When Uwe Mai thinks about his childhood, he sees the Saale River. Bending gently, it flowed past his parents' home in Calbe just south of Magdeburg. He only had to dash across the road and down some steps to reach the riverbank, lined with big old trees to climb and rocks to skip across the water.Mai says that he and his little brother Thomas played down by the river every day when his parents were working their shifts. His father was a steelworker in a nearby factory that was a major supplier of pig iron in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), as East Germany was officially known. His...…When Uwe Mai thinks about his childhood, he sees the Saale River. Bending gently, it flowed past his parents' home in Calbe just south of Magdeburg. He only had to dash across the road and down some steps to reach the riverbank, lined with big old trees to climb and rocks to skip across the water.Mai says that he and his little brother Thomas played down by the river every day when his parents were working their shifts. His father was a steelworker in a nearby factory that was a major supplier of pig iron in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), as East Germany was officially known. His...WW…