The room was sparsely furnished, but it allowed a magnificent view of the snow-covered ski slope and the first drag lift, only 300 meters away. It could not have been better.
The room was alternately used only by Ulli’s closest friends, every year in the first week of March it was reserved for Chris and me. Thus we had the rare luck to spend many carefree, happy vacation weeks in the snowy Erzgebirge.
We always remember those good times with pleasure. Every morning we looked forward to breakfast in the guest room. We had scrambled eggs with crisp, oven-warm buttered rolls and a few strips of gherkin. A pot of strong coffee rounded off the meal.
Well fortified, we hit the slopes. In the afternoon, everyone who was anybody met in the house for a chat over coffee and cake. As always, on Wednesdays we took a trip by car to the nearby Czech town of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad).
A ride on a horse-drawn sleigh through the snow-covered forest is a special experience for flatlanders. In the deep snow, the horses’ hooves cannot be heard, and the bells on the harness sound soft and muffled, as if they do not want to wake the snowy forest from its winter sleep.
In 1982, during our carefree week of vacation, an unusual encounter occurred. I was about to join the queue at the lift after a downhill run when an unknown gentleman in a fur coat unexpectedly held a microphone in front of my face and greeted me with the following words: ‘Good afternoon, we are from the Second German Television, would you grant us an interview?’
Behind the friendly gentleman, a cameraman had taken up position, accompanied by several people. There was no reason to refuse the interview because I was of the opinion that this was the second program of GDR television.
I would have expected a winter storm or a snowstorm on the Fichtelberg, but never the ZDF of the Federal Republic. I kept my promise anyway but was immediately wide awake because I expected explosive political issues.
But as far as I remember, all the questions were harmless and very general: Whether I often come to Oberwiesenthal, how I like it here, how I find the people and how I am accommodated?
I embellished the answer to the last question somewhat by making our room the club’s own accommodation, which is available to every member. The team of reporters politely thanked me and continued to look for suitable interviewees.
Immediately after the interview, close friends strongly advised me to report the interview with ZDF to the company’s management immediately after the end of my vacation.
Blue-eyed, I ignored the sincerely meant advice, because I was of the opinion that ZDF would never waste its precious broadcasting time on such a harmless interview. So I let the matter rest, which gradually faded into oblivion. 𝓣𝓸 𝓑𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭…
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