The photo - taken with a disposable panoramic camera - shows the Schlossplatz
(palace square), the center of Stuttgart. Formerly this was bustling with
streetcars and auto traffic - now the traffic has been placed underground
and the whole center of town is a pedestrian zone. The building at
the right, behind the flagpoles, is the "Neues Schloss" the newer one of
two royal palaces that face the square. The palaces go back to the time
Stuttgart was the capital of the Kingdom of Württemberg, before 1918.
Today Stuttgart is the state capital of Baden-Württemberg, one of
the 16 states of the German Federal Republic, and the palace contains government
offices. The building with the dome is the museum of contemporary
art and the large building is a bank. The large square tower in the background
to the left is about 1/4 mile away at the end of Königsstrasse (kings
road), which is the Stuttgart's main shopping street. The tower belongs
to the central railroad station and is crowned by a huge Mercedes
star, which is lit and rotating slowly at night (the camera resolution
was too low to show it). DaimlerChrysler, the makers of the Mercedes cars,
is one of two car manufacturers in town - the other is Porsche. Stuttgart
also has a Technical University - Erich's alma mater, several colleges,
and, with about 200 publishing houses, is the center of Germany's publishing
industry. Stuttgart proper has a population of about 700,000, but metropolitan
Stuttgart has well over a million people. The town got its name from once
having been the location of a "Stutengarten". In English travel guides,
and even in the Encyclopedia Britannica, one reads that this translates
to "stud farm". However, the German word "Stute" does not mean stud or
stallion - it rather means mare. So "Stutengarden" was the garden where
the mares were stabled - the stallions, supposedly, were kept safely on
the other side of the Neckar river.
This time we had not rented a car, because driving in Stuttgart is no fun and there is good public transportation. We had been invited to stay with Mathilde, the widow of a good friend and former classmate of Erich, who had passed away last September. Her house is within walking distance of the school. When Erich was a student there, it was simply called "high school for boys" - the girls school was in the other half of the building. It has since gone coed and is now the "Leibniz Gymnasium" - a gymnasium in Germany is a high school that teaches foreign languages. The photo shows the old class. Erich is 3rd from the left in the
center
row - he still had hair then. The class had only 23 students - only kids
who plan to go to a university attend the 9-year Gymnasium, which starts
at age 10, there are other preparatory schools for the equivalent of community
colleges. Their chosen professions: 4 engineers, one physician, one veterinarian,
2 MBAs and several lawyers, one of which later became a judge at the local
superior court. 
Of course now almost all are retired. The second photo shows them today,
many with their wives (four more came after the picture had been taken).
Several have passed away, some have lost contact and another one, besides
Erich, lives in the USA but could not come. Nevertheless most of them still
live in Stuttgart, where they grew up. The current principal of the school
had invited us to a visit and showed us around. Some of the old classrooms
still looked unchanged. He mentioned that today few graduates go into engineering
or the sciences - at the same time there is a shortage of computer professionals
in Germany and the government discusses issuing special visas to attract
computer professionals from India. Erich was not always happy in school
- he and one Latin teacher did not get along too good - and in the Abitur
exam he had a straight F in Latin, but a B in English. That's why he emigrated
to the USA instead of Italy, he says...
Gasoline in Germany is about $4.00 a gallon and large SUVs and Motor homes are rare. The Germans take their cars very serious -- but the cars at the average are smaller than in the States. Erich - the engineer - noticed two unusual car models, neither of which are sold in the United States: a small Mercedes, the A-class and an even smaller "city coupe", the Smart.
Stuttgart is a traffic planner's nightmare: the town is located in a fairly narrow valley and has long extended up the hills and spilled over to the surrounding plain. A cogwheel tram and a cable car once were the main access, but then winding streets with streetcars were built. Eventually the streetcars were placed underground or, at least, separated from the other traffic. On most lines the narrower streetcars also were replaced with modern rapid transit trains. Parking downtown is very expensive and most people use public transportation when shopping. Our friend then takes a taxi cab from the tram stop to her house, which is up the hill. But in general the Germans do much more walking then what we are used to. But auto traffic can be very bad, especially during the rush hour. When we took a cab from the airport to our friend's house the driver went across town and we got stuck at a point where two mayor traffic arteries intersect on a saddle (at least the streetcars were underground at this place). In the local newspaper there was a discussion about building a tunnel for one of the streets - but this tunnel was already discussed when Erich still lived there - 40 years ago..
Germany, especially the large towns, also have increasing numbers of immigrants, mainly from eastern Europe. In Stuttgart about 24% of the population is not native, and Erich, as a native, can hear from their speech whether they are locals, are from other parts of Germany, or are from foreign countries. The cab driver who took us to our friend's house was Hungarian, the one who took us to the airport on our last day was from Kosovo. When he found out that we were Americans, he thanked us profusely for saving his homeland from the Serbs. It is nice to feel appreciated, once in a while....