Traffic is growing fast at Germany’s Frankfurt Airport. More than 53 million travelers and over 2.3 million metric tons of cargo passed through here last year. That’s a lot of planes, not to mention cars, buses and trucks, all potentially emitting a lot of pollution.

But in a cargo area a few hundred feet from the runways, the smoke in the air is being produced by Master Beekeeper Matthias Ullmann. Ullmann is using the smoke to pacify the residents of 12 colorfully painted hives — apian sentinels in the fight against pollution. He’s part of a team of researchers from Goethe University’s Institute for Apiculture that’s been running a biomonitoring study here since 2006.

Environmental scientists around the world have long used specially-designed instruments to collect data on pollution levels. But it turns out that plants and animals already collect a lot of environmental information as they gather air, water and nutrients. And the study here at Frankfurt Airport is among a growing number of projects around the world that use some of these living creatures to track environmental problems.

Goethe University professor Bernd Grunewald says the project is based on the assumption that bees are very good indicators of pollution. As they flit about collecting pollen and nectar from flowering plants, they also collect any pollutants that may have settled onto the plants from the air or been drawn up from the ground.

And unlike other biomonitoring projects using living organisms, which are often confined to a few plants or animals in a single spot, Gruenewald says that the more than 300,000 bees here cover some 50 square kilometers (approximately 31 square miles) around their hives and produce a huge amount of material to sample — up to 650 pounds of honey a year.

Gruenewald says the researchers sample the honey for heavy metals like lead, nickel, copper, zinc and cadmium, as well as pollutants like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

So far, the data collected by the bees seems to be telling a positive story about pollution at the airport. Gruenewald says the residues in both the honey and in the pollen collected by the bees are very low –- in the range of parts per billion.

That’s good news for airport officials. The bee study is part of a much wider environmental initiative at Frankfurt airport, including the construction of what officials call an eco-terminal, plans to cut CO2 emissions by 30%, and an array of instruments around the airport to check on air quality, ground water, sewage, and noise. Airport Vice president for environmental management Peter Marx says the biomonitoring project brings these sustainability efforts down to earth.

“Biomonitoring is something which is really close to people’s minds,” Marx said. “They will understand that flowers are dying, or why flowers are not dying. That’s why we use bees to show that bio-monitoring is supporting the results of our measuring stations.”

Those other results also indicate that pollution levels at the airport are low. So low, in fact, that officials at the airport say the honey from its beehives is safe to eat. Which of course is a PR boon.

“If the honey from the airport is of good quality, then we can say the quality at the airport in general is very fine,” Marx said.

But professor Grunenwald from the Institute for Apiculture isn’t sure it’s that simple. He says his researchers were puzzled by the low pollution levels found in the bees’ honey and pollen.

As a control for their study at the airport, Gruenewald’s team also uses bees to collect samples near a busy highway and in the mountains. And contaminant levels are the same in all three places.

Gruenewald says that result might reveal more about bees themselves than about pollution levels. He speculates that the bees may retain foreign substances in their stomachs, or expel them into their wax rather than with their honey.

Gruenewald says the researchers now plan to test the bees’ wax for fat-soluble chemicals that don’t show up in honey. And starting next year, he says, they will use a new method to press the bees for a little more information.

“We can sample the honey stomach content by pushing the abdomen. And then she regurgitates the content. And then she will survive.”

In the end, the researchers may find that bees are effectively filtering chemicals through a built-in detox system in their bodies. That would be a rather exciting discovery about bees. But it might mean that their value as biomonitors would have to be reevaluated.

Despite the questions, these biomonitoring studies retain their buzz, and are catching on across Germany. Six other airports in the country have their own apian biomonitoring projects, and a new one launched in Berlin just this spring.

On Sunday, officials announced that sprouts from a farm in northern Germany appeared to be the culprit. But tests failed to confirm that.

In the meantime, German consumers have been advised to avoid raw sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce.

It’s all left German consumers – and produce sellers – feeling unsettled.

Edith Stöber owns the organic Eichorn Farm. She’s brought her produce to Berlin’s Kollwitzplatz farmer’s market.

She said despite the fears of E. coli, people are buying her beets, spinach, and lettuce, and she thinks she knows why.

“I only sell regional products, mostly grown on my own land, and I pick them in morning before coming to the market,” Stöber said. “We’ve been here at the market 12 years, so people know us and our garden — we open it to the public each summer. It’s simply a question of trust.”

Stöber said in her view, the food crisis is tied to imported vegetables that aren’t in season in Germany, though there’s no evidence that has anything to do with the outbreak

“I think that almost all of the people who got sick ate lots of raw vegetables — many cucumbers, and many tomatoes — and they are just not in season,” she said. “I think my customers appreciate that I’m not selling tomatoes, and very few cucumbers, because this is simply not the right time of year for them.”

One of those customers is Gerd Eggers, who’s buying strawberries and rhubarb at the market. Though the source of the contamination remains unclear, Eggers said he has his own strategy for staying healthy.

“I wouldn’t buy supermarket vegetables at the moment,” Eggers said. “Who knows where they come from?” He said he shops here because he has faith in Germany’s organic produce markets.

Eggers added that he believes in being careful; he’s avoiding salad for now. But he thinks the story has been overblown by the media.

He counts off other recent German food crises — eggs contaminated by dioxin earlier this year, and a previous scandal over spoiled meat. He predicts in a month, no one will even be talking about E. coli anymore.

But a month can be a long time for some.

Horst Knobel, a fourth-generation produce dealer, has a stall at the Kollwitzplatz market that sells fruits and vegetables from around the world — mangoes from Mali are on special today, as are Spanish raspberries. Knobel also has piles and piles of untouched tomatoes and cucumbers, which were originally blamed for the outbreak.

“People don’t want any tomatoes, cucumbers, or lettuce,” Knobel said. “We get organically grown lettuce every day, regionally grown, freshly cut organic lettuce right from the field, and we just can’t sell it.”

Still, customers are buying his wares, though fewer than usual, and they’re choosing fruits over vegetables.

Knobel said he thinks a lot of German shoppers prefer to come to local markets like this one where they can get some guidance about what’s best — though they don’t always take his advice.

“They all want German apples, even though they’re a year old now. The ones from New Zealand or Chile are better and fresher, but that’s not what people want. They want apples from home,” Knobel said. “They’re old – how are they supposed to taste? But they don’t want any apples from New Zealand or Chile, for God’s sake. ”

He said he thinks people are overly cautious these days.

But Doris Merkert is running against the tide. She’s dared to select a few red German tomatoes still on the vine, but she doesn’t plan to put them in a salad.

“I’m going to put them on the grill,” Merkert said. She added that she’s not eating that many tomatoes right now, even though she doesn’t think there’s much of a problem. “So I grill them or cook them in a pan and then everything’s okay. And it tastes good!”

She’s cautious, but still, she doesn’t want to be wasteful. She grudgingly admits she has eaten cucumbers lately – because she didn’t want to throw them away.

A flyer in the door of the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood of Berlin says "Nuclear Power? - No Thanks."(Photo: Susan Stone)

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to reporter Susan Stone in Berlin about the news that Germany will phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022. Download MP3

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: The coalition government in Germany today announced a reversal of its policy on nuclear energy.  Just last year the Germans decided to extend the life of the country’s 17 nuclear power stations.  Well, today the government said it will phase them out by 2022.  The decision makes Germany the biggest industrial power to pledge to give up nuclear energy. Reporter Susan Stone is in Berlin.  Why is this happening in Germany now?  Is it a direct result of what has happened to the Fukushima plant in Japan?

Susan Stone: Well, that certainly has played a major role.  You know, in March Chancellor Marco put the entire energy strategy of the country under review, recommending that the country’s seven oldest nuclear reactors be shutdown for inspections. And you know, at that time the magazine Der Spiegel wrote, it says ‘If the Pope were suddenly advocating the use of birth control pills’ and now we have this really striking decision.

Mullins: Well, that’s really quite a comparison.  Why the big change in policy and how’s it being greeted?

Stone: Well people were quite disappointed when she did make that previous recommendation when there was a further dedication to nuclear power in the country.  So this has come as quite a surprise.  There are other issues going on as well, certainly political.  Her party has suffered some election losses and one could draw some conclusions from that as well.

Mullins: Nuclear power as you’re suggesting there is not very popular in Germany.

Stone: No, it’s not.  One of the things that I’ve noticed quite a bit is a large number of anti nuclear stickers and flyers.  There’s a sort of sun logo with a raised fist, with the words [speaking German], which is ‘nuclear power, no thanks.’ You know, people seem to see the nuclear issue here almost as a moral issue.  It’s just not healthy, it’s dangerous, so we shouldn’t have it.

Mullins: And at the same time though Germany gets something like 23% of its power from nuclear reactors, so what’s it gonna do if it’s planning on closing down all it’s nuclear power plants in 11 years?

Stone: That is the very important question.  Certainly renewables are very popular here.  There’s been a lot of focus on that.  There’s projects for wind power, solar power, geothermal, and the government subsidies have really helped growth in that, especially in the area of solar. But there’s also discussion about cutting solar subsidies, so that’s adding a bit of a problem to the whole discussion now.  One of the other recommendations is to cut overall energy consumption which is quite difficult all together.  And finally, the solution could include importing power from other countries that may have been produced by nuclear energy, and that has its own set of dilemmas.

Mullins: I wonder if you can contrast what’s happening now in Germany then with what’s happening here in the United States because people of course, both there and here, are concerned about Fukushima in Japan, but nobody in the U.S. is announcing a phase out of nuclear energy here.  Why do you think the difference exists?

Stone: There’s really one word for that answer and that’s Chernobyl.  Since I’ve been here I’ve heard stories of Germans who remember being afraid that they’d have deformed children because they stood out in the rain after Chernobyl.  And they didn’t know the risks.  Or they were just terrified, they’d fed their children milk or eaten vegetables from the farmer’s market and they didn’t know they weren’t supposed to. There is a very deep mistrust because of how Chernobyl was handled and the lack of information that was given to people. And this is especially true in East Germany where they were initially told that there was no risk, and in fact many people didn’t learn the true nature of the catastrophe until after reunification.  So many Germans have already lived through one nuclear disaster and they think it could happen again.

Mullins: Well, Chernobyl was felt in Germany and well beyond obviously, but in the United States we had Three Mile Island, the two were very different.  But is there something that goes beyond that example?

Stone: You know it’s been 25 years and yet there are still stories coming out about radioactive mushrooms and radioactive wild boars in Bavarian forests.  But on the other hand perhaps it’s not that cut and dry you know, France and Poland both faced risks from Chernobyl, and yet both are still embracing nuclear energy.

Mullins: All right, thank you very much, speaking to us from Berlin, reporter Susan Stone.  Thanks.

Stone: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Demonstrators in front of a Berlinale event play music and hold a photograph of Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has been panned from filmmaking for 20 years (Photo: Susan Stone)

The Berlin International Film Festival has always put politics and cinema on almost equal footing, but this year there was a special focus. The Berlinale had invited Iranian director Jafar Panahi to serve on the festival jury, but in December, Panahi was sentenced in Iran to six years in prison.

He was also banned from making films and traveling outside the country for 20 years. Still, his presence was strongly felt at the festival; some attendees draped photos of Panahi around their necks and wore green scarves.

Standing next to Panahi’s empty chair, Isabella Rossellini, the festival’s jury president, read an open letter from him. “They have condemned me to twenty years of silence. Yet in my dreams, I scream for a time when we can tolerate each other, respect each other’s opinions, and live for each other,” wrote Panahi.

Iran has a rich history of filmmaking, and its movies are celebrated at home and abroad. Due to its numerous fans, the country’s daily cinema newspaper can sell out within hours.

But when Panahi and another filmmaker, Mohammad Rasoulof, were found guilty of “propaganda against the system” for starting a film about Iran’s 2009 post-election chaos, it was just the latest sign that things have gone terribly wrong, said Iranian director Rafi Pitts.

“It’s a nightmare that he’s living, and it’s a nightmare that the film industry is living,” Pitts said. “And it’s never happened in the history of cinema. Even during the McCarthy purges in America, it never got to this stage, where for an idea you would get a prison sentence.”

Pitts lives in Paris but makes films in Iran. His latest work, “The Hunter,” tells the story of a grieving man pushed to violence. It screened at last year’s Berlinale, but it’s banned in Iran.

“All we wanted to do is hold a mirror up to society. If what the government sees in the mirror is something they don’t like, that’s not the mirror’s fault,” Pitts commented.

The government’s tactics have forced filmmakers to try to game the system, said another Iranian director, Sepideh Farsi.

“Sometimes some people go with fake scripts and shoot something else, and that happens. But I generally have just given them the script that I had,” Farsi said. “But the problem is you can never trust them. Because you give them the script, they give you a shooting permit, and then when the film is ready, they tell you, ‘but this cannot be released because of such-and-such problem.’ So you never really know where the red line is, and where the boundaries are.”

Weary of the rules, Farsi shot her recent film, “Tehran Without Permission,” with a cheap mobile phone, and used the music of underground rappers for the soundtrack.

Another director, Ayat Najafi, plans to head back to Iran on Monday for the first time in four years. He is starting a new film — without a government permit. Najafi hopes to get around that by shooting in private homes, though that method did not keep Jafar Panahi from danger.

“It’s not like when you are working at home, they are going to catch you. But they were looking for a moment to arrest Jafar Panahi and then they found the moment,” said Najafi.

Still, there are Iranian directors who manage to make art within the system. Asghar Farhadi won the Berlinale’s best director prize in 2009, and is a leading contender for this year’s top award.

His film, “Nader and Simin: A Separation,” tells the story of a couple on the edge of divorce, but touches on gender, class, and religious issues. Some Iranian exiles have criticized Farhadi for playing by the rules; Farhadi finds that frustrating.

“What’s their suggestion? Shall we all leave the country? What about the people of Iran? We should make films for them. I’m not working with the government; I’m making films for the people of my country. And I will stay there and I will make films for them,” he said.

The Berlinale awards its prizes on Saturday. In some ways, Farhadi’s film has already won. It’s being picked up for distribution in Europe, Scandinavia, and the United States.

• The Cinema of Sepideh Farsi
• Ayat Najafi’s “Football Under Cover”

At the height of the Cold War, in 1987, Ronald Reagan famously urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

He was referring to the Berlin Wall, right next to the Brandenburg gate.

Two years later the Berlin wall came down. But in the German capital today, there are few signs of Reagan’s historic statement or the man himself for that matter.

Berlin has streets named after prominent Americans like Benjamin Franklin, John Foster Dulles, and Frank Zappa.

John F. Kennedy has a plaza, an institute, a school to his name, not to mention a private museum at the Brandenburg Gate. But there is no reference to Ronald Reagan there.

Some Berliners think there should be some commemoration of America’s 40th president, but Berlin Senate spokesman Günter Kolodziej said there is simply no room.

Günter Kolodziej (Photo: Susan Stone)

Kolodziej pointed out that Ronald Reagan was made an honorary citizen in 1992, along with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — the highest honor the city can bestow.

“Of course, Berlin reveres Mr. Reagan,” Kolodziej said. “I believe that Berlin has recognized him, and that his spirit remains present in the city.”

Left-wing Senate

It is not just a question of space. There is a policy now in Berlin to name streets after women to make up for the gender imbalance.

Martin Lindner (photo: Susan Stone)

“The real background is that there is a pretty left-wing Senate,” said Lindner, a member of the free market, pro-business FDP.

He has been campaigning in vain for several years to have a street named after the Republican president. Lindner blamed political in-fighting and lukewarm feelings about Reagan in the former east for holding things up.

“I have learned in politics naming streets is one of the most emotional things you can do,” Lindner said.

After Reagan died in 2004, Lindner proposed changing the name of the area near the city’s new train station, which was named after George Washington in 1932. “When people come by train to Berlin, they would arrive at the Ronald Reagan Place. Good idea!” Lindner said.

Tear down this wall

But the idea never took hold. Instead, one of the only places you find the “tear down this wall” line, along with a small photo taken during the 1987 speech, is in one of Berlin’s newest subway stations.

On a recent day, those passing through the station had mixed feelings about naming something in the city after Reagan. A few people supported it. But Gabriele Feltzger, who was born in 1945, said street names don’t tell the whole story.

“With 20 years of hindsight, when we see how everything turned out, maybe those in charge weren’t as clever as we always thought they were,” Feltzger said.

Her friend, Stephanie Prose was more concerned that a ceremonial street naming would be an empty gesture. “When we name places after well-known political figures who have done something for Berlin, we need to explain it on a sign or a plaque, explain why we should care.”

On Sunday, February 6th, there will be celebrations at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, CA, for the 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth.

In the library, a piece of the Berlin Wall, decorated with a graffiti butterfly, holds a place of honor.

In Berlin, however, no movement on the issue of commemorating Ronald Reagan is expected until after the next local election, in September.

German video report on the play:

• Theater Regensburg (German)
• Catholic Church sex abuse scandals around the world

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  Germany has been shaken by new allegations against Catholic clergy.  Four Priests and two Nuns in the Bavarian city of Regensburg are accused of molesting students in the 1970′s.  Regensburg happens to be the former Diocese of Pope Benedict XVI who is facing a growing clergy abuse sandal across Europe and the U.S.  It’s also where an intense play that tackles the subject of pedophile Priests has been showing since February.  The play is called The Confession.  Susan Stone caught a recent performance and sent this story.

SUSAN STONE:  In Regensburg a small, 88 seat Turntheater, a many clutching a sleeping young boy bursts onto the stage.  The character’s name is Martin.  As a child he was molested by a Catholic Priest.  Now he started abusing his own son, Sebastian.  Martin’s decided the only way out is for both of them to die, after he confronts his one time comforter and tormentor, father Eberhard.  In a line that provokes a gasp from the audience, the Priest declares that many children have experienced this and grown up to be perfectly normal adults.  I ask myself what’s so terrible about it, he says, and offers to help with the boy.  The suggestion does not sit well with Martin.  Throughout the performance, the two men spar verbally and physically, climbing over a giant wooden cross that bisects the stage.  It’s an intense, uncomfortable hour.  For audience members like 29-year-old Thomas Rother.  Rother is Catholic and he has been thinking a lot about his church.  He is not happy with it’s response to new allegations of abuse.

INTERPRETER:  What I find difficult is the cloak of silence.  It seems like they’d rather cloak the whole issue in silence than find out the truth.

STONE: The timeliness of this topic has brought audience and attention to Theater Regensburg.  Die Beichte, The Confession, was written by an Austrian, Felix Mitterer, inspired by events in Ireland.  It was first performed in 2003 as a radio play.  Theater Regensburg decided a year ago to schedule its production.  The Confession premiered here in early February, around the same time as a series of new abuse revelations came to light.  Miko Greza plays Father Eberhard.

INTERPRETER:  That the right play came at the right time is for us, of course, in terms of our work, a stroke of luck that rarely happens in the theater.  That at exactly this point in time, both nationally and internationally people had the courage to come forth and say this has happened.  This has happened to me.

STONE: Greza has received letters from theater goers who say they appreciated his performance, but were too stunned at the end of the show to applaud.  The theater’s neighbors haven’t had much to say though.  Mikhael Haake, who plays Martin, points out the large church that sits just across the street.  He says maybe you noticed the cathedral.  It’s very close.  You can almost reach out and touch it from here.  It’s hard to escape religion in Regensburg.  Churches are everywhere and a symphony of bells plays out several times a day.  Stories of abuse are almost as inescapable right now.  Sigrid Grabmeier’s church reform organization Wir Sind Kirche, we are the church, has been concerned with these issues since 1995.

SIGRID GRABMEIER:  Never before has sexual abuse and everything around been such a theme in public, and speaking about what happens with the victims.  It has never been such a theme.

STONE: In 2002, Wir Sind Kirche started a hotline for victims of Priest abuse.  So far, 400 people have called, 100 in just the past 6 weeks.  Grabmeier says media coverage, and to some extent, the staging of the play have focused attention on stories that some would prefer to keep hidden.

GRABMEIER: If our society needs this pain then this play may be hurtful and helpful.  And I hope that in many stages in Germany they play it.  Not only here in Regensburg.  I think that all the Bishops and a lot of people should see it.

STONE: The Confession ends its scheduled run tonight.  But those Bishops and others will have one more chance to see the play.  Theater Regensburg will do a special performance during the Bavarian Theater Festival in June.  For The World, I’m Susan Stone, Regensburg, Germany.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Stone: In a Berlin studio, A two-woman design team known as Mongrels in Common are rushing to get their latest looks ready for the runway. A soft grey dress with short puffed sleeves is displayed on a mannequin. The dress is made up of rectangular panels with a subtle but familiar pattern. And while this material is easy to sew, structure is key, says Christine Plüss.

Plüss: “You’re a bit more limited space-wise because a salmon is as big as a salmon can get really, so you have to think about where you place seams and how you are going to cut it because a cow is much bigger!”

Stone: The designers are using salmon leather for dresses, shorts, and handbags. It appeals to them aesthetically and ecologically, says Livia Ximénez-Carrillo. And to their clients as well – with a little explanation.

Ximénez-Carrillo: “Yeah yeah – the first thing they say is, “Does it smell like fish?” But it cannot. It’s leather. It cannot smell like fish, just like leather.”

Hain: “Normally I don’t like to use this word garbage. But of course, in the industry it’s garbage. But that’s our advantage. That’s our raw material.”

Stone: Holger Hain is the man behind the fish. That is, he’s the managing director of Nanai, the firm that produces chrome-free vegetable-tanned salmon skins in the small Bavarian town of Bischofsmais. Back in 2004, Hain was an investor in Laschinger, a fish processing company.

Hain: “We were the biggest producer of smoked salmon all over the world. And at this time built our second factory. “

Stone: One day, while visiting the company founder, Hain noticed an attractive folder on the desk that looked like snakeskin. The founder told him it was actually made from their salmon — he’d been experimenting with the tanning process since the 1980s. Hain was taken with the idea, and started doing research and testing.

Hain: I googled on the internet fish skin, fish leather and something else. And always was coming this name Nanai, Nanai, Nanai.

Stone: Nanai is a region in Eastern Siberia. The indigenous people there have long tanned fish skins for clothing, boats and tents. Hain contacted some Nanai craftsmen, and worked to integrate their traditional techniques with custom-built machinery.

Stone: Now they no longer package salmon in this small Bavarian factory. Instead employees concentrate on make salmon leather from the constant flow of raw material. The salmon is farmed in organic aquaculture in Ireland, then sent to Poland for curing and packaging. The remainder of the fish is frozen, and then trucked here — 100,000 a day — more than 80,000 tons a year.

And at this point in the process, it definitely smells like fish.

Stone: Machines strip the remaining flesh from the skins, which are then washed and salted. Workers rinse the skins, dye them, and use pressurized air to strip off the shiny scales, which go flying through the air like sequins off a party dress. Then the fish skins are dried, ironed, and softened. At the end of this time-intensive process, what’s left is light and flexible and less than 1 millimeter in thickness. It takes 25 skins and two weeks to make one square meter of Nanai leather. This former leftover is now a luxury product.

Hain: “280 Euro we are starting, up to 380 euro. Depends on the colors. Glossy non-glossy, bleached or non-bleached, natural or vegetable. So that’s the range of the prices in square meters.”

Holger Hain

Hain: “Now I can say we are using 100% of the salmon. 100%.”

Stone: He’s now shipping the salmon heads to Japan, selling the fishbones to the supplement industry, and making the waste from the leather processing into pet food. His latest experiment is with a new recipe — turning salmon skin scraps into savory snack chips.

For The World, I’m Susan Stone in Berlin.

• Laschinger Aqua Group
• Nanai Leather

• The World’s Gerry Hadden revisits the former East German border
• The World’s Alex Gallafent on owning a piece of the Berlin Wall
• Former leaders recall Berlin Wall’s fall

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a speech today to a joint session of the US Congress. Merkel grew up in what was communist East Germany. Today she thanked US law makers for America’s support in the years leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. That happened 20 years ago next week. Now there’s a whole generation of German’s born after the wall came down and as Susan Stone reports from Berlin many young Germans know little about their country’s recent painful past.

SUSAN STONE: As the autumn sun sets a group of 15 and 16 year olds from the central western city of Selm have just about had their fill of history. Still they crowd around Hans-Michael Schulze, a guide at Berlin’s DDR Museum. The boys perk up when we get to the Trabant exhibit. Schulze tells them how long East Germans waited to get these cheap plastic polluting cars and why they were nearly the only autos available.

HANS-MICHAEL SCHULZE: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

TRANSLATOR: Giving a tour like this now, 20 years after the end of East Germany, well it’s really astounding how little is known.

STONE: The kids have the basics. They know there was a Berlin Wall and the Stasi, the secret police, but not much more. History teacher Nicole Abendroth is accompanying her class. East Germany is on the lesson plan for later in the year. She says the tenth graders don’t have much of connection to the former East.

NICOLE ABENDROTH: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

TRANSLATOR: I think in the end the DDR amounts to a feeling. What people experienced here essentially confined to their country and that is truly how to convey I have to admit. That’s why I think it’s important to come here. That the students really get a chance to get to know what it was like.

STONE: Across town at the Stasi Museum 18-year-old Kathrin Weiss and her classmates gasp and laugh as a guide describes the miles of files the Stasi kept on ordinary citizens. Weiss says she’s heard a bit about East Germany from her godmother who grew up there. It wasn’t so bad, her godmother told her. As long as you didn’t criticize the system you could have a normal family life just like in the West. But Kathrin is starting to question that.

KATHRIN WEISS: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

TRANSLATOR: It’s not right what she said but she probably just didn’t know. She never realized. She never noticed. And maybe, my God, when you’re not seriously confronted with it you don’t really deal with it. She grew up that way so she didn’t know anything else.

STONE: Kathrin is from Bavaria what was once part of West Germany. Students like her often know more about the former East than young people living in the region today. That’s according to the Stasi Museum’s Uwe Hillmer. He and colleagues at Berlin’s Free University spent three years interviewing students about this period. But Hillmer says it’s not just students who are uninformed.

UWE HILLMER: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

TRANSLATOR: The division of Germany in the post-war period is probably one of the most documented in history. But the reality is that the collective historical memory is at zero. And all these countless 20^th anniversary events aren’t changing everything. We’re stuck at zero.

STONE: Not far from the Stasi Museum sit two teenagers, Robin and Robert, whose parents grew up in East Germany. Have they visited the Stasi Museum, the DDR Museum, or the Berlin Wall Memorial?

ROBIN AND ROBERT: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

STONE: The answer each time is no. And that’s not uncommon for young people in Berlin. Robert says he’d like to visit a museum with his father to give them a better venue for discussing this history than the car or the breakfast table. Robin hasn’t talked much about East Germany with his parents but he does remember this comment.

ROBIN: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

TRANSLATOR: My mother told me for example, it was a very socially-minded time. That there was work for everyone. Not like today where we have so many unemployed people just sitting around. Actually it wasn’t such a bad time. I think it was good.

STONE: These are troubling statements for some Germans who view it as a dangerous nostalgia. But they’re also legitimate memories that contribute to a national fabric of understanding says Leopold Gruen. Gruen is a Berlin-based film maker who grew up in East Germany, later married a West German woman, and had two kids. The fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification paved the way for his family.

LEOPOLD GRUEN: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

TRANSLATOR: For me the most important thing in relaying history is that you have to search for traces in your own biography, in your family. Then ultimately you have the chance to share the experience of history. Private histories are the tiles of the mosaic. They’re like the pieces of a puzzle that can somehow be put together.

STONE: As successive generations grow up and pass on complex histories to their own children, it’s important again in Germany not to forget the past. The hope is that in this anniversary year marking the fall of the Berlin Wall somehow the shadows of the past will illuminate Germany’s future. For The World I’m Susan Stone in Berlin.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.