Heidelberg Days 1964—1968

HEIDELBERG DAYS 1964—1968 By Frank Lyons An enormous contest was playing out in the 1960s in post-World War II Germany to determine if the capitalism and freedom of West Germany or the communism and totalitarianism of East Germany would win out as the favored form of government. Frank Lyons lived and worked in West Germany during part of this epic contest. In a readable, insightful, and amusing manner, Lyons weaves together his observations and experiences in Heidelberg Days 1964-1968, a book about ongoing historical events, the developing Cold War, his professional work, and raising his young family. He does not avoid covering the infamous behavior of the Nazis, the Red Army, and others during and after the war. Heidelberg Days 1964-1968, also explains how it all eventually turned out a half century later. Lyons’ unique and personal writing style about the history of post war Germany will make first-time visitors feel like they are revisiting their home towns. HEIDELBERG DAYS 1964-1968 Frank Lyons HEIDELBERG DAYS 1964-1968 by Frank Lyons Copyright © 2014 by Frank Lyons. All rights reserved. Heidelberg Days 1964-1968 is based on Frank Lyons’ memory and research of events in West Germany where he lived from 1964 to 1968. Book covers photo by Dreamstime LLC. Heidelberg Days 1964-1968 is available for purchase from Amazon. Manufactured in the United States of America. The author may be contacted at [email protected]. ISBN-: ISBN-: This book is dedicated to the most important people in it: My late wife, Rita Lyons And my children, Kathleen and John And to my wife Jean Lyons who helped me in countless ways as I wrote Heidelberg Days 1964-1968 And in memory of my parents, William Lyons and Mary (Donohoe) Lyons. CONTENTS Preface ix Introduction xi Chapter 1 Moving to Germany 1 Chapter 2 Heidelberg 17 Chapter 3 Overseas Expansion 31 Chapter 4 Living in Germany 40 Chapter 5 The German People 67 Chapter 6 The Konrad Adenauer Era 79 Chapter 7 Building an Iron Foundry 99 Chapter 8 The Ludwig Erhard Era 114 Chapter 9 The Looming Bear to the East 123 Chapter 10 Post War West Germany 140 Chapter 11 Post War East Germany 154 Chapter 12 Post War Nightmares 163 Chapter 13 Traveling in Europe 175 Chapter 14 Career Development 192 Chapter 15 Going Home 201 Chapter 16 What Came Next 216 Bibliography 230 Photographic Credits 232 Acknowledgements 236 PREFACE How Heidelberg Days—1964-1968 Came to Be Since retirement—first from the John Deere company, a farm equipment manufacturer, and later from Emerald Associates Inc., a manufacturing consulting company—I have followed my lifelong passion for writing. Heidelberg Days—1964-1968 is my fourth book. When I lived in Heidelberg, West Germany with my young family for four years in the mid-1960s, it was a high adventure. But from the vantage point of a half century later, I now recognize that I occupied a ringside seat for witnessing and recording the next phase of the post-World War II transformation following Europe’s initial emergence from the rubble and chaos of the war. I decided that I had a story that should be written. The entire population of Western Europe was still reconstituting itself with the hope that another devastating world war would never occur. This was carried out with the looming and threatening Russian bear to the east looking for any opportunity to foist her suffocating communist system onto the West. Throughout the book, I used the commonly accepted term “Russia.” Before the collapse of communism in the late 1980s, the more correct name was The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Heidelberg Days is an account of what I observed, heard, and read about during and after my tenure living in West Germany followed by a backward look five decades later at the time I wrote the book. I was compelled to write this story when I reflected on what a rich personal and historical time I had experienced. Writers of history often demonstrate Arnold Toynbee’s claim, “History is just one damn thing after another.” I tried to disprove Toynbee’s implication that reading history books is a better way to go to sleep than counting sheep by humanizing and personalizing my account of the times. I told my story by showing a connection wherever possible between the history of the era and my living adventure in West Germany. I wrote Heidelberg Days with the intent that it would appeal to readers of German history—particularly the legions of foreign soldiers and civilians who lived for a time in post war West Germany. I also wrote with the hope that the book would be informative and amusing to armchair readers. I was inspired by Mark Twain who lived and wrote in Heidelberg a century earlier. He observed German culture through the eyes of an American as he wrote in his satirical style. We both were enabled to live and work in Germany by our employers: Twain was employed by a newspaper publisher and I worked for a farm machinery manufacturer. I was guided by some of Twain’s writing techniques that helped him write in his clear, understandable style: He listed every word that could express an idea. Then he selected the simplest word from the list. He said, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." And he disliked “the fluffy adjective” habit. He advised, “When you catch an adjective, kill it.” Although I occasionally refer to and quote Mark Twain in Heidelberg Days, I do not have the slightest expectation that our respective readers will think we dipped our writing quills into the same ink well. When I compare Twain’s talent to mine, I must resist the temptation to return my quill to the tail of goose that provided the feather. INTRODUCTION By the mid to late 1960s, the US and other NATO members warily faced Russia and her Warsaw Pact allies. They were like bulls snorting and pawing the earth ready to butt heads at the first sign of provocation. The US and Russia were the only still- ascending world powers at that time. Although the initial phase of the post war era was largely over, the consolidation of the vast changes continued. Germany was split into West Germany and East Germany. Each was established along vastly different and conflicting political lines. Russia was still in the process of establishing communism in her homeland and the Eastern European countries that she dominated, and the US was still consolidating her large military presence in Western Europe. The Cold War dominated the news of the day as if it were a weather report predicting a never-ending storm watch. Officially West Germany was named the “Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)” and East Germany the “German Democratic Republic (GDR).” In this book I refer to them by their commonly used names, West Germany and East Germany. The events recounted in Heidelberg Days—historical, personal, and professional—occurred primarily during the time I lived with my family in West Germany. But to broaden the perspective, I sometimes drifted into the past and projected into the future. Recollections from my boyhood in the US during World War II provided related information about the events described in this book. I further acquired information from a lifetime of reading history, biographies, and general interest books. I rounded out my research by reading a wide selection of the many available books written about war-time and post war Germany. If there are factual errors, misquotes, or misinterpretations, I alone accept the fault. Several events, from a different viewpoint, were recalled by my daughter, Kathy (Kathleen), from her girlhood in Germany. My son, John, was too young to have more than a few dim memories of his German boyhood. Unfortunately, Rita, my late wife and partner for more than thirty years was not living to participate in the writing of Heidelberg Days. The book speaks of the post-World War II era that directly and indirectly touched our lives. In the 1960s, powerful and vivid memories of wartime and post war years still intensely occupied the minds of all Germans and most Americans. The people of both countries were still struggling with how to proceed in a dramatically changed world while the menacing—and sometimes oafish—Russian bear to the east tried to define and establish her role with her newly found power and influence. She was simultaneously attempting to develop and spread the largely unfamiliar and unproven communist system—only several decades old—in her physically vast and culturally varied country and in her satellites. Russia soon discovered she could not earn respect and acceptance for her suffocating, totalitarian form of communism as she inflicted it with an iron fist. But, she learned she was very good at scaring the stuffing out of people by dreaded midnight knocks followed by a ride to an interrogation center where confession would be extracted, by whatever means, for being a Trotskyite, a revisionists, a saboteur, a traitor or anti-party; then, if still living, on to the gallows, firing squad, or a Siberian labor camp. For groups of demonstrators, rioters or protestors, there were lethal barrages from Russian tanks and artillery fired point blank into crowded city squares. One of the most effective means of Russian control in occupied Germany was with food rationing. The best grade of rationing was reserved for those who cooperated best with the Russians; the worst grade was scarcely enough to sustain life.

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