Trip to Germany amazing and informative

“I’d go back in a heartbeat,” says Don Strebeck of his recent trip to Germany.

Strebeck was the recipient of a trip awarded to Odessa Trading Company in a 2011 sales contest. He left November 11 to fly from Spokane to Minneapolis, then to Amsterdam and Hanover, and returned to Portland November 18.

Strebeck was one of 28 trip winners and 13 corporate CaseIH VIPs who were flown into Hanover, Germany, to attend Agritechnica, Europe’s largest agricultural equipment exhibition. From there, the group traveled to a farm near Berlin, then on to that city.

The group arrived in Hanover at about 10 a.m. November 12. They first settled into their hotel, then went on a bus tour of the city. Strebeck noted that there were some places where reminders of the devastation following Allied bombings of the city remained. He said that there was one church that had deliberately not been rebuilt, but that most other damage had been repaired.

Sunday and Monday, November 13 and 14 were spent at Agritechnica. When asked how large the exhibit was, Strebeck said that there were 121 acres (converted from hectares) of indoor displays. The measurement did not include a large outdoor display of logging equipment.

Strebeck reported that three major American companies were represented at the exhibition: CaseIH, New Holland and John Deere. When asked what he thought of the event, he responded that he was “amazed at how much farm machinery is in this world.” He had been unaware, he said, of how many different manufacturers of farm equipment there are around the world. Agritechnica hosted 2,704 exhibitors from 47 countries. Over 419,000 visitors attended the event.

Tuesday morning the group boarded a chartered bus, which was to take them to Berlin, with a stop at a farm on the way. When asked, Strebeck said the farm looked a lot like the farms around here. Then he said that the area reminded him of farms in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. He said the fields were bordered with trees. He added, though, that since it was November, there were no leaves, and it was cold.

The group toured the farm, which included a biodiesel plant, for about an hour and a half. Strebeck reported that the biodiesel made there is from sugar beets. He didn’t see any livestock at the farm, but noted that the buildings were very old, and that he imagined the farm had been there for hundreds of years. He did remark that he had wondered what the farmer, who appeared to be in his 50s, did prior to the reunification of Germany.

After leaving the farm, the group went on to Berlin, where their hotel was located by Potsdamer Platz, a historic public square that was devastated during World War II, then bisected by the Berlin Wall and left desolate all through the Cold War.

A tour of the city included such sights as the Brandenburg Gate, which was built in the late eighteenth century, and the Reichstag, or German Parliament building. The group also visited “Checkpoint Charlie” which was the most well known crossing point between East and West Berlin through the Berlin Wall, as well as the Holocaust Memorial. Strebeck said that he was “impressed by the history of the city – what the people have gone through; World War II, the Cold War, and so forth.”

Thursday, November 17 was spent visiting Sachsenhausen, a former Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany. The remains of the camp have been preserved as a museum.

Friday, November 18, Strebeck boarded a plane for his Berlin-Amsterdam-Portland flight home.

Strebeck commented on how easy it was to communicate and get around. He said he was surprised at the number of people who spoke English, as well as the number of McDonalds, Tony Romas and KFC restaurants he saw in Germany.