Stanford Student Letters and Memoirs

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these went along another street and we only saw them at a distance. The rest of the parade was at least semi-civilian, though the pervasive sense of a people organized into a chain of little fighting units existed for us. There were thousands in "sport clubs", youth organizations, "factory fighting groups", all carrying colorful flags, posters, pictures of party heroes, etc. - all marching in front of the review stand in step. (By this time we had managed to slip with a small crowd of people thru gap in police restraining lines, and stood in good positions at one corner of the square itself, a fine view of the proceedings).

About 10:30 we (Dr. Tarshus (George's Econ. prof.), Dr. Whittaker, Dr. and Mrs. Zoerner, Laurie Hutton and I ) worked our way through the crowds back to the train to go over to the west side rally, just across the border between east and west Berlin in the gigantic Platz der Republic. This is a huge open space about 1/6 to 1/8 mile each way; there were an estimated 750,000 people there, to hear three speeches by west German and Berlin officials. To get any feeling for the magnitude of the occassion just try to imagine that many people assembled in one place- Big Game is 100,000, and this made that tiny. I was held up briefly to take pictures and it was an endless sea of faces in every direction. But the tone here was quite different from that of parade and spectacle in east Berlin. People were coming and going in steady streams at the edges of the crowd, but there was a arge [large] central area where the people stood still, watched and listened. The spirit was generally serious, thoughtful, people listening attentively, clapping at some points. It was quiet and serious the whole time as though the people appreciated the gravity of the situation and the importance of their position as an outpost of the free world. The speeches themselves were generally anti-Communist ("we will not surrender our freedom" variety.

As the west rally broke up (it lasted only 1 1/2 hours) we went back to the east sector and caught the last hour of the parade there (which lasted five hours)- which aws [was] closed by thirty units of polikspolizer (people's police) 100 men in each unit. Thus it closed on the same militaristic note on which it began.

We spent the rest of this afternoon again looking around a couple of book stores- and with the help of Laurie's Russian visa- I was able to buy a beautiful book on Van Gogh which I had been refused on 5 previous tries. Cost $2.25- worth $18 in the USA. I have bought several others by now including two big works by Harz and Engels and Lenin (30c each for 500 peces) and four longplay classical records with the exchange of east marks being over 4-1 in west Berlin (this is illegal to the east Germans) the prices are ridiculously low!

Tonight I am staying home, partly because I am tired and my feet are all walked out! But also I have to prepare a short talk for a meeting tomorrow morning in which we try to pull together our experiences and observations here in Berlin. So I have some reading and thinking to do. Maybe if my observations end up being organized enough I will write them down and send them on to you- for there is surely much to be learned and understood about Berlin and the US and every little knowledge helps.

Tomorrow is then our last day of sightseeing- we leave after dinner for the burg, arriving about 1:30 AM.

Cambridge before going on to Stanford- Economics seminar is my class from him.

April 4th

In talking with the other kids I find that, between us, we really covered the continent except perhaps Scandinavia where it is too cold. The most interesting trip in the long run will probably be the group of 14 that went to Russia. They had a really fascinating, sovering view of the zealous work of the people to build a new Utopia. and of the loss of freedom and individual creativity and welfare that accompanies this eager submission to the glory of the materialistic state.

As I think back over our own trip, I don’t discover any such tremendous intellectual experiences- our was more an eclectic assembly of several bebefits to lesser degree. We saw a tremendous amount of scenery and much more interesting countryside from our bicycles- much more thoroughly than you could from train or car-forming impressions that should last much longer. We also saw several large cities: Amsterdam, Cologne, Heidelberg and many many more of the small villages than the auto traveler ever does. We saw some excellent paintings and a variety of architecture from medieval fortresses to the Cologne cathedral to modern Rotterdam. We spoke with a few people at length, though fewer than those on the burg who hitch-hiked. mostly hostel fathers and got much good practice for our German. We biked about 800 kilometers- 500 miles- averaging about 60 a day and took the train for about 1300 more. We spent about $56.pp apiece, including about #24.00 for train ticket which is really cheap living for three weeks in two countries as well as we ate. And, not least important, we spent most of our time in the healthy outofdoors- built new leg muscles and got suntanned and windtoughened faces, and feel good and healthy. And we can tell our children that we once took a bike trip around Europe, so all in all it was a pretty worthwhile I think.

You might be interested in the general outline of this quarter. Classes are:

World Literature of Renaissance and Reclamation period- Dr. Whittaker International Economics – Advance seminar because I have already taken Econ 1 – Dr. Tarshus. German.

The main trips and dates:

April 14-18- Easter in Paris. April 26-May 2nd- Berlin- group trip May 16-19 (not definite) Group trip to Luxembourg to study European economic community of coal and steel, problems of European integration. June 3-7 Five days in Vienna June 8th and 9th- finals June 10- Finish papers and pack and Goodbye party June 11th- See you at the Airport!!!!!!!

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these went along another street and we only saw them at a distance. The rest of the parade was at least semi-civilian, though the pervasive sense of a people organized into a chain of little fighting units existed for us. There were thousands in "sport clubs", youth organizations, "factory fighting groups", all carrying colorful flags, posters, pictures of party heroes, etc. - all marching in front of the review stand in step. (By this time we had managed to slip with a small crowd of people thru a gap in police restraining lines, and stood in good positions at one corner of the square itself, a fine view of the proceedings).

About 10:30 we (Dr. Tarshus (George's Econ. prof. ), Dr. Whittaker, Dr. and Mrs. Zoerner, Laurie Hutton and I) worked our way through the crowds back to the train to go over to the west side rally, just across the border between east and west Berlin in the gigantic Platz der Republic. This is a huge open space about 1/4 to 1/2 mile each way; there were an estimated 750,000 people there, to hear three speeches by west German and Berlin officials. To get any feeling for the magnitude of the occasion just try to imagine that many people assembled in one place- Big Game is 100,000, and this made that tiny. I was held up briefly to take pictures and it was an endless sea of faces in every direction. But the tone here was quite different from that of parade and spectacle in east Berlin. People were coming and going in steady streams at the edge of the crowd, but there was a large central area where the people stood still, watched and listened. The spirit was generally serious, thoughtful, people listening attentively, clapping at some points. It was quiet and serious the whole time as though the people appreciated the gravity of the situation and the importance of their position as an outpost of the free world. The speeches themselves were generally anti-Communist ("We wil not surrender our freedom" variety).

As the west rally broke up (it lasted only 1 1/2 hours)we went back to the east sector and caught the last hour of the parade there (which lasted five hours)- which aws closed by thirty units of polikspolizer (people's police) 100 men in each unit. Thus it closed on the same militaristic note on which it began.

We spent the rest of this afternoon again looking around a couple of book stores- and with the help of Laurie's Russian visa- I was able to buy a beautiful book on Van Gogh which I had been refused on 5 previous tries. Cost $2.25- worth $18 in the USA. I have bought several others by now including two big works by Marx and Engels and Lenin (30 c each for 500 pages) and four longplay classical records. With the exchange of east marls being over 4-1 in west Berlin (this is illegal to the east Germans) the prices are ridiculously low!

Tonight I am staying home, partly because I am tired amd my feet are all walked out! But also I have to prepare a short talk for a meeting tomorrow morning in which we try to pull together our experiences and observations here in Berlin. So I have some reading and thinking to do. Maybe if my observations end up being organized enough I will write them down and send them on to you- for there is surely much to be learned and understood about Berlin and the US and every little knowledge helps.

Tomorrow is then our last day of sightseeing- we leave after dinner for the burg, arriving about 1:30 AM.

14.5.60

Hi Darling, and Ma & Pa too

Well, we had quite a day in Tübingen yesterday - a mixture of collegetype fun and interesting conversation. The town itself is simply beautiful, located on steepish hillsides rising from the quiet, smooth-flowing Neckar. Its sort of romantic - rustic with lots of old houses; and the presence of the university (it really is essentially a "university town", that being the main reason for its existence) only adds the student atmosphere to the already special scenic beauty. It's an ideal spot of a university (especially from the extra-curricular point of view!).

We arrived about 11 Am, spent 2 hours before lunch walking around the town for a while, then taking a beautiful rowboat ride on the Neckar. This is a favorite student pastime, both for groups of boys or girls and for couples (or even triple dates in one case I saw). There is a long, low narrow, tree and grass covered island in the stream and we spent about an hour rowing leisurely up one side of it, back the other, four of us and one German student. All along the bank of the island were students reading or just talking or lying in the sun - it was so peaceful and pretty!

While we were eating lunch back at the fraternity house a sudden storm blew up and it began pouring rain, continued intermittently for the whole afternoon. We went down to the Stift - an Augustenian cloister from the 15th century, now a dorm for mostly theology students, others too - heard a talk about the history of the town, the cloister, etc. Several famous people have studied at Tübingen, one of Germany's best universities (dating from 1420) - Kepler the astronomer, Hegel the philosopher, Schelling (a contemporary of Hegel in idealism), Hölderlin, a lyric poet of the 19th cent.

From the Stift we rode up to a cafe - hangout of the students, overlooking the Neckar valley, and sat around drinking a delicious hard cider - lemon juice drink and sharing college songs together. We 30 from Stanford sang our classic drinking songs, then joined them on German songs. Lots of fun of course.

Then last night we had a dinner-dance at the fraternity house, had a chance both to dance and have fun and to talk about German and American universities ans student life. We finally had to leave about 11:30 in order to stagger into bed here at 1:30.

Got to go now to ride with Dr. Tarshus to Stuttgart - another bunch of errands.

Lots of love, George

1 May 60

Hi Sweetheart + Ma + Pa - all of you together, as usual with a big letter.

Well today was May Day in Berlin, so long awaited by us visitors from Stanford and by the people of east + west Berlin.

We began by taking the train (i.e. an inter-city rapid transit system - there are two, one underground and with more stops, one above with fewer stops, thus faster) to the Marx-Engels Platz in the east sector, the site of their huge parade rally. We arrived just at the 9 AM starting time, and couldn't get within a couple of blocks of the square because of the number of people and some blocked off streets. The initial feeling when we got off the train was like that of a big football game or parade - huge crowds, band music in the distance, various groups forming to march, a sense of excitement and carnival-like activity in the air. In each of the many side streets leading toward the Marx-Engels square were a block or two of groups preparing to march in the parade - this accounted for about 3/4 of the people, since almost everyone was marching in some group or another (if not "regimented", East Berlin is certainly well "organized". The first part of the parade was the actual military part - marching units of soldiers + sailors carrying tommy guns or rifles, and even doing the goose-step. After the armies came the weapons - tanks, big cannon, anti-aircraft, troop carrier trucks, etc; unfortunately these went along another street and we only saw them at a distance. The rest of the parade was at least semi-civilian, though the pervasive sense of a people organized into a chain of little fighting units existed for us. There were thousands in sports clubs, youth organizations, "factory fighting groups", all carrying colorful flags, posters, pictures of party heros, etc, all marching in step before the review stand. (By this time we had managed to slip with a small crowd of people through a gap in police restraining lines, and stood in good positions at one corner of the square itself, a fine view of the proceedings).

At about 10:30 we (oh, we was Dr. Tarshus, Dr. Whittaker, Dr. + Mrs. Boerner, Laurie Hutton and I) worked our way through the crowds back to the train to go over to the west side rally, just across the border (between east + west Berlin) in the gigantic Platz der Republic. This is a huge open space about (a very rough guess) 1/4 to 1/2 mile each way; there were estimated 750,000 people there, to hear three speeches by west German and Berlin officials. To get any feel for the magnitude of the occasion just try to imagine that many people assembled in one place. Big game is 100,000 and this made that tiny. I was held