Glimpses of Western Germany

In the final Traveltalks, James Fitzpatrick turns his Technicolor gaze and flat voice on West Germany.... an interesting choice of adjectives, since Eastern Germany was established as a separate country, not to be reunited for more than a third of a century. We see pictures of Hamburg, with a lot of time spent at the zoo; Bremen, with time at the docks; Munich; then over the autobahn to Heidelberg

At a time when London still held buildings scarred by the Blitz -- indeed, as I write this, land mines from the First World War are still being pulled out of the battle fields of France -- everything in Germany seems to be in fine shape, from Heidelberg Castle to apartment buildings. It should always be remembered, when looking at the Traveltalk travelogues, that Fitzpatrick's other job was running a travel agency. Tourists prefer looking at working clock towers where mechanical knights fight medieval buildings than laborers removing the remnants of a once-handsome building.