I was nine in autumn 1989, living with my family in one of the high-rise appartment blocks so typical for the new eastern boroughs of Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). My playgrounds were situated in an often concrete-sealed Pleistocene landscape and the closest outcrop of older rock was the limestone quarry of Rüdersdorf whose Middle Triassic marine strata are exposed above a salt dome due to halokinesis (salt tectonics). I didn't care about that in 1989 because I was not yet on the side of paleontology.
Paleontology and the GDR. Perhaps my chance to be in physical contact with fossils was limited but at least the Berlin Museum of Natural History with its Archaeopteryx and its exhbition of Tendaguru dinosaurs was on the right side of the wall (...so I have no real excuse). Furthermore, eastern Germany has a couple of own paleontological landmarks: marine invertebrates from the Cretaceous chalk cliffs of the Baltic sea, insect inclusions in Baltic amber, tetrapods and rich floras from the Carboniferous to Permian basins of the Variscan orogen (including the Lagerstätte Bromacker/Tambach in Thuringia), the Permian Coppershale with its palaeoniscid fish and Coelurosauravus, the Eocene Geiseltal site (the east German equivalent to Messel), to name a few. Not to forget: large areas with sediments deposited in the Triassic Germanic Basin - fossils from these strata include Keuper dinosaurs such as plateosaurs and the theropod Liliensternus.
Paleontology and the theory of evolution were part of the GDR highschool curriculum and evolution was accepted as a fact in the Marxist world view - perhaps ever since Friedrich Engels' 1876 publication "The contribution of work to the hominisation of ape" ("Der Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen"). If there was a particular reason for me not to come in close contact with paleontology (apart from being too young) it was perhaps because dinosaurs and fossil animals were not as much a media event as they were at other times and places. There were some popular books on paleontology - however these were not always easily available - some with the beautiful reconstructions of Czech paleo-artist and book illustrator Zdenek Burian, but I only realized that later...
Talking to my old lecturers who were college students during GDR times it becomes clear that being a professional paleontologist was a rare exception. There were perhaps even fewer scientist positions at museums and universities than today and the number of geology students (from which most German paleontologists recruited) was restricted, adjusted to the probable needs of the state's exploration programs and lignite mining. (There is this story of a graduate who got an A+ in the economical geology exam and who was afterwards "warmly recommended" not to proceed with paleontology or basic research but with a field more suitable to serve his socialistic fatherland...).
November 1989- October 1990
When the opening of the Berlin wall for visitors from the East was announced on the 9th of November 1989, my parents were not too hasty about going on a visit to Westberlin themselves. Nobody knew whether there would be an unpeaceful escalation or what measures the GDR or Soviet government would take in order to bring the situation under control. About two weeks later we had our first trip to the "Independent Political Unit Westberlin". I remember that it was already dark - we were at some institution to pick up the "welcome money" ("Begrüßungsgeld", 100 DEMs per head granted by the BRD government) and went to one of those Karstadt shopping malls. I recall that my parents payed about 6 DEMs for a bag of selected gummy bears for me (which was quite a lot).I suppose a lot of memories about the time of transition circle around the fulfilment of material wishes after the currency union in July 1990. Rather than the class enemy the West was percieved as a consumerist wonderland by many easterners and dreams associated with living in the western world were not only about personal freedom and the free development of the individual but even more about consumption and the wealth of an affluent society. (That there would we be persistent structural problems in the economies of the former GDR provinces was not yet foreseeable.)
My great-aunt and great-uncle were living in Westberlin and I was to stay at their house for a weekend during the summer of 1990. In the bookshelves of their (already adult) sons I discovered two colourful children's books - one about dinosaurs and another one about prehistoric mammals. And that was the beginning of my durable engagement with paleontology.
When the GDR was made a part of the Federal Republic of Germany on the 3rd of October 1990 almost everything in the former GDR states underwent a rapid change - including the universities and geoscience research landscape. New geological institutes - such as those of Halle, Leipzig, and Jena were opened (or re-opened) while some of the old employers, such as the Wismut company and the lignite mining, declined in their importance or perished. Researchers had to get accustomed to international publishing rather than writing unpublished (sometimes closed) reports and German articles in local journals as they did before.
Early 1990s
1991 was the 150th anniversary of the group "Dinosauria" and a lot of popular books on the topic were published. No longer cut off from the western stream of books and publications dinomania among children was clearly on the rise, even before Jurassic Park. To single one out: The German edition of "Dinosaurs - a global view" by Czerkas & Czerkas appeared in 1991 and was a triumph in paleo-artistry, featuring legendary paintings by Doug Henderson, Mark Hallet, and John Sibbick (... I suppose I don't need to tell you that). Got it as a Christmas present in 1991 and I daresay it motivated my deeper und durable involvement with fossil animals. From that time on paleontology was always close to the surface of my consciousness, not really challenged by other fields of knowledge (at least it seems so in retrospect).Was the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the socialist camp a triggerer for more paleo-enthusiasm in the East? I would confirm this at least for the eastern states of Germany.
