany

Tuesday June 13, 2006

SCHWERIN, GERMANY - This week is moving quickly. I was in Rostock for a couple days, but have now moved on to Schwerin, a city about an hour’s drive from the Baltic Sea in North Central Germany. It is one of the old East Germany’s western-most cities, and it is still trying, after 16 years, to be fully integrated into the new unified Germany.

Reminders of the old Soviet satellite state are everywhere, although some have recently been scrubbed. The hotel where I’m staying is listed as an address on Karl Marx Strasse. However, the city leaders changed the name just a year ago. A street named for Lenin changed right after the wall fell.

But a statue of Lenin remains. Debate continues here about what to do regarding a 14-foot statue of Lenin that sits on a plaza within an old communist housing development. It seems extremely odd seeing the stern figure of the Soviet hero, standing hands in pocket, overcoat neatly buttoned, eyes looking in the direction of Russia. Since East Germany fell, many have wanted to remove the statue, but others in town feel that the reminder of Lenin should remain to ensure residents don’t forget the pain of the old system. It is also difficult to remove all the reminders of Soviet times, since many socialists are still around and continue to hold staying power in local elections.

The old gray units that provided small spaces for all workers are now largely empty. Many are being renovated into more modern units so they less resemble the Soviet design which was devoid of character, and in most cases, color. Around a third of the units that once held 50,000 people are now empty on this edge of Schwerin. Some units are being torn down to eliminate the excess space. Schwerin lost 35,000 residents after reunification, mostly because jobs in this region became scarce and haven’t improved much. Regional unemployment is around 20%. One city official estimates that as much as half of the residents of the old housing blocks are unemployed and living off of Germany’s generous welfare system.

Schwerin contains a huge castle, the Schwerin Castle, now the seat of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern State Parliament. Some structure of the castle has existed here for a thousand years, but it actually became a castle in the 16th and 17th centuries. Henry the Lion ruled here, and the castle was also the seat of the Count of Schwerin and the dukedom and Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The castle is stunning, sitting on an island, surrounded by water, at the edge of the Schwerin Sea (which is actually a huge lake). Since few Americans are likely to travel here, it’s one of Germany’s lesser known castles, but it is a breathtaking structure. The German head of the RIAS program in which I’m participating says in this country, castles are “a dime a dozen,” owing to the fact that Germany has a long history of division ruled by warring fiefdoms.

Schwerin is also a fortunate city in regards to its history. Unlike all the other cities I’ve visited on this trip, it did not sustain catastrophic damage during World War II. Since it wasn’t a primary place for armament building or German troops, only the train station was bombed to disrupt transportation. U.S. soldiers took the town peacefully in 1945, so many buildings that date back hundreds of years still exist much as they did when they were built.

What’s the biggest irony in this former Soviet bloc city? The site where the Soviet army headquartered in Schwerin is where the city’s three-level shopping mall illustrates capitalism on a daily basis.

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