Heidelberg and it`s bridge function for my second job as tourist guide

As already mentioned in earlier posts here in my blog, I have been born in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and grown up in the middle of nowhere in a minuscular village in the palatinate forest. At the sweet age of 14 my familly moved to the close by – just on the other side of the river Rhine – city of Mannheim, where I lived until the completion of my secondary school. After my military service – which at that time still was obligatory – I studied and lived for 5 years in the city of Karlsruhe, which is also not far from Mannheim. 

I have always liked very much Mannheim, which since hundreds of years has been a very open and  open minded city, with a lot of historical and cultural importance and history. Thanks to the lots of US GI`s which had been stationed in the military barracks of Mannheim, Jazz and Rock`n Roll music came to this city in the 50`s and 60`s and the Americans introduced us Germans to their way of live and let us make first experience with lots of so far for Germans totally unknown products like milk ice cream, peanuts butter, blue jeans and cowboy boots, which I bought on my fifteenth birthday in a shop specialised on US customers in Mannheim. 

But the city which I really admire since long, is Heidelberg. Actually my sister introduced me to it, when she studied pharmacy there. Since then, means since the mid 70s, I have endlessly visited Heidelberg, alone, with familly members or with friends and colleagues and I continue to do so.

And that`s exactly what I wanted to share with You today. As I have been living at so many different places in Germany, Spain, Mexico and Brazil and working for so many different – all German – companies so far, I could call myself with a certain right in my second profession a tourist guide. 

This is just due to the fact, that since I started to work outside, far away, of Germany, I have never lost my identification and connection with this beautiful country and – in the good and in the bad – its people, its history and its culture. Whenever I visit Germany for professional reasons and the situation allows, I invite colleagues and/or friends from the country where I live to accompany me and take them to some nice and interesting places in Germany. 

For me it has always been important, to transmit not only professional and technical experiences and know how from Germany to where I live and work, but also to introduce my colleagues, friends and colaborators at least a little bit to Germany and the German culture and history. And so far my experience with doing so was very nice. Who would not love to travel to far away different places together with an experienced tourist guide?

And – by the way – I practice the same with the lots of business and private visitors, which I receive since I left Germany in June 1996, at all the different places where I have been living in Brazil, Spain, Mexico and – since meanwhile 11 years again – in Brazil. For me it is extremely important, to transmit to my colleagues, bosses and friends from Germany a little bit of the culture, history and way of living at the places and in the countries where we operate our factories and do our business. They must be confronted with the good and the bad of what surrounds us and very often determines our professional activities there. 

Like I always tell colleagues, when they visit me for the first time at our companies. “We are the bosses inside our company. Here we can – always respecting all existing laws and rules – determine what we want and install the company culture of our choice. But when we leave the doors of our companies, our company culture and rules are for the birds, because then the culture and the rules of the country and the places where we are, dominate.” 

Some people have difficulties to understand this. But its a fact and there is no way out. We have to recognize and to respect and honor this. And that`s exactly what I have always identified and accepted as my particular responsability and highest challenge. In the most cases of my jobs as Managing Director, CEO, President of local subsidiaries of German companies – no matter the type of industry and business, no matter the size of these, no matter whether familly held or publicly listed – in different countries, I have been the only German amidst all our company`s employees. 

Thus my biggest – and at the same time the one which I most like – challenge has been, to bridge between the two (or more) different countries and cultures. And every bridge has two bridge heads. There is no bridge with only one head.This means, in a bridge function You need to interconnect to both sides, not just to one only. And that`s what exactly has become my speciality during the last 30 years. I love to cross bridges in both directions. Every place, country, culture where I have been living and with which I had the pleasure to get familiar, has enriched me and my life and has changed me. Life for me is like a tree. There is no holding point where all processes stop. Development goes further constantly. Life flows like a river. That`s what I find so beautiful. Every new day brings us new experiences and learnings. But for sure – good and bad ones. Like the Brazilians say so descriptively “Every coin has two sides”. If You want one, You automatically need to accept the other one as well. 

This leads me to share with You my liking for Salvador Dali`s surrealistic famous painting “The Persistence of Memory”, from 1931:

And as I have been talking so much about Germany today, I feel oblidged to share with You one of my favorite German rock songs, which has in the meantime already become a classical. The band`s name was BAP and they sang their songs in the local German dialect “Kölsch” of the city of Cologne, where they were from:

I hope my friends and former colleagues in Düsseldorf are not angry with me now, because of the quite wellknown rivalry between these two nearby cities. I swear that I will share some positive experiences with You in one my future posts about my years in Düsseldorf, when I was working at Henkel. 

See You here again tomorrow! Enjoy the beautiful sunday.