In 1993, I was working
for EMS and needed to go to Germany to meet with the law firm to establish a
German subsidiary, install a general manager and interview a dozen applicants
for the Sales Manager job. My business-class airfare was too high at $2000 and
I wanted a better deal. My wife wanted to go with me and found tourist tickets
for $450, so off we went.
My wife and I flew to
Frankfurt and got a rental car. We had scheduled the trip to begin in
Frankfurt. We drove on the autobahn to Stuttgart the next day to see the law
firm. We stopped to see Heidelberg on the way. We had scheduled 6 interviews at
our hotel in Frankfurt for the next few days for the applicants who were near
Frankfurt. In our free time, we toured Frankfurt and talked to the people. I had
studied German in college and was beginning to speak German again.
The next weekend we
checked out of our hotel and drove to Dusseldorf and saw the German countryside
and toured the castles. We arrived in Dusseldorf and checked in to the
Steigenberger Parkhotel on the “Ko”. We settled in for the last 6 interviews
and meet with the subsidiary team in Aachen. We used our free time to see
Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bonn and Charlemagne’s tomb in Aachen Cathedral and toured
several castles, churches and museums. We also continued our conversations with
the Germans.
Having concluded all
of our business in Dusseldorf, we drove back to Frankfurt and checked in to our
hotel to get ready to fly back to the US. I had asked the Germans many
questions and they had lots of questions for me.
My wife grew up in
what had been a German farming community in South St. Louis County. Her maiden
name was Johannes and her mother’s name was Buss. Their ancestors traced back
to Frankfurt and Dusseldorf. We toured the
Johannes castle, Johannes church, drank some Johannes beer, saw some pricey
Buss men’s suits and bought a cuckoo clock. She had found her roots.
I was impressed by
what the Germans had accomplished. Their news reports included a lot of
real-time detail on the sales and production activities in their private sector
companies. Consequently, Germans were cheerleaders for their industries. It was
the kind of loyalty small towns in the US had for their high school football
teams. They wanted to be “the best” and they wanted to “win”. They did have the
best beer and bakery goods and they were leaders in manufacturing cars and
production equipment. Their media was focused on their economics.
The Germans had been
drinking the Kool Aid on socialized medicine and were not shy to tell me they
wouldn’t give it up. They showed some distain for the East Germans, because
they “didn’t know how to work”. I was disturbed by their allowing their Turkish
immigrants to use the Square in Frankfurt to protest ancient grievances against
their former Turkish government. The
Germans were too tolerant and I was concerned.
As we landed at the
Atlanta airport, I was impressed with the size of it compared to the Frankfurt
airport. I was struck by how vast our country really is compared to Germany.
Germany has 137,847
square miles of land area and they used every bit of it. The US has 3.8 million
square miles and we only use 70% of it. Germany has a population of 82.3
million and the US has a population of 326.8 million. Germany has a GDP of $3.5
trillion and the US has a GDP of $20 trillion.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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