1962 year in review so A lot twist at a time:-theme twist (m. Hazy Osterwald & his "Hey-man-twisters") Berlin (wall - refugee killings) Hamburg floods prosperity in danger - Schlieker bankruptcy Maßhalte appeal Erhard Shegel affair - Bonn government crisis - new Minister Cuban missile crisis reconciliation in Germany, with France (content see narration)
Annual review 1962 1962 leitmotif: "So much twist at a time"
No, it's not, but that was the rhythm and the leitmotif of the year 62. hardly that it had started, started everything that was reasonably mobile, to move in the same way.
The world danced on a wave of twist - in Munich as well as in Moscow, in Rome as well as in Rio. Twist - so the dictionary tells us - means twist or squirm means distorting facts, distort, confuse, upset. Twist wanted to say that someone's writhing or freaking out. And twist is finally: something forcibly change. In his word sincere meaning, the twist also became a political rhythm. "Why dance twist?"
"Because me is fun."
"Dolle music, drops one on the nerve!"
"We To want work today as Socialists because we To want tomorrow live on socialist way into prosperity and happiness."
"Is Scheissdrä."
"Sometimes the joke is the last and most dangerous weapons of the spirit against violence."
"The future, not the brutal violence belongs to the spirit."
"And why Mr Ulbricht had to erect the wall that is."
"And all waving and we not come together!"
"So I thought to myself, so I must somehow necessarily over."
"I wish every West Germans that he comes over here and really look at that!"
"Berlin is worth even my trip!"
"That pisses off one, go here!"
"Yes, if it is only on the wall, you get a wall complex there. "So we see than just wall, wall, wall, only the wall in front of eyes!"
Behind the wall was a glimpse of the inhuman communist system trains this year. In the morning hours of a summer day the East Berlin, Pankow met ball Peter Fechter. Because he claimed the right recognized in all liberal countries in the world, to change his place of residence, Peter Fechter had to bleed to death in an agonizing hour without help.
This murder and the cynical smile of those who executed him on higher command, the outrage of the West Berlin ignited itself and with them the entire free world. We took 41 refugee killings since construction of the wall to note, those that occurred At night and fog, we can only guess. On 150 kilometers, the horror has in Berlin - so it seems aimed in the long term.
"Dora 22. The situation at the border of the sector is unchanged."
The night of 26 and 27 February will remain at least in the Hamburg annals as the biggest night of disasters in recent history. After several days of storms, the levees broke and sank in just a few hours the sleeping city in a desert of water.
The large, civilian probation of the Bundeswehr kept in remembrance to the night of flood of is. Thousands were evacuated from her. Those who had entrusted their world shaped by technology and civilization on the security, were helpless in the face of a disaster, which had deemed it impossible.
"We were up - up to the stomach we were wet." Our roof was not high enough, since we went on the scales. -Yes, I can't tell more, No more. No, I can't more."
"Now I am back here before a nothing and start for the third time. Three times lost, but now I No more start everything!"
But soon life will and confidence to develop began all despair despite, and today, it looks as if the night of the great flood was only an annoying bug in the otherwise perfect order of our society.
Our concern covered an area that we thought also was secured this year: the prosperity. Behind the images of affluence rising wages and falling export figures were suddenly visible, until finally the economic development received a dramatic accent by the collapse of a company. The Schlieker group filed for bankruptcy.
Federal Economic Minister Erhard sparked the discussion of wealth across the country with his appeals. "The fact that despite rising prosperity everywhere a feeling of unease is noticed, seems to me but to suggest that people of that are aware that prosperity alone lucky not to slay will be."
"This is frankly nonsense, that's bullshit!"
"He should put on the belly!"
"I believe that every human being today so can live with the money he earned, he has an income."
"In my opinion, quite right. In many parts of the population dimension is lost!"
The right measure is up for debate, since has been arrested under the suspicion of treason of the mirror Publisher Rudolf Augstein. The Cassandra cries that arose then, startled even the quietest people. Probably rarely the public so violently responded – rightly or wrongly – as in this case. Well, after the first wave of excitement is over, the reporting remains the chroniclers, that in the Federal Republic since much more in the breaks went as only a classroom seat boards.
Taiwan's young democracy, which was never seriously in danger, found himself suddenly passionately defended. Stand in the fire of those who reported their political concerns, Franz Joseph Strauss, which was equally passionate to defend: "Faith Yes, that you replace the head with the larynx can not back there!"
The crisis was there when the FDP under Erich Mende attempted at least by the resignation of its ministers, to ask the Adenauer Cabinet into question.
After weeks of negotiations Bundesverteidigungs-Minister Strauss was forced to abandon his post. The Bonn changing of the Guard brought us a new Defence Minister in addition to other changes in Kai-Uwe von hassel, and slowly the Spiegel affair was in the air of a cooler approach.
"Mirror mirror, my honourable gentlemen, isn't that for me of so great interest. "But for me is of interest, ladies and gentlemen, that we don't have traitors in our own camp."
"So to speak, the Bild newspaper for intellectuals is me so for the definition of the opposition in Germany, as she is the mirror, A little bit too thin--A little bit too thin."
"If you sit behind the warm stove, then you remember sometimes what to actually do. And, then you remember My friends, not that to help only the courage of the Russians, that eventually the West will be divided, with such unnecessary disagreements."
For the first time the Soviets refused this year to the demonstration of their military strength, as they celebrated the 45th day of the October revolution with bouquets instead of rockets from their top party men in Moscow.
Yet those rockets in the memory, shortly before being ridden by East and West in the Cuba conflict on the launch pads were too fresh on this day.
President Kennedy had debunked the Soviet attempt with the publication of aerial photographs of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, a military attack base to make Fidel Castro and his sugar island. With a clear ultimatum to Khrushchev, Kennedy took the risk of a military confrontation.
The American blockade moved the red phone in the offing for a short time. In the Wallstreet, stock exchanges, those sensitive Seismograph of political crises responded with price falls. The fear of a war held over a week-long the world in suspense, and overnight gained a popularity that they tried in vain to give him in times of peace in Germany the "squirrel". The optimists among the pessimists hamsterten emergency rations.
But the danger of a military conflict passed. The Soviets had to withdraw their offensive weapons from Cuba. An experience but they had become rich in: their belief in the moral weakness of the West was an illusion.
With the handshake of two outstanding men began in Paris is one of the few encouraging events of the past year: the reconciliation of Germany with France. The Arc de Triomphe and at a Franco German parade in Mourmelon Chancellor trying to counter a work of hope and reason to the political folly of our days completed itself. Together with Charles de Gaulle, he sealed the new friendship in a service at the Cathedral of Reims.
The enthusiasm in Germany proved how Very much this new friendship corresponded to the will of the people, and for a moment the work of historic size was noticeable, as Charles de Gaulle in Germany the former opponents, whose pride he helped to destroy, gave back the political self-confidence. "When I hear your rally, I feel even more strongly than before the assessment and the confidence I have for your great people - Yes - for the great German people."
"You need to watch just the flame in your eyes, to be convinced that this enthusiasm has chosen to be the masters of life and of the future!"
"Do you assess the near future optimistic or pessimistic?"
"Optimistic."
"Yes, Very much, Very much confident!"
"Definitely, I mean, if the German youth were not confident at all the youth, what will be with us, yes?"
The look is forward always full of hope, even if the views back charged is aware with the thoughts on a year full of disasters and crises, whose images we or unconsciously carry over to a new beginning. If we now let the new year from the stack with childlike confidence, we bear in mind that we're all in this together not only with the desire, but also with the desire to glückhafter drive.
