Germany: The Oh So Good Life

An old German description of well-being is to live wie Gott in Frankreich — like God in France. Whatever the yardstick for the good life, at least some of it still seems to be outside Germany. In pursuit of that grail, some 800,000 West Germans have established second homes abroad — in Tuscany, along the Grande Corniche overlooking the Riviera, in the verdant valleys of South Tirol. They have also become the world’s most traveled tourists: last year some 28 million West Germans took holidays abroad.

East Germans have a great deal of catching up to do, but they are trying. Hardly was the Wall down when a trickle of East Berliners and Leipzigers and Dresdeners appeared on the Champs Elysees and the Via Veneto. Long confined to holidays within the socialist bloc — beaches on the Black Sea or the chilly waters of the Baltic — thousands of Easterners will no doubt soon set out for venues of the dolce vita, the requisite deutsche marks in their pockets.

For West Germans, the annual migrations have had a profound impact on taste and spending habits. Looking at the shops in urban centers, a visitor might think himself in the wrong country. Here a Benetton, there a Chloe, a Chanel, farther along a Giorgio Armani, a Fendi, a Valentino. The name of every other restaurant seems to begin with le or la, and every other menu includes a dish or two from faraway places. Better off than ever before, West Germans are spending fortunes to keep up with the Schmidts; money appears to be no object ( in the pursuit of distinctive art or eye-catching design in clothes, cars, houses, even the simplest household objects. A society long praised — and sometimes derided — for an overgrown work ethic has turned its restless energies to the cultivation of leisure. Enveloped in superlatives, West Germany has emerged as one of the world’s most affluent societies: the nation with the largest trade surplus; the greatest per capita concentration of high- performance automobiles; the best wages for the shortest work week; and the most rewarding all-round standard of living among major industrialized countries.

“Never in our history have we lived so well,” says former Economics Minister Count Otto Lambsdorff. Statistics bear him out. In the past three decades the supply of goods and services has quintupled and consumption quadrupled. The living standard since the ’50s has improved at an annual rate of 4%. Net monthly income has expanded tenfold in that period, hourly wages almost eightfold. In the early ’60s, the average family spent half its income on food and household goods; today the figure is slightly over 20%. Nearly as much — 15% — is devoted to leisure activities and holidays.

At least 400 families control fortunes in excess of $100 million, but the real measure of wealth lies in its breadth and depth. More than 2 million people, many only in their 30s, are deutsche mark millionaires. This is the first German generation in this century to actually inherit wealth. “Earlier generations,” says Edith Hartl, a self-made businesswoman in Munich, “were wiped out by Weimar inflation or war. Today’s 30-year-olds are inheriting all the fruits of the economic miracle.”

They have no qualms about spending the inheritance. Sabena Knust, owner of a Munich art gallery, says lots of money is being poured into modern art: an original painting by a contemporary artist goes for $50,000, a print for $4,000. Regina Spelman, an editor at the German-language Harper’s Bazaar, sees vast amounts being spent on apparel: “Germans use clothes to define their place in society and are willing to spend a lot to make a statement.” Hamburg Designer Peter Schmidt notes that “people are willing to pay to surround themselves with well-designed things.” Kurt Gustmann, an editor at the magazine Schoner Wohnen in Hamburg, points to a general pattern of cultivating leisure activities based on long weekends.

Anna Golin, who owns Wunderhaus, a giant warehouse of modern furnishings in Unterfohring, says people are investing heavily in home decoration as well: a Rolf Sachs chair goes for $5,900, a chest of drawers by Shiro Kuramata for $8,900. The furniture fills high-priced housing. A no-frills single-family house in choice areas of Baden-Wurttemberg or Bavaria averages about $300,000, a one-bedroom apartment rarely less than $160,000. The most reasonably priced region is along the East-West border, but even there the market is tight.

The key word in the great pursuit of pleasure is Luxus, or luxury. It is commonly used these days to describe ashtrays, bathrooms, cars, furnishings, graphics, holidays — just about anything used in everyday life that is well- designed or distinctive. Frequently it means something outrageously expensive. G&M, a mail-order house in Bavaria, caters specifically to such tastes, offering a catalog of 273 “carefully selected luxury gifts,” with a total value of $26.5 million; among them are a Tabriz rug for $964,000 and a gold-plated record player for $75,000. Dieter Schiwietz, a Hamburg plastic surgeon, says women — and men — seem to be having no trouble finding money for face-lifts costing up to $70,000. Says Schiwietz: “Looking good is an important part of the good life.”

The outpouring of wealth has been accompanied by a remarkable transformation in the work ethic. According to a survey by the Allensbach Institute, modern Germany “has changed from a working society to a leisure society.” The average person, it notes, devotes four hours a day to leisure activities, in contrast to about 1 1/2 hours 40 years ago. That comes as no surprise to anyone who has attempted to reach a government official in Bonn after 3 p.m. Much of the country, in fact, seems to operate on a distinctly non-Teutonic manana principle. Freizeit, or leisure time, is sacred, and work is, at best, a distraction.

The Latinization of Germany can be seen in lingering lunch breaks, overflowing cafes, empty offices, on packed golf courses or deserted city streets on weekends. “The Germans,” complains one employer, “have more short breaks and holidays than anyone else.” Adding it all up, the average West German has at least two months off a year.

Yet, magically, although they work less, they manage to produce more and still maintain quality. That is due partly to their guest workers, who get their hands dirty running many of the production lines, partly to a genius for organization and supervision.

, The cornucopia of wealth and well-being has brought some strange insecurities. “Luxus is a way of trying to making yourself different from others,” complains Munich socialite Heidi Schoeller, the wife of a banker. “Money doesn’t mean very much in a society where everyone has it.”

There is a near manic devotion to Trendforschung, or trend research, to discover what is In or Out. The newest trend in holidays, for instance, is to avoid other Germans — even if that means spending a month in Patagonia. The drift in sports is to golf; tennis has become “too popular” since Boris Becker first took the Wimbledon crown in 1985. Although the waiting period in Germany for Mercedes-Benz’s latest sports car, the $77,000 500SL, is four years, the trendy automobile is something like an Isdera Imperator, built by a small company in Stuttgart, which uses a Mercedes-Benz V-8 engine but certainly does not look like a Mercedes-Benz.

No one has yet gauged the potential impact of the great disparity between ostentatious affluence in the West and relative poverty in the East, but that is a grating issue and not likely to disappear soon. Perhaps aware of this, along with the realization that life may have become too lavish, a few West Germans are tuning in to something called Neue Bescheidenheit, or new modesty — an effort to get back to the essentials of the good life. It has had only modest success. “This is like Jackie Kennedy’s basic black and pearls,” says one critic. “The pearls are genuine, the basic black is cashmere, and the accessories are Hermes or Vuitton.”

Other, equally ambitious — and more than likely passing — trends are on the horizon. “The newest form of chic,” says Hartl, “is to learn things other people don’t know — to actually read a book, for instance.” That may also be short-lived because as good as it is, contemporary German life is hardly restful or contemplative. “We’re still trying to define ourselves,” says Schmidt. “Even in leisure we’re not particularly at ease.” God, in other words, has not moved to Germany. Not yet.