Holger Kreitling: Protestant moments with diet soda
The little jar stood on our kitchen table at home in Hessen for a long, very long time, and I didn't like it.
Of course not the glass thing itself, which, when viewed in light, was a rather clunky part, I didn't care.
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It was more about everything that was connected with it, if you want to put it pathetically: a childhood with certain deprivations, a lifestyle deficiency symptom.
There were sweetener tablets in the jar.
My mother used it to sweeten tea and coffee.
The silver lid was lifted, one or two white tablets removed, the lid back on.
The sweetener dissolved within seconds, the only thing I really liked about it as a child was the way the tablet rose in the glass, foamed briefly on the surface and then disappeared.
Holger Kreitling with his mother Gudrun Kreitling at the tender age of 3 in Austria
Source: Norbert Kreitling
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My mother and her sister were diabetic, and so was my grandma.
That meant: Sugar was the devil's.
There were of course some, especially when my grandma baked cakes and cookies, but they were used sparingly and always with a certain disgust: the stuff that makes you sick.
Not only were there sweetener tablets in the glass jar on the kitchen table, there were also some in the pantry, in the living room, wherever tea or coffee might be drunk.
Real sugar bowls were only taken out and filled on birthdays for guests.
There was a bottle of liquid sweetener for cooking.
No sugar, of course that was a problem for my brother and me.
The worst part was that we didn't have a real lemonade.
To avoid the common sugar, we of course never drank Cola or Fanta.
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My father brought a lemonade called "Deit" from the drinks dealer.
As the first lemonade with sweeteners to hit the market in 1965, Deit was made for our household, and it was low in calories.
It was easy to read today, sodium cyclamate, acesulfame K, aspartame and, in some cases, sodium saccharin.
From the beginning of the 1970s I have constant memories of Deit.
The problem: the lemonade tasted awful.
Artificially in an unfamiliar way, without any pleasure, it aroused the desire to do without rather than the desire for more.
I didn't know how to name it then, today I would say: extremely Protestant.
The can with sweetener was the constant companion of Holger Kreitling's mother
Source: Holger Kreitling / WELT
Our mother didn't care.
Deit was there for two decades, when friends were with me, I said apologetically, we don't have a soda, we only have Deit.
It was not until my early adult life that I realized that the name is a German written version of the English word for diet,
diet
.
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When I was away from my parents, sugar became my friend and gummy bears became something of an obsession.
However, at some point the sugary thing about sugar bothered me.
In the middle of life I switched to buying - it wasn't exactly easy at first - actually buying sweetener tablets.
It stayed that way.
I don't like stevia, xylitol, erythritol, coconut blossom sugar can be stolen from me, and I occasionally use agave syrup for cooking.
I want the real drug
, the real stuff
.
These old-fashioned, artificial, also not entirely healthy little pills that dissolve in tea like ever before like effervescent powder.
You remind me of the past now.
The mild light of cheerful memories surrounds the sweetener.
My mother died a few years ago.
While cleaning up the house, I saw the jar on the kitchen table.
I was overcome by tears.
I took the jar with me to Berlin, now it's on our espresso machine.
Psst, I know it's sacrilege, but I'll sweeten the espresso with two tablets.
And I feel good about it.
Every now and then I polish the silver lid and think I'm home.
Sönke Krüger: How my mother brought the Soviet Union down
Mother Heike and author Sönke Krüger in 1966 in the garden of the evacuation settlement in Bad Bramstedt, where Heike Krüger grew up
Source: Krüger private archive
Sometimes, for a nightcap after a high-calorie meal, I get them out of the cupboard: the cheesiest shot glasses you can imagine.
Hand-cut lead crystal, above a goblet, decorated with 16 sixteen-pointed stars and eight milky circles, below the goblet a hexagonal cut stem and below a foot in which a 24-pointed star is engraved.
Most of the people at the table are surprised, some people ask whether I suffer from an aberration of taste.
The drinking vessels are almost always a topic of conversation, especially when one of the guests discovers the shiny silver label with the words "Made in USSR" still stuck to one of the glasses.
In fact, I don't think the Soviet glasses are beautiful - if I saw them at a flea market, it would never occur to me to want them.
But I can't possibly part with them, because they are a gift from my mother that has a lot of passion.
“The good lead crystal” is what she called the ten glasses that she gave me when she moved into a retirement home years ago and her household had to be closed.
She had saved it from her mouth, paid her first self-earned salary after she had started working again in 1977 after the divorce from my father.
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My mother, born in 1940, is the offspring of an East Prussian expellee family who literally had nothing after the war.
For her, lead crystal was a treasure, a kind of sedative: The crystal parade in her living room cupboard (she also had plenty of hand-cut vases, bowls and candleholders) was visible evidence for her that she had left the bitter poverty of her childhood behind.
The good lead crystal: For the author's mother it meant much more than just glasses
Source: Sönke Krüger / WORLD
She especially liked the shot glasses because of the sparkle that came with them when you held them up to the light.
If she had a liqueur, she sometimes raved: “The stars and the planets that have been polished into it look like space!” I couldn't have had a nicer drink from the kitsch glasses.
There was another reason my mother liked the glasses so much.
That had something to do with the import and export company she had hired as a secretary in 1977.
From Hamburg, the company operated brisk trade with Moscow.
The Russians officially exported building materials to the Federal Republic of Germany, but there was always some space left in the truck that the drivers used to smuggle Soviet vodka, Soviet chocolates or Soviet lead crystal into the West.
My mother was one of her best customers: she had nothing to do with “the communists” and was firmly convinced that with every valuable crystal she withdrew from the Soviet system, she could contribute to its destabilization.
If you look at the course of world history, you have to say: My mother was right, the USSR is history after all.
I think about that every time I use your Soviet crystal today.
And of the dream potential of the engraved starry sky, which I would never have noticed without her.
So far, every guest to whom I tell the story of the glasses has withdrawn the accusation of aberration in taste.
Anette Dowideit: Pride and Longing
Anette Dowideit with her mother in the 80s
Source: private
My mother's outfit always included one of those large, colorful hippie scarves, some with silver threads, others with flowers.
She always wore one of them loosely around her neck.
Often I would secretly get one of these towels out of her wardrobe, because if I unfolded them completely, I, then seven years old, could turn them into a wonderful cloak, a picnic blanket for cuddly toy coffee parties - or just let them flutter in the wind.
But most of all I loved the scarves when my mother had already worn them for a few days, then they smelled like mom.
In the evenings I took one of these to bed and poked my nose deeply into it as I fell asleep.
The towels also took away my longing when my mother was on business trips.
With a doctorate in physics, she was employed as a product manager in a large trading company, for which she flew to China, Japan or the USA every few weeks.
Back in the eighties, what a rarity.
My friends' mothers were always at home, cooking fresh lunches, and at most had boring office jobs.
My grandma often did the cooking for us, and in the evenings my father would take me to bed.
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Before setting off on a trip, my mother patted my head every time and promised: Even if I fly away now, my thoughts will be very close to you.
That, and the comforter with her scent, made sure that I never felt left behind by her.
I was proud to have a mother who came around the world and had a job that she would tell about with great enthusiasm when she came back, showed photos and unwrapped her souvenirs: Japanese sweets, key rings from China, later "Levi's 501" -Jeans from America.
Always with you: the scarf from the author's mother
Source: Anette Dowideit / WELT
The scarf is symbolic: for me it stands for the fact that mothers can and should dare to have a career - and not have to be afraid that they would neglect their children as a result.
This conviction helps me today because I am often on the road myself.
In retrospect, my mother says that she came up with the comforter as a substitute for cuddling, because back then there was no Internet that you can write to in seconds, that you think of each other;
no video calls to say goodnight over in the evening.
She's a little jealous that I can do all of this with my children to bridge the gap, she says.
However, she also benefits herself from the new possibilities of communication theory: she writes to her grandchildren every day via Whatsapp, especially now, in the pandemic, when it is difficult for her to visit us.
The children sometimes say jokingly: Grandma even writes a little too often.
Katja Mitic: The scent of home
Katja Mitic with her mother in the 80s
Source: private
I associate the feeling of home with a very specific smell.
It's a mixture of my mother's perfume, now 68, the smell of roast beef with red cabbage on the stove and fresh laundry that is currently in the dryer.
Sometimes a little washing-up liquid is mixed in with it.
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When I smell this mixture, it's like being hugged and hugged very firmly.
As if someone stroked my head and said: everything will be fine.
Even as a little girl, I found my mother's perfume exciting.
Sometimes I pushed the chair up to her closet and sniffed the bottles that were in there until I felt dizzy.
She had several, every now and then a new bottle was added when she was given one, but one fragrance remained constant over the years.
The perfume: The smell reminds author Katja Mitic of her childhood to this day
Source: Katja Mitic / WORLD
"Mom, why do you always smell so good?" I asked her later, when I was grown up and we were going on vacation together.
We sat next to each other on the plane and I sniffed at her like I was still that little girl from back then.
She smiled.
When I became a mother myself, she sent me a package with lovingly wrapped gifts.
There was also a bottle in a small box - and I knew exactly what she was trying to tell me.
Martin Scholz: In search of lost glasses
Ilse Scholz, the author's mother, here last autumn (with glasses!)
Source: Martin Scholz / WELT (2)
Whenever I look for my glasses, I think about my mother.
Which happens more often because I keep leaving my glasses somewhere.
My mother, 88, nearsighted and presbyopic, now owns three glasses: sliding and near vision and varifocal sunglasses.
She usually leaves all three of them somewhere in the house, sometimes in the garden, often in the strangest places.
This has been going on for decades.
Whenever her slightly plaintive cry “Has anyone seen my glasses?” Echoed down the stairwell, my three siblings and I in particular fanned out and began an everyday quest, the search for the sacred glasses.
And that is still the case today when we visit our mother.
It's a kind of ritual that never wears off, because we now know almost all possible and impossible places in the vicinity.
The classics: window sills, shelves, sofa grooves, cupboards, bathroom shelves, glove box and passenger seat in the car or the floor under the bed.
And then there are the challenges: laundry baskets, the lawn in its entirety, jacket and coat pockets, the flower bed, the bicycle basket, the, yes, the grill (if it is not lit), the fruit basket or the waste paper bin in the kitchen.
“They just wander around like that, my glasses,” my mother often says when we bring the glasses back to her - like a trophy after a competition.
What amazes me to this day is that when the right glasses have just disappeared, my mother always remains confident and just continues with what she was just doing.
While we are all buzzing around - in the past hectic, now more routine - my mother always keeps an overview and maintains composure, continues to work in the garden or in the kitchen.
Or she has a long phone call while she is waiting.
The well-established ritual has now miraculously passed over to my three teenage-adult children. The phrase “Has anyone seen my glasses?” Is a cross-generational trigger that makes children and grandchildren leave everything behind and take care of their mother and grandma. We never seriously pursued attempts to fix my mother's glasses with ribbons or cases or to make them more visible. "Cases," says my mother, "I only take with me when I'm on the move."
She often used to be.
Only once did one of her glasses get lost.
That is, almost.
That was on a trip to Cologne with their Rummy club, they had traveled to the WDR talk show as a spectator.
Two days full program with overnight stays, visits to Kölsch pubs and restaurants on the Rhine.
Back to East Westphalia.
And then she was gone.
The sunglasses.
Of all things.
Exceptionally all in the right place: The glasses from author Martin Scholz's mother, which are constantly being searched for
Source: Martin Scholz / WELT
And none of us was there who could have swarmed out.
My mother phoned every place she had been with with a detective's zeal.
Nothing to be done: the glasses remained gone.
Until then my father became a glasses finder.
The only time.
“Oh, your sunglasses,” he said casually, “they were lying around here somewhere.
I put it in a drawer to be on the safe side.
So that it doesn't get lost. ”A drawer!
My mother still can't believe it today: “An impossible place.
I would never have put the sunglasses in there. "
I myself put my glasses on the shelf next to the bed in the evening.
Okay, sometimes a book on the carpet.
Or on the desk.
On the windowsill.
I've also left them on the printer or laptop.
In any case, it often happens that I have to look for my glasses after getting up.
On good days it makes me smile because I always think of a very special person.
Wolfgang Büscher: The vague idea of an angel
Guardian Angel: The picture accompanied Wolfgang Büscher through his childhood
Source: Wolfgang Büscher / WELT
It wasn't much that I saved from the containers in the driveway, in which the existence of three generations disappeared.
After Mother's death the house had become unsustainable.
I also took the picture with me, it's as old as I am: brother and sister in a wilderness, painted in the style of a storybook illustration from before our time, framed in gold sheeting.
Kitsch?
Almost everyone I know would say: yes.
The girl is picking flowers from the abyss, the older brother looks worried.
And someone else cares, the angel behind them.
No modern hunger rake from a higher being, a splendid angel in full regalia, it fills half the picture.
Kitsch?
He didn't know the word, the boy I was.
He liked to see the picture, it had hung in his room for as long as he could remember.
There were no Gainsboroughs hanging there, just to give a hint of what the boy was learning in life.
But there was this consolation picture, a devotional picture too?
Anna Marie Büscher, here at the age of around 20
Source: private
Mother didn't talk about religion, she only rarely spoke from her, sparingly dosed like some other things. I grew up in this atmosphere.
The picture had to be enough, the vague idea, there is someone who will take care of you.
Before going to sleep, take a quick look at the angel.
And to the older brother, who was further than his sister, stronger, he was also careful.
That was me.
My son took the picture, it's in his room, put it up himself.
She would like to see it.
Jennifer Wilton: The bread of the early years
Still in short supply in the 1980s: a wholegrain bread, organic, of course
Source: E + / Getty Images
There was a time when I had a mystery why pubs were not part of the Bible.
I was quite young then (age: low single digits) and drew my own conclusions.
Because back then the same thing always happened on Friday evenings: my mother went out.
To church, it was said.
A group met there that evening that somehow wanted to ensure world peace.
And when they were done they had another glass of wine together.
This took place in a narrow side room of the community hall.
The room had practical, stackable furniture, angular chairs and tables with rounded corners.
On Sundays, there was filter coffee there after the service.
But on Friday it was: the pub.
That sounded insanely like adult life.
Of course, I never really saw what was going on there.
But it was obviously also traded - especially in bread.
Fresh whole wheat bread.
It appeared miraculously on our breakfast table on Saturday morning.
We kids loved it.
On this day.
It was soft.
You thought you could still sense the warmth of the stove.
It always had the same smell.
It was home.
It got very tough very quickly, however.
It was then a very dense, whole-grain wholemeal bread.
It was glorified by my mother as particularly aromatic.
I was longing for the gray and white breads of my school friends.
But at least the prospect of the soft freshness next Saturday.
Over time, I found out, at least partially, what happened the previous evening.
A friend of my mother's dozens of bread drove the loaves in a VW bus from one of the city's first organic bakeries to the church.
For my mother and the other mothers who endured the slightly reproachful looks of their children during the week.
The late eighties were still gray bread years.
Organic stores were not wellness zones for a relaxed shopping experience in pastel colors, but rather hard basic food in the original form.
They smelled very strongly of grain and earth and had a very limited supply.
Children were seriously sold dates and so-called energy balls as confectionery there.
Or not sold either, because there was of course nothing at Quengelhöhe in these shops.
To cut a long story short: it was sometimes difficult to understand, back then, why our organic whole-grain bread mothers expected us to be so joyless.
But they continued undeterred, not because it was a trend, but because they believed it was right and important.
With the same seriousness with which they reflected on world peace Friday after Friday.
Our pastor understood that at some point, after all, for the Lord's Supper there was: that whole wheat bread.
The bakery from back then is still there, it smells in front of the door every day like Saturday mornings at home.
My mother lives on the same street today.
Somehow that calms me down.
Annette Prosinger: The Hunter's Dreams
The mother of the author Annette Prosinger on her great journey in Tanzania at the age of 86
Source: private
Mit 86 Jahren begab sich meine Mutter auf ihre anstrengendste und exotischste Reise. Nach Tansania, in die Serengeti. Begleitet von Ehemann, Kindern und Schwiegerkindern. In früheren Jahren war sie eine passionierte Jägerin gewesen, doch nach Afrika fuhr sie, zum Glück, nicht zum Jagen. Sondern um zu staunen.
Diese Weite, diese Einsamkeit und diese unglaubliche Tierwelt, die sie mit einer in langen Hochsitznächten geschulten Geduld regungslos beobachten konnte.
Die Löwen zählte sie einzeln, auf 87 kam sie insgesamt auf der Reise. Sie liebte den wiegenden Gang der Giraffen, das Raubtiergebrüll nachts am Kochzelt ängstigte sie nicht, selbst den Zebrakadaver betrachtete sie mit kühlem Jägerinnenblick. Nur einmal erschrak sie, als sie allein im Zeltlager war und eine Hyäne begann, sie zu umkreisen. Am Ende gewann meine Mutter, die Hyäne gab auf.
An ihrem ersten Tag in Afrika jedoch waren es Menschen, die sie am meisten faszinierten. Trotz der Überfülle von Eindrücken, die in den ersten Stunden nach der Landung auf sie einprasselten: die Fahrt im offenen Jeep, der Staub, Schotterpisten, die ersten Schirmakazien, die ersten Lehmhäuser, die Armut, die Kinder, die Farben auf dem Bauernmarkt, Gewusel und dann wieder stundenlang endlose Savanne. Und irgendwann dieses Massaidorf.
Natürlich waren wir hier nicht der Überraschungsbesuch, als der wir inszeniert wurden. Und natürlich hatte diese Massaifamilie, die sich in Gestalt eines greisenhaften Mannes und einer stattlichen Zahl Ehefrauen jeden Alters samt Kinderschar präsentierte, jede Menge Routine im Umgang mit Touristen. Also durften wir in eine Hütte schauen, die Massaitracht bewundern und den Kindern Kekse schenken.
Plötzlich trat eine alte Frau aus einer Hütte, musterte uns und ging direkt auf meine Mutter zu. Sie sah älter aus als meine Mutter und war vermutlich viel jünger. Beide sahen sich an, mit Neugier, Staunen, es war ein tiefer Blick: Als erkennten sich da in der staubigen tansanischen Savanne zwei Frauen, die nichts gemein hatten, außer dass beide auf ein langes Leben zurückblickten. „Wir hatten voreinander Respekt“, sagt meine Mutter heute, „das haben wir uns angesehen.“
Geschenk: Dieses Armband bekam die Mutter von einer alten Massai
Quelle: Annette Prosinger / WELT
Dass die alte Massai plötzlich eines ihrer Glasperlenarmbänder abnahm und es mit zahnlosem Lächeln meiner Mutter überreichte, machte sie ein bisschen stolz. „Das kam mir vor wie eine Auszeichnung.“ Dass sich dann herausstellte, dass die alte Frau dafür durchaus Geld wollte, schmälert diese Einschätzung. Aber nur ein wenig.
Getragen hat meine Mutter das Armband nie. Aber sie sieht es jeden Tag. Es liegt in ihrer Küche, zwischen Zetteln mit Müllabfuhrterminen und dem Brillenputzspray. Eine bunte Erinnerung daran, dass man bis ins hohe Alter Träume wahr machen kann.