Berlin – We were on our way to our big deal and we were in a good mood, the deal was going to save us at the last minute. It should be our very personal turning point. In the rickety VW bus we drove from the center of Berlin far into the west of the city. It was August 12, 1991, a midsummer day that was surprisingly cool. But the few clouds couldn’t spoil our mood. Our favorite mix tape was playing, we sang along and smoked.
We were young men from the east. My brother, a trained car mechanic, fled to the West via the Prague embassy and sought his fortune as a driver for companies there. I, a former science theory student, kept my head above water as a waiter after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But now we were dealers – for two months to the day.
In the east of Germany in 1991 only marketplaces were traded
We sold clothes in the east of the new Germany. We were the first “capitalists” in our circle of friends. In the GDR ideology was omnipresent, in the FRG it had given way to the omnipotence of money, and we saw no reason to go into opposition for the time being.
Berliner Zeitung / Jens Blankennagel
The documents: We have entered every single sale in the calendar.
We were young enough not to see the new as a threat. We gave in to temptations, to possibilities. And street vendors were the job of the hour. Because the collapse of the state had now penetrated deeply into everyday life in the East. Shops were closed everywhere, and most cities looked like they were from the Middle Ages: only marketplaces were still trading.
Almost everything was sold at the stands: Jeans from India, fruit from Werder, Walkmans from Japan, carpets from Turkey. Under the trestle tables there were drugs from Holland, porn from the United States, and Makarov pistols from the Soviet Union. The east was a pretty unlawful area, it was the heyday of street markets. An Eldorado for clever salespeople.
We weren’t as smart as we’d hoped. We had good advisors: wholesalers from the Berlin fashion center, which resided in the Ullsteinhaus and where we now rolled our bus into the parking lot. In the imposing brick building, normal shopkeepers ordered the clothes for their shops: expensive branded goods or jeans that looked almost like Levis or Wranglers, but were sewn cheaply somewhere east of Vienna and west of Ankara.
My brother was a driver in the fashion center until he suggested that we try the markets for ourselves. The wholesalers said: “Go for quality. Don’t take cheap stuff from India that supposedly fell out of a shipping container in the Port of Hamburg. ”We didn’t want dubious goods, so our jeans looked like branded goods, but only cost a quarter. In the markets, however, most customers were looking for cheap jeans from the shipping containers. Unfortunately.
Like in a gangster film: a meeting at the Ullsteinhaus with real sales professionals
That’s why we were almost broke. And on that August 12th, we finally wanted to buy something that would save us from ruin. We had an appointment with real professionals. We didn’t know them, but we did know who brokered the deal: a friend from Turkey from the Ullsteinhaus. We had complained to him that morning about our suffering, and he had called a couple of relatives in Hamburg with whom we had quickly reached an agreement over the phone. The people of Hamburg promised to bring the goods to the Ullsteinhaus parking lot by 10 p.m.
Then it was a scene like in a gangster film: twilight fell over the city, two inexperienced businessmen – we were – drove slowly across a huge parking lot. As if in slow motion, they looked for their business partners. But the parking lot was empty. No car far and wide, no one.
Like all beginners, we were over-punctual. Like all professionals, our partners took their time. We smoked and waited. Nobody came. Not after one cigarette, not after four cigarettes. What did we get into?
Again and again I felt over the baggy pocket of my denim jacket. It was full of bills. 1,850 marks fresh from the bank and a check for 1,000 marks. All western money. A little treasure. At least for us Ossis. For almost two years we had been living in a new era that had begun with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The long-awaited western money had been our new currency for almost a year. We were still quite respectful of it and didn’t buy any crap.
It was our very last savings. We could have paid 26 monthly rent for the apartment that we occupied after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But we wanted to buy 1000 light blue blouses that weren’t allowed to be too pretty.
So far we had failed as a dealer, although we had an exemplary work ethic and got up early in the morning to get a parking space at a market. We were punctual, hardworking and polite – and yet unsuccessful. We sold a lot, but not enough. The income was enough for the gasoline, for new goods and the bribe for the men who gave the stands in the markets. But they weren’t enough for a cheap boarding house room. We leaned in the VW bus.
Coke in the trailer – but only for money
We drove tirelessly through the east, to Aschersleben, Bernburg and Calau, to Vetschau, Wriezen and Zwickau, to the Baltic Sea and the Müritz. New cities all the time. All the locations and some details would have long been forgotten if we hadn’t recently found the tax documents that we created in January 1992 – exactly 30 years ago.
We didn’t come up with the idea of the blouses ourselves. It had taken a while.
We were puzzled for the first time in Black Pump. A young man rummaged through our pile of pants for a long time, then asked softly. “Do you have any other material?” It took a moment before we understood that he was talking about drugs.
Shortly afterwards we stood in Spremberg next to a man who was selling breakfast boards with branded slogans: “Come in, bring luck” or “My Home is my Castle”. I asked him: “You can live on that?” He looked me in the eyes for a long time, then waved me into his trailer and pointed to a box. I opened it. It contained porn, switch knives, pistols and plastic bags with white powder. He saw my questioning eyes and said, “Coke. But only for money. ”I politely declined and left the trailer, gaining a few insights and a few illusions poorer.
After 1989: For a short time the freest people in the world
1991 was the year of eroding illusions. Before that, we had been the freest people in the world for a short time: the wall had come down, and that happiness had come overnight, without a shot. The power apparatus of the almighty party had imploded almost silently, and the new power was so busy building the unity that 1990 turned into a wild year – like an adventure vacation: the first western money, the first western car, the first western trip.
But it was now 1991, and the euphoria had long since given way to disillusionment. Reality instead of revolution. The Treuhand had more power than the state governments, and by the end of the year six of the ten million previously employed in the east were unemployed, retraining, or underemployed.
If everyone in the east gets their first rent increase that summer
When we walked the markets that summer, almost everyone in the east got their very first co-raise – often it was 100 percent up. Existential fears spread and many had no money left, not even for bargains. Even the successful traders were now moaning in the markets.
Only one person did not complain: the Nuremberg man, the most successful dealer we have ever met. A Bavarian like on TV: big belly, lederhosen, broad dialect. Its stall was the largest in any city. And what was he selling? Not beautiful western clothes like us, but the ugliest eastern clothes we knew: blue work suits from China and colorful floral aprons made of Dederon, the GDR nylon.
The Bavarian knew the power of traditions. Long before the Ossis realized that they didn’t think a few things from the GDR were so bad after all, the man from the West was already doing business with the phenomenon that later went down in history as Ostalgie.
He told us that he had bought a warehouse full of aprons and overalls. He was a monopoly. When the rent increases hit everywhere, his sales also fell. “But only by half,” he said. His diagnosis was clear: The Ossis were so taken by surprise by the rented property that they believed the next collapse was about to come. With him they could stock up in case of an emergency. In fact, the lines with him were long.
And what did the people want here? The east
He advised us to offer something that wasn’t too newfangled. “Where are we here?” He asks and gave the answer himself: in the east. And what do the people want here? The East – even if they don’t admit it. They know the West a little by now and can get it from the catalog if necessary. But they want something familiar in their marketplace. It should be practical and inexpensive, said the Bavarian, but not cheap. “Preferably pastel colors and suitable for housewives.”
Berliner Zeitung / Jens Blankennagel
The blouses: packed very elaborately and expensively, but not very beautiful. The asymmetrical collar is almost a little daring.
One phone call was enough. On the phone we asked our business partner in Hamburg whether the blouses were really inconspicuous and not too pretty. He assured them that they were almost a little ugly. We asked if his mother would buy it anyway. He said: “Yes.” With that the deal was perfect – and 1000 pastel blue blouses rolled to Berlin that August 12th.
Shortly before 11 p.m., two black BMWs with darkened windows drove into the parking lot at the Ullsteinhaus. Three men got out. We greeted each other with a handshake and first smoked cigarettes together. Silent. Then they opened the car doors and blue garbage bags full of light blue blouses fell out. We never counted whether it was actually 1000 pieces. But we gave them our last western money.
The rest is easy to tell: We drove to the legendary market in Altenburg, where sales were particularly high. On the way there, our bus broke down and the towing service gave us the alternative: back to Berlin or to Altenburg. We decided on Altenburg. We wanted to earn the money for the repairs there.
The loss – and a yellow notebook from the employment office
Our blouses were a hit. The Bavarian and the Hamburgers were right. Almost at least. Unfortunately, it turned out that our Hamburg friends were not professionals in all areas. There were many women who wanted to pay us ten marks for this simple dream in pastel, and the women were also – as predicted – a little older. But none of them fit into one of our 1,000 blouses. The guys from Hamburg offered us almost only one size – of all things, a size that only very slim women around 20 could fit.
We sold four blouses. With that our little capitalist dream was over. We had no money for the bus, just 996 blouses that we piled in boxes in the basement. We did our tax return. On the slip of paper from that time, the result is underlined twice – loss: 4,131.02 marks.
At the employment office we got a yellow notebook that I still have. It was January 1992, but the outlines of the unified Germany were not printed on the notebook, but those of the old Federal Republic. I also painted the new countries with pencil.
My brother retrained to become a business economist and has long been a successful wholesaler for “white goods” in Munich: He sells washing machines and refrigerators to retail chains. I studied again, became a journalist and now and then I write down stories from times long past. What became of our 996 blouses is a different story.
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