You come to this country to visit your daughter…you are staying with them for 5 weeks…you come every year…every year it’s the same thing…
this country sucks…everything’s so stupid and boring…the food is horrible…you all work so hard…
get you sauerkraut eating ass outta here if it’s so bad. I’m sick of having to listen to your broken english destroy this country. Why do I feel like I have to defend it?
Great! now I have to spend a wad of cash taking you to my favorite restaurant to prove my point to you. America is not all Mcdonalds.
Fuck you! Open your mind…or don’t come back. Quit spitting in the face of your hosts and their friends. If it’s so horrible come for a shorter period of time or go elsewhere.
If this is how you’re going to behave. Fuck OFF! we don’t want to see you here.
no, no, no…now that I feel a little calmer I shall elaborate…
My good friends and neighbors are a couple, she’s German…out of the year they have at least 5 months where there is a german family member. Most are charming, but…
there is this venomous faction (her father’s side) who show up, on the way to the house from the airport start spouting how much they hate the country.
Trust me, I know not all germans are like this…this is a rant directed at these folks who show up and spit in our faces…
they show up every year, they bend over backwards, all their friends (including us) bend over backwards to show them a good time, and they in turn take any opportunity to tell us how horrible our country is…
last night they all came over to our house for dinner, and after dinner decided to proclaim how bad american food is…boy did that ever make us feel good.
I have had in my office for the last three weeks a guy from our German supplier.
Andreas LOVES the USA! It’s been great as we have had a good time seeing the sights in Chicago and I love showing off the city. He hasn’t complained about anything, has been enthusiastic about trying new stuff ( except mexican food-the Schwäbisch appetite doesn’t have much spicy stuff!)
Perhaps they’re just old crotchety people? We have them here too and unfortunately there isn’t much you can do except smile politely and nod your head.
I’m going for some German food for lunch now
Mmmmmmmm…späetzle
Didn’t intend to call the guests Nazis. Just to put them in the position of defending THEIR country, putting them on the spot as they are putting their hosts on the spot. Maybe making them see a point or two.
BTW, and off-topic (sorry). I don’t hold a people guilty for the sins of ancestors they never knew, but the generation of GERMAN PEOPLE who committed these atrocities is still alive, as are their children. These fine citizens have been given a pass by the world at large, but not by me. Hitler and his staff didn’t do all that by themselves–a MAJORITY of German citizens got in hip-deep with a hearty Sieg Heil. Call me insensitive or cold-hearted, I don’t give a hoot in Hell about the bruised feelings of these barbarians, who have no shame for their actions, only denial and the coiners of the phrase “I vass only followink orders”.
Yes, I am partially of German descent, but our group got out of that place before the turn of the century. Man, I always get in a pissy mood here in the Pit. Nothing personal, CF, just a raw nerve.
In the spirit of the thread and the other thread that’s coming up with collective nouns for trolls (e.g. “a felch of trolls”) I would like to submit the following new collective noun:
I have to confess…and this will sound SO terrible, but some of the German tourists who swarm into Yosemite are really rude and strange.
I guess there is something about Yosemite National Park that attracts Germans, I don’t know. But I hear a lot of the German language being spoken when I visit my lovely National Park. Some of these German tourists are strange… When we visit Yosemite together, my sister and I are in the (shameful) habit of spotting the weird ones and whispering to each other “Oh! There’s another Monkey Toucher!” (That’s our “code word” for Weird German Tourist.)
Some of the tourists aren’t weird and rude, but some are. Argggh. Like the time we were in Yosemite’s nice historical Wawona Hotel, and were listening to this guy sing great old songs at the piano bar. And these Weird Rude Germans talked loudly in German through the piano player’s songs, and ruined his performance for the rest of us.
Disclaimer: Rude assholes are rude assholes, no matter what their nationality is. Those German houseguests should be soundly berated.
However:
but that is exactly what you would do. Your comments could hardly be interpreted in any other way.
Excuse me, but how about a sense of - you know - proportion here ? If you insult the Danish cuisine, am I right to get sarcastic about My Lai? I’d say no.
I never would have guessed. :rolleyes: And I don’t see why you have a problem with their children, honestly.
I won’t call you either, but I will call you uninformed. The German shame is massive. Nazi crimes are part of the school curriculum. Nazi symbols are illegal. I’ve seen plenty of German documentaries trying to figure out how and why this could have happened. Denial ? I don’t think so.
Right now, there’s a major discussion about introducing referendums in the German political process - they were left out of the original constitution because the Germans know first-hand that mobs can turn ugly. I’ve yet to see another people so hell-bent on getting Democracy right as the Germans.
Your folks were lucky - good for them.
Flang Dang, most educated Europeans have long since dropped their grudges against Germans - and our countries did, after all, suffer somewhat worse under Nazism than the US did. But sure, if holding a grudge is your idea of fun, wear yourself out.
Hitler never got a majority in a free election. The two votes after the Back Stairs Intrigue episode were fixed, shamelessly, according to surviving Nazi party documents. What is incredible is that ten percent of the German nation refused to vote in favour of Anschluss, in the face of threats, intimidation and outright violence.
Blaming the German people, still, for what went on during the war, is something that really annoys me. Please, try to be a little understanding. A couple of hundred years ago, the Native Indians in America were systematically forced from their homes. We’ve all done bad stuff. Just let it go, and let’s get on with stopping it happening again, shall we?
Oh, and as Basil Fawlty so eloquently declares “Do not mention ze var!”
Don’t, if you just want to insult lots of people.
I’m done, you may return to whatever you were saying.
I’ve also got a few reasons … but I’d probably go with a single deflected shot that came off Paul Parker’s leg in 1990.
BTW, many Germans do seem to have a tendancy to travel in organised groups. The problem of seeing other countries this way, IMHO, is that the the group itself becomes insular. The visitors don’t mix with the locals and tend to do, and behave, as they would at home while the locals are pretty much ignored.
In consequence, there is no communication and the group experiences nothing of the country save for a little food and architechture. IMHO, doing the ‘group tour’ thing only confirms prejudices and stereotypes amongst both the visitors and the visited. It’s a crap way and a cop out - just my view.
Look, if we’re going to hijack this thread, let’s do it in style. With Spiny Norman we have a forgiving Dane, and with me you have a pretty unforgiving half Dane.
Why, you ask? Well, what I want to know is why there remains so much neo-nazi sentiment in a country that has labored so hard to eradicate it? We’ll leave out Austria’s Heider for now.
Much Neo Nazi sentiments? Get out of here. Not any more than in Denmark or the Netherlands. It’s just that the media will use anything and blow it out of proportion.
Sure, there’s Neo-Nazis in Germany today. But they’re a VERY slight minority, and more importantly: they’re too stupid and unorganised to be considered a serious threat.
And even if they WERE a threat, it STILL wouldn’t warrant the blame you let the entire German people take by applying your faulty logic.
I’m not going to consider all Danes violent just because a few rivaling biker gangs decide to blow each others club houses up. Neither should you judge all Germans because of the ridiculous behaviour of a small group of them.
