Posted on 03/20/2005 4:55:55 AM PST by NCjim
For his 50th birthday, a wealthy German placed a full-page ad in a left-leaning newspaper thanking America for 50 years of freedom and peace. He says the ad and the response it generated were well worth it.
For Manfred Petri, an independently wealthy former businessman from the Bavarian town of Hof, the day George W. Bush arrived in Mainz for his visit to Germany was a day to celebrate. It was February 23, 2005, which also happened to be Manfred Petri's 50th birthday.
The day began with breakfast in bed, which would be followed later by a family celebration with Petri's wife and two teen-aged sons and, that evening, a family dinner in a local restaurant. But there was one present Petri wanted to see first. He asked his wife to buy every available copy of the liberal daily paper "Die Tageszeitung" (taz) in the city of Hof. Petri's wife managed to come up with five copies, three from the newsstand at the train station and two from a book store. The title of the cover story read "Ick bin ein Mainzelmännchen," (I am a little dwarf from Mainz) a play on US President John F. Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech intended to belittle Bush, who was shown in a caricature wearing a dwarf's hat.
Petri, normally an avid reader of the conservative daily the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, was not amused. As he leafed through the paper, he wasn't looking for reports on the strict security precautions taken by German authorities in Mainz, which included a heavy police presence, streets cleared of all civilians and the removal of all mailboxes, where presumably bombs could be hidden. Petri was more interested in page 5, where a photo of a US flag fluttering in the wind covered half the page, and below it, printed in large and bold type, were the words: "Thank you America for 50 Years of Freedom and Peace!" Then came Petri's name and his date of birth. Nothing else.
In taking out the full-page ad, Petri was giving himself the most expensive birthday present he's ever had. It cost him a little over €6,000. He did it to express the feelings of those who, like himself, still believe in German-American friendship. He also did it to provoke those who don't share his opinion, particularly the liberal paper's core readers. In all, considered it quite successful and was extremely pleased.
Who is Manfred Petri?
Manfred Petri is a quiet man. But ever since his birthday, people have been stopping him on the street. Friends have been congratulating him and strangers have been approaching him, curious to know exactly who Dr. Manfred Petri is. Today he is sitting in a café in Hof, wearing a plaid shirt and a dark tie, watching the steam rise from his café au lait and gazing out at the snow-covered street. He says placing the ad wasn't a big deal, really, just something he spontaneously felt needed to be done.
He says he came up with the idea one day in late 2004, while having a conversation with his father, who was 85 at the time. It was a day of reminiscences and clearly Petri's father sensed his life was coming to an end. He talked about World War II a great deal, about how he had spent more than eight years in a Siberian labor camp, shoveling coal underground and learning Russian because he loved the country and the Russians themselves, but that he had no affection for communism.
He talked about how he had returned to Germany in 1953 -- too old to finish high school but too young to give up on his future. Eventually, he established an electronics company in Hof, a town near the border between the two Germanys. He told Petri that everything he did was to make sure Petri would have better opportunities than he had had. Then he asked Petri: "Son, do you think I did the right thing?"
Coming of age in Ohio
Petri drinks his café au lait and talks about his sense of gratitude -- to his father and to America -- both, he says, helped shape him into what he is today.
He mentions an important event in his life, his first trip to East Germany, when he was 18. At the border crossing, soldiers held mirrors under his car to check for contraband. In East Berlin, he witnessed military parades and experienced nighttime curfews. His next important journey was to Cleveland, Ohio, where he spent a year attending a boarding school in 1972. In Ohio, he made friends he still has today. With them, he discussed the Vietnam War, demonstrated against President Nixon, and discovered a liking for politics. He decided to get involved in politics in his own country and, writing on a postcard from Ohio, he applied for membership in Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD). He said he was doing so "because of Willy (Brandt)," the German chancellor and Nobel Prize winner who was an early voice of reconciliation between post-war East and West Germany. Petri maintained his belief in the SPD even after Brandt resigned amid a spy scandal in 1974, but left the party in 1982, when Helmut Schmidt, Brandt's successor as chancellor, was voted out of office.
Today Petri still waxes nostalgic when he talks about his year in the United States. "I returned and suddenly I was an adult," he says, "and ever since then I've felt that I have to give something back."
Thanking America
When his father died three weeks ago, Petri contacted an advertising agency. They took a picture of the US flag Petri's friends in the Ohio boarding school had given him as a goodbye present, and accepted his ad. Its purpose was two-fold: to bid farewell to his father and to sum up his own emotions at a time when 70 percent of Germans aged 30 to 44 believe that Germany no longer owes the United States any gratitude for its help during post-war reconstruction. It's also a time when 29 percent of Germans trust Russian President Vladimir Putin and only 24 percent trust US President Bush. "I wanted to thank America and the Americans," says Petri, "not their president." Choosing Germany's most liberal newspapers for his gift was deliberate.
The paper makes no secret of his financial need and its advertising department immediately accepted the ad. The day after it was published, when Bush had already left Germany and was visiting with Putin in Bratislava, members of the newspaper's editorial staff met to discuss Petri's curious public expression of gratitude. They also talked about ways to make sure ads like Petri's would be spotted more quickly in the future and wondered why no one had caught the ad and discussed it before it ran.
But it wasn't like the firely old days at the leftist paper, which was founded by a generation of post-1968 intellectual rebels. There was no uproar or angry response. The editors simply printed a brief story about Petri and everything returned to normal. For taz, that meant returning to its typical America-critical stance.
"It's nice that Gerhard and George are friends again," it wrote, in a front-page editorial on February 24. "The best of friends, in fact. A head and an ass, so to speak."
It's always fun to annoy the libs.
Hang in there sir, by the time for obituary of George W. Bush a majority of Germans and the German press, punditries, and politicians will declare Bush a visionary great statesman and declare you far-sighted.
Just like the way these your fellow countrymen treated Ronald Reagan: derision in 1987, ignorance by 1994, and recognition by 2004.
Wow. What a clever and generous idea!
Amazing...
"It's also a time when 29 percent of Germans trust Russian President Vladimir Putin and only 24 percent trust US President Bush"
Bless his heart!
"Who is Manfred Petri?
Manfred Petri is a quiet man. But ever since his birthday, people have been stopping him on the street. Friends have been congratulating him and strangers have been approaching him, curious to know exactly who Dr. Manfred Petri is.
Today he is sitting in a café in Hof, wearing a plaid shirt and a dark tie, watching the steam rise from his café au lait and gazing out at the snow-covered street. He says placing the ad wasn't a big deal, really, just something he spontaneously felt needed to be done."
Thanks!
Danke.
Perhaps someone should ask these Germans if they so trusted Putin, perhaps they also approve of Putin's attempted assassination of Yushenko of Ukraine and muddling in Ukraine's internal affairs?
And if they support Putin's movements in the Ukraine, perhaps they owe us an explanation why they hold the United States to a stricter standard regarding assassination of political targets?
I reacted to this much the same way I react when our Canadian FReepers say . . . "Hey, not all of us Canadians agree with our Liberal Government."
I always reply . . . "Great. Nice to know. If I'm on Jeopardy one day trying to beat Ken Jennings' record, perhaps that question will come up. But, in the grand scheme of things, does it matter to the cross-country skier who is being mauled and torn to pieces by a pack of blood-thirsty wolves that there are a few, timid wolves standing on the periphery as he's being eaten alive?"
And that's what I believe.
Anytime I make what might appear to be personal attacks against Germans or Canadians . . . what I'm really saying is this . . . For whatever reason, your present government was elected by your people and it is this government that is doing damage to the U.S. It does me as an American no good to know that NOT ALL of you think we're The Great Satan because enough of you believe it that American soldiers are unnecessarily having to die on the battlefield because the rest of the world doesn't have the cojones to confront despots and terrorists who have killed Americans with impunity for far, far too long.
Those Canadians and Germans who disagree with their government's actions are the ONLY ones who can change said government and, while we will willingly and enthusiastically help them all we can to change their government, they should in no way be given a FREE PASS just because they agree with our positions.
There is a third classification to be thought of here . . . those who disagree with their government, but do NOTHING about changing their government. Why should they be thought of as OUR FRIENDS when their inactivity is perpetuating the very anti-U.S. sentiments expressed by their government?
How infantile can these people get? Anyways, it's nice to know that at least one person in Deutschland doesn't hate us.
I heard about it. I wonder how many Americans trust Putin.
We have had citizens, both in Germany and France, come up to us, ask if we were Americans, and then thank us from the bottom of their hearts for saving them during World War II. It was very moving.
Have you ever told story that to a WWII Vet or do you just accept their thanks and think how nice it is to be an American?
I've spent TOO much time in both Germany and France -- and have NEVER had anyone approach me in that manner, or thank me as an American for ANYTHING....
Then again -- I'm a tall, large, ugly, mean and angry looking individual that folks go out of their way to avoid...
There have been occasions in bars -- where smart assed Euroweenis run their mouth in an insulting manner that need to be "reminded" just how badly we kicked their asses -- and offer to do so again...
Semper Fi
The operative line in this story - is that it was just: ONE GERMAN...
Semper Fi
bttt
One is one. It is rather a courageous thing to do (and the Germans rarely approach a person they don't know, I was told). Yes, I have shared that story with my father-in-law, who lost a leg in the Battle of the Bulge. (To his grandson's delight!! How many kids have a Grandpa who puts his socks on with a thumb-tack? And whose leg resonates when you knock on it??).
BumP!
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