Germans make do and mend

By ALAN HALL FOR MAILONLINE
Updated:

 

HUNDREDS of thousands of Germans are returning to a way of life endured by the immediate post-war generation of scrimping, saving, bartering, repairing and bargaining in order to get by in economic hard times.

Women are resorting to neighbourhood workshops to repair tights and stockings rather than get a new pair. Broken plates, cups, saucers and glasses are piling up in craft shops. Trade is also up for pawn shops where family heirlooms, furs, violins and jewels are exchanged by the jobless and the hungry for much-needed instant cash.

Everything from Barbie dolls - repaired at the Puppet and Toy Workshop in Lichtenstein, Saxony - to women's razors at the Hannemann electrical shop in Lubeck are being handed over in record numbers for repair or renovation.

Electrical shops are also reporting an increase of 80% in people opting for repairs rather than splashing out on new models. Organised groups at railway stations are bartering with passengers for tickets that are still valid.

Sociologist Hermann Pluscke said: 'It is extraordinary to think that in the richest country in Europe we are reverting to a way of consumer scavenging that our forefathers endured after the Second World War.'

On the Berlin underground, for example, a ticket is stamped by a passenger and is valid for two hours. Groups of youngsters swarm around commuters who have reached their destination to offer a reduced price for a ticket that may have just minutes or perhaps nearly the full amount of time to run. A ticket that costs e2.10 (£1.40) from a machine is often sold on for less than half the price.

'The mentality of the people in these harsh times has changed incredibly,' said Renate Funke, 46, who is repairing up to 200 pairs of stockings and tights a week at a workshop she has set up in Hanover. 'People will pay up to e3 for a repair rather than up to e15 for a new pair. There just isn't the money to go around. My parents say it is a return to the postwar times when there wasn't anything available.'

As Germany struggles under chronic debt, massive unemployment and poor recovery prospects, this back-to-the-future mentality is having a knock-on effect on the retail industry. Stores in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Munich, Hamburg and other large towns and cities scream out bargains. But no one is buying. The Association of Retailers reports a marked increase in the number of coupons for discounts handed in at supermarkets. 'People are saving hard because they have no other option,' said a spokesman.

Jurgen Kraemer, owner of the Porcelain Clinic in Hamburg, said he knows why. 'Germans have their backs against the wall and are fighting to survive in hard times,' he said. 'Make and mend, not spend, spend, spend, is the order of the day. I repair the broken glass in the front of washing machines. Two years ago, people would have just bought a new machine. I repair dinner sets, family ornaments, cups and saucers - sometimes incredibly small repairs but it saves buying replacements. My business is up 150% over the past year.'

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