Same old Schieße

You know the routine: the caring, nurturing brigades, they who are always longing for those by-gone pastoral days when everything in life was just oh so much more simpler and grand, past as present as unalterable destiny ............ well, unless it does not fit the preferred narrative:

Not much has survived intact from those East German days. But Konnopke sausages have. And, according to Ziervogel, they still taste the same as they did in East Germany 40 years ago.

Ziervogel lights another Marlboro. The stand -- which her father, Max, opened 80 years ago with a folding table and an awning -- has survived a great deal, including Hitler's Third Reich and the East German dictatorship. The current enemy it has to face is the growing number of politically correct Prenzlauer Berg inhabitants.

In fact, Ziervogel's stubbornness has convinced the city's urban redevelopment officials to enclose her stand like a museum exhibit. They will also spend €50,000 to outfit it with a high-pressure device to keep toxic fumes caused by the sandblasting of the subway supports from getting into the kitchen.

Other city officials just want to tear the stand down. As the city council member from the Green Party sees it, the whole affair is just "complete nonsense." But Ziervogel doesn't seem to care what he thinks.

Huzzah to the shopkeeper!