Word: zur
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...reference to a character invented by the popular adventure-story writer Karl May called Hadschi Halef Omar Ben Hadschi Abul Abbas Ibn Hadschi Dawuhd al Gossarah - say it does not necessarily prevent long names, since it applies only to names conjoined by a hyphen. A name like Schulze zur Wiesche-Meyer auf der Heide would still be allowed, notes Götz, even though it's seven words long...
...German Democratic Republic, he was required to shoot at fellow citizens trying to flee to West Germany. Later, he himself served a 17-month prison sentence for attempting to escape the GDR. Still, he's nostalgic for the old East, which is why he's a regular at "Zur Firma," an East Berlin pub whose theme derives from the GDR's feared secret police organization, the Stasi. "I feel snug in this place," says Hans-Holger. "Ostalgia is better than what we have today...
...With its orange walls and rustic interior, the small pub in the former working-class district of Lichtenberg may look like most other bars in the neighborhood, but where other establishments might sport a deer head, Zur Firma has a surveillance camera. Other appointments include old wiretap devices and what appears to be a 1970s interrogation room. And then there's the venue's name, which translates as "The Firm," a colloquial name for the Stasi used in the old East Germany. And also its slogan: "Come to our place - or we'll come to yours...
...Talking to the regulars at Zur Firma, however, it's clear that one of the main sources of "Ostalgia" is the economic disappointment experienced by many former residents of the GDR that followed reunification. Unemployment in the east is high and so is resentment at the insecurity and unpredictability of life under a competitive capitalist system, and this fuels nostalgia for a state that assigned a job to every citizen and took care of basic needs...
...idealized memory of a more egalitarian economy seems to guide Jutta, 50, another regular at Zur Firma. Asked what she tells her daughter, now 22, about the former country in which she was born, Jutta answers: "I talk about social behavior. I tell her that people were there for each other without expecting something in return." Most of the GDR's approximately 200,000 former political prisoners are unlikely to agree...