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To Michael Wendling's previous piece

Endzeitstimmung

Endzeitstimmung: "the pervasive mood in the mind of the public that a regime is coming to an end."

On the sixth day
of my visit, he pulled out a map
from the time of the Nazis.
Targets were painted in soft blue, against
areas where people had room to live.

The pages were dry and cracking.

You can see it on the faces of the old people,
guilt etched into the lines around their eyes.
They're still proud, and they never forget the
tiny squabbles.

They are starting to die.

The teenagers smoking in the village square don't listen
to them, the old war spots have become
20-mark tourist sites.
The government was going to wait to move back,
but got sick of their
boring provincial exile, packed up paperwork
and monuments, and went home.

Maybe the regime is over.

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