Letter from Munich – 009
Letter from Munich – the Joseph Affair – 9
EINE DEUTSCHE FASSUNG STEHT WEITER UNTEN.
9 March 2001
Dear Mr. Graf, dear friends,
“Singing in the Munich subways is apparently a punishable offense,” Annette said to us. “At least that’s what one passenger claimed this week, after two young Americans suddenly began playing their guitars and singing – with enchanting voices – in the middle of a crowded subway car outbound from the city center.”
She had a worldly-wise – and slightly world-weary – expression on her face, as if she were about to ask, “But what else would you expect from the German bureaucracy?” Instead of that, however, she said, “I don’t normally use public transportation, but I was in town with my two little grandsons, who are still young enough to find riding the subway a great adventure. I had given my driver the afternoon off, and we were on our way out to one of the children’s favorite restaurants in Arabella Park. All at once, the subway car was filled with these lovely sounds – clear, almost bell-like, accompanied by the nearly angelic sounds of those simple stringed instruments.”
She seemed to revel in the memory for a moment. “The reaction of the other passengers I can only describe as absolutely teutonic. They froze. Not as if they were shocked, really, but as if they had received an input of data that their brains simply could not process. Then one large, elderly, calcified Bavarian recovered enough to try to take control of the situation by growling loudly over the music, ‘Aber es ist verboten!’ “
Annette’s smile was radiant. “A woman sitting in the next bank of seats shouted back – a little too loudly and with a hint of something like panic in her voice, as if she were doing something that demanded great courage – ‘For God’s sake, we live in a democracy!’ “
Again that world-weary expression. “And I thought to myself, well, that still may be true, but what kind of a democracy is it really? A young boy dies in Saxony and the parents and their lawyer collect eye-witnesses and other evidence which is never objectively evaluated, which is instead seized by the state as proof to be used in charging the parents with ‘incitement to false suspicions.’ “
For a moment her eyes followed the flight of two swans that could be seen through the large livingroom window that looked out over Starnberger See. “The parents have never been charged, of course. The government can’t risk that because then too many of the questions surrounding the child’s death would be forced into the open. But the ‘proof’ the government seized from the parents has never been returned. Instead, we are treated to events such as a brief report on German state television last week that began with the moderator obliquely rebuking the parents for carrying out their own investigation – apparently Germany is not yet quite democratic enough to allow such a thing. Then we were treated to yet another one-sided report – decorated with the trappings of objectivity – about the so-called impossibility of the boy being murdered by Neonazis. But in that report, no opposing views were offered, none of the eyewitnesses that the parents brought forward was ever interviewed, the parents’ attorney was not heard from, no professional who disputes the way the autopsy was conducted and the results evaluated ever appeared in the program, nor were the parents themselves allowed to express their views.”
Once again I didn’t know what to say. People like Annette are much more intelligent than I am. I’m just a simple, elderly American language teacher. What do I know of things like evidence, autopsies, and charges of murder by Neonazis – or about politics in a place like Saxony?
Sincerely yours,
Robert John Bennett
Mauerkircherstrasse 68
81925 Germany
Telephone: +49.89.981.0208
