Nov 15, 2014

surprising ways to die in Stuttgart

Not so many years ago....

WORLD
WARS

EPISODE II

Last friday, one of our Mexican interns was alarmed to receive a text from her roommate, who informed her that the block was being evacuated because a 500kg bomb from WWII was uncovered at a nearby construction site. At first, she thought it was a joke, but I assured her, to her increased unease, that yes, this actually happens in Germany. Actually, I was reading that as recently as a few years ago, an unlucky digger on a construction site was killed when he hit an undiscovered bomb. Unfortunately, years are not kind to either the bomb materials or fuses, which become really unstable after more than sixty years of being buried in the earth.

I don't worry about it much because I don't live or work near a construction site, although it must make German contractors sweat a bit as an additional danger on top of an already dangerous profession.

Anyway, because unexploded bombs are so common in Germany, the evacuation of over 1000 people proceeded with apparent ease as the city immediately brought in evacuation busses to quickly move the residents and workers of the way of danger. Apparently the bomb was neutralized less than six hours later- either it was stable enough to be moved (most likely), or it was defused on site.

The intern was saying that if the bomb had killed, her it would have been the US's fault. I countered with immediate comment that it would be Germany's fault. Actually, thinking about it more, it made me wonder if it would have been the US's fault. Germany started the war, but the US chose how to respond with its warfare, and produced the defective bombs. Or, like many killed in war, our intern would simply have been considered a casualty of war, with equal blame on all participants.

Stuttgart is one of the safest cities in Germany, but being killed by WWII ordnance is one of the strange and surprising ways to die in this city.

Surprising Ways to Die in Stuttgart
1) WWII bomb explosion
2) viral meningitis from ticks (really! its a thing that always kills a few people every year)
3) luxury automobiles. Stuttgart was the original car fetish city. People here sometimes have more money than sense. You can buy beer at the age of 16. and hard liquor at 18. Some of the highways have no speed limit.
4) Street protest violence. People get really worked up about the Stuttgart 21 project. One guy lost his eyes in a water cannon blast when the police tried to contain a riot a few years back. The soccer hooligans here are also nuts.
5) [unknown] Someone was discovered resting in a the main square. In pieces inside of a suitcase.
6) Potted plants falling on your head from balconies.
7) Slip and falling on one of the many steep staircases of this hilly city.

And probably a few people choke on pretzels or something. Actually Stuttgart is one of the safest cities in Europe. At least, postwar.

Anyway, something like 40-50% of the city was destroyed or badly damaged in WWII. A lot of it was picturesque traditional southern German architecture, with lots of wood, white plaster, steep wooden roofs, stone etc. The catch, however, is that none of it was really that old, or as old as it was pretending to be. Stuttgart was a sleepy village with a tiny population until it industrialized, and the new city center was built to look historic and traditional not so many years before the first Modernist buildings started to rise in the city.

So when WWII flattened the old [new] city center, the city had to decide how much to rebuild in the authentically fake-old style and how much to start anew. Postwar Munich went the former way, Stuttgart leaned towards the latter.

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