I may as well add my story to the East Germany mentioning. When the wall came down in 1989 I was in Nevada working on a Geothermal Low Pressure Turbine. I recall the breaking news story on the car radio as I drove from Reno to the Powerplant. Having been born in Magdeburg not far from Berlin it goes without saying that tears came to my eyes and I had to leave the express way for a spell to recover from this great news. I never at the time expected that wall to come down, the news that it actually as happening was overwhelming.
In 1990 I went to Germany for a Famaly visit, like I did every 3 to 5 years. Memories from that trip to Magdeburg were as follows;
- Driving on the Autobahn in the direction east to Magdeburg I had to slow down immediately for the poor Autobahn road condition as I crossed from west to the former east Germany, the road was that bad.
- in Magdeburg my car (a rental VW fairly new)was vandalized while it was parked downtown. Much red tape followed by the Police and Insurance.
- on my way back to the then western part of Germany the traffic on the Autobahn came to a complete stop. It was a hot day so I remained in my car while other drivers exited there cars and started to talk to one another. Soon. It became evident that several drivers started to look at me and I was wondering what the hell have I done. When I got out from the car I realized my car was the only car engine running LOL so I quickly shut the engine off.
I never had the money to purchase a car in Germany and ship it to Canada (this had to wait till later in life), so I never had a Zoll Plate, however, I’ve seen them on quite a few cars during my trips home to Germany every 3 to 5 years.
Dieter
