A View compiled from a lecture at the Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado, USA., June 4th, 1996

It is very difficult for a foreigner to understand what the German word Gestalt means and therefore I shall try to demonstrate it: normally I wear a tie and many of those I met last night took off their ties they generally wear; I assure you even Heinrich Klotz wears one in general and so do I. This is to indicate that we are quite conscious about what Gestalt means. It is purely accidental that famous individuals, intellectuals, artists, and scientists did not become victims of the twentieth century totalitarian systems that swept across Europe. Germans therefore always wear ties to be conscious and aware of the way European intellectuals were treated by totalitarian systems (gesture of strangulation). This is the normal way and of course it is known that even Stasi-functionaries and Stalinistic agents have to be aware of the fact that hangmen can also be hanged. Secondly the Gestalt of this tie shows that its form and cut points into one direction - like a one-way sign- (indicating the abdomen) which demonstrates the intended direction, therefore we normally wear ties to indicate the centre of manpower: down to earth where we come from and where we have to go back to. That is why German intellectuals, philosophers, scientists, and artists wear ties to always be aware of the fact that this is the ultimate aim of living and being and working and doing. I should like to remind you that I was asked to give a lecture on the "Germanness of German Design" and not on the history of German design or on design theory. This is important to remember because otherwise you will be slightly irritated by the items I am going to show you. It may sound a bit extravagant to mention the Germanness or Frenchness of something in order to form analogies, but a famous colleague of ours, Nikolaus Pevsner, introduced this kind of characterization in his brilliant study on the "Englishness of English Art" to the audience here in Aspen. Therefore I think it is not just German foolishness to always circle around the same question: "What is Germanness all about? What does it mean when we speak about Germanness? I should also like to remind you of the late Leonard Bernstein and the lecture he held in 1959 on "What is so American in American Music?" To me it was the most outstanding action teaching I ever attended. Therefore, our two hosts, Pevsner and Bernstein will lead us in the discussion I was asked to conduct: "The Germanness of German Design". The shortest description of Germanness as an aim of Germans is: We want to be loved by everybody. And when we say 'everybody' we mean 'all of mankind'. One tendency of Germanness is defined as German radicalism. The word 'radicalism' refers to the Latin noun 'radix' which means 'root'. There is a very special aspect about German radicalism - think of the famous American television series "Roots" in the late seventies - we say 'back to the roots' - only to eradicate them. This you have to take literally. A second and important definition of Germanness is literalism. Germans believe in things that are real so they can label them or make them correspond to an abstract term. Everything you can name corresponds to something real. That is what we call German 'realism' and it works like this: Whatever people believe to be real is real in its consequences. Enlightenment therefore never had a chance to succeed in Germany. You cannot tell anybody: Don't believe in this kind of thing because if someone wants to believe in something the consequences of this belief will be real. It may be something you come across in the street or in people's homes or in their attitudes. Hence, radicalism - back to the roots to eradicate them - and literalism - whatever results from people's belief - become real. I should like to give you another short description of Germanness by reminding you that every German emperor chose a dog as an emblem of his rule when appearing in public. For instance, King Frederick II (The Great) of Prussia was always accompanied by greyhounds (Windspiel). And think of Goethe's Faust and Schopenhauer's philosophy: they always referred to the poodle as the embodiment of evil, i.e. Mephisto, and they even wrote it down. - Or think of Bismarck, the founder of the Reich in 1871, whenever he appeared in public he was accompanied by a butcher's dog as we call it in German (in English it is Great Dane; you see the German word is more appropriate... ) The iconography and the emblem of Bismarck's functions were represented by a great Dane. William II, the German Emperor, was fond of dachshunds from his early youth and he liked to talk to them. And, of course, all of you know that Adolf Hitler appeared in public accompanied by a German shepherd and he tried to convince the world that the German shepherd was the heraldic emblem of Germanness and the Germans. Just imagine that Germanness was supposed to be represented by the dogs the actual emperor or ruler preferred! After World War II no German politician ever appeared with a dog or any other animal in public. I should like to remind you of the Bible and Matthew 7,3: "Why do you see the splinter in your brother's eye and you don't notice the beam that is in your own eye?" - I am going to show you the most characteristic beams in the Germans' eyes, the totem poles of Germanness that make us blind for the experience of reality in this world. The two beams in our eyes are topped by a skull, a famous Germanic emblem, which the German resistance of 1806 chose as the eblem for the uniforms of the Black Corps. (Hardly anybody realizes that we ever had any resistance at all. It is always supposed that only the French had 'la resistance'!) The German resistance fought Napoleon's armies and they chose the Germanic emblem for their black uniforms. That is how it came down to uniforms of the SS... Well, we are ashamed of this ultimate destination of German politics and culture - death - represented by a picked helmet, a kind of cap of invisibility. You know it from Wagner's operas and you will always find these mystic, spiritual objects on Wagner's stage like the cap of invisibility, skulls, weapons, and of course the famous sword made of Solingen steel, one of the most wellknown design objects of Wagner's time. The other beam in the Germans' eyes is the fool's crown. It is quite common in Germany to refer to fools like Simplicissimus, Hans Wurst or Eulenspiegel- by the way I have often been called a fool during my career. They say fools have only hay and straw in their heads, but when you burn it the flames blaze up to the sky... As we learned from Tilman Buddensieg the history of modern German design began with the design of the Iron Cross by Schinkel to honour the fallen resistance fighters against Napoleon's army in 1813. Buddensieg said they started at dead end. If you wear this Iron Cross you can be sure to be one of those trapped in a dead end street. Here you have some toys that represent the most famous German design objects, namely weapons: cannons, tanks, rockets, and the first jet ever flown. They are used all over the world and you will earn a good fortune manufacturing and selling them, no matter where. The tragic aspect of it is that the most important German design award 'Die gute Form' was cancelled because the juries did not want to take weapons as objects of good and functional design into account for evaluation. (You know that the best design the world over is that of weapons). Herbert Bayer and his colleagues felt it should never be allowed to judge weapons as design objects and therefore the award, paid by the German government, was cancelled. This is a Nietzsche edition for soldiers. It fit into their bagpacks to be taken along onto the battlefield. It is dedicated to the most important designer and changer of the world, the military genius. Every soldier is a military designer able to change things completely within a few seconds; this is how he learns what he is doing and why it is necessary to use weapons in order to organize a new world, for instance... Here you have the famous mess kit of the German soldier, something he would never let go because it guaranteed survival under all circumstances, rather would he get rid of his weapons. This is a modern edition of a Lufthansa Kulturbeutel, a 'bag of culture', one of the most convincing ideas of German communications design. Soldiers had to carry it along with them to always remember they had their in mothers in their bags who told them to brush their teeth, to clean their bodies and demonstrate even in the mud of the battlegrounds that they were civilized men ... This is an edition of 1937 that every soldier had to take with him , it included a bottle of Eau de Cologne, a tiny German Christmas tree to always remember the ultimate orientation of life beyond war... Thus the German soldier had everything he needed to define culture by using his 'bag of culture'. The most important item in the bag of the military organisators of utopian societies was Aspirin. (I have not got much time but I should like to mention that most of the items I referred to were invented in Wuppertal, the town where I work at the university, as for instance the famous Aspirin that was produced by a certain Dr. Hoffmann.) Aspirin has become a universal medicine particularly for soldiers. You probably know the jokes about medical doctors in military hospitals who cure nearly everything with Aspirin. Well, and that, of course, was the end of the German army... (The Americans were clever enough not to believe in Aspirin too much.) And now the opposite. You can imagine what this means - as Buddensieg said - the ability to make oneself invisible, to make the ultimate intentions of what we do invisible. It is the tradition of rationalism, of planning, of getting things done to create a new Utopia in this world. Here you see Jesuslatschen (Jesus' sandals or Birkenstocks). Fools always face the world as they wander about homelessly, that is why they need backpacks with some food inside that will be eatable for - let's say - ten decades or at least five years. - This is a wellknown German design product - Leibniz-Kekse (biscuits or cookies) a very durable product, and the Germanness in it is that the German philosopher Leibniz lived near Hanover which is the only relationship between him and the cookies. The manufacturers did not take this cultural stuff all too serious and for years they even spelled the name Leibniz incorrectly... It was a reference without any substantial cultural knowledge - besides they put the letters 'T.E.T.' on the package which is an old Egyptian expression for eternal youth. The letters were a demonstration of eternity during the Egyptian empires because the cookie manufacturers wanted to guarantee the eternal quality of the product and of German design. During our Rucksack-wanderings through this world as fools - and this is the truth, of course- we eat these Leibniz cookies and will not only be transformed spiritually but physically as well and finally we feed the fish with the cookies and this is the eternal circle of life ... This book is a Langenscheidt dictionary, a dictionary for fools to find their way through the world. The company published this kind of travel guide years before others did. Sentences like "Könnten Sie mir bitte sagen, wo ich Wasser finde?" - (Could you please tell me where to find water?) were supposed to guide the touristic explorer through the world. This dictionary was completely different from the books the military distributed to the soldiers to be able to communicate with those they had just killed... And this beer bottle with the ceramic snap top has been very useful until today, too. It is a genial invention because it keeps the contents fresh and therefore the famous Reinheitsgebot (precept of purity) from 1516, an outstanding example of German communcations design, can be kept too. At the moment the European Union discusses whether the Germans should stick to this Reinheitsgebot or get rid of it... And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, we come to the design of propaganda material of the German 'Greens', the first 'green party' in the world. This does not mean that in America or other countries there were no people to be aware of the problems of the natural environment, but they did not form political parties. The German 'Greens' did. And this corresponds to the totem pole of Germanness with the very German form of the civil servant, the Beamter. He is guaranteed a special status in chapter 33 of the German Fundamental Law; as a representative of the state he is paid and taken care of until the end of his life. The Beamter represents the traditional heritage of Germanness and I shall draw a conclusion from this later. At the bottom of the pole of rationalism you see a very important invention of German communications design, the Aktenordner or ring folder. It is not the folder itself that is important but the design of its hole. This is why I say Germany derives from emptiness or from the analogy of emptiness because one of the most influential design creations was this hole: you can put your finger into it and draw the file out of the shelf. And if you are convinced that by rational planning you will be able to create a new utopian society the military designers will have to use this kind of folder for their organisation and logics. And here we see the Volkswagen, the famous beetle. What does this have to do with a rationalistic tradition? In the Germans' minds Germanness always corresponds to mysticism and spirituality embodied by dwarfs or hedgehogs, for instance. This figure, Mecki, was the logo of the German state television in the fifties. Now you will understand why the automobile manufacturers had to combine technical rationality with spirituality and mysticism. When you call a piece of metal a 'beetle' it becomes inspired and animated. (We even call heavy guns 'Dicke Berta', a marvellous lady that shot about 100 kilometres.) Hence, by choosing the name 'beetle' for a car we combine the tradition of rational planning on the one hand, and that of spirituality and mysticism on the other. Dwarfs, for instance, embody natural forces transformed into servants that help in the house. And many modern German fairy tales go like this: Remember the good old days when we just had to call a servant ... Germans have always tended to wishful thinking and dwarfs are the only beings that can guarantee the fulfillment of wishes. If you fulfill all your wishes you will find out that you don't have too many great wishes at all. And when dwarfs as the embodiment of natural forces fulfill them then our wishes will always be fulfilled. The Germans would perhaps accept that Disney invented Richard Wagner and his music dramas (you know that Wagner is the inventor of Hollywood music), but we would never accept that Disney invented 'Snowwhite and the Seven Dwarfs' which originally is a fairy tale by the Gebrüder Grimm (the Grimm brothers), for this fairy tale is the very expression of Germanness. Here we have a hedgehog referring to another Grimm fairy tale (Americans know it as the race between the hare and the turtle; in Germany it is the race between the hare and the hedgehog, and it is the hedgehog that always wins the race). Germans always saw themselves in competition with the English, the French, and the Americans who were considered agile, speedy, and successful; however, they lost every competition, as you know. After the Second World War the Germans looked for an emblem for the new democratic Germany and they chose the hedgehog as a symbol for steadiness and stability that will finally win the race. - In the fifties you could not watch television or buy a magazine without coming across Mecki, the hedgehog. And if you ask why Germans always try to find out who surpasses them economically - I think of the Tigers in South Asia and in India or wherever - then they were inspired by the Mainzelmännchen, dwarfs, too. By now two generations of Germans have been introduced to their philosophy. You can easily imagine that it is not professors of philosophy like us who are able to introduce people to philosophy, it was designers who invented the Mainzelmännchen. They were brilliant in creating reflexive linguistic forms and semantics in television spots so that every child of eight reached the level of an average German professor of linguistics concerning the reflexive use of language. (That is why our universities are so crowded: we had so many children who watched these Mainzelmännchen shows...) Last, but not least, you see here the most outstanding emblem of the German history of art, the Mercedes star. It represents the inherent logic of the combination of the two strings, but I shall leave that to your imagination... Anyway, the tradition of rationalism and planning was always combined with the forces of nature or the forces of spirituality and mysticism. These romantic attitudes are linked and represented in the German Beamter on the one hand and, Wanderlust in the tradition of the youth movement in the 'Greens', on the other. Another German tradition is 'good housekeeping'; the word 'economy' is derived from the Greek noun 'oikos' which means the fireplace inside a house or a hut, hence, economic affairs are just affairs of good housekeeping. The most successful products of German designers were the glue Uhu and the mouthwash Odol, products that did not exist in America before. Nowadays mouthwash is offerred in every hotel, but first it was used by the Germans with all their Bier and Bratwurst. Afterwards they had to reinstall their ability to communicate from mouth to mouth and therefore they needed Odol... And of course this famous tape is Tesa Film, in America called Scotch tape, I think it is one of the most brilliant ideas that ever came out of a German designer's brain. Here we are with Tesa-Film, Odol, Uhu, and Tempo, the disposable tissue. Why did German designers create it? It would have been too unpleasant to always carry the tears you have shed around with you in a cotton handkerchief... And as we had a lot of opportunities to shed tears we invented the disposable tissue Tempo. All the names I mentioned became generalized names and labels for whole classes of products. This is a creation I have to introduce very carefully as it is the only successful product designed in the former East Germany. It is a cleaning cloth to take dirt and filth away from every spot like magic. And you don't even have to clean the cloth, you just wring it. It's marvellous. But you see the East German guys were not very intelligent: they created this kind of material in order to get rid of filth and fat but they did not succeed getting rid of the shit in their own state, otherwise they would have survived... But we adopted this cloth and use it. We have not only got beer in the German household but - as a strategy of good housekeeping - coffee as well. The German national beverage is coffee and a German lady called Melitta invented the coffee filter in 1903. Until today coffee filters bears her name on the packages. It is marvellous to sit in a German household properly operated by a German housewife, member of the Green Party, drinking coffee from a cup that has just been glued because it had been broken into pieces. This is the strategy of always fragmenting everything in order to then use the glue and the tape to put the fragments back together again... And now imagine you have a cup of filter coffee with your wife and a teddybear in your arms - the teddybear also a was German invention and named after the American president Teddy Roosevelt. An American entrepreneur came to the Leipzig fair saw the plush bears and ordered 3000 copies; everyone was fond of Roosevelt's bear hunt and that is how the Teddy got its name but it still was a German invention. Well, you have the teddybear in your arms and your wife next to you and you think about what could be the ultimate aim of this German heritage and you might have the idea that it could be the design of children. To fit children into social formations is the greatest achievement of German communications design, I believe.- Käthe Kruse designed the dolls in a way that even hairstyle and clothes were quite authentic so a child learned how it should be designed to fit into society by playing with the doll and by listening to its parents. When you sit there drinking this coffee filtered by Melitta and think about all these strategies of good housekeeping you will remember the term 'Gemütlichkeit', social warmth. - This was so important that even Joseph Beuys, the artist, decided that he should create his sculptures from social warmth and so he became the greatest propagator of the German economic system and of good housekeeping as well. Finally I shall try to give you a projection of these two traditions in one: a member of the Green Party with the status of a German Beamter who believes in rational planning but relies at the same time on the magic mysticism of earth and nature in order to keep our natural environment intact so that we can just take our Rucksack and wander with Wanderlust through the world. All this will finally be recommended as a brilliant strategy of good housekeeping to all mankind. And if you look for someone who represents all these projections of this tradition in one person, just look at me because I am a German dwarf, and I am a hedgehog. I would like to demonstrate why, but let us stop here. There is only on thing left to be mentioned. Yesterday when we tried to fix the items at the poles we realized that we had lost one of the dogs, the Windspiel of Frederick II, and the cuckoo-clock, which I wanted to show you not because of its Germanness but because I studied the philosophy of the Black-Forest manufacturers of cuckoo-clocks. According to them you can only find out who you are as a contemporary and where you stand in terms of Germanness if you call out loudly and receive an echo as the answer. Then you are an echoman. The echoman is the last person alive. And the question what Germanness is all about is answered when the echo comes back to you as "Cuckoo, Cuckoo" which in German means you have just been teased. Thank you.

(Edited by Margret Berki)