Maerklin, Germany. For Christmas we built up the toy train set, meaning The Train Set, made by Maerklin, made in Germany. We bought it second hand this year and for our bi-lingual third-culture-kids this is a bit of a bizarre exercise, because Maerklin is the embodiment of a German town. Something our children haven’t seen ever, and that probably cannot be seen anymore.
Unlike the minilands that we loved to visit as children, which showed collections of famous monuments of a city or a country in miniature size, the buildings of the Maerklin set are a collection of average and mediocre everyday architecture. Places with generic names, and anonymous designs. “Bahnhof Blumenthal” is one such place. There is also a cargo train with advertisements like “Bier macht den Durst erst schön.” In this imaginary world, the trains are still punctual, children want to become Lokführer, and the Bahnhofsvorsteher is a public servant with a proper pension, – and everything is all right. Maerklin caught the essence of the place. It is the crystallization of clichés about what the good life in Germany ought to be like. Maerklin town is the Germany that many are missing nowadays: Familienunternehmen, Ortsverein, Mitbestimmung, Berufsschule, Verkehrswacht, Stabilitätspakt, – without Migrationshintergrund.
In reality the trains are no longer on time. Recently, a whole train station of a mid-size town had to be closed down for lack of personel during the summer. The neo-liberal ideology of privatization has hit Maerklin town hard. And the global financial crisis gave Maerklin, a typical family-run quality-oriented company, its last blow.
Setting up the toy train set with our children this year means building up a model of a place that is hiding from globalization. A place, where until today non-issues of global life like double citizenship is a difficult political issue since two decades. A place, where language is the focal point of citizenship. A place, where nationhood is still played as a 19th century game of cultural unity. A place, where the self-image is still one of a community, not a society. When you meet Johann Gottfried Herder at Bahnhof Blumenthal, send him my best regards. He has missed the train.Maerklin, Germany. For Christmas we built up the toy train set, meaning The Train Set, made by Maerklin, made in Germany. We bought it second hand this year and for our bi-lingual third-culture-kids this is a bit of a bizarre exercise, because Maerklin is the embodiment of a German town. Something our children haven’t seen ever, and that probably cannot be seen anymore.
Unlike the minilands that we loved to visit as children, which showed collections of famous monuments of a city or a country in miniature size, the buildings of the Maerklin set are a collection of average and mediocre everyday architecture. Places with generic names, and anonymous designs. “Bahnhof Blumenthal” is one such place. There is also a cargo train with advertisements like “Bier macht den Durst erst schön.” In this imaginary world, the trains are still punctual, children want to become Lokführer, and the Bahnhofsvorsteher is a public servant with a proper pension, – and everything is all right. Maerklin caught the essence of the place. It is the crystallization of clichés about what the good life in Germany ought to be like. Maerklin town is the Germany that many are missing nowadays: Familienunternehmen, Ortsverein, Mitbestimmung, Berufsschule, Verkehrswacht, Stabilitätspakt, – without Migrationshintergrund.
In reality the trains are no longer on time. Recently, a whole train station of a mid-size town had to be closed down for lack of personel during the summer. The neo-liberal ideology of privatization has hit Maerklin town hard. And the global financial crisis gave Maerklin, a typical family-run quality-oriented company, its last blow.
Setting up the toy train set with our children this year means building up a model of a place that is hiding from globalization. A place, where until today non-issues of global life like double citizenship is a difficult political issue since two decades. A place, where language is the focal point of citizenship. A place, where nationhood is still played as a 19th century game of cultural unity. A place, where the self-image is still one of a community, not a society. When you meet Johann Gottfried Herder at Bahnhof Blumenthal, send him my best regards. He has missed the train.