European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 19, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A a a s t i i f t f f i soviet soldiers relax on a platform outside the main train station in Dresden. Most of the some 380,000 red army members in cast Germany keep a Tow pro  to a Long lost Lan expect the unexpected on East German tour by Don Tate staff writer there is no fuss and bother at the Border. Uniformed East germans just wave our bus through what once was the feared Iron curtain. There s hardly a glance. On the Way out there Aren t even any uniforms around. Quot we Are Here at a historic moment Quot exclaims our West German Lour guide Al Fischer enthralled by it All. Atrip into this Long lost country finally emerging from the big red sleep moves american schoolteacher Arleen Walker to say Quot i feel like i m in a 5far 7rea adventure. I have to Ket a pinching  contradictions Are everywhere in what is still called the German democratic Republic though freshly minted in capitalism there Are still some 380,000 soviet troops hanging around and it is hard not to get a certain dreamy passing through the time machine no a really Here feeling. The traveler s eyes constantly Widen at the Green Hills and rolling Fields of Southern fast Germany so Beautiful and blighted. Pak worked Between the Rich growing Fields anti the Grimy old smokestack fac tories Are Bleak Village s that look As if they had been Frozen in time1, a dark spell cast upon them. Almost crumbling before your eyes. People really in e there Quot someone on our bus mutters staring at a propped up House with i url Ains and Flowers in the windows and its rear foundation half gone. There is a lot of that on this three Day tour a gasps from observers comparing the tidy Bright Church steeped picture postcard looking Little towns of West Germany with these dreary Back country habitations of tire seeming dead. Only seeming dead. Because the people when they see you usually smite and wave at the visitors from the West. Even come out to steer a wandering bus onto the right Road. On a main Road into the East where a Rig carrying new West German cars swoosh is by we Slop for a bite to eat. Red banners Flap from poles in front. Somehow it looks More like an sex police Headquarters than a restaurant. Inside one Side is Plain and Bare looking. Plain looking people sit at Plain tables eating Plain food. A grim lipped waitress nearly Rolls a rattling cart of dishes Over a slow footed Man. The other Side w hich is for the tourists is brighter the food better the help less grimly by the numbers. The Southern third of the country where this three Clay tour goes is the most densely populated and industrialized Section of fast Germany and contains the most Fertile Farmland with glistening Fields of wheat Corn Rye beets Barley potatoes and other tips. Between the smokestacks and the haystacks sheep and cattle Graze. Unfortunately Tor All its Beauty the Countryside has for years been under attack k not Only from communist planned farming methods but also fearsome atmospheric pollution. When you talk pollution however you re talking Dresden place of the swampland people our first big City Stop. Once it was a shining German jewel the capital of old Saxony with Art Loving Kings with name like Augustus the Strong. It came to be known As the Florence of the North stunning in architecture overflowing Gay Rich in Art and other cultural treasures. That was Back before  hell on Earth. In the Winter of 1945 up to 135,000 people died in three Days of firebombing by Allied planes exceeding the combined 110,000 killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the architectural jewel became a Black masterpiece of death and ashes. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers later hauled away More than 18 million cubic meters of rubble from the ruins. Located on the Elbe River in the Southeastern part of the country this third largest City in East Germany is still rebuilding its baroque Neo Renaissance and classical monuments after 45 years not to mention the rest of the City. The rest of the City will never recapture its old glory but its greatest structures Lik the Zwinger Palace and Semper opera have been lovingly restored Stone by Stone from the original plans. And yet visitors gazing at facades completed Only five years ago but since darkened and seemingly logged by angry Coal fumes and other pollutants constantly remark Quot in t it amazing How they survived the War Quot 8 stripes Magazine july 19, 1990