European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 13, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Houses and shops Are built on the sides of the Bridge of traders Over the Gera River in Erfurt East Germany. Below a statue that adorns a Fountain at the Zwinger Palace in Dresden. A amps map treasures of the much Waits to be rediscovered by Don Tate staff writer in the bad old Days just last year East German secret police were said to be still deliberately falsifying maps especially in the Border areas to confuse desperate souls who wanted to escape to the West. A lot of Freedom roads happened to dead end into guard towers and death strips. These Days observers see surveyors out bending map lines Back into their proper shapes. With East and West becoming the one and Only Germany on oct. 3, that s Good news for tourists who want to go exploring in the East beyond politics and War which Are pretty hard things to get beyond in a country that for More than a half Century exchanged one set of ruling tyrants and weasels for another. Even so beyond the grim twisting Skeleton of the old Border beyond the heavy sense of easiness the time tattered villages and blotched facades of polluted cities and rundown railroads rundown everything a East Germany is due to become the world s biggest construction site there Are historical gems and Art treasures waiting to be rediscovered by visitors from the West. The traveler hardly gets his nose into the East before he gets a history lesson. At beautifully restored Wartburg Castle at Eisenach is the very room and in it the same scarred rough edged wooden desk where an exiled Martin Luther in six months translated the new testament into German. Beside the desk is the Wall where legend has it he hurled an inkwell at a vision of the tormenting grinning Devil. Some say they can discern the very spot where the great Man s Ink splattered. Also in Little Eisenach is the House where Johann Sebastian Bach lived and in which he composed some of his Brilliant works. In one of the rooms Are his Clavichord his spinet chamber Organ and other musical instruments. A tight lipped woman sits Down primly very Businesslike and plays a few of his less demanding pieces. As she plays a tourist creaks noisily around on the old polished wooden floors snapping pictures. Snap snap. Creak creak. Quot so huh Quot the barbarian is told. The woman finishes turns in her chair folds her hands primly stands up and smiles primly and the tourists applaud politely. The woman a creature of continued on Page 121 september 13, 1990 stripes Magazine 11