Preconception Of Germany

Before I visited or even did any research on Germany, I added it to my map of the gaps. This is what was in my head about the country, from pop culture or hearsay or dimly remembered school. (Of course, actually going there will change this a lot.)

Most of my knowledge about Germany is in the context of Word War II.  Persecution of Jews, Third Reich, et cetera.  A war machine of barbed wire and mud and gasoline, fueled by an angry eugenics ideology that was a response to the crushing reparations being paid by one generation of Germans for the sins of the previous generations in World War I.  That stuff is pretty bleak.

Then there’s this more modern view, where Germany is a clean, friendly place of rolling green hills and rugged mountains, where people are surprisingly nerdy about scientific research, alternative energies, outdoor adventure, and funky electronic music, and war has moved from the physical world to the less visceral world of finance.  I imagine modern Germans spend half their time wearing white-collar work clothes in shiny university buildings, and the other half in hiking boots and cute little shorts, tromping around in alpine fields and making extremely sarcastic jokes to each other.  I see their sense of humor as sharp, and their demeanor as friendly but emotionally aloof.  A competitive nature?

Pop culture tells me they drink a lot of beer and eat a lot of sausage, but I can’t quite imagine them doing it.  Pop culture also tells me they are into edgy sexual stuff, but I’ve seen German porn, and frankly it’s tame.  There is one major difference though:  All the women, and even many of the men, in German porn are actually smiling.  In American porn everybody has an absurd game-face on that makes them look like they’re either cleaning up an unpleasant spill, or asleep and snoring with their mouth open.  Oh dear, how did I get on this topic?  Let’s stop.

I have a lot of German ancestry on my father’s side, which is probably why most Germans look vaguely familiar to me, and I’m fascinated by the preserved “Brick Gothic” architecture in cities like Lübeck and the way it reminds me of childhood fairy-tales, but even so, Germany doesn’t quite feel like a “homeland” for me, the way I feel about Denmark, eastern Russia, and bits of Ireland.