Ooooops!
Gosh, and I got taken to task pretty heavily on FR for comparing that slogan to the "Strength Through Joy" campaigns of the Nazis.
Poor Krauts!
Can't get a break.
The good news is that Germany has a backup slogan for this campaign. The bad news is that it's "Deutschland Uber Alles"
I told them to use Mel Brook's "Springtime For Hitler" song but did they listen to me? NOOOOOOOOOOO.
How 'bout "Du bist einer FRANKFURTER." ?
hope they don't notice that "Arbeit Macht Frei" is still available ...
I know: Ein Volk! Ein, er, Reich! Ein, um... Fuhrer...
OK, maybe not.
this is funny/ironic/sad/divine/pitiful... well, words fail to capture this. i think germany has a lot of bad karma it still hasn't worked through -- they just think they have...
Should the Germans ban the German word for "Yes" because of this:
You can see how quickly this become farcical.
I lived in Germany for several years, and the people are very sensitive of the past because they have worked very hard to come to terms with theirs.
That is a far better effort than other nations who participated in WW II and have gone to incredible lengths to pretend it never existed.
As a German, I don´t give a sh** about this "news". The Nazis used the German language, should I refuse to use my mother-language because of that? I mean, a German student who visited Auschwitz this year did and threw away his passport. He was sent back to Germany by the Polish authorities - in handcuffs. ;-)
The lesson: accept your nationality and do the best you can to be proud of your homeland!
I assume the Nazis ate breakfast, drank beer, and had sex too. Oh yea and Hitler was a vegan, so obviously they are all fascists.
Self esteem is just the opposite of what our maker says: "Rom. 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."
I was stationed in Germany in the 50s and knew tons of really nice people there. They welcomed me with open arms. Delightful people and a delightful country.
Is there something in the German nature that is more susceptible to totalitarianism or to world conquest or atrocities? I don't think that has been determined. Also, we are seeing plenty of the same elsewhere, among non-Germans, in the tyrants of today's globe.
That's what they get for not teaching their own history.
Fools! Fools, I say! Everybody knows that the Esteem Age was in its glory about 100 years ago.
This is the diesel age. Thank you, Mr. Diesel, for inventing that. You were a German, weren't you?
I sent the German embassy an e-mail:
"I like weiner schnitzel."
Hope that makes them feel better.
What's hilarious about this is that all over Europe (and England, to a large extent) Americans are looked down up and derided and blasted as stupid cowboys and hillboys for mostly one reason: their patriotism.
Americans are about the only people on earth who are brought up to love their country and be "proud to be an American."
This is a great strength. It is what gives up resiliency in hard times. It is what makes us get up and fight for our homeland.
After the bombings in London, an English writer recounted how he and his family had been on vacation in America the summer before and how they had been amazed that everywhere they went, they saw ordinary people, not arrogant, not imperial--but ordinary people who, OUT OF LOVE, flew the American flag, put stickers on their cars, wore t-shirts that said "Proud to be an American," etc.
He said at first they were aghast at this display of patriotism, but the longer they were here, the more they realized it was just IRREPRESIBLE LOVE OF COUNTRY.
He remarked that never in a million years would he expect to see his countrymen just decide to fly the British flag outside their home one day because of love of country.
His point was this: Europeans look down on America's patriotism, but lack of patriotism in Europe left it (on several different levels) extremely vulnerable to the Islamofascists.
Also this reminds me of being in Germany back in the 1980's. I saw a political campaign poster that was about the need for more taxes etc. and the slogan was "How much freedom do you need?"
What it meant was: can't you spare some of your personal freedom to be a good socialist/communist?