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As a reporter on the Obituaries desk at The New York Times, I write about the lives of famous — and not so famous — people who have left their mark on history. I also speak German, which is why I found myself spending the month of May in Berlin, filling in for a colleague.
Before I left, I worked with a tutor to polish my conversational skills. I asked her if she had any fun ideas for articles I could pursue.
“Well, you know,” she said, “the city of Bielefeld? Everyone says it doesn’t exist.”
About 300,000 people live in Bielefeld, but I’ll admit that I was only vaguely aware it existed.
To Germans, Bielefeld is the equivalent of, say, Scranton or Cedar Rapids — cities where the best you can say about them may be that you can’t think of anything bad to say. For much the same reason that Scranton was the setting for “The Office,” Bielefeld had become the butt of a joke.
Like many jokes these days, it started online, though this one began back in 1993. It came in the form of a goofy conspiracy theory: that the existence of Bielefeld is a sham, and anyone who says otherwise is in on the plot.
Over time, the town became a byword for boring. Songs were written about its utter blandness, including one performed by a talking slice of bread named Bernd — this is Germany, after all.
Now, before the good people of Scranton or Cedar Rapids come after me, I should add that the Bielefeld joke struck me as a bit forced. I know what it’s like to come from “flyover country”: I grew up in the 1980s in Nashville, which, for all its bachelorette-party glitz and country-music glamour today, was about as nondescript a city as one could find then.
Every city has its own story. I decided to write something about Bielefeld’s.
It helped my article enormously that Bielefeld was experiencing something of a Cinderella moment. Its soccer team, Arminia, had a banner season; the team won the third division title and reached the finals of the DFB-Pokal Cup, a major tournament.
Going into that last round, the team was the underdog against Stuttgart, and it ended up losing decisively. But in the weeks before the game, it was the national darling. This seemed like a good moment to venture into the real Bielefeld.
I arrived in Bielefeld by train from Berlin, expecting to find its downtown filled with the anonymous chain shops and restaurants that have overtaken many German cities its size.
Instead, I found a cross between everyone’s image of an ideal German town — cobblestone streets, half-timbered houses, a big late-Gothic church — and all the accouterments of a well-to-do American suburb — upscale boutiques, cozy cafes, a luxury watch store.
Of course, a window full of Rolexes does not make for an interesting city, let alone a healthy one.
I eventually met with Bielefeld’s mayor of 16 years, the avuncular Pit Clausen. He offered me coffee while his dog, Scotty, a Labrador mix, sniffed my outstretched hand.
Mr. Clausen struck me as the sort of humane, pragmatic mayor you would expect to find guiding any successful city.
He clearly loved Bielefeld, but he was also humble. There were many things he could have bragged about. The city has a well-respected university. It’s home to several multigenerational private firms, the sort of companies that have long undergirded the German economy.
But what Mr. Clausen really wanted to discuss was the Bethel Foundation, a sprawling collection of hospitals, rehabilitation facilities and assisted-living spaces for people of all ages with disabilities. The foundation’s residents work across the city, and some of them have a fan club for the soccer team.
“This inclusiveness, the treating of people as they are, we feel that very, very deep in the heart in our urban society,” Mr. Clausen told me.
That sense of inclusivity was something I heard from many people I met around Bielefeld. It even came up in my chat with Mael Corboz, the Alabama-born captain of the city’s soccer team.
He arrived last year to a team at its very bottom. Rather than clear out the roster, he told me, the management put its trust in the existing lineup.
“We did it the right way,” he said, standing on the sidelines at the city arena. “It wasn’t like, OK, this team didn’t make it. Let’s throw them away and get some new players. It was more like, OK, there are still some good things here. Let’s work on this.”
It’s a small example, but it fit with the Bielefeld ethos. It may not be the most exciting city in Germany; then again, it doesn’t want to be. But it must surely be in the running for the most humane. And for that, we should all be glad that Bielefeld exists.
Clay Risen is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk.
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