VGerhard Wiese does not want to part with his old desk. In his living room, in front of the large window facing the street, is the piece of furniture, brown wood, rounded edges, and is actually much too small for everything that can be placed on it: screen, keyboard, family photos, notebook, pens, storage compartments . But Wiese’s heart is attached to it. The columnist Friedrich Luft, who moderated the popular program “Stimme der Kritik” on RIAS, the radio in the American sector, gave him the desk.
Gerhard Wiese, now 94 years old, was employed as a student assistant at the newly founded Free University in West Berlin. In the summer of 1948, the law student was supposed to help set up the university library. Citizens of Berlin diligently donated books for this purpose. Wiese was out and about in town with the truck and driver to collect them. He also came across the well-known radio journalist Luft, who wanted to hand over his father’s collection of medical textbooks to the university. When Wiese was almost walking again, the moderator asked him: Do you already have a desk? So he inherited the fine secretary that is still in his house today.