A Short, Intensive Stopover Visit

The Green Vault, the Church of Our Lady, a concentration camp tour; The American President got the tone right for each occasion. Still, not all Dresden citizens were happy with the city-ordered USA cult.

The average American tourist visits Saxony for two to three days, but it’s common knowledge that there’s nothing average about Barack Obama. So one has to wonder aloud about the president breaking over Dresden like a storm front, paralyzing the city center for security’s sake and departing again all in less than 24 hours. Is it any wonder that in a single day he managed to have a comprehensive discussion with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, give a press conference, bow his head reverently in the Church of Our Lady, accept an invitation from Bishop Jochen Bohl to participate in a prayer for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and then visit the Buchenwald concentration camp that same afternoon?

The special operations section of the Saxon state police implemented “Operation Canaletto 2009” that changed Dresden into a three-tiered security zone for two days, something unique in the city’s experience. Obama took a break in the heart of the Kempinski Taschenbergpalais Hotel for a few hours after making history with his Cairo speech. He was staying in the same suite where Vladimir Putin spent a night in January and from which he snuck out early on Friday morning to walk through a deserted Dresden Old Quarter. But today it was cold, and Angela Merkel was waiting.

Obama and Merkel had barely an hour to quickly cover subjects like the Near East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea … and then quickly touching on relations with Russia and the financial and economic crises. Oh, yes, and environmental policy, too. All normal mortals who buy a ticket to see the Green Vault are now entitled to also visit the special display entitled “Metamorphosis of the Gods” free of charge.

Early in the morning, a rumor began frantically circulating that Obama had a yearning to immerse himself in the crowds. For a moment, it appeared that perhaps the lock-down in the old town center might be loosened enough for residents to actually get a look at the president. But where could they find a harmless enough crowd? They had spent days insisting residents remove flower pots from their balconies, that they show their identity cards and wear a yellow plastic bracelet proving they were residents in order to get home, and that they shouldn’t appear in their own windows with binoculars or cameras or anything else that might be mistaken for a weapon.

In the end, only a few press conference participants got to see him up close in the courtyard of the hotel, through metal bars, chain-link fences and around stern-looking men with buttons in their ears. Beneath three sandstone arches and in front of nine flags, Obama appeared next to Angela Merkel, who was dressed in shimmering lime green as though something in the Green Vault had rubbed off on her. They stood at the lectern facing so many subjects it was as though the German stop on Obama’s journey between Cairo and Normandy should have been declared a private visit.

The discussions with Merkel? Very productive. German-American relations? Durable. Their faces are serious. What was up with the supposed disagreements between the U.S. and Germany? Obama says he puts that down to the Merkel’s political analyses and her blunt way of speaking. The rumors? Wild speculation! “Stop it, all of you,” Obama jokingly admonished, pointing his finger at the reporters like Uncle Sam. One could see triumph creep into Chancellor Merkel’s smile.

At the lectern in the hotel courtyard, Obama became increasingly animated.

Near East? “The moment to act is now!” The Palestinians have to try as well. “That was just a speech yesterday. It won’t replace the hard work that must be done.”

Guantanamo? Asked if he was disappointed by the German Parliament’s inaction on the issue of closing Guantanamo, Obama said the United States “didn’t ask for solid commitments and didn’t get any.”

Why was he visiting Buchenwald? Obama talked of his great-uncle Charlie Payne’s burning memories being a personal reason. Payne served in a unit that was engaged in the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. He later had great difficulty in dealing with the mental images he carried with him back to civilian life.

Even the most skeptical now believe this visit to Dresden had less to do with irritation over Berlin than it did with the symbolic power of the past. The Berlin incident has been overcome and can now be used to advantage elsewhere. Obama, this shrewd tactician, will harness the past to achieve his goals in the Near East.

Dresden’s history is embodied in 84-year-old Rudolf Eichner, who has lived in a modernized ninth story Dresden apartment all his life. He was witness to the bombardment of Dresden, the Americans by day and the British by night. Eichner was active in ensuring that a memorial was erected in the old Dresden marketplace on the site where 6,865 bodies were cremated after the February 1945 raid. He waved no flags at Obama’s arrival because he had no place to do so; Obama made no appearance anywhere in the city. But the night Obama was elected president, Eichner sat hopefully in front of his television screen. He thinks Obama is a well-informed person who sincerely wants reconciliation. Eichner himself had an opportunity to display the spirit of reconciliation in 1995 when he shook hands with a former British bomber pilot. “Visits are good,” he says, “they lead to dialogues and dialogues lead to understanding.”

Eichner turns his pale blue eyes toward his wife, Ruth. The conflict with Islam is the gravest wound of our time, he says, and Obama’s Cairo speech is a milestone, an offer to communicate. Those citizens of Dresden who were active in making the Church of Our Lady the symbol of reconciliation understand Obama and Obama understands the citizens of Dresden. As he and Angela Merkel prayed at the altar in the church and listened to the choir, Dresdeners a few hundred meters away in the old marketplace stood with tears in their eyes as they watched the images of their American guest on large video screens.

Ah! But Putin’s visit in January was so much different, said Eichner’s wife. Putin escaped the watchful eyes of his security detail early one morning and was first seen at a bookstore around 6:00 AM, long before the tourists started swarming in. He asked about the Church of Our Lady and whether he would be allowed to see the inside. Then he went to a bakery and bought a sweet roll. The people of Dresden liked that. But, they also recall, all the stores were closed for Fidel Castro’s visit; not because of security concerns, but because the government wanted to make sure the people would be looking at Castro and not at the meager offerings in Communist East Germany’s shop windows in 1972.

In the end, many Dresden residents were saddened by Obama’s visit. The poor, caged in man, they said, wouldn’t be able to enjoy the warm reception from Dresden’s crowds. On telephones especially installed for the visit, the citizens of Dresden were able to get information as to which streets were currently closed to the public. Dresdeners are sensitive to things like that. They fear they may have put their designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in jeopardy all for the sake of traffic flow. And as the visit came to an end, one got the impression the citizens were more concerned about the downtown lock-down and the effect on the economy. An entire day’s income, they said, had been written off to a superior power. Would anyone want his or her normal day entangled with a day in the life of Barack Obama?

They had stood in their old marketplace on Thursday evening as Obama flew in to the welcome party, the wind tugging at the blue and white balloons festooning the stage, the helicopters thundering overhead. And it seemed to them that nothing had any relationship to anything else: the necessity to transform the whole downtown area into a super-secure zone opposed to the fact that hardly anyone would even get to see Obama. All these intricate preparations while his timetable was shortened more and more. Starting on May 19th, the city fathers had set up a special website with a countdown to Obama’s arrival that included directions for downloading a PDF file that showed how to print off American flags at home in two different sizes. Someone promptly remarked that the whole cult-thing was reminiscent of the old days under East German rule. “In those days, just kids did that sort of thing; now even adults are doing it.”

And now? Obama gives historic speeches, finds just the right serious expression for every occasion and awakens more and more admiration among Dresdeners that they can’t direct elsewhere. Instead, they stand valiantly in the old marketplace before a red-eyed, convulsing bull that thrashes around wildly. The program tells everyone that trying to ride the bull is very popular in America. Musicians are there onstage, according to the announcer, to “get them going.” Everyone takes it as it comes, and the longest waiting lines are at the cardboard cut-out figure of Barack Obama, where people can be photographed standing with him. Hot dogs are outselling the traditional fish sandwiches.

But sooner or later, the bull bucks everyone off.