48 CITY Commentators Big battles US politicians are calling for the break-up of Big Tech, says IrwinNaresh Jariwala*City profile ahead for Stelzer. And if they get their way, the “radical restructuring” they Big Tech envisage of a sector of the economy that has changed the way we Nichola Pease communicate, shop and live our lives will affect Britain every bit News that Nichola Pease Irwin Stelzer as much as America. That’s because the challenge facing Google, is to take over as chair of The Sunday Times Facebook, Amazon and Co. is far more serious than anything Jupiter Fund Management thrown at them by European competition regulators, who have has ruffled a few feathers in Don’t be too imposed fines and forced an end to certain practices, but left the the City, said Patrick Hosking eager to bash companies’ actual structures intact. Yet in the US, momentum is in The Times. Pease, 58, is a billionaire building for “a basic rethinking of competition law” to cut them “a leading figure in asset down to size: the old nostrum that “no consumer harm” (i.e. management”, as Jupiter is Alex Brummer higher prices) “equals no antitrust problem” is under threat. The keen to note, with a long list Daily Mail tech giants can no longer be sure that “mere size is no offence”. of roles in blue-blooded Amazon may be required to make its infrastructure more widely finance houses. What it does Wetherspoon available to others; Google to spin off products and services; not mention is that she was shouldn’t get a Facebook “to divest companies it should never have been allowed also a non-executive director wooden spoon to acquire in the first place”. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has at Northern Rock from 1999 confidently asserted, “We will win”. Don’t count on it. right up to the bank’s Matthew Lynn US Democrats are turning to a 77-year-old billionaire, Michael collapse in 2007, and The Daily Telegraph Bloomberg, to take on a 73-year-old billionaire, Donald Trump. “presumably privy to every What a contrast with Britain, where the Labour party has gone fateful step”. The otherwise Is the gym the out of its way to vilify a handful of billionaires, “condemning “well-regarded” financier catalyst for them as social parasites and polluters who divide society”, says may well be competent to higher GDP? Alex Brummer. Defending billionaires – often seen as tax-avoiders chair Jupiter, which has – is never going to be popular. But they do have some friends. £46bn under management. Editorial According to Swiss wealth manager UBS, which has teamed up But a few public words of The Economist with PwC to produce an annual “billionaires report”, this 2,100- regret and explanation strong group is “at the vanguard of a new industrial revolution, would help. “It’s not the fact which is harnessing the great power of technology to disrupt old that Pease has this skeleton industries and create new ones”. They’ve also rallied the world to in her closet that riles, it’s find cures for diseases like malaria. Even allowing for a certain the fact that neither she nor amount of “philanthropy wash”, there’s some truth in this. Those Jupiter think it necessary to of us “who believe in fairer distribution of resources” may still even acknowledge it.” have qualms about the multiplying numbers of the species. But it’s encouraging to learn from UBS and PwC that, irrespective of what Pease and her husband, happens with Brexit, the billionaires “plan to keep on investing”. hedge fund manager Crispin Tim Martin, the boss of pub chain JD Wetherspoon, has been a Odey, “are a Square Mile vocal supporter of Brexit. And that has landed him in trouble with power couple” said to be the City, says Matthew Lynn. PIRC, one of the most influential worth £775m – “the closest corporate governance advisers, has urged the company’s the City gets to royalty”. She shareholders to vote against the annual report at Wetherspoon’s traces her roots to one of the AGM; another lobby group, ISS, is “keeping political spending founding families of Barclays. under review”. This is crazy. Sure, Martin has “gone a bit over “This controversial appoint- the top sometimes”: he recently staged a speaking tour of his pubs ment plays into the hands of “to convert” punters. No doubt shareholders would like him to those who wrongly hold the pipe down a little. But he wins over as many people “as he hacks Corbyn view of capitalism off”. Besides, “the City should tolerate a few pro-Brexit bosses to as a racket orchestrated by create balance”. Lots of companies have spent money (often far a handful of superbly more than the £95,000 reportedly spent by Wetherspoon on pro- connected yet unaccountable Brexit beer mats) advising us of the dangers of leaving the EU, but ‘banksters’ who are never it’s hard to imagine “an aggressively anti-Brexit chief” landing in required to take personal the same trouble. Martin is an outstanding entrepreneur who has responsibility for past mis- built a pub chain with character. The City should leave him alone. takes.” Still, Pease’s arrival A Latin phrase beloved of old-fashioned British schoolmasters is has already had a positive mens sana in corpore sano: a healthy mind in a healthy body. result for Jupiter, said The Turns out they were on to something, says The Economist. Observer. Odey Asset Greater physical activity has long been linked to better mental and Management was holding physical health, but a new report from think tank Rand Europe a 0.66% short position in the concludes “it might also be linked to greater worker productivity, fund manager, “equivalent and thus faster economic growth”. Previous studies have suggested to a £10.8m bet the shares “those who exercise more tend to earn 5%-10% more on would fall”. Unsurprisingly, average”, but the reasons are open to dispute. Could it be the it has now signalled it will exercisers were more driven? Or was it that they could afford close the position. gym memberships? Or did they make contacts in the locker room?” Rand has used different measures. By focusing on levels of sickness as well as fitness, it found that three to four-and-a-half days a year are lost due to workers being physically inactive. And leaning on “fancy econometrics”, it projects that by 2050 – if exercise targets are met – global GDP could be 0.17%-0.24% higher. In a world of slowing growth, that is “nothing to sniff at”. THE WEEK 16 November 2019
Naresh Jariwala*
For UK investors since the beginning of 2019*... COMPARISON % INCREASE GOLD 21% ISA 1% Naresh Jariwala* CASH 0% Is a portfolio without gold still a luxury you can afford? A perfect storm of uncertainty has left investors counting the cost, but it’s not all doom and gloom. If you’d bought £100 of gold in 1999, it would be worth over £700 today, a return of over 600%**. Precious, finite and tangible, gold bullion has historically mitigated risk. In an uncertain world, can you afford not to get into gold? royalmint.com/invest The above table refers to investors trading in GBP. *Figures are for the best rate easy-access cash ISA as defined by moneysavingexpert.com as of 02/10/2019, adjusted to reflect 270 days’ worth of interest and rounded to the nearest whole number. Figures do not take into account the impact of inflation. **Gold prices taken from the World Gold Council – 1999 average. Prices as of 27/09/2019, exclusive of any premiums and storage fees. Bullion markets can be volatile and the value of bullion may fluctuate dependent on the market value of precious metals. For further information, please visit: royalmint.com/disclaimer
Talking points CITY 51 Issue of the week: British Steel falls to China A once great British industry is on its knees. Can a Chinese investor really make a better go of it? “If Boris Johnson is to gain a majority at steel, wants to own a loss-making next month’s election, Leave-supporting producer on the other side of the Scunthorpe is one of the seats he will world”. Half the woes of British have to win from Labour,” said Simon steelmakers derive from Chinese Duke in The Times. How fortunate, “dumping” of cheap steel onto world then, that a buyer has been found for markets – or so we have been told. One one of the town’s biggest employers. The wonders about Jingye’s strategy: India’s ailing British Steel is to be rescued by Tata Steel couldn’t make the business Jingye, a Chinese rival, in a £50m deal work, so gave it away to Greybull for orchestrated by the Insolvency Service. £1 in 2016 – and industry conditions Having spent years in the doldrums haven’t improved noticeably since then. battling cut-throat competition, the “Perhaps Jingye wants to balance the company collapsed in May after only volatility in its home market”, or is two years in the hands of the private looking to open up new export markets. equity outfit Greybull Capital. The Either way, the promise of £1.2bn Government had three choices: let it go should probably be taken with a pinch under, take it into state ownership, or Scunthorpe: effects of closure would be “appalling” of salt. It’s useful to describe thousands find a buyer. There wasn’t exactly “an of jobs as “saved” in an election army of white knights knocking at their door”. When talks with campaign, but there’s “a whiff of short-termism” about this deal. Turkey’s Ataer Holding broke down last month, the situation looked desperate. “By promising to invest £1.2bn in British Steel, There are also, surely, security concerns, said Ben Marlow in The Jingye made an offer the Government could not refuse.”Naresh Jariwala*Daily Telegraph. Jingye’s founder, Li Ganpo – whose interests span steel, manufacturing, tourism and property – spent more “Any buyer is better than none,” said Nils Pratley in The than a decade in politics in China’s Communist Party before Guardian. The effects of closing the Scunthorpe steelworks would moving into business. This deal “may not be as risky as allowing be “appalling” – 4,000 jobs would go, with potentially another Huawei to build parts of our 5G network”, but steel is vital to 20,000 in the supply chain. And Jingye is “a more credible owner” Britain’s defence industry. “One wonders how wise it is” to sell than Greybull Capital. Even so, “it’s hard to understand why a our last big producer to a “firm that makes no secret of its Chinese group, which is only the world’s 37th largest producer of admiration for China’s repressive regime”. Investing in India: what the experts think Fair exchange it would cast “serious ● Exit Vodafone? doubt” on the ability of Why buy shares when you could buy “Mukesh Ambani must be other companies and private the exchange, asks Mark Atherton in not only India’s richest man, entrepreneurs to flourish in The Times. Over the past five years, but also its luckiest,” said this sector – and others. investors would have achieved far Christopher Williams in The “The rift between better returns “by taking a punt on the Sunday Telegraph. How else government and business” local stock exchange company than in can rivals in India’s brutally wasn’t the creation of the the market index as a whole”. competitive telecoms market current PM, Narendra Modi, explain how “the decisions but allowing “the mistrust to London Stock Exchange Shares in the of government, the courts turn into a chasm would be 218-year-old institution have returned and regulators always seem one of his administration’s 267% over the past five years, against to favour him”? Last gravest mistakes”. 38% for the leading FTSE 100 index of month’s ruling by India’s shares. “Uncertainty about Brexit has supreme court was a case cast a shadow”, but London has a in point. The decision to ● Hidden promise unique “concentration of expertise”. hit mobile operators with It’s all a far cry from Modi’s Meanwhile, the LSE’s stake in the Delhi “billions of pounds in Vodafone: “clobbered” stance in September, when, Stock Exchange and its acquisition of financial data company Refinitiv open retrospective fees and interest” fresh from slashing corporation tax to its “access to new growth areas”. miraculously “hit only Ambani’s rivals”. lowest level in almost three decades, he And it could mean curtains for Vodafone’s pitched India as “the” destination for Intercontinental Exchange The owner joint venture, Vodafone Idea. After 12 aspiring global investors, promising to “act of numerous exchanges, including the gruelling years in India, the UK telecoms as a bridge for businesses”, said The Print New York Stock Exchange, has returned company “may be one foreign investor (India). There’s not much sign of that. Still, 127% – almost double the 68% return of who has had enough”. India’s main Sensex stock index has been the S&P 500 index over the same five- soaring, hitting an all-time high this year period. The caveat is that fintech ● Serious doubt month. Emerging markets have fallen companies are finding ways to cut out Who can blame the company, asked Andy “out of favour” with UK investors, said the middleman – a potential blow to the Mukherjee on Bloomberg. This isn’t the The Times. But India’s fundamentals still money made by the ICE on trading fees. first time Vodafone has been “clobbered look favourable. As Brian Dennehy of by unreasonable government demands”. In Fund Expert points out, the economy is Euronext The exchange owns about 30 2012, India retrospectively changed its tax still “in the early stages” of development. indices in Europe (including Paris and law to pursue a $2.2bn claim. “Vodafone “India may now be fifth in the global GDP Amsterdam) and has achieved a “spec- has written down the value of its Indian tables,” he says, “but if you look at GDP tacular” return of 319% over five years – joint venture to zero” following this latest per person, [it] is only 156th, so there is a seven times the Euro Stoxx 50 index’s demand, and “warned the unit could be lot of scope for growth.” Better not 44% return. Future negative influences headed for liquidation”. If that happens, mention that to Vodafone. affecting this “big beneficiary of consolidation” could include “possible political curbs on merger activity”. 16 November 2019 THE WEEK
Wines to adorn your Christmas table Christmas is, inevitably, a time of excess, This selection from Private Cellar is not only reasonably especially when it comes to food and wine. priced, but extraordinarily drinkable too. I was particularly My favourite treat was celebrating just struck with the Bourgogne Blanc from Domaine Matrot, one before the Millennium with a case, selected of my favourite Meursault producers. As for the reds, the by my wife, of 50 year-old wines from Château Carignan would not be out of place on any Christmas Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, including a dinner table with its elegance and balance. great La Tâche 42 - but occasions like this happen once in a lifetime. For the remainder of the time, we always try to have something special, and if there is a large gathering it’s best to focus on alternatives B from the big names. Wine Editor – The Week Wines £9Fr.o3m5 HOW IT WORKS per bottle Delicious wines Exclusive discounts from FREE UK deliver chosen by our expert our merchants direct to your do Saliente Falanghina Spumante L’Exuberance du Clos Cantenac, Naresh Jariwala*Brut, Masseria Altemura NV, Bordeaux 2018, 13% Bourgogne Chardonnay, 11.5% This is an unusual bottle £19.50 Domaine Matrot 2015, 12.5% Terms and conditions: Offer ends 31 December 2019. Free delivery to UK mainland only (does not include N.I., Scottish Isles or Isle of Wight) on all orders of 12 bottles of wine or more. Orders will be dispatched£11.95This sparkling wine was an instant£19.95– a Bordeaux rosé, made Don’t be fooled by this simple within 5 working days of orders being received. Payment can be made by credit or debit card over the phone or online.hit with my friends as a worthypredominantly from the Merlot £17.95 £11.25 £17.50 appellation of “Bourgogne” – this Champagne alternative. Made grape. Most rosé is consumed is a superb wine created from from an ancient grape variety from outdoors in the summer, but this their younger vines in the village Greece, it comes from Puglia in has the structure and depth to of Meursault, where the Matrot southern Italy. It has a pleasant, be enjoyable all year round. family make two of the greatest slightly floral aftertaste, with a Unlike most rosé, which is examples – Meursault Les Charmes hint of pear. It’s gentle, with no sharp fermented in stainless steel to maintain and Les Perrières. It has a lovely slightly edges, unlike some of the more popular its perkiness, this has also gone through honeyed flavour with a beautiful citric substitutes. With its low alcohol level it some barrel fermentation, so actually back note. There are very few New World is the perfect drink to start Christmas has some mid level depth and charming Chardonnays, no matter what the price, festivities, leaving plenty of room for aftertaste. Good either as a Champagne that match this simple white Burgundy in stronger drinks as the day goes on. substitute or with seafood. understated style and satisfaction – also helped by being from a great vintage. CASE PRICE: £135 - saving £8.40 CASE PRICE: £210 - saving £29.40 CASE PRICE: £215.40 - saving £18.60 Bodegas Pinuaga Nature, Tierra Château Carignan, Cadillac de Castilla, Spain 2015, 13% Côtes de Bordeaux 2014, 14% Sagesse Rouge, Vin de Pays I tend to avoid Tempranillos This is one of the best value d’Oc 2018, 13% £13.70 from Spain, as they can be £14.50 Château-bottled clarets available £9.85 This is the personal blend of over-alcoholic fruit bombs for anywhere. Château Carignan £9.35 British wine merchant Mark £12.50 £13.20 Savage MW, who only produces several hundred cases annually my taste. Then along comes has been owned for the past with a slightly different blend each this bottle from Toledo in the decade by Andy Lench, who has year. His objective is to create an middle of Spain to demolish my raised the quality to its current “upmarket house wine”, which as prejudices. Esther Pinuaga started high level. Predominantly from a description is far too modest. If her career as a business consultant the Merlot grape with smaller only all house wines had this sophistication. in Colorado but returned to Spain to percentages of Cabernet Sauvignon and This particular vintage is fresh and mouth help run the family business. This is Cabernet Franc, it has an exhilarating filling, which Mark puts down to the 10% a beautifully balanced wine, which plummy core with superb focus and a of Petit Verdot grapes; they add backbone appears to be fully mature and capable satisfying aftertaste reminiscent of a to the usual Merlot and Cabernet Franc. of matching any Christmas centrepiece. far more expensive claret. This would Sagesse means wisdom in French, hence the Esther practices low intervention partner perfectly with both white and charming woodcut of an owl on the label. techniques to create this organic wine, red meats during the festive season. which is remarkable value for such CASE PRICE: £112.20 - saving £6 a high quality luscious product. CASE PRICE: £158.40 - saving £15.60 CASE PRICE: £150 - saving £14.40 MIXED CASES ALSO AVAILABLE IN: Try them all! Most popular option MIXED CASE (2 bottles of each) £163.50 MIXED REDS (4 bottles of each) £140.20 MIXED WHITE & ROSÉ (4 bottles of each) £186.80 Order online at TheWeekWines.com/Christmas FREE UK DELIVERY or call Private Cellar direct on 01353 721 999 and quote “The Week” THE WEEK
Shares CITY 53 Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares Directors’ dealings XLMedia Bloomsbury Publishing FDM Group Oxford Instruments Investors Chronicle The Sunday Times Shares 80 Academic and professional FDM trains up IT experts and This maker of high-tech tools sales are up, thanks to a 73% contracts them out to blue-chip and systems used for scientific 70 spike in Bloomsbury Digital companies. The “Brexit fog” research, patient monitoring Director buys Resources. A new illustrated has sparked concerns, but sales and semiconductor processing, edition of Harry Potter and the and profits are rising, and the has lagged in recent years. But 60 918,083 Goblet of Fire should boost firm is resilient. Panmure self-help measures should Christmas sales. Yields 3.2%. Gordon names an £11.40 improve earnings and boost 50 Buy. 250p. target. Buy. 756p. margins. Buy. £13.60. Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dassault Systèmes Lok’nStore Group Redrow The digital marketing specialist The Daily Telegraph Shares Investors Chronicle has been suffering the impact Dassault’s high-speed artificial This self-storage outfit The housebuilder’s ability to of regulatory challenges, but intelligence software helps continues to churn out keep a tight rein on costs and has diversified into personal manufacturers save time and impressive growth numbers cautious approach to land money on design, testing and thanks to a clear expansion purchases means it continues finance and the US. production. Growing plan, strong balance sheet, to show resilience. Margins are Co-founder Ory Weihs has organically and by acquisition, experienced management lower than those of some and customers are “sticky”. and robust market backdrop. peers, but the 5.2% yield is been hoping to restore Buy. s135.75. Buy. 574p. well-covered. Buy. 608p. confidence by buying shares. Naresh Jariwala* …and some to hold, avoid or sell SOURCE: INVESTORS’ CHRONICLE Form guide Auto Trader Group DS Smith Ryanair Shares tipped 12 weeks ago The Times The Daily Telegraph Investors Chronicle Best tip The online car trading platform This packaging firm’s strong Disruption to the delivery of Ideagen is a “prodigious engine for position in fast-moving Boeing 737 Max planes, rising Shares cash generation”. Revenues consumer goods and fuel costs and spiralling losses and profits are up, demon- e-commerce could shelter it in the airline’s Lauda outfit in up 9.05% to 154.85p strating resilience to volatile from economic slowdown. Austria are expected to weigh Worst tip motor sales, but shares are Solid growth and good cost on earnings, while passenger Unilever “richly valued”. Hold. 534.2p. control should support margin traffic is vulnerable to market BT Group improvement. Hold. 372.1p. uncertainty. Sell. s13.31. The Sunday Telegraph The Times Imperial Brands Wood Group down 7.76% to £46.22 The telephone services provider Investors Chronicle The Times is burdened with an £11.3bn “Next generation products” The service provider is Market view pensions deficit and an are threatened by rising reducing its reliance on oil and £18.3bn debt burden. competition and regulatory gas by securing projects in “If you don’t need to own Cashflows are under pressure, uncertainty as consumers shift sustainable infrastructure and them it makes sense to be and the mooted figure of from tobacco to vaping. High renewable energy. Some $30m £4.1bn in capex casts doubt debt doesn’t help, and the CEO in cost savings are mooted, and underweight.” over the dividend. Avoid. has announced she is stepping it is selling its nuclear division Andrew Balls of Pimco 193.25p. down. Sell. £17.59. to reduce debt. Hold. 380p. argues that a state spending splurge makes UK bonds a higher risk for debt investors. Quoted in the FT Market summary Key numbers for investors Best and worst performing shares Following the Footsie 12 Nov 2019 Week before Change (%) WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS 7,700 FTSE 100 7365.44 7388.08 –0.31% RISES Price % change 7,600 FTSE All-share UK 4060.54 4065.31 –0.12% Persimmon 2451.00 +7.64 7,500 Dow Jones 27723.20 27493.30 0.84% M&G 228.80 +6.82 7,400 NASDAQ 8500.35 8442.16 0.69% Aveva Group 4408.00 +6.47 7,300 Nikkei 225 23520.01 23251.99 1.15% Centrica 74.80 +5.35 7,200 Hang Seng 27065.28 27683.40 –2.23% Brit.American Tobacco 2927.50 +4.89 7,100 Gold 1458.70 1509.45 –3.36% Brent Crude Oil –1.13% FALLS 1074.50 –20.99 Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) 62.17 62.88 Ocado Group 1220.00 –14.14 UK 10-year gilts yield 4.46% 4.45% Hiscox 626.00 –11.51 6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index US 10-year Treasuries 0.72 0.69 Fresnillo 1159.50 –6.98 UK ECONOMIC DATA 1.93 1.86 Polymetal Internat. 1879.00 –6.19 Latest CPI (yoy) Hikma Pharma. Latest RPI (yoy) 1.7% (Sep) 1.7% (Aug) Halifax house price (yoy) 2.4% (Sep) 2.6% (Aug) BEST AND WORST UK STOCKS OVERALL +0.9% (Oct) +1.1% (Sep) Ishm.Em Esg Enh. Uci 5.16 +757.67 Tissue Regenix Gp. 0.77 –62.19 Source: Datastream (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 12 Nov (pm) £1 STERLING $1.264 E1.147 ¥137.660 16 November 2019 THE WEEK
54 The last word “History was being made – and I wanted to be part of it” On 9 November 1989, the people of Berlin brought down the Wall that had cut through their city since 1961. Here, three leading German writers – from both sides of the divide – recall those heady days and assess the legacy of reunification Bernhard Schlink democratic underpinning Bernhard Schlink is a for the GDR, preserving writer, lawyer and the legacy of the peaceful academic. Born in Bielefeld revolution, and allowing in 1944, he now divides his the GDR to enter into time between Berlin and reunification negotiations New York. His best-known with self-assurance and book is The Reader, a confidence. It was meant bestseller which in 2008 to be a contribution to was made into a film, reinventing Germany. In starring Kate Winslet. March, however, after the first and last free elections The Wall fell on in the GDR, it was clear 9 November 1989. A few Naresh Jariwala* that reunification would days later I was in Berlin come so quickly that the – history was being made plans were already obsolete. here, and I wanted to be part of it. In March, the lovefest between the two East Berliners were out and Germanies also drew about in West Berlin, easy to a close. The economic to spot thanks to their cars, problems involved in their clothes, the way they reunification became inspected shop displays, the apparent. Switching from bananas and oranges in their Berliners clamber on to the Wall to begin a “German-German lovefest” socialism to capitalism shopping bags. At the border, the East German Volkspolizei were was not easy for many East Germans, and it became clear their friendly, and in East Berlin I could walk into Humboldt University experiences and knowledge were unappreciated, while the without going through the previous security check. Otherwise, penalties imposed on those who had spied for the State Security people did what they always do: they went to work, did their Service affected both those who deserved them and those who shopping, sat in cafés. History is everyday life. did not. Advisers and visitors from the West were nicknamed “Besserwessi” (“know-it-alls”); many were convinced that But that November, everyday life was light-hearted and cheerful. they did indeed know better, and treated East Germans as The Sun was shining. Grumpy Berliners smiled. East and West impoverished, helpless relatives. The wounds inflicted in that Berliners exchanged greetings. period have still not fully healed. The first days, the first weeks after the fall of the Wall were “Sometimes East Germans still point out We did not reinvent Germany. a German-German lovefest. that it didn’t rain all the time in the GDR, Many things have become more East and West Germans difficult. Often Germans from were curious about each other, that even in a dictatorship people fell in love” the East and West act as if there intrigued by each other, talked were a distance between them, to each other, delighted in each other. Anything seemed possible. reacting to their differences as if they were annoying rather than a blessing. But I have confidence in the future. Great gifts change I’d always known that the division of Germany would pass. I was your life and cannot just blithely be chalked up as a turn for the the son of a Protestant pastor, and Protestant Eastern Germany, better; you need to get to grips with them. It remains a great gift the land of Luther and Bach, was my Germany just as much as that Germany is reunited, a gift I delight in over and over again – the Catholic Rhineland was. In the 1960s, I studied in West when I cycle through the Brandenburg Gate, when I go hiking in Berlin, had friends in East Berlin and went there regularly until the Elbe Sandstone Mountains or see the Sun rise over the Baltic I helped my girlfriend escape from East to West and risked in Rügen. arrest if I set foot in East Berlin again. When I could once again travel there safely, I drove with my son through the East German Maxim Leo landscapes, poorer and greyer than their West German counter- Maxim Leo, 49, is a screenwriter, author and journalist. Born parts, but sometimes with a touching simplicity too. We in East Berlin, he still lives in the city, where he is editor of the encountered the older Germany that these days no longer exists. Berliner Zeitung. His memoir, Red Love: The Story of an East German Family, won the European Book Prize. When I came back from Berlin to Bonn, where I was a professor of public law, I received an enquiry about teaching a class at Germans like anniversaries; they give such a clear shape to Humboldt University in January 1990 – becoming the first visiting history. At these times you can simplify complicated things a professor from the Federal Republic of Germany to teach there. bit, smooth out the contradictions. The GDR, which repeatedly During that period, a colleague invited me to participate in the comes back to life on these dates, long ago became a kind of drafting of a new constitution for the German Democratic museum country. These days, hardly anybody wants to know Republic (GDR). Over the next two months, I shared the hopes what the East German state was really like; instead the same involved in drafting a new constitution – one intended as a free, stories are told over and over, about very brave civil rights THE WEEK 16 November 2019
The last word 55 activists or very nasty Stasi people. Heike Geissler Normal people seldom appear in these Heike Geissler was born in 1977 in stories, and the GDR has long since Riesa in the former GDR. She is the rigidified into a historical caricature. author of four novels, most recently Seasonal Associate, a fictionalised That is primarily because West account of a period she spent working Germans don’t want to know; they in an Amazon warehouse in Leipzig. simply want confirmation that they were on the right side and East Oh, it’s all so long ago, isn’t it? When Germans were on the wrong side. the Wall came down I was 12 years West Germans also like it when old. I was embarrassed about coming you’re grateful to them for from the GDR, about going into sharing their wealth and their shops in West Germany and being a constitution with us [former East grey and dark-blue complex of drab Germans]. If you’re not grateful East Germans celebrate the open border on 9 November timidity amidst the colour. With my enough, West Germans get angry. For first Western money I bought a neon their part, East Germans stopped explaining themselves ages ago. rucksack and a cassette recorder. I draped myself in colours – Sometimes they still point out that it didn’t rain all the time in the and papered my room with posters of Depeche Mode. GDR, that even in a dictatorship people fell in love. That a normal life was possible. But then people in the West start wailing What I didn’t know for a long time: I was a torment to my that the dictatorship is being played down. So East Germans fall parents, because capitalism now gripped me as firmly by the hand silent again, because what’s the point? as [youth group] the Pioneer Organisation had done before. As soon as it was there I was its willing talking doll, its passionate I myself always feel bad on these big anniversaries, because I advocate, right at the front of the queue of people buying and can’t help remembering the student from Düsseldorf I met at coveting consumer goods. I couldn’t see what was being lost – my first party in West Berlin shortly after the fall of the Wall.Naresh Jariwala*only what I didn’t have. So I think I spent the years of growth I had just bought a Billy bookcase at Ikea with my DM100 after the fall of the GDR shopping. I barely knew how to do welcome money. While assembling the shelves I’d accidently hit anything else but seek out those swiftly erected tent constructions my thumb with the hammer. My thumbnail was brown and full of boxes of desirable-looking cheap clothes, and later the new swollen. At the party, the student asked me what had happened. branches of large chains, every afternoon, looking, wanting, I told him that in school in the GDR they hit you on the thumb buying. So for the first few years after the fall of the Wall, I with a hammer if you didn’t do your homework. And because became a master at falling into every consumer trap, over and I forgot my homework a lot, my over again. thumb was now pretty much beyond saving. The student “I spent my first Western money on a neon I am the child of determined gave me a look of surprise and rucksack and a cassette recorder – and papered players of the lottery. What we pity. He would probably have my room with posters of Depeche Mode” lived on, what fed us, was the believed me if I’d told him that hope of a big win, never the pupils with bad marks were shot hope of political change. I am at the end of the school year. For those young West Germans, the daughter of a mother who rationalised herself out of her own the GDR was so completely wicked anything was imaginable. job in 1992, whether out of negligence or honesty or both, I’m not sure. I am the daughter of a father who dreamt of retirement Also regular as clockwork on anniversaries are reports about years before he actually retired. I see him in the morning, in this the state of German unity. And each time there’s a huge sense low-rise on the edge of the forest, sitting in a living room that of disappointment because East Germans are still so different. looks like a set made for a post-Wall museum: Father (38) on So strange, so ungrateful, so hard to train. East Germans vote short time sitting silently in his armchair. The armchair is turned for the Right, they don’t like foreigners, they don’t believe in towards the TV. The TV is off. There is no sound in the living God, they eat a lot of meat and hardly have any children, but room. The father is the silent type anyway. The daughter stands they do have a higher than average amount of sex. Worst are at the edge of the scene, looking at the father; her mouth is East German men, who are frustrated, aggressive, uneducated, half-open. She is dreaming about the world, and secretly of being racist, homeless, wifeless. Has there, since Gollum in The Lord a global star, although nothing came of it. of the Rings, been an uglier creature than the East German man? I’m a writer, I live in Saxony. You could describe me as an East I write these lines as an aggrieved party. I’ve been East German German, but I’m not comfortable with the term. It triggers since I was born. And I’m often asked to appear on anniversaries unpleasant memories about my own greed, about GDR citizens’ to explain my odd compatriots. Last week, a woman called me desire for the Deutschmark, their urging towards the unification up from the radio to discuss an interview. “Perhaps you could of the two German states – but it also conjures up injustices. I’m give us an introduction to some of the peculiarities of East thinking about West Germans who were eloquently and jovially Germans,” she said. It sounded as if I was a native of Papua able to impress, who occupied lucrative positions and transferred New Guinea. Ten years ago, at the last big anniversary, I’d to us structures from their own country, which I was unable to written a book about my East German family. I did a reading question at the time. I think about articles that still forget to tour in the West German provinces, and I was lying in bed in my mention the existence of the GDR, or do so only in sub-clauses. hotel one night, thinking about how damned ironic history is: I think of imperfection, repression and miscommunication. But I who would have expected the GDR, of all places, to involve so don’t want to describe myself as an East German because I think much world travel? that would mean getting involved in a competition for media attention, and helping to set one past against another. Emotional Recently, incidentally, I’ve felt very close to the British, because though it might sound, what’s needed is exchange rather than so many people are disappointed by the British right now, and boundaries, so while I may have been a citizen of the GDR, I’m no one really understands them any more. I have an idea: how not prepared to become an East German. I’m a German, because about Britain splits from Northern Ireland and unifies with East my passport tells me so. That’s label and challenge enough. Germany instead? I see a lot of parallels and advantages there. But let’s talk about that another time, when we’ve got a bit of A longer version of this article appeared in The Observer. peace and quiet. © Guardian News & Media 2019 16 November 2019 THE WEEK
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