Uwe
Bergmann

von Sven Bergmann am 09.09.2013 - 00:57 Uhr | melden

On Saturday the 31st 2013 towards three o’clock in the afternoon our father Uwe-Claus Bergmann passed away. Or more accurately, he fell asleep peacefully, since death came gradually over the last years. But here we want to remember the Uwe whom we knew long before this:

You were born on January the 18th 1936 in Leipzig as the first and only child of Wanda and Hans Bergmann. Wanda was in her late thirties and had a difficult birth with you. Your father was a well-known actor, and apparently for your parents the adaptation to the new situation was quite difficult, such that you spent a good part of your early life with your aunt Carola. To this soon came the war: Nights in the bunker, bombs, traumatic experiences that stayed with you for your entire life.

You lost your own father much too early, almost as a child. With 18 you already were half orphan, when you left East Germany to look for your luck in the West. After a second graduation in West Germany you studied all kind of subjects at university from mathematics to law. As Bill Gates and Steve Jobs you didn’t finish any of your studies, but soon made a living with computers. On the way to work you then met a certain Gisela Haarmann. A few years later she was your wife, and then mother of your two children. About the years before you two became parents we know very little. Just that it took quite some time before you had enough confidence into yourselves. Probably this was a time of growing up for both of you, who had spent you childhood in war time and your youth in the tough years that followed. And although it wasn’t easy, you did grow together: The girl from the West from a conservative entrepreneur family and the boy from the East from the open-minded artistic family.

In any case, to have children was the decision in the end. And it was right, not only because we wouldn’t exist otherwise, but because it allowed you to grow as humans and to give you a bit of what you had been lacking for a long time: happiness.

An essential component of our happy childhood were the many long holidays. Amrum, Korsica and Weissensee are pillars critical for forming our connection to nature and our bodily awareness, whether through nudism or skiing, as well as our love between siblings. And the decisive force for this wanderlust was certainly yours. You also like travelling all across Germany and Europe by train, and visited Egypt and the US much later.

You liked Heinz Erhardt, Emil and Von Hallervorden, and your own pointes often also were a bit lewd or churlish. What is funny? Even when you were not the man we used to know, it seemed that your humor hadn’t left you, that you could still sense when one made a joke. The sense for the comic is rooted deeply and yours lives on. And it was also a token of your openness. You never took to your heart the obstinate opinions of others, never did anything just because “it is done this way”, and you were ready to explore new ways critically and possibly adapt them.

You loved nature and long hikes, in particular in your hometown Jena, from 10, Burggarten to the Fuchsturm (fox tower) or over the Kernberge (kernel mountains). You didn’t seek any particular challenge when hiking, just a light extended effort exploring the environment. You didn’t want to compete with other, neither in sports nor at work. I believe this was due both to your insight of being content with what you had achieved and an inner protection from stress that can result from competition.

You had a well-developed aesthetic sense, which you practised as hobby-photographer and -filmmaker. As such you took countless pictures of flowers, documented the life of your family with the camera, and occasionally also took photos of other creatures that you found aesthetically pleasing.

You were a good father, but foremost you were our father; you loved us, we were your pride and joy. When one is young one easily points to what is missing, what could have been better. But with age you clearly see all that you had and is grateful for it. Grateful for your love, your support, your time. Grateful for what you gave us on our way.

So, even though it is incomprehensible that you do not live in this world anymore, we all know nevertheless that this will be our fate one day as well. And thus your parting reminds us that we should use our time for the important things in life. And as Albert Schweitzer said:

"The only thing of importance, when we depart, will be the traces of love we have left behind."

Dagmar & Sven (13.9.2013)