The Obvious German Story

1987

A True Story

Written 2/2012* 1,052 Words*

#131 By Howard Yasgar

In 1987, my wife Katherine was working in the freight forwarding business in Miami.

One of her largest European carriers was Lufthansa Airlines.

One day, Lufthansa advised her that they were planning a “Fam” trip to Munich Germany.

A “Fam” trip, or familiarity trip, was Lufthansa’s way of teaching their major freight customers how their freight system worked in Germany.

It is not generally known, but besides their regular passenger service, airlines make quite a bit of revenue by carrying freight, it’s a big part of their business.

As her spouse, I was allowed to tag along with Katherine on the “Fam” trip.

The trip was organized by Peter Uhlmeyer, who was the manager of Lufthansa’s Miami freight hub.

They said the trip was to be for 10 days in Munich and we were to be staying at the Penta hotel where all the Lufthansa pilots and crew stayed.

One morning, when we were in Munich having breakfast, I asked Peter if I could practice my German language skills when I was speaking to the people I met in Munich?

Peter had already heard most of my German vocabulary, which was really nothing more than my collection of German words I learned from watching Hogan’s Hero’s on TV, mixed in with some Yiddish words I had picked up here and there.

Peter was very diplomatic about it, and he said that most of the German people in Munich would have an extreme lack of appreciation for my German, and if I didn’t want to get punched in the face, I should stick to speaking English.

So, from that point on, wherever we went, I only spoke English.

One morning, Katherine and I decided to experiment and order breakfast by ourselves in the Penta Hotel’s restaurant.

From listening to all the German chatter of the people there, we already knew that ordering breakfast in English was going to be quite an experience.

As we entered the restaurant, I was looking for a private table where Katherine and I could sit together, but there was nothing available.

The restaurant’s method of seating was in the typical European fashion, you sat wherever there was a seat available.

Eventually I spotted two empty seats at a long table, they were right across from a very Germanic looking fellow who was having a cup of coffee.

Naturally, my wife and I were both a little hesitant about sitting across from someone we didn’t know.

The fellow who was sitting at the table couldn’t help but notice us, and he immediately stood up, and

Pointed to the two available seats.

In very stern German he said “Sitzen” which meant for us to sit.

But he didn’t say Sitzen very gently, he spoke like he was in the Gestapo. He reminded me of a German Army officer who was ordering us to sit down.

The guy was about 6 feet tall, and he was dressed in a very typical German black business suit, he wore a white dress shirt with cuff links and an extremely conservative necktie with fine red lines on it.

His hair was jet black, and it was combed back very slick.

I was a little nervous as I had never seen anyone that looked more like a Nazi SS officer than this guy, and here I was going to sit right across from him.

I admit that I was very uncomfortable sitting there.

The table was very narrow, and I thought that if we both bent forward at the same time our heads would have hit each other.

So, as we sat there, I couldn’t help but look at him while he was looking at me.

Remembering what Peter had told me about speaking German, I didn’t know what to say or what to do.

So, I sat and we just waited until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and in my very best German I said, Sprechen Ze English? (Do you speak English).

He looked at me and sternly said “Nein”, (Which means no in German).

I was concerned, because I remembered what Peter had told me, perhaps I had already insulted this guy with my lousy German.

As we waited for the waitress to come, I said to my wife, it was too bad that I couldn’t talk to this guy, I loved talking to people, and here we were practically sitting on top of each other, not able to say a word.

Then for a few more minutes we all just sat there quietly, that was, until again I couldn’t stand it anymore.

In a jokingly manner, I looked him in the eyes and I said, “Habla Usted Espanol”, (Do you speak Spanish).

I had said it sort of like a joke, I wasn’t really expecting an answer from him.

A big smile crossed his face, and he said, “Si Senior, yo Habla Espanol, yo soy de Espania” (Yes Sir, I speak Spanish, I’m from Spain).

He wasn’t a German at all, he was a Spaniard that worked for the German company Siemens in Spain.

We spoke for over an hour, and he didn’t mind at all that my Spanish was just Cuban street Spanish and he was speaking upper class Castillian Spanish.

He said meeting someone that spoke Spanish in Munich made a happy day for him, I said, me too.

Who would have ever thought to ask this obvious Germanic looking guy in Munich if he spoke Spanish.