Those were the days... (Cover)

Those were the days...

A ruthless review

By Michael Miersch, Dirk Maxeiner,
Josef Joffe and Henryk M. Broder

Knaus Verlag
Munich 2010
ISBN 978-3-8135-0385-2
224 pages
16,99 Euros

Summary

Venturing a look at the past, four authors compiled this deliciously wicked collection full of controversy and irony. What was life like back in the day? Rubber plants were du jour in living rooms across Germany where people were enjoying cigarettes by the packful. We had food loaded with fat, the German social-democratic party embodied progress, disabled war veterans were a common site and waldsterben was a buzzword in the media. No one could conceive of seedless grapes, openly homosexual mayors or the internet and TV host Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff fulfilled the "cultural mandate" with his legendary quiz show, EWG. Even kisses tasted sweeter back when men were still men, women looked after contraception and premarital sex was a crime. Weed, not speed, made life more colourful, hotel keys still were actual keys and not plastic cards with magnetic strips and paunches were not embarrassing but a sign of prosperity. We had book clubs and the GDR, rotary phones and no such thing as AIDS. Girls sported pretty petticoats and college students drove cars like the Renault 4 or the 2CV. But even if it is a real shame that ice-cream wafers (available back in the day for only 20 Pfennig) and drinking a glass of Dujardin brandy in the bar around the corner will soon be things of the past, other items of yesteryear have always been superfluous: the third class in trains, the term "third world", coffee cosies and the cold war. This book takes stock of our lives and quite plainly shows us the blessings we can appreciate if we do not keep facing backwards: mobile phones and the reunification, medical progress and shaved armpits.

Reviews

"These funny, political or morally loaded items from the past tell a brief cultural history of the Federal Republic of Germany."
Hamburger Abendblatt

"A pleasurable read."
Welt kompakt

"These are all authors I already hold in high esteem because they do not make clowns of themselves in the circus that is political correctness."
General-Anzeiger

"In this collection of memorabilia from A to Z, the authors unsparingly remind us of who or what we left behind on our way to the 21st century."
Giessener Allgemeine