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October/November 1996 Issue:
The Medieval Heart of Northern Germany
By John Dornberg
For most of its history, Germany was not a country but a jigsaw puzzle of scores--at times hundreds--of independent kingdoms, duchies, principalities, prince-bishoprics, counties, and
city-states more often at war than at peace with one another.
Their only common thread was the Holy Roman Empire. But during most of its lifespan, this realm, which Voltaire once described as "neither holy, nor Roman, nor much of an empire,"
was largely fiction, though powerful families feuded mercilessly over the imperial throne and crown. Starting in the 11th century and continuing well into the 14th, and including the troubles of Duke Henry the Lion
of Saxony with Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the feuding was between the Welfs and the Hohenstaufens, known in English as the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.
The northern center of that dynastic rivalry was the erstwhile Duchy of Brunswick--or Braunschweig as it is called in German--home base not only of several emperors and would-be emperors,
but also of today's reigning British family, the Windsors.
It is a vest-pocket land, barely larger than the state of Delaware, tucked between the densely wooded Harz Mountains in the south and the Lüneburg Heath, with its wild flowers,
bizarre-shaped juniper bushes, and expanses of grazing pastures in the north; bordered on the west by the majestic Weser River, and on the east by the sparkling little Oker. But it is a uniquely rich kaleidoscope of
beautiful landscapes, living history, treasure troves of art, dazzling enclaves of half- timbered architecture, and dozens of cozy inns and hotels, many of them centuries old.
Its two major cities are Hanover and Braunschweig. But the real magic is in a half dozen or so smaller towns, none more than 50 miles driving from the next, of which Hildesheim, Einbeck,
Celle, and Lüneburg are veritable living museums of times past. Whatever else you may know about or have already seen in Germany, this region is refreshingly different.
Hildesheim
The place to start (and also base if you don't like staying at a different hotel every day), because it is close to the center of the region, is Hildesheim, population 106,000. One of 15
spots in Germany on UNESCO's list of the world's cultural heritage, the city is sometimes referred to as Lower Saxony's "secret capital." The real one, Hanover, is 19 miles north; Braunschweig 31 miles to
the east.
Nearly 1,200 years old, Hildesheim was first mentioned in 815 when Louis the Pious, sole surviving son of Charlemagne, founded a diocese with a small church at what was then the junction of
two trade routes: another step in his ongoing campaign to Christianize and subjugate the Saxons.
That is the origin of Hildesheim's "Thousand-Year-Old Rosebush" legend. According to the story, Louis was hunting in the area and had with him relics attributed to the Virgin
Mary. Hanging the reliquary on a tree, he forgot it and later dispatched his chaplain to retrieve it. The chaplain found the reliquary, but try as he would, could not free it from the branches. Considering this a
divine sign, Louis ordered a chapel built on the spot. Hildesheim's cathedral now stands there. The story doesn't say whether the tree was a rosebush, but for centuries, a rosebush has grown on the apse of the
cathedral. The Rosenroute--symbols of roses painted on the sidewalks as markers--will guide you to all the important sites and sights.
Actually Hildesheim is probably even 200 years older, for when Louis built his church, it was already a thriving market hamlet. Church and commercial affairs, with the ruling bishops and
independent-minded burghers often at loggerheads, determined the city's history from the 9th to the 19th century. Then the prince-bishopric was ceded to Prussia and abolished.
The epicenter of commercial life was the Marktplatz (market square). Prussian philologist and statesman Wilhelm von Humboldt called the square "the most beautiful in the world"
because of its richly embellished half-timbered and step-gabled patrician mansions, guild houses, and the Rathaus (city hall). Like most of Hildesheim's Altstadt (old quarter), it was reduced to rubble by a single
Allied air raid in March 1945.
In the 1950s and '60s, nondescript modern buildings replaced the ruins. But in the early 1980s, city fathers decided to restore the square's original appearance. The reconstruction, based
on old photographs, paintings, and etchings, was done by modern craftsmen using techniques like those in the Middle Ages. The most stunning buildings include the Knochenhaueramtshaus, guildhall of the butchers; the
adjacent Bäckeramtshaus, the bakers' guildhall; and the Tempelhaus, so named because until it was built after a 14th century pogrom, there was a synagogue on the site.
Although most of Hildesheim's magnificent churches were also destroyed or heavily damaged, they have been splendidly rebuilt. The oldest is St. Michael's, commissioned by St. Bernward,
bishop of Hildesheim and abbot of its Benedictine monastery, from 993 to 1022. The fortress-like structure is in "Ottonian" style, a precursor to Romanesque. Its greatest artwork is a 12th century painted
wood ceiling depicting the "Family Tree of Jesus."
The Dom (cathedral) was completed in Romanesque in 1061 with Gothic additions. Among its most remarkable artwork are the huge bronze doors, designed and cast by Bernward in 1015, showing 16
scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and the "Column of Christ," with 24 scenes from the life of Jesus, modeled after Trajan's victory column in Rome, cast in 1020.
Near the Marktplatz, the Gothic church St. Andreas (St. Andrew's) features two exquisite bronze works--an altar crucifix and a wheel- chandelier depicting the last supper--by Ulrich Henn, a
contemporary German sculptor. The organ, made by a Hamburg workshop in the 1960s, is one of the largest instruments in northern Germany. Those with sturdy legs ought to climb the 364 steps to the observation
platform in the church spire for a breathtaking view of Hildesheim.
For all of Hildesheim's fine objects of medieval art and architecture, its greatest treasures are even older: Egyptian. The city's Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum houses one of Germany's largest
and most important collections of Egyptian art and artifacts.
After steeping yourself in 3,000 years of Egyptian art and history, return to the Middle Ages by walking across the street from the museum to Schlegel's Weinstuben, a tavern-restaurant in a
16th century half-timbered house where the Gemütlichkeit equals the excellent food.
Einbeck
If ever there was a walk-in fairy tale, it would be this half- timbered town of 30,000 about 30 miles south of Hildesheim. More than half of its burghers still live and work in the 400
perfectly preserved and meticulously maintained Gothic- and Renaissance-style houses with their crooked beams and colorful, elaborately carved reliefs. Even that inveterate traveler Goethe was enthralled when he
visited and described Einbeck as a "wundersame Stadt"--a wondrous city.
Many of those half-timbered houses have huge, arch-shaped entrances, the purpose of which had much to do with Einbeck's fame: beer brewing. Starting in 1341, it was a cooperative effort
with municipally owned equipment: burghers brewed at home, storing hops and malt in their houses, but used huge vats owned by the town. The master brewer delivered and fetched them through those entrances. Though
there were other industries in the town, which had been given independent status with the right to its own coinage by the Guelph rulers of Brunswick, beer made it rich.
Ainpöck'schen Bier, as it was called, was exported all over northern Europe. Locals never tire of also telling visitors that Munich's Hofbräuhaus started in 1589 with imported Einbeck beer:
the Bavarians were so impressed with it that they began using the Einbeck recipe. It was also the Bavarians who, with their dialect, eventually abbreviated Ainpäck'schen to Bock. The slogan of the Einbeck Brewing
Company reads: "Ohne Einbeck gäb's kein Bock-Bier" (Without Einbeck there'd be no Bock Beer).
There also might be no Einbeck had one Heinrich Keim, who later became mayor, not told U.S. soldiers in April 1945 that the swastikas they saw carved into the beams of several half-timbered
houses did not mean what they thought. They were about to shell the town into a rubble heap, thinking it was a hotbed of Nazism. Keim explained that the swastika was a roman symbol of prosperity and fertility that a
medieval patrician family, the Von Ravens, had used in their escutcheon. The carvings are still there.
Einbeck, still partly surrounded by its 15th century walls, is a town for walking, ogling, and soaking up atmosphere--street upon street lined by crazily leaning half-timbered houses. The
most richly decorated are the Rathaus; the Brodhaus, formerly the bakers' guildhall; Eicke's Haus, a 17th century merchant's house; and along 250-yards-long Tierdexer Strasse, where it seems time has stood still for
450 years.
Of Einbeck's Gothic churches, the most rewarding is St. Alexander's famed for its elaborately carved 13th century choir stalls, the oldest in Germany.
Celle
Though as perfectly preserved a medieval gem as Einbeck, Celle, a town of 75,000 about 47 miles north of Hildesheim, is of a totally different character because it is a planned city:
planned to meet the needs and satisfy the egos of the Guelph rulers of Brunswick. It was their capital from 1292, a century after Henry the Lion's death, to 1705, when they moved to Hanover.
The Guelphs were an ambitious and complex clan. Trying to decipher their genealogical tree is like working through a maze. Given their rivalry with the Ghibellines and proclivity for
arranged marriages to obtain toeholds of power in all of Europe's royal houses, they seem like tinhorn Habsburgs. At the same time, their penchant for dividing properties among their progeny led to gradual
atomization of their realm into dwarf principalities. Moreover, they also practiced incest in the form of marriages between first cousins. Thus Georg Wilhelm, the last Guelph to rule the duchy from Celle, was both
uncle and father-in-law of King George I of England.
It was Brunswick's Duke Otto the Severe, great-great-grandson of Henry the Lion, who put Celle on the map in 1292. Granted, there had been a town by that name at least since 990, located
two miles upstream on the Aller River, and it was a bustling little port and trading center. But in the 13th century, this area on the southern edge of the Lüneburg Heath was plagued by robber barons. Duke Otto
decided that Celle needed better defense. He moved the entire community downstream to where a small tributary met the Aller, thus giving Celle natural river protection on three sides. To guard it on the fourth side,
he built a fortified castle with 12-foot-thick walls and a 100-foot tower.
Unlike other medieval towns with their narrow, crooked, winding streets and lanes, this new Celle was laid out geometrically with broad avenues all pointing to the castle. It was one of the
world's first examples of urban planning. Little has changed since then except the castle, which grew from an austere fortress to the magnificent 300-room palace, surrounded by a lush park, that it is today. That
was largely the achievement of Duke Georg Wilhelm's French wife, Eleanore d'Olbreuse, a commoner, who did much to give this provincial capital a worldly flair.
Because of Brunswick family squabbles, especially with the branch that ruled England and Hanover, the original palace furnishings, including its silk wallpaper and parquet floors,
disappeared in the early 19th century. The pieces you see now were bought or borrowed from various museums. But despite this blemish on authenticity, the ducal rooms are impressive.
The chapel and theater are in their original state. Built in 1485 and redecorated in the late 16th century, the chapel is an eye- popping example of Renaissance styling: a dazzling display
of stucco reliefs by Italian masters enriched with 76 panel and altar paintings by the Flemish artist Marten de Vos. The lavish theater, launched by Georg Wilhelm's culture-minded Eleanore, is the oldest existing
one in Germany and has been in continuous use since 1670. Celle's municipal repertory company performs there now almost nightly.
The 245-foot spire of St. Mary's, Celle's church, towers majestically over the city's steeply gabled, half-timbered houses. Consecrated in 1308, the church was redesigned in Baroque style
in the 17th century. Twice daily, at 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., a bugler climbs the 235 steps to the platform on St. Mary's belfry and blows a brief chorale to signal that all is well. The custom is symbolic of this
town: orderly, conservative, and traditionalist.
Like Einbeck, Celle is a town for ambling and sniffing atmosphere. Though the character is different--wide streets, even more color on the carved beams of its hundreds of 15th through 18th
century framework houses, many of which were the homes of courtiers, administrators, and purveyors to the ducal family--the ambiance is that of living history. The best time to absorb it is on a Wednesday or
Saturday when those ancient streets vibrate with the bustle of a farmers' market.
Lüneburg
Neither clerical splendor, ducal presence, nor beer made this town of 65,000, located about 50 miles north of Celle, prosperous in the Middle Ages. Salt, then the only means of preserving
food and almost worth its weight in gold, was the source of its riches. Lüneburg and its environs abounded with extensive deposits, mined since 956. The city, which was chartered by Henry the Lion in 1189 and
remained under the hegemony of the Guelphs and the Brunswick dukes until the mid-19th century, thrived from the trade, especially with Lübeck. Salt was transported there by packhorses, oxcarts, and later by barges
on a canal, for trans-shipment to Scandinavia, where it was used to preserve the abundant fish hauls. By the time Lüneburg joined the Hanseatic League in the 1300s, it was one of Europe's wealthiest towns and also
one of the largest industrial ones.
Revenues from the "white gold" paid for construction of magnificent buildings such as the 13th century Rathaus on the Marktplatz; St. Johanniskirche (St. John's Church); other
fine 13th to 15th century churches; fortifications with triple ramparts, a moat, watch towers, and several town gates; hospices; and splendid step-gabled, intricately embellished brick merchants' houses and town
mansions.
And, like Einbeck and Celle, all of this has remained untouched over the centuries. Though you will see very little half-timbering, there is an abundance of brickwork. Indeed, Lüneburg is
one of the most complete and best preserved ensembles of North German brickwork architecture. The grandest houses with the most elaborate gables are along the main street and square, called Am Sande.
To explore Lüneburg properly takes at least a day, and a good introduction is a guided 90-minute walking tour, which starts daily at 11 a.m. April through October at the tourist office in
the Rathaus, facing the Marktplatz.
The Town Hall itself, for which the cornerstone was laid in 1240, was enlarged and redecorated frequently over the centuries, is an architectural anomaly. Though essentially Gothic, it has
a Baroque facade dating from the early 1700s. A belfry carillon made of Meissen porcelain bells rings out the hours and plays tunes by a local composer. There are richly furnished rooms and chambers with wall and
ceiling murals and stained glass windows dating from the 14th through 16th centuries.
St. John's, with its 360-foot spire, a five-aisled Gothic hall church built between 1300 and 1380, is a treasure trove of ecclesiastical artworks. Among the finest objects are a 15th
century main altar by the Lüneburg artists Claves Klovesten and his son Volkmar; an intricately carved pulpit and choir stalls dating from the 15th and 16th centuries; and an organ, the oldest sections of which date
from the 1550s and which has been enlarged with additional stops every century since then. there are organ concerts every Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. through October, and at 6:00 p.m. Sundays in December.
Besides ogling the step-gabled houses that line Am Sande and other streets of the Old Quarter, be sure to stroll down to the picturesque medieval port area of the Ilmenau River for a look
at the old lofts, many of them now pubs, and the Alter Kran, a harbor crane that went into operation in 1322.
From Lüneburg it is about a 90-minute drive back south to Hildesheim.
Contributing editor John Dornberg writes from Munich.
HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS
Hildesheim
Forte Hotel, built into three adjacent half-timbered houses on the market square. Doubles DM 240 to 280 ($160 to $186). At Markt 4, D-31134 Hildesheim, Tel.: 011.49.5121.3000; Fax: 300444.
Gästehaus Klocke, a turn-of-the-century villa in a residential neighborhood within easy walking of everything. Doubles DM 150 ($100). At Humboldtstrasse 11, D-31134 Hildesheim, Tel.:
011.49.5121.37061; Fax: 37820.
Dining is most atmospheric in the Amtstuben of the Knochenhaueramtshaus, Markt 7, Tel. 011.49.5121.32323, where dinner for two will come to about $60 without beverages; and Schlegels
Weinstuben (across from the Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum), Am Steine 4, Tel. 011.49.5121.33133, open evenings only, dinner for two about $40, without beverages.
Einbeck
Hotel Gilde Hof, a 16th century half-timbered house facing the market square. Doubles DM 140 to 170 ($93 to $113). At Marktplatz 3, Dñ37574 Einbeck, Tel.: 011.49.5561.5026; Fax: 74589.
Hotel Der Schwan, in a framework houses. Doubles DM 130 to 170 ($86 to $113). At Tierdexer Strasse 1, D-37574 Einbeck, Tel.: 011.49.5561. 4609; Fax: 72366.
The most colorful spot to eat is the 650-year-old Brodhaus, a former guildhall of the bakers, at Marktplatz 13, Tel.: 011.49.5561.2211, where two can dine for $35, without beverages.
Celle
Hotel Fürstenhof, a 17th century hunting chateau, is the place to stay, and it's Michelin-starred Restaurant Endtenfang the place to eat if you want (and can afford) to splurge. Doubles DM
230 to 425 ($153 to $283), dinner for two about $200, without wine. At Hannoverische Strasse 55/56, D-29221 Celle, Tel.: 011.49.5141.201140; Fax: 201120.
Hotel Utspann, in an 18th century half-timbered house furnished with antiques, is more moderately priced. Doubles DM 150 to 210 ($100 to $140). At Im Kreise 13, D-29221 Celle, Tel.:
011.49.5141.92720; Fax: 927252.
The Historischer Ratskeller in the Town Hall is a good place to dine if you're looking for a rustic ambiance. Dinner for two about $70 without beverages. At Markt 14, Tel.:
011.49.5141.29099.
Lüneburg Hotel Bergstr m is a modern hotel integrated with old mills and lofts in the medieval port area. Doubles DM 179 to 199 ($119 to $132). Located Bei der Lüner Mühle, D-21335
Lüneburg, Tel.: 011.49.4131.3080; Fax: 308499.
Zum Heidkrug is an inn with seven rooms in a 15th century Gothic brickwork house. Doubles DM 150 ($100). Located Am Berge 5, D-21335 Lüneburg, Tel.: 011.49.4131.31249; Fax: 37688.
The Kronen-Brauhaus, a 500-year-old tavern just off Am Sande, offers hearty North German food and good beer. Dinner for two without beverages about $75. At Heiligengeiststrasse 39, Tel.:
011.49.4131. 713200.
Closing the Circle Through Recycling
By Chris Bolgiano
In the kitchen of a friend's apartment in the small town of Germering, just outside Munich, seven categories of trash are tucked under a table: different colors of glass and kinds of
plastics; newspapers, magazines, and metal cans. An eighth category, in a plastic bag, is discretely hidden beneath the sink: Biomüll, organic remains. And, squeezed in a corner, there is yet another container
for Restmüll-- the rest of the trash.
Most German households are similarly equipped. Around the world, Germans are recognized for their high level of environmental consciousness, and revolutionary approaches to recycling
are a prime example. Germany is a world leader in coping with the consequences of today's throwaway society.
One summer afternoon I visited the Wertstoffhof, or Valuables Reclamation, the municipal recycling center in Germering, a pretty town of about 40,000 people. It was a typically busy
day. A man walked in briskly and tossed a typewriter into one bin and a torn umbrella into another. A Mercedes pulled up and began to unload miscellaneous household cast-offs, from kitchen pots to a TV. A woman
walked in with a shopping bag full of teddy bears.
Fluorescent bulbs lay stacked in a crate, and wine corks nearly filled a barrel. There were tubs for styrofoam peanuts, batteries, asbestos, cement pieces, and electronic parts. Old
crockery was set on a table as if for an American-style yard sale. The center was prohibited from selling anything, so kitchen ware and furniture were displayed for the taking in return for a contribution.
A municipal employee checked everyone's plastics and directed where to put which kinds. The supervisor picked slivers of foil off ragged bundles of insulation in the construction debris
bin. He was responsible for seeing that it was delivered clean to the next processors, and it didn't look like an easy job. (Recycling of construction materials is currently a special issue in eastern Germany,
due to the building boom). Space was a problem, too. A new installation was being built so that next year there would be room to take refrigerators, which were now being sent elsewhere. There would also be more
space to stock the compost the town made from Biomüll and sold to gardeners. It was packaged in plastic bags made of corn starch designed to biodegrade in two years--the same bag that was given out to households
for the Biomüll.
For the convenience of citizens, 40 smaller collection sites were scattered throughout the town. I bicycled past them at the ends of streets: a row of metal dumpsters, including one for
clothes to be sent to catastrophes around the world. That was done by charity organizations. The rest of the recycling operation was financed by trash fees collected by the county, rather than through taxes.
At Germering Town Hall, head of the environmental department Brian Meakins showed off the latest service: the Geschirrmobil, dishwasher mobile, a trailer stocked with two industrial
strength dishwashers and crates of china, glasses, and flatware enough for three hundred people. Sporting clubs and other groups rent it instead of using disposable paper or plastic. "It's always
booked," Meakins said. Some larger cities have banned the use of disposable beverage containers at events held on public property, which in Munich has cut the waste from the Oktoberfest by more than half.
Like a large part of the German public, Meakins was philosophically committed to a holistic approach to waste: reducing its production and reusing materials for their original purpose,
before recycling what was left over. In this view, the least desirable step is incineration because while some energy is produced, the smoke and the ash contain hard-to-remove toxics. Although the county in
which Germering is situated had its own incinerator, in cooperation with an adjoining county, the capacity was small and no one wanted to expand it. The county also had contracts with private companies for other
aspects of recycling. It was one of the few remaining localities in Germany that didn't feel the need for a contract with the Duales System Deutschlands (DSD).
Duales System Deutschlands
Since its inception in the 1980s, the DSD has been a highly controversial development in German recycling. Something radical was, however, needed. By 1990, when the Packaging Ordinance
that led to setting up the DSD was approved, the Federal Environment Ministry estimated that landfill capacity would run out in two to five years. Population density made it virtually impossible to find new
sites. Regulations of the European Community made it increasingly difficult to export waste to other countries. Primary packaging--the cans, jars, bottles, and boxes that consumers bring home--comprises nearly
half of the volume and a third of the weight of the total solid waste stream, making it the logical target.
The new packaging law passed in 1991 is based on the "polluter pays" principal, which requires that manufacturers that produce the packaging be responsible for disposing of
it. "This reverses the conventional approach, as in the United States, where waste disposal is the burden of municipalities," said Bette Fishbein of Inform, Inc., a private, nonprofit environmental
research organization in New York City. Also author of Germany, Garbage, and the Green Dot: Challenging the Throwaway Society, the only book in English that analyzes the DSD, Fishbein wrote the book to encourage
American policymakers to study the German experiment. "It makes environmental sense to ask manufacturers to consider the entire life-cycle of their products," she said, "and we can learn from
Germany's experience."
The objectives of the ordinance were that packaging should be made from environmentally safe materials, refilled if possible, recycled if not, and its weight and volume minimized.
Making disposal the responsibility of industry gave an incentive to meet those objectives and to build markets for recycled materials. Further, the law required every shop to take back the product packaging from
customers, unless industry came up with an alternative solution.
To avoid this burden for storekeepers, a consortium of companies, now numbering more than 600, founded DSD to collect used packaging through a parallel, or dual, system to those run by
municipalities. DSD has negotiated individual contracts with more than 500 localities and provides yellow containers at curbsides and drop-off points. To pay for the system, manufacturers pay a fee based on the
packaging they produce, and purchase a license for the trademark green dot that guarantees that their packaging will be recycled. Ninety percent of packaging now carries the green dot, and most retailers are
reluctant to carry items without it.
There were immediate problems with DSD. Consumers cheated by putting non-green dot materials into curbside DSD tubs, which are picked up free of charge, rather than in the municipal
tubs for which charges are levied by the size of tub used. Manufacturers cheated by not paying their fees. The law set schedules of recycling quotas to be met for each category of waste, but far more materials
were collected than recycling facilities could handle, especially plastics. These overflowed onto world markets, undercutting the recycling programs of other countries and particularly angering European
Community members. By August 1993, the DSD was facing bankruptcy. It revised its contracts with waste haulers, introduced more enforcement measures, changed its fee base from volume of packaging to weight, and
restructured plastics recycling.
The Problem of Plastics
Plastics remain the most troublesome category of waste, the "Achilles heel of the Dual System," as Bette Fishbein called them. Sorting and recycling mixed plastics costs more
than recycling any other kind of material, in some cases reaching nearly $2,000 per metric ton. This is more than the cost of producing new plastic, and about 20 times more than burning it for energy, which is
what plastics manufacturers advocate. Responding to public opinion, the federal government denied the plastic industry's request to consider incineration as "thermal recycling." There is now a movement
to expand chemical recycling, which breaks plastics down into their original petrochemical products. There is also a trend toward refillable plastic beverage containers, which meshes with Germany's strong
tradition of refilling beer and water bottles.
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) has emerged as a focal point for arguments over plastics because of the severe environmental damage caused by production and recycling of chlorinated products.
A variety of German voices, from politicians to consumer groups, have called for a ban on PVC packaging, which is often used for meat and other foods. "Chemical companies should give up their dogmatic
crusade for PVC and instead...promot[e] environmentally friendly PVC-substitutes rather than contesting the value of these alternatives," stated Gisbert Schlemmer, president of Gewerkschaft Holz und
Kunststoff (Wood and Plastic Processors Labor Union), representing 200,000 workers in 1, 500 companies.
Environmentally safe disposal of waste is not cheap. There are inevitably some who seek to cheat--witness the December 1995 conviction of Helmut Trapp, former president of the
Bundesverband der Deutschen Stahl-Recycling Wirtschaft (German Steel Recycling Association), and head of a scrap metals firm. He was found guilty of illegally dumping 50,000 metric tons of hazardous waste for a
savings to his business of millions of deutschmarks. As for costs to consumers, some savings achieved by reduction of packaging are passed on for a few products, but the price of others is rising to cover
recycling charges.
And yet, despite the problems of implementing the new law, it is meeting its objectives: in only three years, from 1990 to 1993 (the last year for which statistics are available), the
volume of waste materials Germany produced dropped a full ten percent, from 374 to 337 million tons. The amount of waste materials recycled increased from 20 to 25 percent. Walk down the aisles in any
Tengelmann's, and you'll see laundry detergents in refillable bags and toothpaste tubes standing without boxes. This means fewer incinerators and landfills will be needed in the future, a federal report
confirmed, resulting in long-term savings.
The life-cycle approach is being broadened to include other segments of consumerism: automobiles, computers, and, if Environmental Minister Angela Merkel has her way, to home appliances
as well. A series of laws to that effect has been drafted in the past couple of years. The automobile industry is preparing to accept free all cars less than 12 years old; others will carry a charge not
exceeding market price. In an article in the newsmagazine Der Spiegel, old car buffs bemoaned the potential loss of antiques. No such nostalgia has yet greeted the recent announcement by two dozen computer
producers, representing 80 percent of the German market, to take back hard drives, monitors, and fax machines. Carrying this line of thought to its end, every product of modern life should ultimately be held
accountable for its environmental impact. Businesses large and small are rethinking this internalization of what used to be external costs, borne by others.
Kreislaufwirtschaft: The Circular Economy
"The legal and economic complexities of recycling make it difficult for small businesses to keep up," said Raphaela Schuster. As environmental coordinator for the
15,000-member Landesverband des Bayerischen Einzelhandels (State Association of Bavarian Retailers), it's her job to help them. As part of a partnership with the Bavarian government, she publishes a monthly
newsletter and fields phone inquiries about specific problems. Stacks of non-glossy brochures lay in neat piles on her desk, which overlooked Munich's shady Brienner Strasse. A graduate in ecological marketing,
her 300-page dissertation, Environmentally Oriented Consumer Behavior in Europe, was published in Hamburg in 1992.
"The problem with ecologically safe products is that others are cheaper," she said. "It should be the other way around. Also, it's sometimes difficult to know what's
involved." For example, certain dyes have been prohibited because they are linked to cancer, but many textile businesses import fabrics from Italy that have been dyed in India, making the chain of
information tenuous.
Her brochures go beyond the items sold by the business to address environmental impacts of the business operation itself--office equipment, paper, even felt-tip markers. "The basic
thought is to make a closed circle," Schuster said. "Everything that is produced should come back one way or another in the end."
The circle, an ancient and universal symbol of the recycling of all earthly elements, is a prominent image in German environmental thought. Given the flexibility of the German language,
it's not surprising that a word has been coined to express the new economic order: Kreislaufwirtschaft, circular economy. Even the largest German businesses are conscious of its power.
"We need to close the circle in terms of resource use, so that nothing is wasted and no pollution is created," said Klaus Blum of Wacker-Chemie. One of the major German
chemical companies, employing 13,000 people in almost 100 countries, Wacker produces a variety of silicones and vinyl acetate polymers. "Chlorine is an important raw material for us," Blum said, as we
sipped coffee in Wacker's gleaming glass and steel headquarters. "Greenpeace has been very active against us."
Wacker began voluntarily publishing annual environmental reports in 1989, as its "first venture toward stimulating a dialogue with the public." The handsome, semi-glossy
pamphlets cover such subjects as research on water-based, silicone resin binders to be used instead of toxic organic solvents, and Wacker's policy of taking back scrap PVC flooring for recycling. These are costs
that industries in other countries do not bear. To beat the competition, Wacker must always stay one step ahead, must guess what clients will want in five years. Increasingly, clients are demanding environmental
safety. "We do feel a great responsibility for environmental protection, but new processes take time to develop," Blum said. "In 10 to 15 years we will have very different types of production as
we redesign to build environmental protection in from the beginning."
Back on the home front, the pressure of the here and now is apparent in my friend's overflowing kitchen. On the average, every German citizen collects and sorts more than 140 pounds of
packaging a year, and every year more kinds of materials can be recycled. My friend has moved glass, plastics, and metals to a corner of the balcony, and he is eyeing a hall cupboard. "Perhaps I could hang
reusable bags on the inside doors," he muses, "to hold my mountains of Müll!"
Chris Bolgiano writes from Fulks Run, Virginia.
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