There are people that almost everyone in Munich knows. Maybe not by name, but by sight. Tibor Adamec is such a person. For many years, the 84-year-old has been on the mezzanine floor at Marienplatz, selling the street newspaper bite. His place is at the entrance to the Kaufhof. His trademark is his elegance. He fights against prejudice bite would only be sold by the homeless, he has been living in an apartment for many years. He usually wears a hat and suit, Rudolph Moshammer is said to have once exclaimed: “You’re smarter than me!”
Tibor Adamec belongs to Munich – and yet for decades he has only had a “travel document for foreigners”. He grew up in the former Czechoslovakia. After deserting as a young soldier in the 1950s, he was stripped of his citizenship. First he fled to the GDR, then he fled from there to Munich and worked for a company that later went bankrupt. Because he was too old to find a new job in his mid-50s, he started working for the street newspaper bite at. He remained stateless the whole time. Until now. Until this Tuesday in May, when he has an appointment at 3:15 p.m. in the district administration department (KVR) in Munich’s Ruppertstraße.
Karin Lohr and Rita Rostschupkin from bite are already waiting for him with a bouquet of peonies. You have known Tibor Adamec for a long time. He has been working for almost 30 years now bite, he is the longest-serving salesman, employed since 1998. Lohr and Rostschupkin encouraged him to try again for German citizenship.
He’d tried it years ago. He passed the naturalization test back then with almost full marks, but failed due to the complicated paperwork that has to be dealt with in such a case. A disappointment for him. Rita Rostschupkin sat down with him again in September, filled out the papers with him, and phoned a clerk. They waited many months.
Tibor Adamec is now turning the corner. He’s nervous, has only had an “astronaut drink” before. He is unsure whether his naturalization will really work. He wears white trousers, a shirt and a hat, as well as a checked jacket and tie. Karin Lohr says: “The best-dressed man in the whole KVR.” When the bouncer sees Tibor Adamec and Karin Lohr with their bouquet of flowers, he asks: “Do you want to get married?” They want to go to room 16.32, a bare room with a German flag and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the wall.
Then it goes very quickly. Tibor Adamec goes into the room and sits down. For the clerk it is one of many documents that she issues on the day. A few stamps that she presses on paper, a signature. She says the saying she has probably said a thousand times: “This is your certificate of naturalization. This makes you a German citizen with all rights and obligations.”
It’s a giant step for Tibor Adamec. He smiles as Karin Lohr and Rita Rostschupkin applaud for him. He holds his naturalization certificate in his hand as if it were a trophy. “It’s always been my wish,” he says. “I’m surprised it really worked out now.”
And because he doubted to the end whether there was a catch to the whole thing, he didn’t plan to do anything. No party, no feast. “I have to process that first,” he says. When Karin Lohr suggests going for a coffee, he nods. Then he slowly walks out of the KVR, the certificate in one hand, the bouquet in the other, Tibor Adamec, who is no longer stateless.