German Culture Thread

I bet if you asked them to quote a paragraph or something from it, they'd be tongue-tied. Heck, I'll bet most of them haven't even read a single page of it.

I once heard that Main Kampf is the only book that changed the world because people didn't read it.

Not to mention that a lot of Neonazis are not very educated, so... yeah.

edited 6th Jan '17 2:08:37 AM by DrunkenNordmann

A lot of Neonazis probably can't even speak German.

One of our satirist channels got some mileage out of some high-ranking NPD memember being a felon of Bosnian decent - in other words: a criminal foreigner.

The quote is from Schwanitz book about the most important books in history. Good read overall...I mean Schwanitz, not "Mein Kampf".

To explain the situation: The issue was that "Mein Kampf" was about to enter the public domain. There was either the option to publish a version with comments, or allow it to be freely accessible as it was by everyone. But I wouldn't put too much stock in the sales numbers....those who buy into this kind of ideology will most likely never read it, anyway. And if they do, the comments might do something good.

Deustche Welle: Where does it play? Germany's temples of culture

Wow, they mentioned Zollverein...I am impressed, usually the Ruhr Area gets overlooked when it comes to culture...unfairly so.

I guess the Elbphilarmonie will be a good draw for tourists who still haven't realized that Hamburg is one of the many German cities one should visit at least once....

So the bottomless money pit aspect thereof has been forgotten?

Not quite, but if the building proofs to be the draw it is supposed to be and become kind of a signature building for Hamburg, I think the trouble will soon be forgotten. After all, no truly important building has ever manage to stay in budget during the building phase, but most of them proved to be gold mines later on.

Now, the Berlin Airport, that is another matter. That will be always an example for wasted tax money.

Or Stuttgart 21

I'm curious, how is Polandball is received in Germany? Those anschluss and reichtangle jokes might not be accepted, or even treated as illegal.

edited 13th Jan '17 3:36:45 AM by murazrai

Most of those I saw are a clear parody....

A co-worker of mine do warned me to not perform the jokes in Germany, though or I'll get beaten up....

Stuttgart 21 is a special case...the project wouldn't have run over budget that much that early if not for the protests. And the protests are the result of the citizens first not using their right to protest when the project was still in the planning phase and then suddenly being all shocked about what the city was doing. I have a hard time to feel for them, because they passed over a lot of opportunities to do something about it only to go all contrary when the work had already started.

It's not like jokes about World War 2 are all that novel.

Although the protesters do have a point that the project was poorly planned. But of course starting protest when the project is already well underway is rather short-sighted.

Younger people are probably more open-minded about this. Butr never, ever make jokes about the Holocaust in Germany. You could end up arrested for it.

edited 13th Jan '17 5:55:57 AM by Zarastro

Naturally they have a point, but that's what the democratic process is for. You can't do a project like this out of the blue, there is always the opportunity to stop it. The citizens in my town have spend the last 30 to 40 years protecting the green areas, because the city naturally likes the notion better to built something new on a free place than built where you first have to clean up the whole ground. In most cases we won the battle. Because the moment they even mention something in this direction, they have a bunch of protesters on their hand. The citizens of Stuttgart did nothing for years, instead of paying attention to what their politicians were actually doing.

That is the problem nowadays. Too many people think that democracy means that you cast your vote every four years and then you can lean back. A lot of them don't even look into the people they elect.

It's even worse in the USA — a lot of us don't even bother to vote once every four years.

That's one of the reasons we're about to swear in an overgrown rotten tangerine for President in a week.

edited 13th Jan '17 6:22:08 AM by M84

Well, it is hard to argue that it has become increasingly difficult to plan and execute great infrastructure projects, mostly because citizens are now prepared to obstruct those projects when they deem them pointless (or because they are in close proximity to their homes, annoying). This is of course a problem for an industrial nation like Germany and there are efforts to be made to curb those excesses a bit (just the effort some people took to prevent a new arena for the FC Freiburg ind Freiburg is really insane).

Of course sometimes those fears are justified. One beneficial side effect of this development is that pointless tournaments like the Olympic games will probably not be hosted in Germany anymore (Only the EC and WC have good chances) which given the disastrous financial record of those tournaments in other countries, is a good thing imho.

Then again, those concerns are often unnecessary regarding buildings that could prove to be immensely beneficial to the attractiveness of a city/country. The construction of Neuschwanstein (and other castles) almost bankrupted Bavaria and forced the king to accept a bribe from Bismarck and in return accept to join Imperial Germany. But now those castles are among the most visited places in Germany. The same counts for the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche in Dresden. And I have little doubt that the reconstruction of the city palace in Berlin will prove the same.

Well, that and an antiquated election system. I fully appreciate the fact that the USA is an incredibly big country, but surely in the 21st, you could do without an electoral college and instead let every vote count?

Of course Germany has the advantage that back in 1949 German politicians deliberately picked the best parts of the British and American system.

Outside of the fact that you still have a two-chamber system, your elections also seem remarkably similar to Danish elections.

Of course, our head of state is hereditary rather than elected because something something preserving monarchy something something, and as a result our executive (government) branch isn't as powerful, but hey, it works.

This makes sense to me, for the same reason I think Holocaust denial should be illegal - you don't get to co-opt one of the most large-scale, violent genocides in modern history.

edited 13th Jan '17 7:13:50 AM by math792d

Interestingly, the current system (two-chamber system und election system) is a compromise between the SPD and CDU. The CDU wanted a Majoritarian Electoral Systems and a "true" second chamber like the American Congress. The SPD was against a Majoritarian Electoral Systems and against the latter. Since the German founding fathers (I hope it is acceptable if I use that term for our American readers?) agreed that a Majoritarian Electoral System would make it easier for a anti-democratic to rise and in return wanted to strenghten the rights of the federal counties, they made a compromise: As a result our election system is a bit complicated at first, but is deemed as a safeguard against extremist movements. And the Bundesrat is scientifically often called a "unechte" (not sure how to translate this: untrue?) second chamber, since its' members are not directly elected, but sent from the federal counties governments.

unreal, possibly.

Though I guess the point is that it's not considered an independent legislative chamber with directly elected members. We had one of those but abolished it in the 1900's because the idea of a chamber only for wealthy landed gentry meant nothing ever got done around here. When the liberals secured a majority in 1901 they began the process of dismantling the House of Lords.

edited 13th Jan '17 7:40:03 AM by math792d

To be fair, the Bundesrat is partly elected. All German minister-presidents (the leaders of the state governments) are members of it and they are elected by the state parliaments.

Also, shouldn't we take this topic over to the German Politics thread instead?

edited 13th Jan '17 8:00:10 AM by DrunkenNordmann

The Bundesrat is of course democratically legitimated since its' members are made up from the various local governments and are strictly bound by the wishes of those governments.

Perhaps, I don't want to get off topic here.

I would translate it with "fake".....

In the case of the green areas, the protests aren't mindless. The best way to get what you want is to say: Yeah, great, but why don't you do that - "points to the giant areal of old office buildings which haven't been used for ages". Not to mention that some of them have an important function...mainly to get floated every few years whenever the melting snow causes damage in a lot of other cities which did built over those areas close to the river.

Though I am actually against rebuilding the "old Berlin"...it is not like there aren't already a number of historical buildings and tourists attraction in the city. The whole project is unnecessary, expensive (especially for a city and state which has, frankly, bigger problems) and pointless. Sometimes it is better to create something new than to recreate something old.