ATLAS 03 English

ATLAS

The worLd in moTion: The gebrüder weiSS mAgAzine

Passion rAiner grooThuiS

Cheese for Berlin AndreAS ALTmAnn

‘Never let reality pass you by.’ woLfgAng nieSSner

‘You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.’ hArALd mArTenSTein

Getting cold feet over hot feet Plus: Rock stars, Cycling, A path of gold, and Love of detail

iSSue 03

‘It’s just that I am more alive than most people.

I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.’

Edith Sitwell

Five foot ten, rail-thin, draped in rustling velvet or brocade gowns that seem out of place in the fash­ ions of the time, crowned by an extravagant head­ dress of feathers, with countless oversized rings, bracelets and bangles adorning her hands and arms.

Given her appearance and passionate support for modern art and literature, Dame Edith Sitwell, the British aristocrat, essayist and poet (1887–1964), made both friends and enemies during her lifetime.

Why try to look like a Pekinese when you’re a greyhound?, she asked – vowing to pursue the ultimate stylization of her own persona.

‘It’s not too interesting to do what others can.

To create something out of nothing in a completely new way is far more inspiring.’

Sergej Bobkov

Sergei Bobkov’s passion demands one thing above all: a rock-steady hand. This enables him to conjure up meticulously intricate, life-sized animal sculp­ tures from a simple raw material – wood chips. ­Bobkov spends up to a dozen hours a day on his art, immersing the wood chips in water and then shaping them to fit the work of art currently in progress.

And despite receiving lucrative offers for his breath­ takingly detailed figures, Bobkov refuses to sell them. What Sergei Bobkov creates, he creates for himself alone.

‘In my private life, I’d like a husband, children and a house to call my own – nothing special, but exactly what people find really fulfilling in life.’

Lexy Hell

It was the full-body tattoos of the Japanese Yakuza mafia that inspired Sandra Müller’s passion for body art. At the tender age of 16, she secretly got her first tattoo. Countless others were to follow. To kick-start her career as a tattoo model, she moved from Austria to Berlin. Here the girl from the province of Styria metamorphosed into the self-confident Lexy Hell who works as a barmaid in a swinger club and has catapulted to fame as a model. She has even graced the catwalk for fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier.

But her dreams have remained rooted in reality.

Richard Stadelmann has been working at the GW Lauterach warehouse for 17 years. The fact that he took up his post on November 11 – the traditional start of the Mardi Gras season – seems more than appropriate. This is a man who never loses his cool or takes life more seriously than is ­absolutely necessary.

P

assion has countless faces and people with a passion can be found almost everywhere.

Even on our very doorstep in the Vorarlberg region of Austria. Here we met up with Gerhard Beer

who finds truly special products from the Forest of ­Bregenz and brings them to Berlin.

By contrast, the professional cyclist Andreas Müller has left Berlin to join the Gebrüder Weiss-Oberndorfer team. Actress Angelika Niedetzky is devoted to movement too – it’s a regular highlight of her day. And one of the world’s top travel writers, ­A ndreas Altmann, tells us why being on the move means ­being happy.

You will find these stories and much more in the third issue of our magazine ATLAS. So here’s ­w ishing you all happy reading!

Best wishes Gebrüder Weiss P.S. We will also be reporting – with no small degree of pride – about an industry Oscar that ATLAS has claimed.

From more than 700 submissions, it received gold in the category ‘B2B – Trade / Transport / Logistics’ at the Best of Corporate Publishing Awards 2014. We couldn’t be happier – not least because that’s exactly what makes passion so wonderful: at the end of the day, it pays off.

SHIPPED

CLEANED

GROWN

16,516 vessels passed through the Suez Canal in 2013; the container ships among them numbered:

Annual cost of removing graffiti by DB, Germany’s rail services provider, in ­millions of euros:

Global trade was up by 2.1 % in 2013. The forecast for 2014 is:

6,014

50

4.7 %

Source: World Trade Organization

INFRASTRUCTURE

Existing transport routes on highways and inland waterways: RUSSIA

30,000 km

HUNGARY

RUMANIA

17,075,400 km2

93,030 km2

238,391 km2

1,270 km

101,000 km

1,590 km

280 km

1,780 km

RECORDS I

PAID

INCREASED I

The largest objects ever transported by air are the 37.23 metre-long NASA space shuttles. Weighing 100 tonnes, the shuttles are returned from their landing strips to Cape Canaveral – piggybacked on customised Boeing 747 aircraft.

Annual costs per inhabitant for national rail networks in 2013 in Austria, Germany and Switzerland:

The Air & Sea division at GW transported 30 % more cargo in 2013 than in the previous year. Containers ­handled (TEU s):

54 €

: 100 t

L: 37.23 m Source: Guinness World of Records

HANDLED

The EU ’s three busiest ports during 2013 in TEU s:

1. Rotterdam: 11.62

3.

1.

2.

2. Hamburg: 9.26 3. Antwerp: 8.58

199 €

125,000 INCREASED II

366 €

Air freight and airmail grew significantly at Vienna Airport during the first half of 2014.

The increase compared to the first six months of 2013 was 6.4 %.

The total volume of goods was:

130,795 tonnes

RECORDS II

David Morgan from the UK has the largest collection of traffic cones, including examples of two-thirds of all models produced, all in all:

137 different traffic cones

Source: www.statista.com Source: Guinness World of Records

COVERED

Rail freight in billions of net tonne-kilometres (tkm) in 2012: Germany

112

Poland

53

France

33

Austria

22

Source: VerkehrsRundschau, rail market report 2012

DELIVERED

GW Rumania transported a steam boiler over 1,400 kilometres through Ukraine to Poland:

L : 20 metres : 103 tonnes

The world in motion:

Rainer Groothuis

10

et cetera

Cheese for Berlin

Labours of love – and a love of detail

50

Andreas müller

52

27 Update

58

angelik a niedetzky

24

28

‘When do I get another ­banana?’

Orange network

‘The world doesn’t stop turning.’

‘This makes my heart beat faster …’

62

‘High

on life, riding a ­magic carpet from b ­ azaar to bazaar.’

andreas altmann

‘Never let reality pass you by.’

32

Special goods need special solutions

67

WOLFGANG NIESSNER

‘You

better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.’

36

the family competition

A medal for you

44

In good company

68

Harald martenstein 70

Getting cold feet over hot feet

timo ibsen

A path of gold from sea to sea

46

72 Imprint

C   heese for Berlin Of milk & manure, cheese & cows, small states & small worlds

12 cheese For BERLIN

reportage: Rainer Groothuis

‘The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.’ Mark Twain Or: How a night in Hittisau can change everything

T

he smallest federal state in the small country of Austria is proudly called Ländle [literally: little land] by its inhabitants: Voralberg is known for its architecture, traditional crafts, the Bregenz Festival and Alemannic dialects the rest of the world cannot understand – spoken by people who stubbornly and persistently follow their hearts and minds.

Truly the ‘busy folk’* of their state anthem, always on the go.

Gerhard Beer is one of those people who is on the go – but keeps coming back. He left school at 15, criss-crossed Europe driving a truck at 18, then did the inevitable traineeship in business, becoming the youngest administrative director in beautiful Hittisau in the Bregenz Forest at 26; he then quit that and married his childhood sweetheart Daniela at 27; now they have two children and the successful Bals guesthouse with an unusually high quota of regulars, namely 85 %.

Today Beer is 46 and could say, ‘Been there, done that’ about scores of different things. But to compartmentalize him you would need a very large compartment. His heart is in the right place and the whole world is in his suitcase. He can be both passionate and dispassionate; he is goal-oriented and logical. He pursues his passions with both verve and common sense. Hey, anyone who puts his ‘Big Five for Life’ on paper at an early age and actually ticks them off is anything but a ‘blinkered activist’.

The Bals guesthouse is much more than just a livelihood – this place is driven from the heart. Here the customer is not the boss, but rather a friend, and the proof is in the people.

Every single member of the current French group – come to go hiking and attend the Bregenz Festival – is addressed by their first name. The responses rain, ‘Sherrarr, ami …’

*

O little land, my dearest home, I sing your praises high and low.

I greet your Alps, so steep and pure, your edelweiss as white as snow, your mountains in the sun aglow, the pungent scent of the fine fir tree. |: O Vorarlberg, I’ll be true to thee until the Lord doth call for me.

O little land, my dearest home, where a busy folk doth long reside, where Father Rhine, still young and brash, doth rush through verdant valleys wide.

This is the place where we belong, where red and white still flutter free. |: O Vorarlberg, I’ll be true to thee until the Lord doth call for me.

O little land, my dearest home, how could I miss, so close and rare, those tender years, that loving care – my mother good, who did me bear.

And so I return, here I must be – would bridge any gulf, thou to see. |: O Vorarlberg, I’ll be true to thee until the Lord doth call for me.

Vorarlberg’s official state anthem since 1949, written and set to music by Anton Schmutzer, translated by Mary Fran Gilbert.

cheese For BERLIN 13

Her enthusiasm for cooking began as a child, when she started preparing desserts: Enter Daniela Beer, Gerhard’s feminine counterpart. She runs the guesthouse kitchen, does all the shopping, always buys local, and is proud of their guests’ friendship and their own accomplishments. Born and raised here, this is her place, her home. She wants to hold fast to what has grown and evolved.

When asked about the future, both Beers answer: ‘There are always lots of ideas flying about.’

One of these, the ‘Berlin idea’, was conceived during a long night of carousing at the guesthouse bar.

The German capital’s local government had launched a competition entitled Project Hall Nine calling for new utilization ideas for one of the last market halls in Berlin that had survived WWII . Built in 1891, since 1977 it had housed chain retailers – Aldi, KiK and other discount shops – that had nothing whatsoever in common with the traditional purpose of such a hall: as the stage for the manifold and multicoloured offerings of a multicultural district such as BerlinKreuzberg.

The competition was won by a project group, the hall renovated and from then on operated in line with the idea behind the new concept. ‘Market Hall Nine demonstrates how “alternative dining” and “alternative shopping” are true options in the city: regionally and seasonally oriented, networked into local value-generation and short supply chains, responsible, fair, ecologically sound and in direct contact with producers.

The fact that the traditional grocery trade and art gradually recaptured a territory previously dominated by retail discounters also meant reclaiming the hall as a living part of the community.’ It was almost inevitable that this concept would take off in hip Berlin: ‘Now the weekly market and the theme events are well frequented, and they contribute to the economic stability of the regional producers and dealers. The re-establishment of small independent food retailers has spawned new livelihoods and jobs.’

Above: Daniela and Gerhard Beer at their Bals guesthouse; left: Free-range dairy cows produce good, healthy milk.

14 ATLAS

The fog sometimes shrouds the Forest of Bregenz, where hay-fed cows graze on lush pastures hosting a rich array of plant species.

ATLAS 15

Left: The Bechter family’s Alpine home; below: Laurin, the Beers’ 14-year-old son, spends his summer holidays at the Alpe – the day begins early and ends long after the final cow is milked of an ­eve­ning; right: Toni and Rosi Bechter.

Gerhard Beer is doing his part. He works with farmers, dairy people and butchers in the Forest of Bregenz from whom he sources the high-quality dairy and meat products he offers to the Berliners. He knows a lot about the people and everything about their goods. Twice a month since 2012, he personally plays the logistical middleman between producer and consumer, driving through the Alps and loading up his truck with wonderful wares. Then he red-eyes the 750 kilometres overland to Berlin to deliver merchandise to regular customers such as Mutter Fourage by the Wannsee lake and his own stand in Hall Nine called Menze Specialties. His father Hans plays passenger; the 77-year-old’s soliloquy keeps him awake.

German dictionaries will tell you that an ‘Alpe’ is an ‘Alm’

‘I am who I am. Some kiss my cheek. Others can kiss my you-know-what.’ Konrad Adenauer Or: Contentment. Gratitude. Humility. (an Alpine pasture, called ‘Alp’ in Alemannic) and actually refers to an entire infrastructure consisting of pastureland, farms, outbuildings and surrounding areas, referred to as the ‘summer place’. In other words, an Alpe is a semi-built-up plot of land in the southern Alps, one which farmers frequent in the summertime with their families in tow (as long as the children are young; later only the wife is in tow). Even today, there is often no electricity, no hot water and no telephone, let alone cellphone connectivity, up in the mountains.

We are walking from Hittisau – along with Lecknertal one of the richest communities in Austria (rich in mountains, that is) – at 1,200 metres above sea level. We are walking to Alpe Lache, where we have arranged to meet Anton (Toni) and Rosi Bechter. The 150-year-old house has grown crooked over time, the winds whistle through its walls. The cooker is fired with wood.

Toni, a farmer and dairyman, is 61 years old; steel blue eyes sparkle in a windbeaten and weathered face whose deep wrinkles have been carved by humour, happiness and reflection.

Rosi already has the house specialties laid out – a selection of

breads, house cheeses and fruit juices, naturally all homemade – to still the hunger and thirst of the current hiking group. Toni invites us over to the tile-clad stove in the parlour to talk.

He first came to this Alpe when he was four years old, often accompanying his grandfather, a man who taught him that learning is nothing to be ashamed of and that every question is a good question; that there was no such thing as kaputt and always a solution, that basically you can repair anything yourself. And the granddad showed the boy how wonderful it is to work hand-in-hand with Nature, in Nature, with the animals up here in the beautiful countryside of Vorarlberg.

‘Nature is creation’, Anton Bechter says – isn’t it a miracle that the grass sprouts again after every winter? He works – ­using his own milk to make his hand-moulded cheese – not to multi­ ply his assets; he lives to preserve a part of Mother Nature’s world, taking what She gives him to create the best things he can.

He is thankful for his ‘dear good wife’ with whom he so happily shares the life and loneliness of the Alpe. ‘Those people are to be pitied’, he says in his near-unintelligible dialect, referring to all who have lost touch with these feelings: contentment, gratitude, humility. He hopes that, in the future, he will be able to keep labouring away, that his children will carry on his work and that peace will dwell in this house and upon this land.

He does, however, take strong exception to the huntsmen – the owners and tenants of the hunting grounds who kill animals to capture trophies. And of course to the EU , that keeps pestering him for ‘data! And more data!’

Traditional cheese-making

Many different cheeses can be made from the milk produced by cows that feed exclusively on the grass and hay of Alpine meadows - fresh in the summer, sun-dried in the winter. Vorarlberger Bergkäse (mountain cheese) must, however, be made from this milk. And this milk only. As prescribed ­by the Codex Alimentarius Austriacus.

In traditional cheese production, bacterial cultures are added to the unpasteurized, i. e. raw milk, along with natural ­rennin to trigger lactic fermentation.

A so-called ‘guitar’ or tranche-caillé is used to cut the curds into grains, which are a key factor in the quality of the final product. The resulting mixture is pressed into round vessels to extract the whey. The loaves – or wheels – are then dipped into a brine wash to improve keeping properties and promote rind development. Then the maturation process begins, lasting from a minimum of three months to two years.

During this time, the wheels of cheese are rotated once or twice a week and brushed with brine; at a weight of up to 50 kilos each, this is no job for weaklings!

The Forest of Bregenz: Past and present in perfect harmony Gebrüder Weiss identifies strongly with its Vorarlberg home, CEO Wolfgang Niessner told ATLAS in an interview (see page 36). The company ­history dates back more than half a millennium to the original Milan Courier, a service linking Lake Constance with Italy. And its head office is still located at its place of birth – in Lauterach.

The Forest of Bregenz, the home of Mr Beer and the cheese, is ­ situ­ated in the northeastern corner of Vorarlberg.

‘Eat cheese, not just that expensive bread’ is a local saying (usually said with an unintelligible accent). And it says a lot about the ‘forestdwellers’ from this neck of the woods. For centuries cheese was the main staple in the Bregenz region – and is nowadays its key export.

The inhabitants are reputed to be somewhat stubborn, but also ­extremely hospitable. Thousands of guests annually are drawn by the region’s carefully cultivated Alpine pastures, imposing mountain peaks, excellent hotels and centuries-old traditions preserved to this day. The

forest dwellers have long chosen the ambitious path of combining past and present in their crafts and trades. Many farms have been completely rebuilt or painstakingly restored in recent years. Wood is an important element.

The New Vorarlberg School of Architecture combines traditional design with sustainable construction and is regarded as a pioneer of modern Alpine architecture. Despite its rural character, the Forest of Bregenz boasts a highly diversified range of cultural offerings, foremost the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, the world’s largest Schubert festival.

For more information on people, places, projects and events: Arts and crafts in the Forest of Bregenz: www.werkraum.at The cheese road in the Forest of Bregenz: www.kaesestrasse.at Schubertiade: www.schubertiade.at Tourism in the Forest of Bregenz: www.bregenzerwald.at

cheese For BERLIN 21

Left: Wood-splitting at the Weissenbach Alpe – the daughter-in-law and grandson lend a hand; below: Ignaz Bär loading cheese for his customers in Berlin; every day the tools are carefully cleaned and laid out to dry in the clean country air; moulds awaiting the next batch of cheese; right below: Ignaz Bär and his wife Hildegard.

‘Take rest; a field that has rested gives a ­bountiful crop.’ Ovid Or: The cow, the soil and the dung Change of scene.

After crawling for 20 minutes up the narrow gravel path of a steeply sloped serpentine and bridging one last brook, we arrive at our destination: Alpe Weissenbach with its 240 hectares of solitude and splendour.

Like in a coffee-table book of urban clichés, the brook meanders through the high valley that stretches out towards Diedamskopf. This is the summer place; this year it is home to 44 cows, six pigs, one horse, an agricultural trainee from the Ukraine – and the Bär family, which has been here for generations, living one life in two homes: their cosy house in the lower valley and their Alpine paradise above.

Ignaz Bär is true to his Christian name: Ignaz, short for the Latin Ignatius, believed to mean ‘fiery one’ from the Latin ignis = fire. This ‘bear’ (which is what ‘Bär’ means in German) lights up when he talks about his Alpe, about the importance of the Alpine valleys as such. Who wants to live ‘down below’ if everything ‘up above’ is kaput? If the valleys are over-cultivated, animals and Nature exploited? How could life in the Forest of Bregenz even exist without the culture of the rural country with its farmers who see themselves as guardians of Nature and Creation? The Alpe is owned by 13 partners, only two of which are farmers. So it is not always easy to convince others of his approaches to cattle-breeding and a dairy business based on hay feeding. That’s the way things are sometimes: His free-range cows produce 30 % less milk than the ‘high-performance quadrupeds’. Even if the veterinary surgeon is never called in and they are spared the cost of feed additives, not all of the partners agree with the virtues, views and revenues of Ignaz Bär, who has been the Alpmaster of Weissenbach for the past 28 years.

Apropos cows: The cow is an important animal – not only in terms of our own diets, but also for the soil. A healthy cow grazes on an Alpine pasture with up to 60 (!) different species of herbs and grasses per square metre (given intensive farming, the count is six to eight). After peacefully munching the plants, chewing its cud and digesting the lot, this healthy cow will produce healthy dung. And this dung is the best fertilizer that soil can get. Ignaz Bär detests artificial fertilizers that

deposit substances in the Alps that don’t belong there. Healthy cow g healthy dung g healthy soil g healthy plants g healthy cow g exceptional milk – an elementary, natural cycle.

For Ignaz Bär, the uniqueness of a cheese lies in the pasture and not in the dairyman’s vat or special skills. Milk that has originated under the influence of 60 different plants will simply taste different, better, more full-bodied than that from ‘green hell’ – those fields where very few species of plants have survived. ‘A good cheese is 100 % Nature’, made of milk from happy, hay-fed cows and left to ripen in peace for up to 12 months. Some 200 tonnes of Alpine cheese are produced in the Forest of Bregenz each year – all hand-made like that of Ignaz Bär and Toni Bechter.

‘Peace’ is an important word for Bär. Only when the animals, the meadows and Nature are at peace will they remain healthy – along with his business. Hay feeding is the path to this peace: From May to September the cows are put out to pasture; in the winter they eat only the air-dried hay and grass from the valleys. This type of milk production is the oldest of all. Yet only 3 % of the milk sold in Europe is made this way.

Gerhard Beer and Ignaz B채r enjoying the view as they sit and chat by the cross.

cheese For BERLIN 23

Ignaz’s twin brother became a musician. This man, whose scarred hands passionately speak a second language, does not regard his job as work. He lives to do deeds that are his fulfillment. This man, who wears a gold cross around his neck, also does God’s handiwork for Mother Nature. And She makes believing in God a sine qua non.

‘He who says A doesn’t have to say B. He can also recognize that A was false.’ Bertolt Brecht Or: The past as a blueprint for the possible Another person driven by passion: Chef Dietmar NussbaumerNatter is at your service in Hittisau’s welcoming Hotel Krone.

He’s always naturally ready to prepare a sumptuous cheese platter as a nightcap – and always asks: Would there be anything more?

The Beers’ passion is the ‘contentment on the faces of the guests’. Men like Toni Bechter and Ignaz Bär care about ­Nature. These people of Vorarlberg are models for all other passionate individuals who are imbued by conviction and dignity. Who live by their creed.

There is nothing of Rip van Winkle about Bechter and Bär, no old-time romanticism à la Heidi and Alphi. These men are impassioned preachers of a new yet old message: What was only natural before agriculture and food production became hyper-industrialized now beckons from the distant past like a utopian vision. What was small became large, then larger, ultimately generating an omnipotent and absurd production behemoth that we maintain with quotas, closure premiums, subsidies and mind-boggling logistics systems. Yet many yearn

for the little things in life, the regional wares, the time-honoured trades and manufacturing methods, Nature; people want what is special, unique, and healthy – and what they can make themselves. We want to know, again, where a product’s raw materials are sourced; we value traditional, environmentally friendly, sustainable types of production. So Bechter and Bär, with their deep-seated rural culture and history, with their religiously rooted views and work ethics, quickly earn our admiration: their passionate principles and principled passions make them avant-garde advocates of a return to a different way of going about business.

And life. Life in a world where people discover themselves and stay. A life that doesn’t play out in a smartphone and never experiences burnout. A life in which passion and dignity are permanent residents.

The landscape is crowded with hills and mountains and the sky is always just a cutout. Even though there may not be any ‘northern lights’ on the horizon in Vorarlberg, one could, if one would, climb a mountain more often and spend time on the Alpe. This is where life is, as it once was and could be – this is where, even for city dwellers, there should be that slice of happiness. Maybe. Sometimes.

Rainer Groothuis, born in 1959 in Emden / East Friesland, is managing partner at the communications agency ‘Groothuis’. www.groothuis.de Our sincere thanks to Daniela and Gerhard Beer, Anton and Rosi Bechter, Ignaz and Hildegard Bär and all the others who have allowed us to glimpse an exceptional world. www.bals.at, www.markthalleneun.de

Vorarlberg

Vorarlberg is nestled in the far west of Austria. In terms of both size and population, it is the country’s second smallest federal state. capital austria

germany lake constance

Bregenz Lauterach Hittisau

vorarlberg

Bregenz population

375,282 austria

density

liechtenstein

144 residents per km2

Rhine switzerland

italy

area

2,601.48 km 2

24 ET CETERA: LOVE OF DETAIL

Labours of love – and a love of detail In times of mass-produced goods that quickly become available in every corner of the globe, originality has a special significance.

If our report has whet your appetite for more, check out the ­following pages where we present three further individualists who spare absolutely no effort when creating their products.

Daniel Heer: Horsehair from Mongolia

D

aniel Heer is the youngest offshoot of a family of saddlers. In his workshop he transforms the most basic materials into high-quality items of everyday use – horsehair mattresses, leather goods and furniture. The raw materials for these products come from all over the world. He collects these in his Berlin workshop and goes to extreme lengths in the process. The soft, white horsehair he sources from Mongolia; the thicker, black variety from South America.

And if a specific type of stitching in a differ­ent color is needed, he has been known to take apart whole lengths of fabric to reclaim and then reuse it. It’s a job ­demanding patience, ­stami­na and determination. But that’s simply how it is with the good things in life: You can’t rush them.

Everything that leaves the studio has been manufactured by hand. These are classic, beautiful products spawned by a long family heritage of craftsmanship. They have all proven their usefulness over the ages: Daniel Heer is a fourth-generation saddler-cum-upholsterer. As long ago as 1907 his greatgrandfather Benedikt Heer opened an factory in Switzerland and passed on his skills to his descendants. Today Daniel still works with some of the original types of tools, but he com-

bines the time-worn techniques with fresh ideas. For exam­ple, he developed a simple construction that allows the old lea­­th­ er on furniture to be stretched to its original size again. And, alongside the standard English ticking, he also uses denim made in North Carolina to cover his mattresses. In doing so he adds a modern dimension to the everyday goods made in his factory – turning them one and all into lifelong companions that passionately exhort us to cherish values and traditions.

Because good craftsmanship doesn’t consist exclusively of mastering the correct manual techniques. It is also a matter of principle. www.danielheer.com

ET CETERA: LOVE OF DETAIL 25

‘Passion allows people to live, reason merely to exist.’

Nicolas Chamfort

Lena Hoschek: Flounces from France

I

n line with the belief ‘Clothes make the man’, Austrian fashion designer Lena Hoschek began painting garments that looked like collection designs at the age of four. Her grandmother had a passion for knitting, embroidery and ­crochet, and passed on her skills to the young Lena. With her help, Lena sewed her very first dirndl dress at the age of 13.

Having completed a degree at the Vienna College of Fashion, she wanted to enroll for a master’s course in London.

Shortly after she arrived, however, she swapped her notebook for a sewing machine and began an internship with the design icon Vivienne Westwood. The more she learned, the more certain she became: She wanted to run her own company.

No sooner said than done: In 2005, at the relatively tender age of 24, she launched the ‘Lena Hoschek’ label. For her­ ­prêt-à-porter collections, Lena spurned mass production and popular trends, preferring instead to reinterpret classic cuts and looks. For the following spring, the designer combined print techniques from Africa with what she saw as the typi­cally ­feminine retro style of the 1940s and 1950s.

Her clothes are produced at small European factories where meticulous care is as important as a love of detail –

and as much as possible is made by hand. On occasion Lena has personally hand-made exclusive models in her Vienna atelier.

When sourcing her materials, no distance is too far for this hometown girl from Graz – who has the Styrian panther ­emblem tattooed on her forearm. Her fabrics tell stories and show off opulent and unique patterns. She thinks of herself as something of a ‘truffle pig’, continually scouring the earth for just the right material. For a dirndl from her ‘Lena Hoschek Tradition’ label, she uses silk jacquards and cotton prints from Austria, premium walked wool from south Tirol, and handmade lace flouncing from France. And if she can’t find anything that fits the bill, she simply designs the material herself and has it custom-made.

In addition to her shop in Graz, she now operates an atelier and shops in Vienna and Berlin – with further expansion in the stars. Ultimately, though, she owes her global fame to the local patrons in Graz. They have been loyal since day one. www.lenahoschek.com

26 ET CETERA: LOVE OF DETAIL

Christoph Keller: Apricots from Krems

C

hristoph Keller discovered his passion by accident.

When, in 2004, he and his wife Christiane Schoeller took over a property in Stählemühle near Constance, one of the outbuildings housed a traditional distillery. And it came with a licence to make schnapps. Back then, Keller cared more about the written word: he and his wife ran a publishing company for art books. Yet to ensure that the licence did not lapse, the couple began to learn more about the art of the ­distiller in their spare time. What began as a hobby soon blossomed into a passion, and the passion turned into a full-blown obsession. Although actually offered in university degree courses, distillation is anything but an exact science. In fact, it is highly subjective – and the secret lies in trial and error. At the end of countless experiments, Christopher Keller is now basically second to none when it comes to capturing the essence of fruit – in a bottle. The schnapps produced in the little still in Stählemühle count among the world’s finest.

Dessert bananas from Honduras, carob pods from Spain, citrus fruit, herbs and even mushrooms are among the ingre­ dients used, naturally in addition to the local fruit which Keller processes painstakingly by hand. He harvests wild raspberries from the hills of Hegau and blueberries from the Rheintal valley on the Swiss-Austrian border. Always on the lookout for

wild fruit in the vicinity, he waits and watches it grow – and then picks it when perfectly ripe. He plucks chokecherries and rowan berries from parks and greenways, and stone fruit from his own orchards. Invariably he gathers his treasures where they are at their best, collecting the famed Wachau apricots in Krems as they are about to fall from the tree.

This enormous effort pays off. The quality of the raw mater­ials makes or breaks the end product: the variety chosen, the location, and the ripeness at harvest all factor into the taste. Which means that Christoph Keller’s passion requires plenty of patience, meticulous care, a fine nose and an edu­ cated palate. But above all: a love of all things natural.

Incidentally, the bottles that Christoph Keller uses for his precious schnapps are delivered from Austria. By Gebrüder Weiss. www.staehlemuehle.de

Miriam Holzapfel, born in 1975, is a cultural s­ cientist and a journalist for ATLAS.

Update

Prizewinner ATLAS has not only won gold in the Best of Corporate Pub-

lishing Awards 2014; it was also distinguished by the Art ­Directors Club Germany in the category Corporate Publishing External Magazine/Newspaper, and won bronze in the Corporate ­Publishing category of the Best of B-2-B Awards. We’re absolutely thrilled and would like to thank everyone for the kudos! Talk about motivation! Let’s get back to work!

By rail to China A freight train has been travelling once a week from Zhengzhou to Hamburg since 2013. And now the return service back to China is being launched on the 10,200-kilometre route.

In its 41 containers, the train chiefly transports high-quality goods such as industrial robots for an international technology company. Given the varying track gauges, the containers have to be reloaded several times en route. But the delivery time of 17 days is still 20 days shorter than the cheaper transport by ship.

China Project: dam construction on the Yalong River In the last issue of ATLAS we described China’s Go West strategy which is designed to boost the country’s underdeveloped west. A further gigantic infrastructure project is currently underway in the highlands of Sichuan. Some 80,000 construction workers have poured 4.3 million cubic metres of concrete to create the world’s tallest dam in the gorge of the Yalong River. To reach the enormous site, crews have to negotiate the mountainous hinterland and then take an arrow-straight, ­18-kilometre tunnel under a 4,000-metre-high mountain range. When the building work is complete, the water engineering company Yalong Hydro is planning to output 3,600 megawatts of electricity – as much as three major nuclear power plants combined.

‘When

do I get ­another banana?’

Running and Rainforests 29

Passion also means pain Although Angelika Niedetzky made her name among TV viewers in 2005 thanks to her series ‘Echt fett’, the native of Linz has also remained true to the stage. In her solo cabaret show ‘Marathon’, Austria’s funniest woman takes a satirical look at the everyday challenges that people take upon themselves: power ­shopping, weekend work meetings, relationships in permanent and perennial crisis. In short: the hard times that affect almost everyone at some point. As a master of motivating both herself and others, she knows how to weather these storms. And how to have fun and do good at the same time.

text: Angelika Niedetzky

I

’m fortunate to be able to say that I earn my money doing what I enjoy most. I can entertain people as an actress and cabaret performer. The thing I like best is when people in the audience laugh until they cry. Then I know that they’ve left their everyday troubles behind and are living for the moment.

And that’s so important! The next day they’ll be sitting at their desks again from 9 to 5 – when I’m off, by the way; I usually work evenings.

For anyone who would like to know what an artist does all day long, I’ll give you an insight into my ‘free daytime’. I grew up with a dog or, more precisely, a Greek street mongrel and, whatever else happens, I will always have a dog. Hopefully the mixed-bag type like my current mutt ‘Rosa’, who comes from Lisbon. She’s part greyhound so she needs a lot of exercise.

And that’s what made me start running myself one day. Before that, wild horses couldn’t have dragged me into jogging pants and running shoes. But Rosa succeeded, and I’m very grateful to her for that.

Last November I finished my third marathon, even with­out my four-legged pacemaker! In April 2009, my passion for longdistance running led me to register for the Vienna City Marathon – one day before it started and without having trained at all. That was, frankly, a bloody stupid idea, but then, nearly 4-½ hours after the starting signal, there I was crossing the

30 ATLAS

n guta s, Oran ngutan o e a n r r o o t B c he rote on t to p ation efforts m r o on’s e inf mor oundati an.or.id t For F l iva angu ­Surv www.or o go t

­ nishing line. On all fours. Just like my Rosa. And notwithfi standing that the last two hours were hell and I was close to belly-flopping from exhaustion, I have to say that, during a marathon, I experienced moments similar to those of my ­audiences. I could simply shut out everyday life. My thinking was reduced to bare essentials: When do I get another bana­ na?! Physically knackered to the core, I dragged myself to the Plutzerbräu pub and downed a litre of beer in record time. My body had been begging for it.

And just a few days later, still stiff and limping, a desire took hold of me: to once again exhilarate in that physical and spiritual high. Not the one from the Plutzerbräu! The one I got

‘During

a marathon, I experienced moments similar to those of my ­audiences.’ running the marathon! Then came New York in 2011 and 2013.

Which I can highly recommend to anyone who shares my passion. The enthusiasm of the onlookers there leaves nothing to be desired. If you attach a piece of insulation tape to your shirt with your name emblazoned on it, people personally cheer you on. That’s an incredible boost! Hearing ‘Angiiiiie, looking good!!!’ after three hours of running really spurs you on to virtually fly those last 400 metres.

I wouldn’t mind flying more than 400 metres again to a completely different destination: Borneo, the third-largest

The New York City Marathon is held annually on the first ­Sunday in November. Alongside the Boston and Chicago Marathons, it is one of the top running events in the US. In 2013 it set a new record for competitors with 50,740 starters. The challenging course starts on Staten Island and leads through Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx to the finishing line in Manhattan. In addition to Angelika Niedetzky, 50,265 entrants completed the race last year.

Running and Rainforests 31

island on our planet. And home to the animal that has fascinated me for several years – and one I’d like to save from extinction. I’m taking about those forest-dwellers who are basically our genetic twins, the orangutans. It’s a race against time.

Humankind is doing its best to destroy what nature took millions of years to create. More than 80 % of the rainforest, i. e. the natural habitat of these intelligent, acrobatic climbers, has already been razed. Bear in mind that Borneo is the size of France. Coming in to land at the port city of Balikpapan, I was overcome by an unspeakable sadness. Here, in the southeast corner of the island, only a few stands of forest were visible, tiny islets in an endless sea of palm trees: the all-encroaching grid of palmoil monoculture. Every tenth product we buy in the supermarket contains palm oil, usually subsumed under the innocuous term ‘vegetable oil’. But it’s not only a common ingredient in foods and cosmetics. It’s also used to produce biodiesel. So someone please tell me: What is wrong with this picture? Meanwhile, at the orangutan orphanage where I spent three weeks, the babies are nurtured using milk powder made with palm oil. Because nothing else is available. Again: What is wrong with this picture?

Some 250 orphans live at the animal home. Mothers with piggybacked babies are shot out of 25-metre-high treetops. If the young survive the fall, they end up on the black market and fetch enormous sums. If a baby ape is lucky, it won’t have to spend its days as the pet of a wealthy Asian family, fattened up on sweets and cola, being forced to smoke cigarettes and taken to raucous parties as a prime primate attraction. If it survives and is rescued by animal rights activists, it will be relocated to a kind of transit camp where it goes to a forest-school for several years before being released in a protected area. I was fortunate enough to experience a three-year-old up close. He was so human! He came up to me and inspected me inquiringly from head to toe. He toyed with me. He nipped at me. He bit me, but he was always gentle. An adult orangutan is eight times stronger than a human. Even at the tender age of three, he was capable of breaking my arm, had he wanted to. But he didn’t. Quite the opposite. I tickled him and he laughed like crazy. An unforgettable experience! My passion for these crea-

‘My

passion for these creatures is accom- panied by pain in equal ­measure, but I have never regretted having those incredible experiences.’ tures is accompanied by pain in equal measure, but I have never regretted having those incredible experiences. Someday I will go back. And stay for a few months if I can. I’ll need to discuss that with Rosa.

Angelika Niedetzky, born in 1979, has appeared in numerous Austrian film and TV ­productions since 2004, most recently in the successful ­series ­Schlawiner, broadcast by ORF and BR. She is ­currently touring the country with her ­second solo ­program ­Niedetzky-Marsch. www.angelikaniedetzky.com

Street scene in Jaipur, India.

The wonders of wanderlust 33

‘Never let reality pass you by.’ andreas Altmann on curiosity, dried meat abandoned on deck chairs –

and a yearning for the unknown

A

few weeks ago I was standing in front of my Cambodian shoemaker. In Cambodia. With boots in hand that needed new soles. We had not seen each another for a year. Our mutual regard had been instant and had withstood the test of time. Perched on the customer stool, I asked him where he had spent the past 12 months. And with his ­wonderfully laconic air, Song answered, ‘Here.’ The nights at home with his wife and four children. And the days here on a pavement in Phnom Penh. Had I been thinking, I could have spared myself the question. Where else would this poor devil be spending his days? If not on his roofless two square metres in the middle of the exhausting and exhaust-filled Cambodian capital?

Heavens, how fortunate I am! And it’s good fortune I certainly haven’t earned and am not ashamed of for a second.

And not for an instant do I feel sorry for Song. As always, he exudes serenity, a buoyant sense of contentment. So I do what I always do: I am friendly and pay a fair price.

I am always more relaxed after such encounters. I don’t want to complain about my last 365 days. I’ve been wandering around four continents: Africa, America, Europe and Asia.

And I’ve spent my nights in over 90 different beds; some alone on terribly short and narrow ones, some in king-size editions and close to a warm body that had only good things in mind for me.

And every day I went human hunting, always hungry for men and women I suspected knew things that had evaded me until now. And then I seduced them … into telling me their

stories. And one of the most moving things that can happen between strangers happened: someone opens up their heart, and someone listens.

That is often strenuous, often grueling, sometimes dangerous – but it is still the epitome of happiness. Because no office cage is starving me. Because the world is my workplace. Because my weary heart has to follow me along the path of a weary life. Because so many people excite me when I sit opposite them and listen. Or they inspire me to dance a jig for joy.

Or – not rarely – afford me a close-up view of a hellish life.

And still, I’m flooded with gratitude even then. The thing is, through them I experience something of the world, of the world’s inhabitants, and yes, quite by accident, I experience the fact that I exist. They tell me about themselves, and I recognize MY self. Everyone is on my wavelength.

And the good fortune doesn’t stop there. In the evenings (or whenever) I return to the scene of the action: in my head, because I after all I am a reporter who takes note of what has happened to him during the day. Now I am withdrawn and unavailable, now I am hesitantly pecking at the keys of my Mac. ‘Writing’, I once read on the façade of a French school, ‘means seeking happiness.’ I disagree. It means finding it.

Have I already mentioned that I’m a man of the world?

I can humbly justify the use of that pompous phrase: That’s what I am because I’m in love with the world; I’m her man, so to speak. And any man or woman of the world who has undertaken a treaty of friendship can claim this title when they ­embark on their journeys. Befriending the Earth: The phrase

Globetrotting: When wanderlust strikes, it’s best to follow the call of the wild and get trekking. The Brit Robert Garside, self-styled ‘the runningman’, traversed five continents in 30 countries in five years and eight months, covering a total of 48,000 kilometres. By comparison, the hero in Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days

34 The wonders of wanderlust

sounds like a fairy tale, because our one and only planet, a place that means the world to us, has so many enemies who decided eons ago that too much can never be enough. Those who tie their knapsacks also have to come to grips with the gaping wounds, the barren landscapes, the cement jungles, the dying forests, the oceans heaving and groaning under a nameless greed. Our own.

I don’t want to be like Robinson Crusoe, who did everything in his power to colonize his island. I would rather emulate Marco Polo, a temporary guest and never a plunderer, never an aggressor, never someone who needed to conquer what he’d seen. He simply wanted to take a look, hold his breath – and at some point close his eyes to enjoy the tremor of emotion that the sight of beauty can spark. Signor Polo was a man mesmerised by what he saw, his senses sent into a spin and hurtling in every direction under the sun. C’est la vie: Some stare at a pile of money and kneel in wonder. Others stare in wonder at the world and grow richer with every glance.

Sorry, I just can’t suppress my pedagogical Eros. I want to convert all those who are reading along – convert them to love the world and love travel, to embrace the wonders of wanderlust. So please allow me to pen three hard-core rules. Three mantras for blazing your own trail and not drifting into the rut of those who seek only comfort and convenience.

Number one: An irreversible vow never to loll about on the Costa Brava beach with a ­lobster-red beer gut. To roast until your belly button hisses like a geyser and your brain is left behind on the deck chair like a hunk of dried meat. In other words, never to see a country as a solarium, but always as a treasure chest.

Holding riches you must not steal. You may admire them, smell them, breathe in their scent and, if you have skilled hands, touch them.

Number two: Never mutate into a do-gooder who refuses to call a spade a spade and an idi­ot an idiot. Never pass reality by like a sheep. Always be prepared to endure it – in all its splendour, in all its brutality.

(1873) – recommended reading for every globetrotter – was appreciably faster. Perhaps complete circumnavigation is not, however, a must. Accordingly, the ­now-defunct American airline Pan Am introduced its ‘Round the World’ tickets as early as 1947. In those days passengers boarded in San Francisco or New York to embark on their adventures in the big wide world; today the routes are basically up to the traveller. New York is still a popular destination, however; some

The wonders of wanderlust 35

And number three, the most essential of all: curiosity. It should be the basic foodstuff of any traveler, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with collecting curios.

Allow me a P. S. We all occasionally read articles with which we agree. We secretly acknowledge that the author is doing the right thing in exposing the murky corners of our lives – ­despondency, lethargy, fear. Even without knowing us, he articulates things that affect us. More bluntly than we would like. But then we drown out his declarations, our excuses regain their usual volume and we are caught up again in the vicious circle of routine. Trapped in its iron grip. Its long, iron grip. Until we lie on our deathbeds and break out in tears over the yearnings we buried, silently. Long ago.

And so I will tell all those vacillating souls the story of Mariella G. This short narrative might well qualify as an aphro­ disiac that rekindles the fires of courage. Almost exactly four years ago I received a mail from Mariella, and its first sentence read: ‘You have infected me, Mr Altmann.’ That is not exactly a positive opener, but then I took it calmly, because she meant it in a wholly figurative sense. She had read one of my books, she went on, and this book – about a trip through India – had

‘been her downfall’. It had been the match that ‘kindled the embers’. And that had detonated a keg inside her that was filled with rage and depression and shattered dreams. Some paragraphs had struck her like ‘the lash of a whip’. (Okay, so this author ‘infects’ and ‘whips’ his readers!) In any case, three days later she began to dismantle her old life, taking steps to escape all that unhappiness: the dull city, the dull marriage, the dull job. And a few months later she had disposed of it all, including her house, also dull. And had up and left. A photo was attached to her mail: Mariella in the hut of a former cannibal. On Borneo. She wore a triumphant smile. Like everyone does who has embraced the wonders of wanderlust. On the border of the picture Mariella had scribbled a quote from Kurt Tucholsky, cited from my book on India. ‘And at night I hear the locomotives whistling, distant lands cry out in yearning, and I turn over in bed and think: “Travel …”.’

Andreas Altmann travelled extensively in Asia, Africa and South America; he then lived in Paris and studied in New York. Back in Germany, he published his first reports in magazines and newspapers; since 1966 he has written 17 books.

His current volume Verdammtes Land. Eine Reise durch Palästina [Country of the Damned: A trip through Palestine] has attracted considerable ­at­­­tention. His childhood memoirs were on the best-seller lists for months. Today Andreas Altmann once again ­resides in Paris.

26 million visitors make Times Square the most highly frequented sight and site worldwide. And on the way home, it’s wiser to store the memories in one’s mind than in one’s suitcase: ­25 million pieces of luggage go missing at airports every year. But don’t let that stop you. In other words, happy travels!

36 Vom Glück zu Reisen

‘You better start swimming Wolfgang Niessner is Viennese by birth, Austrian by conviction, and European by mindset. Last but not least, he has a passion for management. In 1999 he was ­appointed to the Gebrüder Weiss Management Board. And since 1 January 2005 he has been guiding the company’s fortunes as its Chief Executive Officer.

We wish to congratulate him on his sixtieth birthday – with an interview on stress and idleness, Vienna and New York, Mozart and Van Morrison.

* Line from The Times They Are a-Changin by Bob Dylan

Vom Glück zu Reisen 37

* or you’ll sink like a stone.’

* Danzas war ein im frühen 19. Jahrhundert gegründeter Speditionskonzern. Das Schweizer Unternehmen mit französischen Wurzeln wurde 1999 von der Deutschen Post übernommen. Diese führte Danzas bis 2006 als Marke weiter, ehe sie komplett in der neuen DHL aufging (Quelle: Wikipedia.)

38 wolfgang niessner

interview: Frank Haas

M

* Danzas was a haulage contractor established in the early nineteenth century. In 1999, the Swiss company with French roots was acquired by Deutsche Post, which operates Germany’s postal system. The brand was maintained until 2006 before being completely absorbed into DHL. (Source: Wikipedia)

r Niessner, for the current issue of ATLAS we’ve talked to various people who pursue something with a passion. How important is passion in the business world?

From my personal perspective, it’s extremely important. It’s a crucial part of enjoying your work and, above all, of motivating others and winning them for a cause.

Stoics believe that happiness is only possible if passion is kept under ­control. Does passion need to be ­constrained in some way?

Nobody will accuse me of being stoical (laughs). But, of course, you can’t simply give free rein to your passions all the time. Reason and social intelligence set the limits.

At what point in your career did you succumb to passion and ambition?

The pivotal moment came in 1989 when I was made head of air freight at ­Gebrüder Weiss. That was the first time I was top of a pile and it gave me the

chance to gather vital management experience. At the age of 36, I was offered the position of CEO at Danzas* in Austria and, in my view, that was the moment when I sensed that there might still be room at the top for more. ­Momentum seemed to build up on its own, and I began asking myself what my next move might be. Circumstances, Lady Luck and the shareholders conspired to offer me the option of returning to Gebrüder Weiss – one of the biggest steps you can take in Austria in this ­industry.

So the prospect of success was a ­driving force behind your actions?

Can success become addictive?

Once you’ve experienced success, you always want more, that much is clear.

On the other hand, some of the most formative experiences in my life have been failures. And, with hindsight, I am very grateful for those as well.

How long does it take you to put mistakes at work behind you?

A good while. At some stage I calm down – by consoling myself with the thought that, fortunately, I’ve made more right than wrong decisions during

wolfgang niessner 39

my career. And that’s ultimately what counts: the best possible ratio of right and wrong decisions. There’s no way of avoiding errors completely. But the advances need to outweigh the setbacks.

Is an ability to tolerate error the ultimate management skill?

At the very least, it’s one of them. Anyone who admits to their own mistakes can accept that other people aren’t infallible either.

Would you like to have yourself as a colleague?

My wife probably wouldn’t answer resoundingly in the affirmative (laughs).

If you ask me, there are worse around.

And as a superior?

Yes, I would like to have myself as a su­perior. Because I believe I give employees opportunities for self-fulfilment and – where necessary – help them seize those chances. I may not be a brilliant tactician in my dealings with people.

But I can’t honestly remember any occasion when I haven’t given staff the support they deserved.

Stress is part and parcel of your work. How do you cope with it?

If someone has striven for, and been appointed to, a management position, they shouldn’t be surprised if it comes with a fair portion of stress. I have no complaints about that. I am aware of it and try to manage the challenges we face as effectively as possible. Of course there are going to be pleasant and unpleasant situa­tions, but dealing with

‘The advances need to outweigh the setbacks.’ these is quite simply part of the job description. I can’t honestly claim that I’m particularly stressed out. Sometimes I think that managers today are practically expected to look anxious and drained, but that’s not my style. I don’t see my role as conveying the impression to employees that they can’t talk to me because I’m so frazzled. On the contrary! It’s my job to lend an ear, above all when the going gets tough.

Can you enjoy simply doing nothing?

Yes, I think I can. Although my wife would probably say here: ‘Not always.’

It works best if I’m listening to some

nice music or spending a few hours in good company, simply enjoying the moment and not thinking about some problem I need to solve.

If you are being completely idle, for ­example on holiday, do you get a guilty conscience?

Yes, that feeling sounds familiar. I’m always online, even when I’m on holiday. And the first pangs of conscience get to me, at the latest, when the first critical email arrives. But I don’t let it get out of hand, or at least not to the extent that it gets me down. That would be stupid. After all, everyone is entitled to time on their own, to relax and recuperate.

Did you have to learn to forget about work?

No, I actually find that more difficult today than back then. That’s partly a result of the responsibility that comes with my position: the bigger the burden of responsibility, the guiltier you feel if you aren’t available around the clock, seven days a week.

The philosopher Peter Sloterdijk once said that ‘Holidays are only a must if there’s something wrong with life.’

40 wolfgang niessner

Wolfgang Niessner born in Vienna in 1954, has been happily married for decades. He and his wife have three grown-up ­children. He lives near the town of Baden outside Vienna.

After attending commercial academy, his career took him to the Lkw Walter Group and then on to Gebrüder Weiss and Danzas. In 1999 he returned to GW and was appointed its CEO on 1 January 2005. Wolfgang Niessner has a Master of Business Administration degree from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. He has also completed the Senior Executive Program at Columbia University in New York.

With all due respect to Mr Sloterdijk: I can’t accept that. For me ‘vacation’ or ‘holidays’ have a completely different meaning. That’s when I can find time for people who are important to me. It isn’t as though I’m escaping from some terribly arduous or strenuous life. I’m not looking for a parallel universe, but rather for the opportunity to do things I find fun. When I’m on holiday, my priorities change.

In which respects?

The person who can help me relax most is my wonderful wife. Talking to my wife, doing things together – that’s what I find relaxing. After that come exhibitions, music, a bit of sport. But my wife and family clearly lead the field in this respect, with arts and culture trailing well behind.

Is your wife a source of constructive criticism? (laughs) Yes, she discusses things with me, without any preconceptions or partiality, and occasionally brings me back down to earth – so that I don’t get carried away.

Who is still allowed to criticise you?

Anyone can criticise me, as long as their criticism isn’t unreasonable. It’s no problem for me whatsoever if somebody

disputes the decisions I’ve made. I only really object if people start making purely emotional judgements with no basis in fact. But even then I obviously need to recognise that I evidently

Do you enjoy travelling?

No. (laughs) I don’t enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did when I was a young­ster. It’s part of my job and I enjoy meeting people. But over the course

‘I’m not looking for a parallel universe, but rather for the opportunity to do things I find fun.’ haven’t done a good job of explaining my decisions and the reasoning behind them.

Are there any other places or groups of people who give you input and inspire you?

Yes, sometimes I encounter people who turn out to be truly inspiring, completely unexpectedly, after just a short time. I know others who are very good sparring partners, and I seek them out if I need to talk a matter through or bounce some­­ thing off someone. But I’m neither a socialite nor a party animal. I try to use my time to make concrete progress, so I might miss out on things now and again, but until now my approach has seemed to work fine.

of the years, travel has lost some of its appeal. That’s partly because I no longer feel so enthusiastic about flying, although I know, of course, that aircraft are statistically speaking the safest form of transport. The thing is, I can’t sleep on long-haul flights, so it’s always as­ sociated with physical effort for me.

Beyond that, jetting around the globe at a height or 10,000 or 11,000 metres also seems unnatural. So I am enjoying it less and less. And the news stories about air travel from this year alone haven’t ex­actly been reassuring either.

wolfgang niessner 41

And where would you like to retire?

To my home. And in my case that means the Vienna area. Outsiders might not be able to understand that. But I grew up in this city and feel very, very comfortable here. That doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of other places worth living in on our planet. But Vienna is the place I call home.

Was there ever any discussion about you relocating nearer the company’s head office in Vorarlberg?

No. From the very start I made it clear that there was no question of me moving to Vorarlberg, despite its undeniable attractions. And the shareholders registered that and accepted it. The reverse seemed to be a bigger issue: the fear that I might try to relocate the head office to Vienna. But I can say unequivocally that this was never even a remote consideration. Never ever. This company’s identity is strongly rooted in Vorarlberg, and it would be absurd to try and

change that. What’s more, in my view the CEO ’s physical presence is no longer paramount for a company that now operates over 150 sites worldwide. The CEO needs to be based somewhere, but

the sixties and start of the seventies, Ameri­ca was the promised land. I travelled there and was thrilled. I felt really comfortable in places like California and New York. Arriving in New York is

‘New York held a strong attraction for me.’ tech­nology today has rendered the actual location secondary.

And being in Vienna also has its benefits.

There are benefits. Above all in respect of the company’s eastward expansion program back when I rejoined in 1999.

That definitely made Vienna a better choice than Vorarlberg. So there were good reasons for me to stay there. ­However, I have also felt an emotional attachment to America in the past.

And why?

John Steinbeck was my favourite writer when I was young. What’s more, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison come from the US – and Jimi Hendrix! At the end of

like entering a different world. And I also experienced New York in times when the economy wasn’t all that great, when there was more social unrest and crime levels were higher. That being said, this city held a strong attraction for me – New York is, quite simply, New York.

And are these musicians still important to you?

To be sure. My feel for music was shaped during an era when a complete­ly new style was emerging – with the Beatles and the Stones. Later on I was impressed by Bob Dylan who wrote lyrics that I thought were brilliant. And then, of course, there was Jimi Hendrix and Cream. Cream were also the reason behind my enthusiasm for bass guitars – Jack Bruce was a truly great bass player.

I still enjoy listening to that music. For me, those songs are classics.

42 wolfgang niessner

Buddy Guy is an American blues guitarist who still regularly performs at the age of 78.

David Sanborn’s music spans genres such as instrumental pop, R & B and trad jazz. He started playing saxaphone at the age of three.

Joe Sample passed away in the autumn of 2014. His biggest hit was Street Life with his band The Crusaders (1979).

In his most recent performances, he ­featured as a jazz pianist.

Diane Reeves sings because that is her life. The jazz artist has released 19 albums since 1977.

Jack Bruce is one of the founding members of Cream. Usually seen playing bass guitar, the Scotsman is also an accomplished cellist and pianist.

wolfgang niessner 43

Do you attend concerts?

I don’t have much time; during the week it’s virtually impossible. And buying tickets based on which day you have free isn’t my idea of fun. But I did see Joe Sample and Randy Crawford not long ago, and that was great. And Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, B. B. King and John Scofield.

Which musician do you associate most closely with passion?

Keith Richards. Beethoven. And Buddy Guy is a passionate blues guitarist.

There really are plenty who are truly, truly passionate in their music, in my view.

But Buddy Guy is a showman too.

Right, but first and foremost he’s a brilliant guitarist. I saw him open for George Benson once and he was in a different class to the headline act.

Buddy Guy gave us emotion, George Benson accomplishment. If I had to pick, I’d choose emotion.

If you could only keep ten CDs from your collection at home, which ones would you choose?

Oh no! I can’t answer that. There’s such a wide range! And my collection keeps growing all the time, from Puccini and

Ray Charles through to Dire Straits, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and ­Dianne Reeves – with Roxy Music and U2 dotted somewhere in between. And Bruce Springsteen! No, cutting it down to 10 – there’s no way I could do that.

The selection would also depend a lot on my mood at the time.

How about we take your mood at the moment as our starting point?

rate leadership and change management.

Are lyrics like that still being written today?

Art obviously still raises social issues today. We need to give it its due. Perhaps the difference today is that the music you hear most often is dominated by rhythms rather than content. But the more rigid a system is, the more likely it

‘­ If my heart could do the thinking and my head begin to feel.’

Right now, for example, David Sanborn would be good, Keith Jarrett or maybe Luther Vandross. Mozart and Beethoven are safe bets, but I can always find a moment or two for Bruckner or Mahler as well. They have really left their mark on me. Maybe I’d take 10 CDs I had burned myself. (laughs) And Van Morrison would definitely be in there somewhere: ‘If my heart could do the thinking and my head begin to feel.’ There are so many good lines in his songs, as there are, for example, in Bob Dylan’s lyrics: ‘You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.’ For me, they also have symbolic relevance for corpo-

is that courageous people will rise up against it. And those individuals have my absolute respect. The overriding subject of art is, and always has been, love. And that is never going to change.

As Spinoza said ‘I can only think about everything if I can’t do everything.’

Of course. The yearning for freedom is greatest if it has been taken away. I really admire those people in totalitarian systems who have the strength and courage to take a stand. I look up to them and hold them in the highest respect.

Frank Haas was born in 1977.

He studied History and Ph­i­ losophy and, as head of corporate ­communications at­ ­Gebrüder Weiss, is editor-inchief of ATLAS.

44 FAMILy

The family page – for children and parents.

Take it home. Read it. And have fun!

Almost everyone has something they do with a passion.

But not everyone is famous for it. Many passions only ­develop gradually, on their own and unnoticed by others.

Doing something with a passion doesn’t mean you’ll ­master it from the very start. Often you need to practice or train a lot until you’re satisfied with the result. And that isn’t always fun. Shouldn’t we spend our time instead on things we can already do well? Or is overcoming a setback

Think of something you’re already very good at and make yourself an honorary medal. Be creative. Colour it as brightly as you want, decorate it to your taste, and then stage a little award ceremony for yourself. After all, you’re one of a kind.

Take a selfie or have someone photograph you with your medal and send the picture to us by 31.01.2015: redaktion@gw-atlas.com or in an envelope to: Gebrüder Weiss GmbH Atlas Editorial Board Bundesstrasse 110 A-6923 Lauterach Austria

part and parcel of being successful? Strangely enough, it isn’t always easy to find something you think you’re really good at when you know there are others who are even ­better: playing football more skilfully, painting prettier pictures or running faster. But we should never forget that there are always good reasons for being proud of something we have worked hard to achieve because we care about it.

The winners will be notified by post or e-mail, and will receive their prizes by the end of March 2015. For legal reasons, we sincerely regret that Gebrüder Weiss employees are not permitted to enter. The judges’ decision is final. Prizes cannot be exchanged for cash.

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family 45

A path of gold from sea to sea Amber found far from its sources indicates a remarkably developed trading network during the Bronze Age.

Archaeological excavations near the Bronze Age settlement of Bernstorf in ­Bavaria unearthed gold from Egypt and a unique amber carving. The amber piece depicts the famous ‘Mask of Agamemnon’, an artefact originally ­discovered in Mycenae. Could this find – so far from its source – be evidence of a well-established trading network extending all the way from the Baltic to the Nile as early as the Bronze Age? The archaeologist Timo Ibsen set off in his VW bus to explore the historic ‘Amber Road’ – traversing the central European forests, snowy Alpine passes and the Mediterranean Sea before concluding his odyssey at the Nile delta in Egypt. Several surprises awaited him en route.

amber road 47

By VW bus on the trail of ancient trading networks: the archaeologist Timo Ibsen.

text: Timo Ibsen

L

ogistical thinking, investment skills and a readiness to take risks are basic tools of today’s entrepreneur. But such prerequisites for success in business are by no means new. As early as the Bronze Age, some 3,500 years before our time, enterprising people maximized profits by engaging in trade, and doing so across distances that now seem ­almost inconceivable. One material above all promised sizable margins in northern Europe, an area otherwise relatively poor in natural resources: amber.

Written records on amber and its extensive occurrence along the northern European coast go back a long way. A travelogue by the Greek savant Pytheas, who purportedly sailed to a number of North Sea islands and also found amber there, dates from around 340 BCE Pytheas was the first to offer the scientific explanation that amber was in fact petrified tree resin; he called it ‘electron’. Our term electricity is a derivative: amber can acquire a static charge from friction and thus magnetically attract particles of dust and fluff. In classical Greece, in any case, these buoyant and combustible ‘stones’ were deeply embedded in mythology as ‘tears of the gods’ and ­applied as remedies for diverse ailments. To this day amber necklaces are popularly believed to bring analgesic and antiinflammatory benefits.

The utilization of amber is much older than Greek antiquity, however. During the Neolithic period, ca. 5,500 BCE , amber was fashioned into amulets and beads in northern Europe – and became a top-selling export. It has been found in settlements, graves and at sacrificial sites dating from as early as

the Bronze Age, ca. 2,200–800 BCE. Like pearls on a string, these finds trace a route from the coast of the Baltic Sea through Central Germany and Bavaria, across Alpine passes such as the Brenner (named after Bernstein, the German word for amber) all the way to Mycenae in modern Greece.

From there it was shipped to Syria and Egypt.

Amber discovered north of the Alps allows the reconstruction of specific trade routes. These finds include the deposits (weighing several hundred kilograms) in Wroclaw-Patrynice in Poland, several sacrificial hoards in the vicinity of Halle in

‘Wherever ­ amber comes to light, it seems to have been a luxury item for the privileged and prosperous.’ central Germany, the so-called Ingolstadt collier of some 3,000 amber beads, and a trove from the Bronze Age hill ­settlement near Bernstorf in Bavaria displaying Mycenaean ­characters and a facial image.

There is evidence of an ancient trade route in the Medi­ terranean area as well. Wherever amber comes to light, it seems to have been a luxury item for the privileged and prosperous. There are amber chains in the famous royal tombs of Mycenae. Amber beads were part of the cargo – along with goods from Cyprus, Syria and Greece – of a richly laden merchant vessel that sank near Uluburun off the Turkish coast 3,300 years ago. A royal tomb near Qatna in Syria yielded a lion’s head carved from the petrified resin. And earrings with

48 amber road

amber beads were found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutan­khamun. Laboratory tests prove that nearly all those finds involve amber from the North and Baltic Seas!

‘It’s about 2,765 km from Kaliningrad to Mycenae, the Mediterranean’s central market during the Bronze Age.’ For the route from Kaliningrad, the area of the largest amber deposits, to Mycenae, the Mediterranean’s central market during the Bronze Age, Google Maps yields the following data.

A car or truck needs about 28 hours to cover the 2,765 km.

On foot the route is somewhat shorter, only 2,333 km but takes a lot longer – almost 500 hours walking at five kilometres per hour. And Google warns: ‘Use caution – may involve sections not suited for walking.’ What must things have been like in prehistoric times!

Although thoroughfares existed in Germany even then (recognizable to this day as defiles cut deep into the landscape), on which plodding ox-drawn carts transported diverse goods, most of the traders will have been travelling on foot.

Long distances may have been covered by some individuals or merchant groups, but today’s research conjectures that there was probably a network of trading posts where commodities exchanged hands – each time, no doubt, at a somewhat higher price.

As an easily transported and profitable luxury article, ­amber was only one of many goods that were traded from north to south or vice-versa. And the travelling salesmen had more than their wares in tow: they also brought the latest news, scientific discoveries, religious views and innovative techniques and technologies – in other words, ideas. The most sought-after goods were naturally salt and the rare metallic element tin – from one of its few known sources in Cornwall.

Tin was traded via diverse routes all the way to Mycenae and the Mediterranean region, where it was urgently needed to make the novel – and very effective – bronze weaponry.

As early as the Bronze Age, people had found ways of covering long distances overland and establishing trading links.

Baltic amber (also known as succinite) is a form of fossilised tree resin deriving from now-­ extinct spe­cies of pine and cedar trees that grew in the ‘amber forests’ of Scandinavia and what is now the Baltic coast. The deposits were formed some 50 to 35 million years ago and, as a consequence of ­sev­eral geological processes, pressed into their current shape. The main deposits can be found in the Baltic region, in particular on the Sambia Peninsula near the Russian city of Kaliningrad. The remaining 10 % are scattered across other parts of Europe in countries like Italy, Rumania, Hungary and Germany. Given its low density (1.05 to 1.096 g/cm3), the amber – which ranges

amber road 49

Perhaps access to the tin deposits in the North was even the key to the military supremacy of Mycenae and its allies in the Trojan War. At any rate, it endowed the city with the enormous wealth still evident today from its impressive ruins.

‘Amber was the growth engine behind the economic boom in ­Bronze Age Europe.’

The North, on the other hand, profited from the influx of copper mined in the Alpine foothills, along with the innovations in weaponry: swords like the two found together with the celestial disk of Nebra in Saxony-Anhalt and modelled on southern archetypes had helped to cement the power of the central European rulers. Their gravesites, incidentally, also contain gold stemming from deposits in Nubia on the Nile.

Amber was the growth engine behind the economic boom in Bronze Age Europe. And around 50 CE , at the time of the Roman Empire, the now partly fortified and much improved ‘Amber Road’ was firmly established as an economic corridor.

Emperor Nero sent an emissary to the Baltic region to acquire the precious fossil, with which the notorious autocrat wanted to enhance his gladiatorial games: the sand in the amphitheatre consisted of pure amber dust.

in colour from honey yellow to black – floats in salt water. If burnt it produces therapeutic ­aromas and when rubbed it takes on an electrostatic charge. A completely organic material that occurs in various shapes and sizes – from small chips to large chunks weighing several kilograms – this rela­tively soft material has been used to create jewellery and ornaments since the Stone Age. Amber is also of interest to scientists in that it often contains flora and fauna fossils that offer insights into the planet’s history: flies, beetles, ants and spiders are most common, but snails, feathers, hairs from mammals, and above all remnants of plants are also found.

Dr. Timo Ibsen, born in 1972, is an archaeologist.

Since completing his doctorate in 2009, he has been working on the project ‘Continuity of research and research on continuity – basic research on settlement archaeology of the Iron Age in the Baltic region’ at the Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology Centre in north Germany. As an expert in the Kaliningrad ­re­gion in Russia, he is currently directing excavations on the Sambia Peninsula. Further information on the project: www.zbsa.eu/ forschung/akademieprojekt-baltikum

50 ORANGE network

Fast

Economical

Finishing forty-seventh out of 35,397 runners: the remarkable achievement of Andreas Fischer, the depot manager at the GWP Loeben, Germany, in the ‘Wings for Life World Run’. He crossed the starting line for this global race in Donautal, Austria, in May 2014.

Known as the ‘Orange Combi Cargo’, the full-length train operated by Gebrüder Weiss runs daily from the Vorarlberg region to Vienna. This adds up to over 10,000 services transferred from road to rail every year.

Brazil Together with a Brazilian partner company, GW Czech Republic completed a complex delivery from Prague to São Paulo. An ‘Antonov 124’ heavy-lift cargo aircraft was used – given the shipment’s height of almost 3.5 metres and its width of approx. 5 metres. After being loaded in Prague, the over-sized freight was flown straight to Brazil’s largest city and delivered to the customer on time.

Czech Republic With over 1.2 million shipments, Gebrüder Weiss in the Czech Republic comfortably surpassed its 2014 record – with total volume increasing by 25 per cent over the previous year. Some two-thirds of the shipments are delivered overland, with the rest equally divided between air and sea. These figures underscore the location’s importance for the Gebrüder Weiss strategy of eastward expansion.

Austria Gebrüder Weiss has opened a new logistics hub in Wels-Pernau which will centralise all of the company’s activities in Upper Austria. The 126,000m2 site with 9,300m2 of warehouse space and 3,800m2 for offices meets the highest technological and ecological standards while offering substantial potential for expansion.

Bulgaria The cornerstone has been laid for the distribution centre in Elin Pelin (Bulgaria). The new facility is due to replace the existing location in Sofia at the end of 2014, and to focus on services to the Balkans and central Asia. The goal is to foster growth in these regions and to add an interface to the most recent branches in Turkey and Georgia.

ORANGE network 51

Big

Long

Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta serves over 95 million passengers annually, more than any other airport worldwide, and operates 195 gates.

Following its planned completion in 2016, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be the world’s longest rail tunnel. Including all of its shafts and passages, the tunnels will run a total of 153.5 kilometres.

Turkmenistan Once a week, Gebrüder Weiss trans­ ports break bulk cargo to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. The journey from Sofia, Bulgaria, typi­ cally takes 10 working days. The connection is unique in this form within Germany, Austria and Switzerland, providing GW with a direct overland route to the emerg­ ing markets in central Asia.

Korea With a multimodal combination of sea cargo and overland freight, Weiss Ocean + Air Cargo Hamburg delivered three computerised numerical control (CNC ) lathes to Hüfingen in the Black Forest from the South Korean city of Busan. The huge machines (3.7 × 2.5 metres) were initially transported by ship to Rotterdam. From there they were taken by barge to Stuttgart, from where they travelled overland to their final destination – in total more than 23,000 km.

China At the start of September, follow­ ing a year of preparatory work, Gebrüder Weiss Automotive Logis­ tics launched operations in China.

Tailored to the rapidly growing automobile and automotive sup­­plies industries in the country, the joint venture with Jilin International Transport Corporation (JIT ) com­ bines the two companies’ areas of expertise.

Singapore With its new container route for consolidated cargo between Singapore and Tbilisi, Gebrüder Weiss is driving the integration of the Middle East, central Asia and the (south-)east Asian markets.

Every week goods are now being shipped to Tbilisi via the Georgian port of Poti. The direct link to one of Asia’s top container ports will cement the Tbilisi site – which was only opened last year – as a major hub in the Caucasus.

cycling 53

‘The

world doesn’t stop turning.’

Lessons for life that sport has taught top cyclist Andreas Müller

interview: Frank Haas Andreas, you’ve been a professional cyclist for 10 years and ride 25,000 km a year.

What keeps you going?

Travel is the main reason, and indeed why

cheers me up. If I were to do a cost-benefit analysis, then I and many other cyclists would have given up long ago, because the return – not just financially but also in terms of the recognition and credit you get – is really meagre compared to the effort involved. But the good thing about it is that our team is made up exclusively of people who pursue the sport out of passion. Anyone looking to get rich quick is in the wrong place with us, and that isn’t

I first started cycling 20 years ago. Even as a child I wanted to visit every one of the ­planet’s ­200 countries. Cycling allows me to do that, although so far I haven’t even managed to see half of the world. There are few sports where you spend so much time travelling and get to see so many different places.

Because you aren’t inside a building of some kind when you’re cycling. You’re outside riding along normal country roads, close to people.

And how much passion do you need for this sport? likely to change in the foreseeable future.

Plenty. But at first it was less of a passion, it As a result the working environment is very was ambition, pure and simple. As a youngpleasant and comfortable, because we are ster I was very ambitious, and didn’t realize all like-minded individuals who share the until later that cycling in itself is something same passion. It’s normal and legitimate to great, that it’s something that really suits me consider financial rewards an important and that I love, irrespective of any sporting motivator in your profession, but it’s much goals or travel destinations. And now I’m better to be able to work with people whose almost addicted to these happiness hormain focus is on the activity itself rather mones. If something stops me from cycling than any remuneration. And that’s definitely for a week, getting back on a bike always

‘We are all like-minded ­individuals who share the same passion.’

Andreas Müller is a professional cyclist with the GW-Oberndorfer team who finished as runner-up in the 2013 world championships. The connoisseur of life with dual citizenship (German/Austrian) enjoys his numerous ‘business trips’ during a season, but then he is all the more grateful for the oppor­ tunity to relax in the sun with friends during the ­summer. Being self-employed, he draws up annual statistics on his work. During the 2013/14 busi-

ness year he covered 22,922 km on his bike; he lost touch with the peloton (main group of cyclists) 89 times, but clawed his way back again 78 times.

He took 71 flights around the world for a total of 155,972 km. On 35 occasions, he cursed cycling as ‘senseless masochism’ – and on 117 extolled it as the world’s most beautiful sport! www.andreasmueller.cc

54 cycling

the case with cycling – even more so for sport of cycling as a whole, that wasn’t me as a specialist track cyclist: a niche remotely helpful though. But given the discipline within a niche sport. prize money available at the Tour de France, we shouldn’t really be surBut the team’s young riders are sure to prised if people try to cheat. By conbe attracted by big teams where they trast, riders like us are often happy if can earn well. they can cover their expenses, so there That’s possible, of course. Dreams and is far less incentive to damage your ambitious goals are part and parcel of health and defraud others. There are passion. But I tell every young rider that doubtless a few really sly people about, the chances are so slim that starting an but there’s a difference between trying apprenticeship in a bank would be the to win a bouquet and securing a consafer option. The situation was different tract worth millions. Lance Armstrong 20 or 30 years ago. There were lots more certainly wasn’t driven by passion, but jobs in cycling back then. by greed and obsession.

During the Lance Armstrong era, the Where’s the borderline between average speed of the Tour de France ­passion and obsession? increased every year. Shouldn’t it have Of course I like to win too. Otherwise long become obvious that something I wouldn’t be taking part in competiwasn’t quite right? tive sports. The question, however, is: The average speed increases because ‘How do I react if I don’t win?’ I give the equipment is always getting better, everything I have within the rules to try but back then no one could have conto win, but if I don’t, I accept it. Of nected the dots. During the 1990s I course I feel down for a day or two, but myself was still young and naive. At that then I set myself a new goal. People say time we thought it was the result of hard of obsessive characters like Lance training and lots of work etc. Until we Armstrong and other top sportsmen finally had to concede that lots of performances from the elite riders weren’t clean. That’s no longer a secret. For the

‘Of course I like to win too.’

and women – not just in cycling – that they can’t cope with losing, and that they do everything within their powers – even breaking the law – to try and make sure they never lose again. For me, that’s the big difference, and it’s one that applies to every other field as well. You can have done everything

cycling 55

how much importance you should be right in your job and still end up thirdmade any tactical errors and cycle as attaching to sport, and that it can’t best. And then you can say: OK, my well as can be expected, given my help solve the world’s problems becolleagues and I have done everything fitness level at the time. If I still finish cause, after all, it’s only a sport. Ultiright and we’ve finished third. I can live second from last, then so be it. On the mately it exists as a form of enter­ with that. Or I worry myself to death other hand, I can get really upset with tainment – it doesn’t satisfy any other looking for ways to be top dog anyway. myself if I screw up my tactics, if I fail basic human needs. I’m not saying it’s But is it possible to become a great not important: life isn’t just about champion if you aren’t truly self-­ eating, sleeping and working. People centred and ambitious? want to have fun, to be entertained – That’s difficult. The majority of sports bread and circuses (laughs). But the stars I know have relatively big egos. world doesn’t stop turning, even after In my view, that’s inevitable. Giving a big race. to fully execute the plans I have made. way to others and then feeling happy And away from cycling, I’m satisfied at their successes doesn’t work.

Which brings us right back to the if my family and friends are healthy, And when things aren’t going as well subject of humility … and if I can sit out in the sun with a True. One huge benefit of cycling is as expected – what keeps you motifew friends and none of us are in dire that it takes you to lots of poorer vated on a bad day? straits. countries and regions, and that affects I don’t ride 365 days a year, nor do I the way you view life. We carry around ride in every kind of weather. Now if Apart from humility, are there any so much unnecessary baggage, and it’s I skip cycling for a day, I no longer other lessons for life that cycling has far from certain that it ever makes us have such a guilty conscience. Cycling taught you? happier. Once you’ve seen the slums every day simply isn’t viable, and it Setting myself goals. Competitive sport of Mexico City or the townships in wouldn’t be healthy, for me or my involves focusing, and that applies Cape Town, you realise how much social circle. What always helps me is particularly to track cycling. There’s luck you have already had in your life. having a spe­cific goal – either medium one day a year, and that’s the day of the And how many people on our planet or short-term. And, of course, distracworld championships. It’s completely cannot share your good fortune. There tions: cycling with somebody else, or irrelevant whether you are in good are other ways of coming to this re­ meeting up with colleagues and form three days later or a week earlier, alization. But my path to it was on a friends. if you happen to have a cold or a headbike. | FH ache. This one day is the only thing that When do you feel satisfied with matters. Track races last for a maxi­yourself ? mum of an hour, and often much less.

I’m always satisfied if I do everything I set out to do in a race. If I haven’t Those few minutes, those split seconds, are the only things that count. There’s an awful lot of pressure – both the pressure from outside and the pressure you put on yourself. As a budding young cyclist, this strain was always too much for me. It took me years to get a handle on it.

How can people find the right balance between the necessary intensity and too much pressure?

The only thing that has really helped me is general experience. Life teaches

‘The only thing that has really helped me is general experience.’

56 cycling

Andreas Müller

1979

Born in East Berlin 1988

Moves to Moscow, first contact with football and table tennis (with very modest success) 1991

Returns to Berlin 1993

Joins the TSC Berlin club as a cyclist, start of competitive sports career 1996

Enters the German track championships for first time 1997

Competes in the Junior World Championships 2000

This sporting life – Gebrüder Weiss and sports sponsorship Away from cycling, Gebrüder Weiss supports football teams in Croatia and Serbia and budding tennis stars (Serbia Open). It also sponsored the 2013 Red Bull Dolomiten Mann in Lienz, one of the world’s toughest endurance races for teams. Beyond this, it is a sponsor of the annual Salzburg Marathon and the Hypo Athletics Meet in Vorarlberg – one of the most important events in the track and field calendar.

Accepted by the German armed forces’ ‘Sports Group’ 2001

Races in the ‘Men’s Category’ at World Championships for first time 2006

Discharged from the German armed forces 2006 – 2007

18 months studying Politics at college 2008

Becomes an Austrian national 2009

First world championship medal 2013

Joins the Gebrüder Weiss – Oberndorfer team

Left: Every year the orange GW perimeter advertising features prominently at the Hypo Athletics Meet in Götzis, Vorarlberg, home to the world’s best decathletes and heptathletes.

Right: In 2013 GW sponsored the Red Bull Dolomitenmann, a relay race consisting of four different legs – mountain running, paragliding, mountain biking and whitewater kayaking. www.redbulldolomitenmann.com

Track racing The world’s most famous bike race – the Tour de France – may take place on the road, but there are numerous other races that are held in velodromes. These can be divided into sprint and endurance events. The main season for track racing runs from autumn to spring: during the summer the riders showing good form are given invitations to road races. Track cycling is extremely popular in Belgium, the Netherlands and above all in the English-speaking countries. The first meet was organised back in 1868 in Paris – over a distance of 1,200 metres on a dirt track.

Today the oval-shaped tracks – made of wood inside velodromes and concrete in open-air stadiums – are banked on the bends. The courses run anti-clockwise and the special cycles can reach speeds of 70 km/h. To reduce the risk of crashing at this speed on the narrow tracks, freewheeling and changing gear is not permitted. Nor do the bikes have brakes. As a result, riders have to keep pedalling at all times. Instead of braking, they can take wider lines at the bends, although this increases the distance they have to cover and means losing ground on the rest of the field. On the banked sections, the centrifugal forces enable them to ride almost parallel to the ground. The special track cycles are not mass-produced: each one is made to order with custom specifications.

58 ‘This makes my heart beat faster …’

‘This makes my heart beat faster …’

* W

hy

no

As varied as their interests might be, they all have one thing in common – the fun they have pursuing their passion.* ­ GW employees describe the pursuits that brighten up their lives. tl

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My passion for dancing dates back to my childhood. Today my husband and I regularly take part in competitions. We also enter national tournaments in the Czech Republic, training up to six times a week in preparation. What I love most? The graceful movements, the excitement of competition and above all the close bond with your partner. After a season of intense training, we can even spontaneously alter a choreography we’ve rehearsed during events, and make the change look perfect. That only works if you dance a lot with your partner and the two of you are in tune with each other. And at the end of a tough season, ­winning a medal is obviously the crowning glory.

Sarka Halova, GW Jeneč

‘This makes my heart beat faster …’ 59

I love painting, both as a fan and an artist. I’m fascinated by the interplay of colours, shapes and lines – the impact they have on three-dimensional space. This medium transports me into a different sphere than words or sounds, for instance, enabling me to immerse myself in another world. When I’m painting, I’m interested in the creative process; in finding solutions and in the final result. The sensuality of colour and its materiality allow me to experiment and discover new things. I really enjoy the hands-on feel – in that respect it’s the exact opposite of my work at GW, where most everything is produced digitally. But in terms of developing and formulating new, creative solutions, my job is very similar to painting. In other words, I can live my passion at GW as well.

Regula Walther, GW Zürich

I’ve been collecting vehicle number plates for about 30 years.

I got the first one, from a bicycle, via a friend in Aargau, ­Switzerland. Number plates are part and parcel of our culture, symbols of traditions that are worthy of preserving. I’m fas­ cinated by the fact that every one has its own story to tell. ­Today my collection contains more than 1,000 spe­ cimens from 107 different countries. The ­oldest dates back to 1930. You can find more ­detailed information on my homepage ­ www.hr-plates.com.

Damir Cavor, GW Zagreb

I can’t even remember a time when I wasn’t interested in angling. That was definitely my grandfather’s fault: he started taking me fishing to Lake Constance when I was four years old. And that must be when I got the bug! Later I went to the lake with my father, but after I turned 14 I was allowed to pursue my favourite pastime alone. In addition to my trips to Lake Constance, one of the highlights of the past 20 years has been an annual two-week fishing holiday in Norway with friends.

What I enjoy about fishing is that there are so many different ways to indulge your passion, and most of the time you’re moving around outdoors, with no restrictions. And then there’s the peace and quiet – and, of course, the occasional ­culinary treat awaiting you at the end of the day!

Günter Schmidt, GW Memmingen

60 ‘This makes my heart beat faster …’

Mu sic hbo xe s

Y

M

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For me, collecting matchboxes has turned into a true passion. The designs are different in every country, and each has its very own style. You can

almost think of them as being sadly neg-­ lected works of art! I’m especially interested

in specimens from between 1900 and 1950 – I have 62 from those decades that I have collected from all over the world. For me, they symbolise a turning away from conservatism and a shift of perspective toward the modern. The designers of that era were largely influenced by the European art movements such as art nouveau, and later art déco and bauhaus. My oldest matchbox dates from 1910. It’s hand-painted with horses on Japanese rice paper. I also have some from the two World Wars with insignia from the US Army, Navy and Air Force, and the Red Cross. When I retire, I would like to display the collection behind glass in a pub – and drink a toast to it every night.

Cheers!

Ranjit Singh, WR Dubai

I’ve been doing yoga for five years now. It’s my time out from the hubbub of everyday life. Ever since I started doing the ­exercises, I’ve felt more at peace with myself. The pace of life is so fast in general that you need moments of silence. Yoga keeps me healthy, both mentally and physically. Being in good shape is very important to me.

I play a variety of different roles in life: mother, wife, employee, daughter, sister. As such, I have to view and appreciate the world from ­different perspectives. And to do that, sometimes I just need a little time for myself, and a little peace and quiet around me.

Annamária Duzmath, GW Dunaharaszti

a g o

Te n

nis

‘This makes my heart beat faster …’ 61

I was first photographed in a tennis outfit as a baby. My parents have been play­ing the sport for years, so my sister and I more or less grew up on a tennis court. During my youth I used to practice at least five times a week and regularly took part in international tournaments. The highlights from this part of my life were appearances at four junior grand slam tournaments, a second place in the European tennis championships and a number of national successes – after which I was awarded a sports scholarship at an American university. Today tennis is still a big part of my life – as a hobby and a way of relaxing ­after work. Nowadays I’m usually on court with my boyfriend or representing Linz in the national team championship. What I love about tennis? Mental toughness is at least as important as physical strength! No matter how far behind you are, you should never give up!

Jenny Zika, GW Wels

I first became interested in rock music when I was a teen. I emulated my then-heroes and started playing electric guitar and then electric bass. Back then, the aim was to play as loud, fast and unconventionally as possible; in the meantime my musical interests have become somewhat more cultured.

For the past 10 years I have been playing in a ‘sixties party band’. We meet once a week to practice or perform. In addition to Elvis Presley and the Beatles, we cover a range of classics from the swinging sixties. The songs are catchy and cheerful – and they get people of all ages dancing along. I still really enjoy it when a concert rocks and the atmosphere is electric … but I’m also happy sitting alone in my basement playing just for myself.

Werner Hirschfeld, GW Head Office Lauterach

62 ATLAS

The 360° Tour by U2 with ‘The Claw’ ‘Part insect, part spacecraft, part cathedral’ is how the New York Times described the huge structure that accompanied the rock band U2 around the world for two years.

‘High

on life, riding a magic carpet from ­bazaar to bazaar.’

On being a tour manager

ATLAS 63

64 Rock star logistics

Bernhard Klein has a doctorate in philosophy. He knows that managing rock stars on tour requires a combination of accomplishment, anticipation and smarts.

text: Imke Borchers

A

In many respects, U2’s 360° Tour – which began in Barcelona during June 2009 and ended in Moncton, Canada, in July 2011 – set new benchmarks for concert tours. ­The permanent crew, which travelled from ­location to location, consisted of 137 people, with an additional 120 assistants being employed at the individ­ual venues. The daily costs ran at about 750,000 euros. The Claw, a four-legged steel contraption rising 51 metres into the air, was erected at the centre of the stadiums hosting events. The sound and lighting technology was attached to its legs while a huge screen under the roof displayed the live videos ­famili­ar at major concerts Setup from every side – 360°. This strategic l­ayout ­al­lowed sta- 3.5 days diums to ­ac­commodate up to 20% more fans and sell Teardown far more tickets. Three sepa­ 4 hours rate claws were in use at any one time. There was no Permanent crew logistical alternative ­given the tour’s tight sched­­ule.

137 persons The amazing effort paid off: the 360° Tour took in 736 Costs per day million dollars, making it the most success­ful tour 750,000 € of all time.

Vehicle fleet

120 trucks

concert tour for a rock band involves the precisely meshed interplay of many, many individuals. Most of them never appear on the stage: they are behind and in front of it, before and after concerts, making sure that everything runs smoothly. Ideally everything goes to plan.

But that is very much the exception. The rule is that unforeseen events and obstacles constantly have to be incorporated into the schedules and itineraries so that the caravan can be moved from place to place, if possible without generating new ­probl­ems. That’s why concert tours need people who can take ­control and keep everything running. People with strong nerves and a steady hand. People like Bernhard Klein.

No matter where the client comes from, if service providers want to survive, they need to mind-read that client’s every wish. Embracing the customers’ wants, catering to their every desire, anticipating how to satisfy special needs – that is the basis of every business, whether it’s the automotive industry, the grocery trade or rock stardom.

As far as the needs of a rock star are concerned, Munichbased Bernhard Klein is a master of his trade. He spent years as the personal logistics manager and assistant for music legends touring Europe. Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Robbie Williams, Melissa Etheridge … he gave them all the VIP treatment, 24/7, from the first to the final days of their tours. A job like any other, Klein says, but tough going nevertheless. ‘As in every assistant’s job, you simply have to know what your boss wants at all times; you provide pointers, prompts and reminders. You need to keep the artists in a positive frame of mind, keep reminding them how great it is to be on tour. So they’ll do it again!’ Klein is the go-to guy for everything: he’s called from the airport – or more precisely, from the runway. He’s called by hotels and restaurants. He is the number one when the task

Rock star logistics 65

at hand is to lay down the star’s itinerary and juggle schedules.

‘And you’re always the one people ask when they want to know: When’s he due to arrive?’.

Many of the artists spend what little time they have between performances with dining and shopping. The tour manager knows the cities, recommends certain shops and restaurants, and will even join in if an artist like Robbie Williams fancies a game of footie. Conversation flows easily when time allows. Bernhard Klein studied philosophy, which gives him an edge when he talks to the stars. Many of them – not all – enjoy conversing about something besides their own music for a change, and they’re open to the inspiration of more abstract ideas.

‘You need to creep along like an old lady and simultaneously speed like a racecar driver.’

On the whole his job seems multi-facetted and compli­cated.

Yet all that’s basically needed is complete mastery of two skills: driving a car, and the art of maintaining the right distance to the star. Even though relationships grow closer during the course of a tour and conversations take on a more familiar tone, the tour manager must never cross a certain line.

‘There’s this maxim: “That’s what happens when you get too close to the artists.” You need to follow certain rules. You can’t always just run to the artist, although you could. Otherwise you might as well not even tour. You need to take a step back; you can’t define yourself as one of Eric Clapton’s friends – other­wise you’ll get burned, metaphorically speaking. The artists are like mad monarchs; they’re unpredictable.’ Keep your distance and you can stay in business.

Behind the scenes of every tour there’s a logistical tour de force. The various players are divided into groups – artists (A ), bands (B ) and crews (C ) – and then brought into harmony.

Huge fleets of vehicles move the equipment and the countless people responsible for ensuring that everything runs smoothly.

Usually A and B travel independently of C; the crew has its own schedule, the artists often travel solo – but sometimes with their managers or partners and sometimes with the band.

As a rule bands stick together, but sometimes each member travels alone. At the end of the day, though, they all need to be at the same place for the concerts. ‘The Stones travel sepa-

rately’, Klein reveals. ‘So do the Eagles. They meet on stage for two hours and then they each go their own ways.’

For U2’s ‘360° Tour’ – the one that broke all the records – the crew traveled in 14 buses. Together with the merchandise and catering vehicles, some 200 trucks were on the road for U2.

When a single provider is offering all-around service within Europe, tour managers often operate on the ‘leapfrog’ principle. One team handles cities 1, 3 and 5; the other does 2, 4 and 6. The artist flies to the various destinations in a private jet or occasionally travels by rail. Eric Clapton, for instance, enjoys taking trains in Japan. The tour managers are then always waiting to chauffeur the artists around in a car they have driven from the last location. Klein not rarely drives more than 1,000 km a day – or some 30,000 km per tour. No wonder he cites driving aptitude as one of the key qualifications for his job. ‘You need to creep along like an old lady and simulta­ neously speed like a racecar driver.’ In other words you have to be careful, fast and reliable.

Life on tour is like being a traveling salesperson: you are always on the road, weathering rapid climate changes, always immersing yourself in the atmospheres of new places: a whirlwind with its very own attractions. ‘High on life, riding a magic carpet from bazaar to bazaar’ is Klein’s description. And despite all the pressures and the constant challenges posed by the artists’ special needs, there are still moments of peaceful coexistence in the eye of the storm. ‘You’re there, you work together and you enjoy it. The luxury, the carefree attitude, the feeling of no-holds-barred; you’re mesmerized by the music, fascinated by the closed circle of crew members … it’s like a big family.’ There’s no time to catch your breath. And the show always goes on.

Imke Borchers, born in 1982, is a literary scholar and a jour­nalist at ATLAS.

66 ATLAS

Loading the propellor in the Port of Hamburg (see text on the right).

Diamonds, propellors, snow and TVs – special goods need special solutions

»La Modernista Diamonds«

Propellor on the road

A fountain pen by Caran d’Ache that is studded with over 5,000 diamonds and 96 rubies and listed among the ‘Guinness World Records’ as ‘the world’s most expensive writing utensil’.

It looks like it’s made of gold as it dangles in the morning sunshine: a gigantic propellor with a diameter of 930 cm and total weight of 82 tonnes.

Route

Route

Geneva – Melbourne

Hamburg – Hong Kong

transport

transport

Initially in an armoured vehicle to the airport and then by plane.

Loaded by crane onto a ship in Hamburg and then taken as sea freight to Hong Kong in a ­journey lasting 30 days.

A truck full of snow

Television on runners

Marc Girardelli, a former skiing star from the Vorarlberg region, had just opened an indoor skiing centre in the German town of Bottrop when the snow machine broke down. How was he going to get tons of snow into the rainy Ruhr industrial area?

The mission could scarcely have started less spectacularly: the GW driver was charged with delivering a TV in the Tyrolean Alps.

The problems only started when he arrived at the village and discovered that the street in question turned into a narrow path – well short of the delivery address.

Route

route

A glacier in South Tyrol to Bottrop, Germany

From the end of the road to the doorstep

transport

transport

80 trucks, so-called heavy duty dumpers, were towed up a private road to the Kaunertal Glacier’s snow depot by a tracked Caterpillar ve­hicle, fully loaded with snow, and then dispatched down the mountain and on to Bottrop.

One driver got caught in a storm and spilled five tons of water by main ski hall.

With the aid of the customer, the TV was pulled up the mountainside on wooden runners. As the house was located 700 metres higher, reaching it took 90 minutes of hot work in the cold snow.

In good company Lots of clever people have found fascinating and fitting ways of describing passion. We’d like to share some of them with you.

‘Our passions are veritable phoenixes. As the old one is burning, the new one rises ­instantly from its ashes.’

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

‘I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.’

Albert Einstein

‘If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out.’

Louis Armstrong

‘Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.’

William Penn

‘Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.’

Martha Graham

The perfect balance between abandonment and self-control.

71

Getting cold feet over hot feet HARALD MARTENSTEIN on experiencing abandon and rapture while sidestepping ruin

V

iewed on its own, passion is neither good nor bad, and that’s what complicates matters, my friend. If we conceive of ‘passion’ as denoting a strong surge of ­emotion, as total abandon in respect to something or someone, then we tend to view it as a form of ecstasy or rapture that climaxes in fulfillment – and who is to say that is not the case?

Yet then we remember all those people whose demise was driven by passion: passion for gambling, for risk-taking. Or for a person who remorselessly demands that we repay every penny we were willing to invest: passion can have a price as well.

There are lofty and less lofty passions; obviously it all ­depends on the object of one’s ardour. But let’s leave morality aside for a moment and instead ask ourselves: How can we escape the perils of passion, how avoid rushing headlong into ruin? How can we control passion without renouncing it altogether?

This is how Firewalkers have the answer.

A firewalker crosses a bed of hot embers (up to 450°C) barefoot. Is there any better symbol of passion? An ancient ritual once practiced by primitive people all over the world, nowadays firewalking has degenerated into a tourist attraction. Western civilization has long been skeptical of the ­phenomenon. Perhaps it is only a trick, people surmise, performed under hypnosis or the influence of painkilling drugs.

There is, however, nothing phony about it. Anyone can manage it if they do it right.

Wood and embers are not good conductors of heat, particularly if they are covered with ashes. It takes a little time, about half a second to be exact, for embers to heat up the skin.

The secret lies in setting one’s foot down briefly and then lift-

ing it up as high as possible while taking the next step. What makes this even more interesting is the fact that firewalkers must never run. When running, the area of the sole that comes into contact with the fire is decreased while the forces created by the toes and heel when pushing off are increased. The extra pressure means additional exposure to the embers, reducing the time available to make a clean getaway. A leisurely yet swift pace is therefore much safer.

See my point? Walkers need to overcome their fear before setting foot on the embers. After all, they are applying their entire body weight with every stride. They need to strike a perfect balance between abandonment and self-control. They must not submit to their anxieties, nor may they ignore the voice of complacency that might whisper, after a few seconds, that the fire isn’t that bad after all. It is bad, but only if the walker is too slow or too fast.

Get moving This formula can be applied to all types of passions, whether you’re plunging into a business venture, plummeting to earth on a parachute or placing your fate in Eros’ hands. It’s wrong to be paralyzed by fear – you miss out on so much. But it’s just as wrong to be reckless, as this will ultimately lead down the road to ruin of one kind or another. You need to take a close look at the embers upon which you plan to step, my friend. You need to gauge how long you can stand on them without getting burned. And then get moving. Without haste. Without hesitation. And please – don’t get it wrong.

Harald Martenstein authors the column ‘Martenstein’ in Germany’s ZEITMagazin and is an editor at the ­Berlin-based newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. He has won several awards, including the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize and the Theodor Wolff Prize. He has also published numerous books including Romantische Nächte im Zoo, Ansichten eines Hausschweins and Die neuen Leiden des Alten M.

The next ATLAS : Tradition

The next issue of ATLAS will be released in spring 2015 – we thank you for ­reading or at least browsing through it so far. We would be even happier if you could tell us what you thought of this edition of ATLAS so that we can do what we already do even better.

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Article number: 6035 ATLAS appears in both German and English language editions.

Imagery and copyright holders: cover and rear page, pp. 10–22: Rainer Groothuis; pp. 6, 44 (and private), 56, 58–61 (and private): Gebrüder Weiss Gesellschaft m. b. H.; p. U2: Getty Images; p. 3: Thomson Reuters; p. 4: Hanja Litzba; p. 27: Forum Corporate Publishing; pp. 28/29: Amelie Zadeh; pp. 30, 54/55: iStock; p. 3 2: Isabela Pacini; pp. 36/37 and 40: Ludwig Berchtold; p. 46: Stephan Zengerle; p. 47: Timo Ibsen; pp. 48/49: AmberPieces; pp. 5 2, 57: Conny Uhlhorn; pp. 62/63: Paul Gourley; p. 64: Bernhard Klein; p. 66: ­Romanus Fuhrmann; p. 70: CORBIS ; pp. 23, 26 (below), 31, 35, 43, 49, 56, 65, 71: illustrations by Max Schulz; pp. 24–26 (above): illustrations by Mareike Engelke; pp. 38–42:

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passion? it’s the fashion! be they saudi, walloon, english or greek be they austrian, french or thai hot-blooded, cold, bold or meek passion is what they all unify whether virtuous, dubious, ominous, green-eared? passion is their animus as sure as god’s revered it links us more than money more than blood or fatherland man cannot a (good) person be without emotions small and grand ingo neumayer pens poetry and a German blog entitled Twelve Lines on Time (www.zwoelfzeilen.com).

He lives in Cologne.

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