Were you raised and educated in Germany, or were you born and raised in the US? If the latter, then you most certainly are not German and you can keep your racism to yourself.
pdts
Have you spent much time in Britain? Because “the 20th of september” is an absolutely standard way of talking.
Having lived in the US for awhile, I now say “September 20th” and was called out by my UK friends for having picked up an Americanism.
pdts
Being English born and bred and having been a resident for the last 45 years without a break, I can say “The 20th of September” and “September the 20th” are both standard usages, but yes, dropping the “the” in the latter would mark you with an American taint (and I really don’t need to be exposed to your taint TYVM).
I’m guessing it comes from the old way of stating dates: On the twentieth day of September in the year of Our Lord two thousand and twelve. It just got shortened.
I’d avoid any discussions about who can and who cannot use the N-word if I were you.
That’s theoretically true, but in practice the year is the least significant information in 95% of the documents I receive. If I get a bill, there’s rarely a doubt about what year they expect to get my money.
I have this amazing ability to read something and translate it into words. So, incredible that I am, I can see “2012-09-20” and read “The twentieth of September in the year of our Lord two thousand and twelve”. In similar fashion, I can see a digital clock reading “09:45” and read it out loud as “a quarter to ten”. Fucking amazing, eh?
You really should look into it.
Why?
In any case, I’d imagine that wannabe Germans using ‘Kraut’ is a fairly uncontroversial case.
Same as Giles Coren (a third-generation Briton of Polish descent) referring to newly-arrived Polish immigrants as ‘Polacks’. He’s not Polish, so even if they can do it, he can’t. (link)
pdts
The only person who really ought to be pitted in all this is the OP. There’s clearly room for argument on whether a foreign embassy in the US should adopt the US dating convention (there really isn’t any room for argument on whether our dating convention is sensible, because it’s clearly stupid).
That being the case, anyone who thinks he got fucked over because a German government agency printed a document in the same manner it prints all other documents is stupid.
Let’s leave aside the fact that his mother has been getting these notices every two years and is presumably German.
See, I’ll actually defend the American way of writing dates, because, for me, month then date is the most interesting information when talking about deadlines and future engagements or looking up past information. That said, I like dating things in the YYYYMMDD format on computer, and on letters I’ll go different ways. In my hand-written correspondence, I would write year-roman numeral month-day, so today would be notated as 2012.IX.11. Why? Personal quirk. Picked it up in Hungary and the notation made sense to me. For any normal business correspondence, it’s month (written out), day, year, so September 11, 2012.
But “2012-09-20” is easy; are you good enough to translate “2012-09-02”? Is it Feb or Sep?
Since your snark was directed at me, I just thought I’d point out that:
a) You have a good point. Our brains should be able to translate 9/20/2012 or Sept09’12 as Sept. 20th without a hitch. The only problem I have is when it’s the 12th or earlier in a month: “Pay by 09/07/2012 or we send goons to break your fingers”. So I endorse using “Sept”, or maybe add it in parentheses after: “9/7/12 (Sept. 7, 2012)”
b) I do love snark.
(I wonder if there’s a Message Board where I could get a non-stop stream of it?
(“Board of Messages” if you’re using European Nomenclature)
Since there isn’t a YYYY-DD-MM convention, I suspect we’re all good enough to translate 2012-09-02.
Yeah. I was pretty confused by that as well.
I got me some leiderhosen, and boy do I ever regret it.
In your opinion, should the embassy be writing to her in German or English?
Yes.
Well, let’s see. She used to live in Germany and now she lives in America. How about either? Or both? We have wonderful technology that makes it so easy. THey have to make a choice anyway. Or are you suggesting that the entire letter could have been put into numerical code? Weirdly enough, writing months in either German or English is nearly identical.
Do you read $9.25 as “dollars nine point two five”?
I dunno, do you ever write nine dollars and 25 cents as 25c$9? 
No, I start from the largest unit and work my way down to the smallest, thus: 2012/09/12 20:06:45. It seems to be the thing to do.