European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 03, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A look at Linbeck Germany s medieval City on the fringes of the East by James m. Markham new York times w Hen people in Lubeck. West Germany talk about the world outside their medieval red Brick City they treat Italy pretty much As foreign territory. The speak of what s happening in the Federal Republic or contemplate making a trip to West Cie Many or to the  when hi1 Nuu Islic tic is called to their attention they smile and reach deep into the past recalling proudly that for centuries until 1937 when Hitler attached it to Prussia Lubeck had been a City state. In the late Middle Ages its sturdy Republican traders made it one of the superpowers of Europe and Justice dispenser of the hanseatic league. Then too they will say the City immortalized by Thomas Mann s novel Budde Brooks a after All an Island stuck at the end of the wide trave Bay welcoming shiny White ferries and hulking liners nosing in from Sweden Finland Poland and the soviet Union. The swirling Bone chilling mists that cloak the City in the mornings As foghorn bleat mournfully out in the trave heighten Lubeck s mood of isolation. There is another reason for the City s insularity. Since 1945, when the War ended and Germany was divided Lubeck has abutted the Frontier with what was first the soviet occupation  later the German democratic Republic. A 21-mile stretch of Lubeck s 6 to mile Long perimeter forms the Boundary of the two Germanis. In the suburb of Schlut up. The front gardens of trim White Row houses face the steel Fence and watchtowers that East Germany s communist rulers have erected along Europe s ideological fault line. In the summer at Kriwall a curious Sandy Rump of a Peninsula that belongs to Lobeck East German Border guards train their binoculars or urgently on nude West German bathers. Lubeck mariners who stray into East German wafers have their sailboats confiscated the boats Are usually returned Overland and their Owr Vars Dunne with staggering transport Bills. Out in the Choppy Watert of the Baltic ply Gray East Gorman patrol boats on the Lookout for intrepid East germans who occasionally try to swim or paddle to the West. A total of 1,303 have Hod Over the Lobeck land and sea Frontier since 1962. But this year Only one Man a doctor in a rubber boat made it out by sea. Like other West German cities and towns on this unlovely Man made Frontier. Lubeck in recent years has been in economic decline. At the War s end some 100 000 refugees torn the East swelled the City s population to 250.000. But in the last decade the number of inhabitants slumped to 209.000. Remoteness from Western european Industrial centers has shrunk the City s Pool of jobs 21.000 have disappeared since 1971 and unemployment now stands at 14 percent 4 Points above the National average. Lubeck has become heavily dependent on us role As the world s busiest ferry port. As a result of the War. We lost our hinterland " observed Klaus Groth editor of the daily Lobecker a Schrichten. Which used to have a third o its circulation in what is now East Germany. There has been no new investment no new building the economic impulse has been limited. The City s economic planners still Strain to look Magazine the Hoh error it Lobeck s most famous Symbol. Eastward. There is keen interest in a proposed ferry and rail link to the russian Baltic coast a soviet project whose Security implications worry some nato planners. And. Because the East German port of Rostock is overburdened soviet and polish ship sometimes Dock Here and have their contents trucked to East Germany. In la last three Yean la backers have watched with helpless fury As East Germany has developed what May turn into one of the world s Large dump or Industrial and chemical waste us inside its Frontier it i place called sch6nt Eig. By offering to accept the waste cheaply East Germany has attracted hard currency clients from a Lar away .10 Portugal and Sicily and dump trucks and bulldozers Are in the process of filling in a Hill  of some 700 acres. The people of Lubeck  that their ground water Supply will be poisoned and that fish in the Baltic May ultimately suffer too. In the Good old Days of the hanseatic league the City might have halted traffic moving to scion born. Bul Legal Maneu vers along this line have foundered the City was dismayed to learn that nearby Hamburg and the West German National railway were trucking their Industrial waste to Schonberg. Lubeck s human contacts with Easl Germany Are tuesday december 3, 1985 extremely tentative Hans Thoc Ruer. It it  of the City s  theater . Related thai a had made Many futile attempts to invite cast German companies to perform Here. To have great  said thoenie1-. Normally we Don t oven yet a  a year Ngo. Thoenig got around thir.  Wall by routing Lubeck s theater to to local chapter of the my West German communist Par which promptly arranged Tor a  acting troupe to perform ,1  levies culled Tho prussians Are coming " try of it German actors kept to themselves retiring to i hair hotel immediately after the Perl Omune e fast German television More a ii  h Jet than Wesl German and elderly Lubecki i tune in frequently to the of German and american movies that have become late nigh Staple on term comm Ivy airwaves. They ire also familiar with an East Gorman television personality named Karl Eduard von Schutzler. Who rant loudly against capitalism and the Weil on his program called Tho Block  a while Back either to collect some  ammunition on the evils of capitalism or to do some shopping von Schuier appealed in Lubeck an Oul aged Lubecker walked up to the television commentator and slapped him on the  he in  been seen Here since. The stars and stripes Page 13