presley31
08-25-2008, 08:40 PM
BAD NAUHEIM, Germany: Millions of fans, impersonators, hucksters and charlatans have wanted a piece of Elvis Presley ever since his music hit the charts in the 1950s, and his German admirers are no exception.
Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and reigned from stages of Las Vegas and an estate called Graceland, they like to say, but the King was never as much at peace as when he was in Bad Nauheim.
"Elvis always said that his time in Germany was the least constrained of his entire life," Hans-Ulrich Halwe, the honorary chairman of the Elvis Presley Association, told a tour group of 70 while standing near the house where Elvis lived.
Halwe's broad thesis about Presley's time in Bad Nauheim may be objectively true, for it has a lot of green space, enjoyable vistas of the rolling hills outside Frankfurt, and a population that is small-town without being parochial. It lacked the pressures of managers, fans and spotlights that Elvis faced later in life.
The thesis is also useful. German Elvis fans have created their own narrative about the King, one that forgives the star for his later transgressions and freezes in time the young, svelte, pleasant man they knew.
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Elvis pulls double duty, 50 years after he began his military service in Germany, as an honorary, if deceased, ambassador from the United States, especially during the recent European Elvis Festival in Bad Nauheim. The King was titanic without being overbearing, talented without being arrogant, and friendly without being saccharine - all things a lot of Germans say are missing in today's America.
"At least when the festival is going, everyone here loves America," Ulrich Schlichthaerle, director of Bad Nauheim's marketing and tourism agency. "You can't say that all the time."
Elvis is also good business.
The festival brought about 10,000 people to Bad Nauheim, good news to Schlichthaerle, who is a salesman first and an Elvis fan second, he concedes. For a good century before Elvis, Bad Nauheim was a famous spa town, with mineral springs for every ailment, but it is managing a transition.
"Why did the city get interested in Elvis?" Halwe said. "Because the spa visitors tapered off."
On the trail of Elvis, Halwe, 64, leads his tour group through leafy Bad Nauheim to the house he rented, the record store he patronized, and the fountain where he once inhaled regenerative saltwater vapors to heal his inflamed tonsils. It would all be easy to miss, but for the black granite monument at Elvis Presley Plaza.
Halwe's storytelling provides the real insight into his fans here.
Those stories about Elvis being in a bar fight in Bad Nauheim are nonsense, Halwe said. (Elvis's bodyguard, Red West, was the real culprit.) And when he met his future wife Priscilla in Germany, he was utterly smitten. (Their marriage later broke up.) And Elvis had firm plans to play the first date on his European tour in Bad Nauheim's auditorium, Halwe assured his tour group. (Tom Parker, Presley's longtime manager, nixed the plan because the Dutch- born Parker could have been barred from re-entering the United States.)
Elvis was but a nice young man, and Germany was his Eden, a point lost on fans who live across the Atlantic.
"When I look at what comes from the United States, Germany is dealt with in three minutes and it's gone," said Jürgen Muth, a member of the Elvis Presley Association who lives just outside Bad Nauheim. "But otherwise Elvis was never outside the United States, except for a quick trip to Canada."
The special connection between Elvis and Germany makes for a convenient rallying point for those who miss the relationship the United States once enjoyed with its European ally.
"For me he represents the 8 to 10 million GIs who served in Germany at one time or another," said John Provan, a historian who has devoted himself to collecting relics of the American presence in Europe.
Coming to Germany on a troopship, buying a Volkswagen Bug and visiting Munich, Elvis "experienced just what the others did," Provan said.
Provan, who has scavenged radio interviews and pictures of Elvis, helped organize a popular museum exhibit to commemorate what began 50 years ago. A German photographer, Hans-Ulrich Elter, and a writer, Heinrich Burk, have put together a coffee-table book on Elvis in Germany that is scheduled to appear in October.
The town of Bad Nauheim is also maneuvering to take control of the Capri Club, the officers' club at now-closed Ray Barracks, where Presley was stationed.
It hopes to turn the spot, now in the hands of the German government, into a kind of German-American meeting point.
Because Elvis always trumps politics.
Halwe recalled the time when John F. Kennedy visited Frankfurt, and the whole city came to a standstill out of sheer enthusiasm. Decades later, George W. Bush visited nearby Mainz, and manhole covers were welded shut for security reasons.
The message for Halwe is clear: politicians who have a little bit of Elvis about them are the ones who build bridges.
"Bush can't sing as well as Elvis," Halwe said. "We don't yet know about Obama."
John Vinocur is on vacation.
source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/25/europe/letter.php?page=1
Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and reigned from stages of Las Vegas and an estate called Graceland, they like to say, but the King was never as much at peace as when he was in Bad Nauheim.
"Elvis always said that his time in Germany was the least constrained of his entire life," Hans-Ulrich Halwe, the honorary chairman of the Elvis Presley Association, told a tour group of 70 while standing near the house where Elvis lived.
Halwe's broad thesis about Presley's time in Bad Nauheim may be objectively true, for it has a lot of green space, enjoyable vistas of the rolling hills outside Frankfurt, and a population that is small-town without being parochial. It lacked the pressures of managers, fans and spotlights that Elvis faced later in life.
The thesis is also useful. German Elvis fans have created their own narrative about the King, one that forgives the star for his later transgressions and freezes in time the young, svelte, pleasant man they knew.
Today in Europe
Russia votes to back independence in Georgian enclavesSwiss engineers, a nuclear black market and the CIAAttack shines spotlight on immigrant crackdown in Italy
Elvis pulls double duty, 50 years after he began his military service in Germany, as an honorary, if deceased, ambassador from the United States, especially during the recent European Elvis Festival in Bad Nauheim. The King was titanic without being overbearing, talented without being arrogant, and friendly without being saccharine - all things a lot of Germans say are missing in today's America.
"At least when the festival is going, everyone here loves America," Ulrich Schlichthaerle, director of Bad Nauheim's marketing and tourism agency. "You can't say that all the time."
Elvis is also good business.
The festival brought about 10,000 people to Bad Nauheim, good news to Schlichthaerle, who is a salesman first and an Elvis fan second, he concedes. For a good century before Elvis, Bad Nauheim was a famous spa town, with mineral springs for every ailment, but it is managing a transition.
"Why did the city get interested in Elvis?" Halwe said. "Because the spa visitors tapered off."
On the trail of Elvis, Halwe, 64, leads his tour group through leafy Bad Nauheim to the house he rented, the record store he patronized, and the fountain where he once inhaled regenerative saltwater vapors to heal his inflamed tonsils. It would all be easy to miss, but for the black granite monument at Elvis Presley Plaza.
Halwe's storytelling provides the real insight into his fans here.
Those stories about Elvis being in a bar fight in Bad Nauheim are nonsense, Halwe said. (Elvis's bodyguard, Red West, was the real culprit.) And when he met his future wife Priscilla in Germany, he was utterly smitten. (Their marriage later broke up.) And Elvis had firm plans to play the first date on his European tour in Bad Nauheim's auditorium, Halwe assured his tour group. (Tom Parker, Presley's longtime manager, nixed the plan because the Dutch- born Parker could have been barred from re-entering the United States.)
Elvis was but a nice young man, and Germany was his Eden, a point lost on fans who live across the Atlantic.
"When I look at what comes from the United States, Germany is dealt with in three minutes and it's gone," said Jürgen Muth, a member of the Elvis Presley Association who lives just outside Bad Nauheim. "But otherwise Elvis was never outside the United States, except for a quick trip to Canada."
The special connection between Elvis and Germany makes for a convenient rallying point for those who miss the relationship the United States once enjoyed with its European ally.
"For me he represents the 8 to 10 million GIs who served in Germany at one time or another," said John Provan, a historian who has devoted himself to collecting relics of the American presence in Europe.
Coming to Germany on a troopship, buying a Volkswagen Bug and visiting Munich, Elvis "experienced just what the others did," Provan said.
Provan, who has scavenged radio interviews and pictures of Elvis, helped organize a popular museum exhibit to commemorate what began 50 years ago. A German photographer, Hans-Ulrich Elter, and a writer, Heinrich Burk, have put together a coffee-table book on Elvis in Germany that is scheduled to appear in October.
The town of Bad Nauheim is also maneuvering to take control of the Capri Club, the officers' club at now-closed Ray Barracks, where Presley was stationed.
It hopes to turn the spot, now in the hands of the German government, into a kind of German-American meeting point.
Because Elvis always trumps politics.
Halwe recalled the time when John F. Kennedy visited Frankfurt, and the whole city came to a standstill out of sheer enthusiasm. Decades later, George W. Bush visited nearby Mainz, and manhole covers were welded shut for security reasons.
The message for Halwe is clear: politicians who have a little bit of Elvis about them are the ones who build bridges.
"Bush can't sing as well as Elvis," Halwe said. "We don't yet know about Obama."
John Vinocur is on vacation.
source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/25/europe/letter.php?page=1