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logo 19 • CAMLOG Partner Magazine • December 2018 LIFESTYLE 35 Jan Peters Writer Kaiseraugst/Switzerland speciality, is available from Schuch’s in Alt Bornheim. And never say “Äppler” when you order a pint; you will immediately be brand marked as a Frankfurt greenhorn, which no one here will take seriously! Eating temple for the people When eating in Frankfurt youmust try Grie' Soß (green sauce), which consists of nine fresh herbs. If you would like to prepare it yourself, go to the Kleinmarkthalle (food market) – Frankfurt’s best restaurant according to Wolfram Siebeck. For the best sausage in town drop by Frau Schreiber’s stand. You can enjoy a glass of wine on the balcony and watch from above where and how experienced Frankfurt housewives buy their food. Unforgotten the claim of the farmer who went over the top orthographically: “Today fresh Oberschienen” (meaning aubergines, but saying upper rails). This cultivation experiment was probably sponsored by the Frankfurt Transport Association. Who’s who for shopping Speaking of shopping: if you want to see where to shop when you reside in the Vordertaunus or in Bad Homburg – of course the hip new Henninger Tower with its apartments would also be an option – you should go to the Goethestraße. It’s a safe bet you’ve never seen so many Aston- Martins, Porsche Panameras and Maranello creations per square meter parked ille­ gally! No offence intended: but what’s on offer here easily keeps up with 5th Avenue and Galeries Lafayette. As do the budgets of the Arab and Chinese customers. For those more at home in the middle income segment the Zeil is popular for shopping; e.g. in My Zeil with fashion, technology and all kinds of frills that nobody needs but everyone wants. Halfway between the Hauptwache and Konstablerwache there used to be the Schneider’s department store, which became famous when a certain Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader set fire to it on 2 April 1968. No doubt you have heard of these two. Dialectics of enlightenment However, this has little to do with the legend of the political rockers Bonnie & Clyde and their acts of arson, but rather with the history of Critical Theory, which can still be experienced today in the West of Frankfurt. The main protagonists of this school of thought, which was created in the Institute for Social Research diagonally opposite the palaeontologically brilliant Senckenberg Nature Research Society, were Messrs Adorno & Horkheimer (called the Marx Brothers by the rebellious Frankfurt APO) [extra-parliamentary opposition). On the old Bockenheimer campus, in the main building of the Goethe University, you can still have a look around the legendary lecture hall VI – where Theodor W. Adorno once lectured and developed his theory, which brought a lot of explosive potential to society in1968. A talented Adorno pupil named Hans-Jürgen Krahl, chief agitator of the Frankfurt Socialist German Student Union, whom they called the Robespierre of Bockenheim because of his demagogic talent for speech, also attended lectures here. This hothead, with whom even Rudi Dutschke could not compare rhetorically despite his linguistic acumen, was instrumental in instigating the life tragedy of his academic teacher Adorno, who summed up the fatal collision of the Critical Theory with the student movement in the words: “I have set up a theoretical model of thought. How could I have anticipated that people would want to apply this theory with Molotov cocktails?” Home of the homeless On the Bockenheimer Warte an anarchistic distillery called Doctor Fleet has been in existence since the early 70s, the meeting place of a weird Lost Generation. After a change of tenant in September 2012, the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper wrote the following about this rather different mixture: “The old figures whomade Doctor Flotte so unique are once again clustering the bar. Adorno and Averna have always battled for supremacy here. Doctor Flotte is a stronghold of the spirit, professional boozers watering hole and soccer pub for Eintracht fans in one. This is where the Titanic editorial staff took refuge as soon as there was the threat of work in the editorial offices in nearby Sophienstraße. Here thousands of students drunk away their educational grants before being chased into the IG Farben cluster of excellency. Here the Eintracht celebrated promotion and suffered relegation.” The smoking ban imposed by the authorities in public bars some time ago was met with mockery and ridicule by Flotte’s bar staff and consistently ignored – people are still puffing away merrily here today! In July 1975, as a young student, the author of this article sat in Doctor Flotte and annihilated a number of refreshing beers during heated scientific debates with fellow students. Sunshine had spilled into the pub and he had just come to the conclusion that the world could be a passable place after all despite all its perils. Suddenly he felt something stroking tenderly around his legs and purring its way softly into his life. In the bizarre dive called Doctor Flotte, on the Bockenheimer Warte in Frankfurt am Main, the old Free Imperial City, which leaves plenty of room for a lot of different things, the still somewhat shy Mr. Studiosus bent down to look under the rickety sewing machine table, which had been converted into a pub table, and looked into the sparkling eyes of a proud wild cat, who looked at him friendly, said “meow” – and lay down on his foot to warm him up. And when he gently asked her: “What’s your name, my pretty one?” she thought for a moment, raised her head self-confidently and purred enticingly: “Frankfurt, my boy – my name is Frankfurt am Main.”