"Symbol setting
Not only did they hit me with the hammer – they also taught me to use it and hit back at them in its professed name, so I made use of the opportunity. The compass not only marked out the prescribed radius – it could, after some effort, also be applied to the brain box to stake out one’s own designation by stringing radius against radius. Throughout the years I was able to jokingly refer to the rivet that held both symbols together as a rivet*, without becoming a criminal. And I was never able to embrace the wreath for the precise fact that they mistook the 'ear' for 'honor'**. How else could I have survived, if not unscathed?
The hammer, compass and wreath of corn – and particularly the omnipotent rivet in its and our midst – have made me what I am today, whether I wanted it or not. Without the power of this symbol I wouldn’t be the same. Should I simply tolerate the sudden removal of my painful and instructive beginnings and, from one day to the next, just content myself with black, red and gold and its consequences?"
*In German, the word for rivet is "Niete". Its colloquial double meaning also describes a person or a thing as a dud or failure.
**"Ährenkranz" is German for "wreath of corn". "Ähre" means "ear" (as in ear of corn), while "Ehre" means "honor".
From "Das Mauer-Syndrom" ("The Wall Syndrome") a collection of short prose from 1961 to 1990
Jürgen Nagel (East Berlin)
(6 rankings) 
