A look at Munich's international and German-American clubs
What is German-American friendship? What does it mean to you? Would you join an organization like the Columbus Society or the German-American Men's or Women's Club? Here are some of the answers I got in an informal survey: "German-American friendship is a Cold War anachronism. It's a bunch of old men telling their World War II stories." "It sounds kind of forced if you have to put the word 'friendship' in the name of your club." "Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft? Wasn't that an advertising slogan for cranberry juice a few months back?" "German-American what?" Most of the people I talked to were in their thirties or younger. None of them knew firsthand what a radical concept German-American friendship was in the mid-1940s, when anti-fraternization laws forbade all social contact between Germans and the occupying American forces. The German-American Men's Club was founded in 1946 in direct defiance of these laws. The Women's Club was founded one year later, after the laws were repealed. These two groups were once among the most influential in Germany, though in recent years they have gone into decline. Their American membership in particular has waned since many of the U.S. military bases, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America closed, moved or were disbanded. On May 3, the Federation of German-American Clubs celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, but few people today realize what a crucial role the clubs played in helping rebuild cities like Munich up from the ashes of World War II. Are the clubs still relevant today and do they have a future? THE ZERO HOUR Imagine, if you can, die Stunde Null, the Zero Hour, right after the war. Munich is devastated almost beyond recognition. Since 1940, countless air raids have bombarded the city. Nearly 45 percent of the buildings have been destroyed. From a prewar population of 700,000, 470,000 survive. They are widows and orphans, displaced persons, refugees and prisoners of war. Former Columbus Society president Wolfgang Robinow remembers this time. He was the first American soldier to stand on Marienplatz after the war. On April 29, 1945, Robinow's regiment, part of the 47th Infantry Division, received orders to liberate Munich. The next morning, they set out by jeep from where the Stuttgart Autobahn passes Munich today and kept going until they hit the center of town. "We didn't see a single soul," says Robinow, "until we got to Marienplatz. Then we saw hundreds of people. Prisoners of war, German women, children, old men. Everyone was cheering us. The women were throwing flowers and kissing us." That day his regiment freed 14,000 Allied prisoners. Another regiment of the 47th Infantry liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp. Liberation, however, was just the beginning. All these people needed clothing and food. Even farmers didn't have enough to eat. There were outbreaks of tuberculosis and polio. Many suffered severe malnutrition and required medical treatment, difficult in a bombed-out city with no functioning sewage system, no clean running water. It was during this time that Sam Magill, retired Lieutenant Colonel, former Men's Club vice president and current regional chairman of the Federation of German-American Clubs, was the military governor of Wolfenbüttel, where he faced similar difficulties. "We had to get everything going again: the streetcars, the factories, literally everything." The non-fraternization laws were in force, "but we had to work together with the Germans," says Magill. "Otherwise we wouldn't have gotten anything done." In 1947 the non-fraternization laws were repealed, and together the two clubs distributed CARE packages and powdered milk to rural areas where they were most needed. The Women's Club began a used clothing drive for refugees and displaced persons. From 1945 to 1948, Munich was inching its way back towards normalcy. The U.S. military reinstalled prewar mayor Kurt Scharnagl, the soldiers were returning home, the first fledgling editions of the Süddeutsche Zeitung were coming out, and the newly formed CSU won the first free elections in 1946."By 1947," Magill says, "enough of the rubble was cleaned up that you could drive through town. But the money was worthless. The real currency was cigarettes and coffee." With the 1948 currency reform, he says, "overnight, every shop window in Germany was full." A taste of the progress and prosperity to come during the '50s Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). THE GOOD AMERICANS? In 1950 Thomas Wimmer, then Munich's mayor, coined the phrase Rama Dama: in good American English, "we'll clean up this mess and get going again." For such a grand-scale operation, cooperation with the American military was essential. Germans and Americans, among them prominent members of the Men's Club, met at the Rathaus to discuss how they would organize the program. The Germans agreed to provide the labor, while Americans organized the bulldozers and tools. In the same year, the Men's Club started the Pfennig Parade, an offshoot of the March of Dimes that raised money to help fight polio and tuberculosis; the campaign soon spread to other Bavarian and West German cities. Later, the Men's Club began sponsoring an annual Christmas-seal drive to raise funds for other charities. The Columbus Society was founded in 1952 by Germans who'd traveled to the United States on a three-month exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. They were so grateful for the generosity and tolerance of the Americans after the war, recalls Christoph Proebst (the club's cofounder),that returnees felt it their "moral obligation" to return the favor by providing hospitality for American visitors to Germany. In the 1950s, the German-American Men's and Women's Clubs were enjoying their golden age. And America figured into the imagination of Germany as a rich uncle: a generous if paternalistic benefactor, guiding a grateful Germany on the road towards democracy and economic prosperity on this side of the Iron Curtain, and protecting it from communism on the other. Coupled with Cold War propaganda and the very real economic misery people experienced in communist Eastern Europe, the myth of the Good Americans became very potent and only began to sour during the Vietnam War, when a younger generation of Germans began to question their country's uncritical loyalty to America. Their slogan became "Amis raus" (Americans, out!), a stand that lingered and hardened with the proliferation of NATO nuclear missiles in West Germany in the '80s. German-American friendship took on a reactionary, bitter ring. THE CLUBS TODAY The German-American Women's Club holds two annual fundraising events to raise money for charities and their longstanding German-American student exchange program, and club members are expected to help organize these events. In the '50s this was no problem for army wives with time on their hands, but women struggling to balance career and family are more reluctant to give up their free time. "What worked for us in the past no longer works today," says Carolyn Parker, president of the club's Munich branch. "We need a different approach." She is trying to accommodate a new generation of women by scheduling meetings around business hours; a babysitting service is also in the works. But Parker admits that the group tends to be dominated by its older and more conservative German members. Becky Schwarz's experience with the club has been positive. "I like good taste, good manners, correctness. The club helped me integrate into a part of German society whose values I share." Other women find the club's atmosphere off-putting. "The kind of German women who have time to sit around drinking tea all afternoon at the Hilton are not the kind of German women I want to hang-out with," says Dee Pattee, an American and former Women's Club member. Another American woman puts it more diplomatically: "I've had more luck making friends informally." The Men's Club is facing similar problems: an increasingly elderly and conservative membership that isn't inviting to newcomers. Sam Magill, however, believes the Men's Club has a future and points to its student chapter at the University of Regensburg. "We're young people meeting other young people," says Regensburg chairman Georg Otto. "We try to help American students who come over for a year feel more at home." The chapter's membership is coed and they emphasize just having fun. "We watch Mr. Bean videos and eat Mexican food. In the summer, we go hiking and cycling." American membership is often as high as 40 percent. The Columbus Society, which left the Federation four years ago, is undergoing "a resurgence," according to Munich's chapter president Sylvia Weusten. She says there's "a good mix" in the ages of new members, and attributes the club's success to its casual atmosphere and social events designed for all ages. The club also still makes it their mission to help American students studying abroad get acclimated to Munich. The Cold War is over and Germany has long since recovered from World War II; the cultural and political landscape has changed radically over the last 50 years. In addition, with the likely closing of the Amerika Haus this year due to funding cutbacks, the American community may be losing its main cultural venue here. According to Weusten, the clubs will come in to fill this gap, providing a forum for Americans and Germans to meet and exchange ideas. After all, people seem less interested in high-minded community service than in meeting for more purely social reasons. If the German-American clubs can adapt, their federation's anniversary will be a celebration and not a requiem.