Split Memories: Working in a Fractured Germany

摘要

My first multi-year assignment overseas was in Bonn, the capital of West Germany. In Germany, this small town on the Rhine River did not seem to have much to recommend itself to me. It had an established university, and 250 years earlier, Beethoven was born there when it was part of the Archbishopric of Cologne. When Beethoven reached adulthood, he left Bonn and moved to Vienna. Like Beethoven, our eldest daughter was born in Bonn, and that alone has made this small city special as to place. The inhabitants of Bonn felt like they had fallen into heaven. Before World War Ⅱ, provincial Bonn was a moderately sized city; afterward, it was a capitol of a major European country; property owners and small businesses profited in a way none could have imagined.