![[May 26, 1970] A Regrettable Case of Runaway Apophenia (Erich von Däniken's <i>Memories of the Future</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Image-1-672x372.jpg)
by Arturo Serrano
When I was appointed, in recent weeks, as a cultural attaché of the Colombian embassy in Bonn, I was beside myself with excitement about the prospect of imbibing from the richness of Teutonic civilization, whose light was but briefly obscured during the war. I say this without intending in any manner to dismiss the graveness of the evil that merely one generation ago seared Europe, but not even an army of murderers can outweigh the numberless German generations possessed of extraordinary creativity that preceded them. With one glance at the poetry of Vogelweide or Eschenbach, one gives perpetual thanks for having studied the German tongue. And the pleasures aren't limited to the written word: I need only give two cardinal points, Bach and Strauss, and the mind delights in the long chain of beauty that extends between them. This is the proud nation that birthed Dürer, Gutenberg, Leibniz, Schiller, Humboldt, and that titan among titans, Goethe… And look at the Germany of today! Upon leaving the airplane, I nearly fainted as I realized I was setting foot on the land of Günter Grass, of Siegfried Lenz, of Heinrich Böll! I believe I could put you all to sleep reciting names long before I'm finished praising the inexhaustible wellspring of genius that is Germany.
Alas, the Fates judged it fit to make a mockery of my elation when it came time for me to experience my first taste of German culture in an official capacity as a foreign diplomat.