The Other 'N' Word

Today I'd like to steer this blog into slightly deeper territory, to talk about something that has interested me a lot since I arrived here.

If you haven't guessed it already, the subject for today is Nazism. World War II ended in 1945, but the subject of Nazism and Fascism is still quite prevalent today.

To get started, I'd like to point out the worst thing you could possibly say when talking to a German to the first time. I don't know if the people who say these things believe they're actually funny, or if they just don't have a clue, but I've heard the same story from multiple Germans. That is, upon arriving in the US, they were told things like "Heil Hitler!" or "How are you treating your Jews these days?" or even "How's Hitler doing?" (someone in the world believes that Hitler is still alive... I didn't ask.) This is possibly the most utterly rude thing I could imagine saying, and leads to a downright awful first impression -- both with the speaker themself and the country at large. There's nothing like being greeted with ignorant slurs to sour foreign relations.

Here's the problem: even saying the word 'Nazi' is taboo in Germany. Most every German thinks of WWII as a terrible dark spot in their country's past, and will often intentionally avoid the subject if it can be helped. Imagine, as an American, that you were attacked by a foreigner about certain low points in our own past -- the treatment of the American Indians early in our history, slavery, racial segregation, and so on. Even though you had nothing to do with these atrocities, you might still feel a wave of guilt or anxiety at the thought. This is how Germans feel, which is made a lot harder by the fact that many non-Germans treat the matter flippantly, or even make jokes about it. 

Now of course, this is not to say that no Nazism or Neo-Fascism exists in Germany. Although the country has, for the most part, left the sins of WWII behind them, there are still those who choose to believe in the teachings of Hitler. This is true around the world (we have our own share of Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers in the US,) but it does seem quite prevalent here in Germany.

One of the most common themes in graffiti (and there is quite a lot of graffiti in this area) is swastikas. They're spray painted on buildings, stuck to signs, and drawn in sharpie on the desks in school. However, I have never seen a swastika that has not been crossed out by a second graffiti artist. For every one Neo-Nazi there is a horde of angry Germans ready to shut them down. In addition to the removal of pro-Nazi street art, there are stickers that read "Gegen Nazis" ('Against Nazis') that have been spread and stuck in just as many places as the swastikas.
There is much, much more to say on the subject (I don't know much about it, but I could still go on for hours,) but I think I'll leave it at that for the day. I might possibly add another post on the subject in the future, as it is quite prevalent and deserves to be discussed.

---For further reading---

"In Germany immediately after World War II, Allied forces and the new German government attempted to prevent the creation of new Nazi movements through a process known as denazification. The West German government had passed strict laws prohibiting Nazis from publicly expressing their beliefs as well as barring them from the political process. Displaying the swastika was an offense punishable by up to one year imprisonment. There was little overt neo-Nazi activity in Europe until the 1960s. However, some former Nazis retained their political beliefs, and passed them down to new generations.

After German reunification in the 1990s, neo-Nazi groups gained more followers, mostly among disaffected teenagers in the former East Germany. These gangs were formed under their dislike of the communist system installed after WWII, then the system collapsed in 1989. Many of the groups that increased their membership this way were new, having arisen amidst the economic collapse and high unemployment in the former East Germany. They have also had an aversion to people from Slavic countries (especially Poland) and people of other national backgrounds who moved from the former West Germany into the former German Democratic Republicafter Germany was reunited. Much of their ideology was similar to Strasserism.

According to the preliminary version of the annual report of Germany's interior intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) for 2010,^[61] there are currently 25,000 right-wing extremists living in Germany,^[62] including 5,600 neo-Nazis.^[63] Neo-Nazi organizations, related and derivative symbols and Holocaust denial are outlawed in Germany according to the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch § 86a) and § 130 (public incitement)." 

-- From the Wikipedia article on Neo-Nazism

-- and also This Article on Denazification

((I found this second article quite interesting, and found a lot of new information on post-WWII Germany))

On the window of a local bar

On a street sign near my home

On a trashcan on the way to my school

A Translation of the Newspaper Article

A new life in the country: American Nicole Thompson comes to Roetgen for a year as an exchange student. She is studying hard to quickly learn the German language.

Since 1983, young people from the United States have been offered the opportunity to apply for a scholarship via the Parliamentary Sponsorship Program (PPP) of the German Bundestag, allowing them to study in Germany for one year.  In turn, the U.S. Congress provides young Germans a year of study in America.

To date, some 20,000 students and young professionals between the ages of 15 and 24 have used this exchange program to experience first hand the daily life in the other country, via their stays with host families

Our CDU parliamentary deputy from Alsdorf, Helmut Brand, is also taking part in the PPP, and exchange students have been living with host families in our region since early August.

During the year, Herr Brandt wants to visit every "godchild" in person. In Roetgen he has now met with Nicole Thompson of California. The nearly 18-year-old Nicole is spending her exchange year with host parents Lisa Zellner-Kühnle and Rolf Kühnle.

Before serving as hosts, the Kühnles realized they had extra space in their new house in Roetgen as their own children, 23 and 20 years old, are already off to University. They viewed the thought of hosting an exchange student as a positive, as daughter Hannah had already spent a year in France.  Because of this, and based on the good experiences of friends who’d served as hosts, they recently decided to participate in the PPP program.

Back home in the US, Nicole Thompson has already completed high school and wants to major in International Studies (economy, politics, culture) while in college. Therefore she is especially interested in the study and learning of languages. She has come to Germany without any knowledge of German, so she is temporarily using English to communicate with her host parents, teachers, and classmates in her high-school in Aachen.  There she attends the 12th Grade level, where she enjoys her French class as she is already fluent in the language. However, her German proficiency does not yet allow her to completely follow lessons in more technical subjects such as History or Mathematics. But this should change quickly, since she is attending a twice-weekly German course at the VHS in Aachen.

"This is real work," acknowledges host father Rolf Kühnle, in reference to the syllabus of his protégé.

Nicole is also getting used to life in a small, rural town.  She is from Novato, a town of 52,000 that is situated in the Bay Area, near San Francisco.

According to Nicole: "Particularly on weekends, the restricted bus schedule makes it harder to get around on one’s own”, which also presents the host parents with a challenge, “but it is nevertheless good!”.

In Aachen, her contacts outside the family allow her to socialize, while the Kühnle’s son, David, also looks forward to spending time with his new “sister” while taking her under his wing.

In addition, Lisa Zellner-Kühnle and Rolf Kühnle endeavor to help bring Nicole closer to their host country and people by participating in shared activities. They’ve started this by baking a cake together and are also planning a trip to Berlin, where daughter Hannah resides.

Helmut Brandt has also endeavored to make her feel at home in her new residence. Towards that end, he brought Nicole a gift -- a picture book that details the history of the German Bundestag.

((All credit goes to Ray for the translation. Thank you!!))
Edit: Translation updated.

Meeting with Herr. Brand

I was invited to attend a meeting last Thursday. My host family received a letter about it in German, and gave me a simplified explanation in English. As the original letter was already quite simple, the version I received ran along the lines of "A man from the government wants to meet with us."

That was all I knew.

My host parents arrived at a local restaurant, the location of our meeting, in casual dress and proceeded to find a table for four. My host father mentioned to the waitress that we might need a larger table, as we were meeting with this mysterious Herr Brand, and we were not sure if he was bringing anyone else. The waitress gave him an odd look and said, "Herr Brand? Tonight? He's reserved a table for ten people in the back room." That wasn't all, however. She mentioned that Mr. Brand had stated specifically that there would be members of the press present at our meeting. 

Needless to say, I was starting to worry about the whole evening. I hadn't dressed up at all, and had paid absolutely no attention to my outward appearance, which would soon be plastered on some newspaper for everyone in Germany to see (this, of course, was not true; but I worried about it in any case.)

Herr Brand arrived some time alter with a man who appeared to be his secretary. Both were wearing suits and ties, and graciously shook hands with my host parents and I. They sat down and immediately began asking me questions, in a mixture of German and -when it became apparent that German would not work- broken English. The questions ranged from the simple, "Where are you from? What is San Francisco like?" to the more frightening, "Why haven't you learned German yet?  What do you think of the current German political situation? Didn't you learn -any- German before you came here?" I answered each to the best of my ability, but experienced a jolt of momentary panic each time the man turned to face me. 

About halfway through our meeting another man showed up, followed by a woman who announced herself to be a reporter from the Aachen newspaper. The man was never introduced, and said nothing for the remainder of the meeting, He simply sat in his seat and watched our discussion curiously, then left silently when we were finished.

We concluded the meeting with a picture, some final questions, and the presentation of a rather nice coffee table book to me from Herr. Brand. The book is absolutely huge, and weighs more than twice as much as the laptop I am currently using. It is filled with pictures of Berlin, the German Bundestag and its members, and varied pictures of German history and politics through the ages. It is nice, but it will be an interesting ordeal to bring it home, as I am limited to 50 lbs in my checked luggage. 

The other day my article was run in the Aachen newspaper. I cannot read it completely, but it seems to be about the CBYX/PPP program more than it is about me. The embarrassing part, however, is that -unlike usual local scholarship articles- this one covers half of a page. I have been in a newspaper before, but never with this size of an article. I guess the good part, for my lingering social anxiety, is that I can be assured that almost no one I know will stumble upon it by chance, as I know very few people in the city of Aachen.

To be absolutely fair, the meeting went better than expected, and all seemed to flow smoothly. Herr. Brand and his aides were quite nice, as was the kindly reporter who wished me a good year before returning to write up her article. 

Yeah, I'm kind of a big deal.

Martinstag

Before I start on this post, I'd like to make it absolutely clear that I have no idea what I'm talking about. My host parents told me that there would be a celebration on the 11th of November, and that it had something to do with St. Martin. I knew nothing about St. Martin (a small flaw in my Catholic education,) so I went to the celebration blindly. There is a basic rundown here, if you are really interested in the history behind the celebration. I'd also like to admit that, if you cannot tell, I am writing this blog around nine days too late. I hope to get better at keeping up with my blog in the future.

Around a week before the 11th, my host parents informed me that we would be going to some sort of celebration, something to do with a Saint and a lot of lanterns. I thought this sounded fun - what with being able to learn about German culture and all - so I was really looking forward to it. We showed up at around 4:30 in the afternoon, and found our way to the general start of what would be the Martinstag procession here in Roetgen. Apparently the general set up involves a man on a horse, -dressed as St. Martin (who appears to be a cross between a roman centurion and Santa Claus- a bunch of children with homemade paper lanterns, and a brass band. We walked behind the mounted St. Martin through the Streets of Roetgen as the sun set; surrounded by children who were constantly running back and forth, tripping, and dropping their lanterns. It was all very interesting, but the meaning or purpose to the whole thing was lost on me. Just as I was bemoaning the fact that Germans don't know how to celebrate correctly (fireworks and food, of course,) we ended up at the final point in our journey - the backyard of the local Senior home. We passed a barbecue covered in cooking bratwurst, and stood by the largest bonfire I have ever seen. Whoever was in charge of the procession had found a good deal of scrap wood -mainly wooden shipping pallets- and had piled them about five feet high, thus creating a massive tower of flame that the collected citizenry of Roetgen assembled around. I noted that the ground here is so moist that the bonfire was built on the Senior home lawn, with no fear that the fire would spread away from the original wood pile. In California we would have to use a beach, as just about every other possible surface is highly flammable. In any case, this is where the night ended, and we returned to our cars and to the safety of our climate controlled homes; hiding from the cold German night.

Although I was rather confused about the whole evening, I did really appreciate the beauty of a herd of children, each with a differently colored paper lantern lit from within which seemed to glow more brightly as the night went on. As you can imagine, the fact that I forgot my camera still frustrates me, but I'll insert some pictures I found online to give a sense of what I mean.

The final picture is of a display of Weckmanns -- rolls that are baked specially for Martinstag. They are extra soft and sweet, and perfect to be eaten with jam or nutella. I am told they represent St. Martin, but no one explained the corncob pipe or the jelly hearts that are inserted in some. 

The Netherlands

As previously mentioned, the city of Aachen is positioned almost exactly on the borders of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. This means that there is very little differentiation between the three in this area. My host Mom, for instance, goes shopping in the Netherlands -- the closest grocery store is in another country.
This also means that it is very easy to go new places for vacation. As my host parents explained, a huge amount of Germans flood into the Netherlands on certain vacation times and holidays. Apparently the two are different enough to make for an exciting trip while still being just around the corner.
We decided to join the rush this year, so my host parents, one of my friends and I piled into the car last Friday and began our three-hour journey to an apartment we had rented on the North Sea. As a Californian, it struck me as bizarre that people would willingly choose to go somewhere colder, windier, and wetter for vacation. My idea of an ideal trip is to somewhere pleasantly warm and calm. However, the trip turned out much better than I could have envisioned.
The apartment itself was the epitome of Dutch architecture -- the first floor was only accessible by a flight of narrow stairs that began at the front door and ended directly at the door of the apartment itself. When you left the house, you had to stand above the door on one of the narrow steps and lean down to the lock, as there was absolutely no room in the stairwell save for the stairs themselves. All the rooms were small, which didn't seem too odd as -as my host parents aptly pointed out- everything in the Netherlands is small. The counters were low, the fridge was minuscule, the steps were too small for normal feet, the ceilings were low... and so on.  The room my friend and I shared was built all the way up into the sloping roof, meaning that one of the beds had only a foot or so of headroom while the other was a little safer (it's rather unpleasant to crack your head on a roof beam after accidentally sitting up on your bed.) Apart from that, it was the usual vacation rental; many of the appliances either did not exist or refused to work. My host parents spent around an hour trying to fix the old-fashioned pull-style toilet, and ended up sticking a cooking pot on top of the mechanism. I didn't ask how that helped.

It was relatively cold, but much warmer than we had anticipated. I bought my winter coat early to aid in my North Sea survival, only to end up lugging it around for most of the trip. The beaches we visited were only as cold as those in Northern California, if not a tad warmer. Although the others thought it was too cold for a beach, I felt perfectly at home. 

Besides going to the beach and generally exploring, we also went shopping a lot as well as trying the local restaurants and food. I don't think I have ever complained about the presence of fried food, but this vacation brought me close. Every single piece of food I ate, apart from our meals at home, was fried. I had fried kibbeling (a local favorite, and rather good for fish and chips), french fries, fried mussels, fried calamari, a fried bratwurst, a fried rice patty, and even a fried banana. By the end of our stay I could have sworn the grease was leaking out of my pores. At home we ate more normally, with the exceptions being local foods that we decided to try. We bought a box of Dutch chocolate sprinkles (to eat on a buttered piece of bread,) lime-flavored yogurt drink (surprisingly good,) and even fat-free chocolate and vanilla swirl-flavored pudding in a carton. I could have sworn it was milk until my host mother glooped some into a bowl for me. We all agreed that, for a fat-free dessert, the pudding was a remarkable success.
And that's about it. We had a nice, relaxed vacation full of beach-going and fried food-eating, and went home early Halloween morning.

Me, riding a cannon on the edge of the North Sea

Food options: Fried or deep fried. This is a combo of mussels, calamari and kibbeling. 

A picture of the beach near our apartment. Unintentionally black and white.

My friend, Phoebe, and my host Father.