A very nice read and pretty much my experience. I have been here for a quarter of my life now, I do not think I can live anywhere else now. People may not like me being here because of my skin color or whatever but I do not mind. I keep to myself and follow all the "rules" I can. In fact, I like most of the rules, rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality.
Will a little bit of empathy be nicer, sure, but I cannot complain. Speaking of which, a lot of German natives complain and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year), but honestly I have visited / lived in nine countries, and people have no idea how good they have it here. I came here with a bag, twenty euros in my pocket and a job offer, a dozen years later I have pretty much all basic comforts and stability one can dream of, my kids have a bright future waiting for them, all this is not possible in many countries.
> Speaking of which, a lot of German natives complain and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year), but honestly I have visited / lived in nine countries, and people have no idea how good they have it here.
The grass is always greener on the other side ... until you actually dare to find out. Having lived and worked in many a country, I second your opinion that it is often about trade offs. Problems will come and go. You have to choose the problem you want to work with.
Germany certainly is one of the top countries to live in.
My opinion (immigrant for the 2nd time, currently in Germany since 2013- so I've lived in 3 countries when counting my native one):
Basically, all rich/"western" countries are pretty decent. Some better than other, but they're all 'ok' or rather they all have plenty of 'ok' options for people able to work at somewhat in-demands fields (despite the financial situation of the last couple years a career in tech or tech adjacent generally still fits that category).
If you go somewhere where there's "real" problems, countries like Egypt, India, Ethiopia (altho of course there are nice areas in these countries too) you realize most of the time you'd rather live in any rich country than in a poor country. And there are more people worldwide living in countries ± like India than in countries ± like Germany.
"The grass is always greener on the other side ... until you actually dare to find out. "
Definitely. I hated germany and after school the first thing I did, was to go away as far as possible. Good for getting perspective. There are things that work nicer elsewhere and things were we actually are pretty advanced.
I had the same experience with my own country, Australia. I enjoyed moving to the Bay Area for work, and I treasure the couple years I lived there. But I also really enjoyed moving back to Australia again.
I feel like it’s impossible to truly understand your home country unless you’ve spent enough time abroad to see it with fresh eyes.
I think I'm going through the same experience with my home country (USA). It has all kinds of issues that have been discussed at length, and I thought when I left I might be leaving for good, but I think I'm going to be back there in a couple of years.
I moved to a beautiful mountain town in New Zealand, and I know I'll treasure the time I spent here for the rest of my life, but I find myself missing America more and more.
I think there are two aspects. First, quite obvious, everyday life and overall infrastructure is really good. It is clean, well maintained in most places. And there are only few countries where all open landscapes are yours to have. Germany is one big park. You have a small garden? No problem, every forest or unfenced meadow is yours to use and to enjoy.
The other aspect, which makes people leave, is the direction in which things are going. It feels like things get a little worse every day. Bureaucracy was never easy in Germany, but since Covid, it feels like certain parts of it have mostly stopped working. All that while they add more taxes, more regulation all the time. This is what drives motivated people out.
There are also circumstances and other factors that may be unknown to you when you move to a new place (your first flatmate, the city you move in, the company etc), or factors you did not choose or had little control of up to some age (the area you grew up, the people around you etc) that can affect one's experience. The article's author also talks about that.
A person who moved to ostwestfalen or in a small town in eastern germany will probably not have the same experience as a person moving to hamburg (no offence to any of these places). A person moving as an intern to a relatively international environment will not have the same experience as a person who moves to a 100% german environment. It definitely matters how you act in your environment, but the environment restricts what you can get out of it as experience. Similarly, this applies to moving to any country, but also to where you were born.
Imo and ime people who do not get a good experience out of a country (the one they were born in or where they moved) is most of the times not about having unrealistic expectations of other places (they may have, but it is not the point) or they do something wrong, but due to a big chunk of factors and general character/compatibility issues that one has little control over, and may even be unaware of until that point. This holds for the "success stories" as much as the "failed" ones. It is hard to accept sometimes because having little/no control over stuff can be uncomfortable. The experience of different people can be different for things out of each one's control mostly.
In any case, getting different experiences in places out of where one was raised can always be helpful and help one grow.
> The grass is always greener on the other side ... until you actually dare to find out.
Yes this is the core problem.
The grass used to be very green in the "first world" (North America and Western Europe) but it is now getting dangerously yellow.
Instead of asking themselves the hard question why the grass is getting yellow the people in charge try to prove it is fine by bringing cows (it is an image here) from the "the third world", and say look the grass is not getting yellow because those cows like it.
This is why you usually see the collapse of the rose-colored glasses effect in third generation of immigrants.
So yes the grass can still been seen as relatively green in Germany, but I have regularly traveled there for decades and I can tell you as an external observer the country looks like it is going to hell over time.
You get a similar effect with westerners going to East Asia. A lot of them like it very much there wearing rose-colored glasses and can't figure out why the locals believe the future is dark for them.
I think a lot of the complaining comes from high taxes, remembering the "good old times" and just from being German. Germans love to complain.
I left Germany for a few years and came back. There are very few other places I could imagine to live in. Maybe Norway, Canada or Switzerland. I hope Germany gets its things together, the recent uprise of xenophobia and social polarization is concerning. I grew up in a Germany where it didn't matter where you came from or what you looked like.
Germany has been shifting wealth from middle class and lower class to the rich for a long time now and is at the forefront of inequality increase in Europe. All the xenophobia and polarization is happening for a reason. The people are no longer happy with their lives here. It is a result of decades of bad politicians and policies, bad election results, and mismanagement of the whole country and immigration and integration policies. Getting out shit together will require a massive mindset change, that personally I don't really see coming. We can forget all the mainstream parties like CDU, SPD, Greens, AFD, Left. They won't and don't want to bring us out of this situation. What they will do is continue the course of retiree pleasing policies, to catch tons of votes, while the rest of the country continues to go to shit.
I, a German, went to Switzerland for vacation once. I talked to a Swiss guy about how I like Switzerland and all that. I told him how impressed I was with how organized everything is and how well everything works. The train system and public transport in general is wonderful compared to the one we have in Germany, for example. To my surprise, he said something along the line of "yeah well, it only looks like that from the outside".
Perhaps the tendency to complain is a necessity to achieve a high level of efficiency.
I mean it helps that there's around 9M people living there, 1/10th of Germany or about the same amount as London or New York.
Also helps to accumulate wealth by taking care of global blood-money and being a diplomatic hub :) and let's not forget the tons of gold we got gifted about a hundred years ago, sadly can't quite remember where we got that from.
> Also helps to accumulate wealth by taking care of global blood-money and being a diplomatic hub
People say that, but ETFs that invest into plain old boring sectors of Swiss industry give long term returns half way between USA AI insanity and everything else in the world. So they must be doing something right with their industrial economy as well.
we got some huge, international companies here. pharma, banks, insurance, food and beverages, resource trading and a more-or-less stable political system.
I suspect natives have a more nuanced view of their home country, compared to expats who end up getting a tinted view. At least it likely takes a long time for an outsider to truly understand how things work. Reading the newspapers isn't representative, you know...
As southern European that has lived a couple of years in Switzerland and eventually moved into Germany, I always mention that from flexibility and rules point of view, being in Germany versus Switzerland, feels so much better in Germany.
Sorry for the stereotypes, it was just how it felt dealing with everything, which is how everything gets to be so organised in first place, and the difference on similar matters in Germany, still I go back into Switzerland with some regularity.
Swiss voted against tax reduction in the past. I do not know of that many countries, where people would have done that. So the way they think is a bit different.
Do you know, that by now Switzerland frequently refuses German trains to enter the country, because of delays? They don't want Deutsche Bahn mismanagement and delays to affect their own train network. Very reasonable to put a stop to this.
What they do is very interesting, though IMO "refuse to enter the country" sounds harsher than it actually is.
If an inbound German train is late to Basel by more than 20 minutes, the Swiss run their own substitute train from Basel (they keep rolling stock on standby). The replacement train runs to the original timetable so that local passengers are unaffected. The late train is then pulled out of service at Basel (there are frequent onward connections).
They do something similar at Schaffhausen.
Trains that are late into St. Margrethen are made to queue behind local traffic.
That sounds like an excellent solution for locals.
But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.
It was the locals who decided that it was worth the extra hassle and expense (and that doing the same thing at St. Margrethen wasn't).
There was probably a referendum at some point. :)
I am not sure whether the stats are comparable, but I read somewhere that about half of Deutsche Bahn trains are late into Basel (and there are many trains a day). While I don't know this for a fact, it wouldn't surpise me if patterns of delays are relatively predictable and can be planned for.
There was some talk about just ending those routes at Basel at some far-away point in the future, but I'm not sure if that's something that's been decided.
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But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.
Considering how often the Deutsche Bahn isn't on time (I say this as a German), the SBB should have use for this rolling stock nearly all the time - so it's rather efficient. :-)
A normal sized plot with a house listed to be torn down on in outskirts of Zurich costs 7mil. A 2 bedroom apartment on the countryside costs 2mil. You will not pay this in a lifetime from 2 good level swiss salaries.
Are you Swiss? I'm no expert but from talking to Swiss people, their mortgage system is very different from the American one, and people are in no hurry to pay off their mortgages, and often they're never really paid off. Americans might find that appalling but the Swiss people I've spoken to find it normal. Tax incentives also help with this.
It is the UK/Nordic system which I find morbidly bad. It already assumes you will never pay off the property and you pass it down to family and children, possibly multiple generations. It allows for property prices to go to the moon instead of incentivising for affordability. Makes for a system giving up owning property. How did we humans come to this.
Swiss people often don't see how awesome swiss is themself except they have been away for a longer while to see how shitty every other place tends to be.
Ex. Most people here think Europe is generally this clean. They never bothered looking out of their car in literally any other neighbor country.
Source: Austria living in Switzerland who also lived in Thailand, Malaysia, Czech, .. for a while.
Just nitpicking on the "quarter of my life" point: being in my forties, I spent 3 of the 4 quarters of my life (so far) in 3 very different places in the world. The 4th quarter is a rounding error of those three. I don't think the fact of spending a quarter of one's life in one place actually says anything other than the fact that this place is livable enough.
Can you elaborate? I don't quite grasp what you mean. Do you mean that the first three quarters of your life were more formative/adventurous and the last quarter was more driven by inertia and routine? I can relate if so, just not sure if that's what you mean.
In my forty something years of life so far, a quarter is a little more than 10 years. I lived the first quarter + ε in one place during my childhood, then moved to a different city for the college and lived there for another quarter + ε, and I'm spending a quarter + ε in a completely different country. The sum of these three ε cover the remaining quarter.
The fact that I spent a quarter of my life in three different places does not mean I'm forced to stay in any of these places for the rest of my life. I might as well move with my family and live in another place for some extended period of time.
Well, same here. I hate living here to be sure because of the slowness and the way future looks bleak because of inability to change. But.... I am pretty sure I would hate living in other places even more. And the only reason I hate it here is because I see how good we have it here, and how much better it could be if we just got off our fear of change and actually tried to move with times.
Also, Germany is one of the few countries where I have rarely been told to go back to my own country when I criticize something here, instead people say "Yeah, it is shit, but it is what it is eh?"
Curious to get some perspective: How viable would starting a career in IT/Technology in Germany be as a mildly autistic American with an inability to learn foreign languages? I hear many opinions about this ranging from "English is commonly spoke, you'll be fine" to "You can visit but you will be unable to settle down due to xenophobia". The EU is incredibly appealing as someone highly dissatisfied with the trajectory of the US, and though I am aware many European countries are slowly following the same trajectory at least it'd give me a few more years of "this is fine".
My family pre-immigration 150 years ago still exists in Germany and now appears to own a large road-construction concrete company. I wonder if that string is worth pulling.
> Curious to get some perspective: How viable would starting a career in IT/Technology in Germany be as a mildly autistic American with an inability to learn foreign languages?
In my observation, in Germany the tolerance for the symptoms associated with mild autism is a little better than in the USA. On the other hand: if you aren't able to learn the German language fast: forget it.
Also be aware that starting a career in Germany is much harder than in the USA. On the other hand: once you are in, it is rather easy to stay in your job (in particular at a big company where there is a strong Betriebsrat (work council)) as long as you work somewhat dutifully and don't do anything really stupid. Just don't expect to move up the ladder (moving up the ladder or switching companies every few years is rather uncommon in Germany, so don't come with such an expectation).
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My family pre-immigration 150 years ago still exists in Germany and now appears to own a large road-construction concrete company. I wonder if that string is worth pulling.
This "I had ancestors in country X" seems to be a common sentiment among US-Americans. As a German I can really not understand how US-Americans get the idea that anybody in this country cares about that. If you really cared about the country, you would learn the language to a near-native level and get deeply into the country's culture.
It seems unwise to go to a country without a plan to learn the language.
If you are as unable to learn languages as you stated, then I suggest living in English speaking countries for life
Unwise, sure, but there are precious few options for English native countries, particularly when my partner has a skin condition that makes persistent cold temperatures untenable.
Learning the language is vital here. Most things are not in english but only in german. Every official letter you receive will be in german.
Looking for an apartment? Better speak german with the landlord.
You may get through for a few years in an international city like Hamburg, Berlin, München if you find a job at an international company. But long term? Learn german or you will suffer.
Whenever I tell Germans that I'm Canada, they almost always respond with "Canada!? It's such a wonderful country, what are you doing here??" as if they couldn't possibly imagine what a Canadian might like about their country.
Sure, Canada's a great place, just like Germany. Also just like Germany it's far from perfect, and sometimes one is just after a different tradeoff.
I've found that the rule-following in Germany is way more consistent than in the country I grew up at in Latin America, plus people is much more willing to help you actually follow those rules. This helps reduce the amount of (bad) chaos in your daily life tremendously.
> In fact, I like most of the rules, rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality.
I'm sure some of the more entrepreneurial minds will argue that many of those rules stifle innovation and progress. But also on a personal level, at least to this returning German, some of the rules seem silly at best and at worst cause some underlying sense of oppression. Why, e.g., is there a Meldegesetz/Meldeamt? I survived for 25+ years in California without such.
There are safety/freedom tradeoffs and whether they are worth it, everyone has to decide for themselves (at least Germans are granted the liberty to leave, if they don't like it). Many Germans long for a more adventurous life, but in the end most prefer to visit, rather than emigrate to, foreign shores.
One thing the Ortsamt/Meldeamt is good for, you don't have to register to vote. You get a note in your mail when there is an election. The note informs you about the date and where your designated polling station is located and it somewhat serves as your voting-ID at the station.
Yes, there are good rule and bad rules (and rules that were once reasonable but changes in technology or society rendered them suboptimal).
As an immigrant to Germany, I wish the authorities would think more about the chilling effect every new rule has on activity (add another item to your to-do checklist, and less people are likely to even start). A prime example is trying to open a company in Germany vs some other countries (not even going as far as the US, it's enough to compare with Finland or the UK).
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As an immigrant to Germany, I wish the authorities would think more about the chilling effect every new rule has on activity (add another item to your to-do checklist, and less people are likely to even start). A prime example is trying to open a company in Germany vs some other countries (not even going as far as the US, it's enough to compare with Finland or the UK).
Also many Germans think this way. They have just given up that the politicians will ever change that.
I'm living in Berlin for 13/45 of my life, but I don't think I will ever feel integrated. As much as I tried to get around and adapt to the local culture, I quickly found myself only connecting with non-Germans, most of them from Southern Europe, and on a smaller scale from Poland and the Balkans.
I was going to respond with "Protestantism", but then I realized that I also lived in the US for ~5 years and I had no problem to adapt there. Mind you, I wouldn't go back to live in the US unless you were paying me a lot of money to do so, but at least there I felt integrated.
But honestly I don't have a better answer. Despite all my sincerest efforts, I never got the German idea of humor. I never understood their lack of flexibility in social settings. Their relationships with their family members (especially parents) is completely alien to me. I certainly don't like their "one-size-fits-all" for all sorts of socio-economic policies and how that translates to the EU. I am still annoyed by the fact that I can not find a way to go back to swimming in some structured capacity: it's either the overcrowded public pools or the "you need to be at competition-ready level to join a Schwimmverein". I find it weird that I've been living in the same building for 7 years and I know basically nothing about my neighbors - except the ones living under me who repeatedly complained about us being loud (we were not) and only stopped after taking us to court and losing the case.
A lot of foreigners say that. Actually mostly english speaking ones. I never heard a turk say this. Perhaps it's linked to the willingness to learn the language, which is often low with english-speaking people?
No idea, but back to the story: my answer to this "I don't get the humor" is: I don't get spanish humor.
And the simple reason is that I don't speak spanish good enough. I get SOME of the british & US humor. But only a bit ... my language skill, albeit perhaps ok if you look at it, is still not good enough to detect the subtle details. IMHO that is the reason why e.g. Mr Bean was easy to export: he doesn't talk :-)
In any case: to get the local humor, you MUST learn the language and even the culture quite good. Otherwise, you simply don't get it.
> I find it weird that I've been living in the same building for 7 years and I know basically nothing about my neighbors
Isn't this just par for the course when living in dense settings?
I've been living in my current apartment for more than three years, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recognize most of my neighbors if I randomly saw them in the street. We say hello when our paths cross coming and going, but that's it.
Many people come to the cities specifically looking to be more anonymous. You can't have that if everybody knows everybody.
German culture is very functional, rigid, and dry, and it serves people with that kind of mindset very well. However, it clashes strongly with typical Southern cultures, so it is no surprise that the parent mentioned this. People who value the "softer" aspects of life are not going to feel at home.
The question is... what about the german culture do you know?
Do you know the "functional" Brother Grimm's tales?
Or the "dry" humor of Dieter Hallervorden if you're a bit older? (okay, Christian Ehring from extra3 is perhaps really dry ...)
Do you know the rigid songs of, say Nena or Einstürzende Neubauten? Or is the music of BAP functional to you?
Are the books of Andreas Eschbach dry? Or the lyrics of Ingeborg Bachmann?
Maybe local customs like or the cologne "Karneval" are dry you then? These days we have CSD's all over the place. Maybe not original german culture, but perhaps the german adaption is too rigid?
Do you actually KNOW german culture? Have you been here in school, for example? My guess: you don't really know german culture, at least not so much that you found stuff in it that you enjoy. But you certainly miss your home culture. This is the culture where you were brought up, where you know the language, the norms, the taboos etc. And something else is then alien to you, not comforting. But you already adopted german directness to express this non-comforting state in harsh and ugly words :-)
It's not a matter of not knowing the language. I grew up in Brazil but studied in a German school from grades 6-12. I used to watch Deutsche Welle more than I'd watch canned US sitcoms on cable.
I can understand a joke, and I can even (most of the times) understand the intention of the joke. But it doesn't mean that I find it funny.
As for "culture", I don't think we are using it in the same way. I mean in the sense of "expected norms and behaviors".
Let me give you one example: BBQ "culture". I really like to grill in the summer time and my birthday is in June. So I put these two together and made a tradition to have a BBQ party for my birthday.
Maybe you are not aware, but Brazilian BBQ is a multiple-hour event. It is not just a matter of cooking a pile of meat and getting stuffed, it is an opportunity to get the group together, socialize, and to slowly enjoy the food throughout the afternoon. Also, people can coordinate about the side-dishes all they want, but usually the host of the party "runs" the grill.
So, to get to the anecdote: one of my first birthdays here I invited a bunch of people to my place. I told them "Don't worry about the food or drinks. I got plenty for everyone."
Anyway, it was the time of the party and people started showing up. But remember what I said, this is an day-long event. By the time people started to arrive I had most of the things already set, appetizers on the table, drinks on the cooler. Everyone there (Italians, Turks, the Greeks, the Spanish, my Polish coworker) understood their "assignment": enjoy the moment and trust the host (me) that food would be coming along...
..except this one (German) friend of my (Italian) flatmate. The dude showed up one hour after the first group of people, all stressed about "being late" (he wasn't, it's a long party, there is no set time to arrive or leave), carrying a couple of "Nackensteaks" and asking whether he could "have some space on the grill to cook his food". I told him "hey, relax, there is some food over there and more meat is coming already, I can cook these steaks you brought afterwards".
He refused, he just wanted "his" steaks. No particular reason, just because he thought that was "his" share. I let him cook his steaks, he got some of the side dishes, sat down on the table by himself and had his lunch. Only then he decided to join the rest of the people in the party.
My flatmate just looked at me and said "they really don't get it...". I shrugged, and went back to the grill.
BBQ culture is different in different parts of the world - I experienced what you describe in Switzerland once (bring and grill your own food). Where I’m from, it’s bring your own booze but host is expected to provide all the food. Where my partner is from, you’re expected to bring either dessert or salad - but not booze or stuff for the grill. I think you’re reading too much into some fairly minor difference in etiquette. If you want to experience real culture-shock, try using a sauna in a German-speaking country…
Oh, it's not a "culture shock" kind of thing. I actually had no issue whatsoever going to a Sauna or even going swimming on the FKK hours. Like I said, I studied in a German school so I kinda knew these things are just a natural part of German life.
And it's not like I was "bothered" by him bringing his own food or wanting to cook it. It just seemed the guy was completely missing the point by being too focused on the "meal".
I just want to give one example of what I meant by "cultural differences", not that this one story cemented my opinion of Germans. Somewhat like trying to explain to an Italian that the North American idea of "getting coffee" means grabbing a Starbucks and walk around - or worse, driving to get it on a drive-through.
Being German who lived in other parts of the world myself, and someone who likes food and considers the typical German BBQ an abomination I can feel your pain.
But is this not more of an example of you wanting to do things the Brazillian way rather than German's unwillingness for you to integrate? At any rate, the Nackensteak guy is a total dick!
Also don't forget, a lot of those Italian, Turk, Greek, Spanish and Polish coworkers may well be Germans...
That's a pithy description of it all. If I hadn't met my (Greek) wife in 2015, I've probably would have left long ago.
And to come of think of it, I think there is another aspect that influences this: Germans are not having as many kids as the immigrants, so the overwhelming majority of the kids in the kitas and schools are from immigrant families or immigrant/native mixed parents. This means that (at this stage in life) any new friends you get to make are likely through your kids, and even there the pool is selected against Germans.
Maybe, but a quick AI-assisted research says that Bremen has an even higher rate of births from non-German mothers than Berlin, and the data does not make the distinction between citizenship and immigration status.
What do you mean with „Germans“? In my friends group, in my son‘s football club, in school, most kids have a so called migration background, but the parents are mostly second generation and mostly assimilated. So what?
If we split between second-generation (i.e, both parents born in Germany) as "native" and everyone else (i.e, anyone with at least one parent not born in Germany) as "immigrants", I'd guess that number would skew heavily towards "immigrants" in all major cities. I could be wrong, but I haven't found a way to reliably check the data.
Doubtful, honestly, though from what you described with Berlin, this feels like more of a problem of Berlin being a very transient city. A lot of people never fully settling there, especially so called expats, despite living there for decades. A lot of people being part of the cosmopolity, moving from one hype city, one startup, to the other. That’s okay, but it doesn’t work for everyone.
Your view of current immigrants is not that different from the Germans in the 70s who thought that the Turks and Vietnamese looking for jobs in Germany would go back to their homes after a while. Some of them did, but enough of them stayed to become a substantial part of the population.
Anyway, like I said there is a good chance I am wrong about it Germany in general. But I'd argue that in Berlin that is pretty much the case, regardless of how large the "transient" people are compared to "longer-term settlers". Once people start having kids they stop hopping around, so I'd guess that the amount of "non-native" children that dominate the schools have immigrant parents who are mostly settled.
Not the OP but to give you an example. Spines on books in German are written one way along the spine. While generally in English books it's the other way round.
Both have their trade-offs and most cultures are chill about it, but a lot of Germans will swear by the way it is done in Germany being the logical method. It is a vrry homogenizing culture that way.
It also goes for most things in life like sentence case vs title case for headings. Pairing of flavors in dishes (although that is changing).
All in all, it gives you the idea of "there's a german way to do things which is the correct way, please adjust."
To be clear, there are some German ways which I think have much more far reaching consequences, and one about should argue about them, like attitude toward labor laws or LGBT stance. (And whichever way you feel about it, you can agree that the stance has far reaching consequences). And Germans will club all of the different level of seriousness together at the same level with whether you have a accent in your German, for example, when considering how integrated you are.
And that is incredibly frustrating and makes one feel left out. And it is not just immigrants. I know people who moved from Hamburg to Erlangen who felt more left out than me who moved from India to Erlangen (mostly because I had a German girlfriend at that point.)
what are you talking about bro, I think you're really getting carried away here. Nobody cares about the direction of writing on the spine of a book. And your thing with sentence vs title case doesn't make sense because German doesn't even have that distinction.
no, it's the Berlin experience, even for many Germans
1. speaking German doesn't matter too much in Berlin, except older "Berlin Berlins" most people speak conversational English. I have even seen cases of _all_ personal in a caffe not speaking German..., more then once.
2. Over half the people in Berlin are "expat-like": ~20% of people in Berlin are not from Germany, 30-40% or so are not from Berlin and only there fro some years/decades to study or similar. And the distribution isn't uniform across Berlins, i.e. the areas you are most likely to end up as an (actual) expat (or similar) are the ones with way higher ratios. Like if you connect someone in such a area (weather physical or area-of-life) it's actually surprising if that person if "from" Berlin. Like you as a person "from" Berlin are more a special case then idk. someone from Poland ;).
> 1. speaking German doesn't matter too much in Berlin, except older "Berlin Berlins" most people speak conversational English
This depends on the context: it doesn't matter to speak German in the stage of life where one doesn't interface with the administration (and therefore, older generations). But for those who settle, and are past that stage, German is a requirement.
but de-facto isn't, like seriously you can live decades in Berlin without learning German. As a German I could fully stop understanding German from tomorrow on and in any situation except my parents it would work out, with only very limited issues here and there. Most which normally solvable with camera based translation apps (e.g. Google Lense), and some other by deciding which part of Berlin I spend my time in.
and legally it's only required if you try to get a German pass
1) I am certified C1 German - studied in high school for 6 years. Granted, I don't like speaking German and will use English when possible, but it's not a matter of not being able to connect with them.
2) Shortly after moving in, I started dating a German woman. Lasted close to a whole year. That was more than enough time to meet a lot of her friends, I got to meet her family, etc. That was more than enough time and opportunities to get a good insight into "native German" lifestyle, culture and values.
You don’t have insight into German lifestyle, you have insight into that one woman’s family’s lifestyle (and only less than a year, you’re not a family member at that point).
I'm not claiming that I know all of Germany or all Germans, I am just refuting GP's guesses.
Also, she wasn't the only German that I've met and it wasn't the case that I only met native Germans through her personal network. I also worked at Deutsche Telekom and Mercedes Benz. I've had the opportunity to interact with lots of people outside of the work environment.
I have been living in Berlin since my birth and your experience is one _many Germans have in Berlin, too_. Berlin is it's own thing, both in good and bad, I would not treat it as representative for Germany at all.
1. Berlin is the _least_ German Germany city, by far.
2. around ~20% of people living in Berlin aren't from Germany, I can't find the numbers but I think another 30-40% where not born in Berlin and likely won't stay more then 10-20 years. So _most people in Berlin are there temporary_, with people constantly moving in and out.
2.2. and the distribution of people long term living in Berlin and such being there temporary for studies, party, work, etc. isn't even across Berlin. In some areas you might mostly find people not "from" Berlin. To a point when meeting people in Berlin they sometimes are quite surprised if someone actually is from Berlin and not just lives there "for now"...
2.3. and in some parts of the city a non small part of "Berlins" born here are have parents or grandparents from Turkey which moved here in the 60th.
3. Berlin has a lot of sub-culturs which can be grate and fun, but also a common background rule is "you do what you want and I want I want" this can be really grate, or terrible as (not sure how to say it) the background social network which tends to integrate people into a local society is somewhat absence. Or to put it differently a lot (but not all) of people don't care about you, they won't harass you for being different, but they won't help you either if you don't happen to be a close friend. On the other hand in many other parts of Germany people are more strict about "you somewhat fitting in" but in turn if you try might also help you in the most unexpected ways (as I said I'm not sure how to best express this, this point is starkly oversimplified and can be misread in a lot of ways).
4. through Berlin has _a lot_ of different faces, some even people living there for decades might not have seen. So if you are in the right corner/community 3rd might not apply to you at all. Trying to describe Berlin in one way is a bit like pretending all of Germany is Bavaria.
5. Berlin is a swamp. Not just because the name might be based on birl~„Sumpf“ in some partially lost old languages. Or because some parts have frequently ~80+% Air Humidity (in fall/spring/warmer winter days; at ground level). Or because of it being the political centrum and as such associated with all the non Bavaria specific political corruption. But also because people "become marshy" (not good translation) here. I.e. they come here and then slowly and continuously slow down and get stuck here, never really arriving, but also not getting forward or backward.
Now this isn't complete and more focused on the bad parts, Berlin can also be grate, for a large city it's extremely green, most side streets and many main streets have road side trees and there are ~2000 additional "green areas" (like e.g. parks, but some very very small). There are tons of places to enjoy the evening in all kinds of ways, ton's of culture from clubs to theater, opera and shows. A lot of history. A lot of sub-cultures of all kind etc. But also it is just green (not flowery), you might not care about most culture things and just because there are many sub-cutlures doesn't mean it's something for you or you manage to connect to them. Also it's kinda dirty and this has gotten worse thanks multiple factors including the current city Government cutting costs in the wrong places...
Eh, anyway, my recommendation is:
- If you want to experience Berlin go to Berlin, if you want to party/enjoy evening non stop for a few years also go to Berlin, same for students where a Uni here matches their goals nicely. But if you want to experience Germany, then don't come here.
- If your life is stuck in Berlin (no matter if you are German or not) seriously consider leaving, for some people Berlin is long term poison which slowly eats away their happiness. There is a reason a large part of people in Berlin only stay there for a few decades at most.
- Don't expect to meet Berlins is Berlin (it's less then half the population in some regions way less). And in some areas of life don't even expect to meet/connect to that many "typical" Germans.
It's a very common complaint in countries where one city is disproportionately dominant (London for the UK or Dublin for Ireland, say). It's arguably a bit more surprising for Berlin, because Berlin isn't so disproportionately huge (Berlin's metro area is 6 million out of 80 million, versus London's 15 million out of 70 million or Dublin's 2 million out of 5 million), and because Germany has other comparably sized cities (Hamburg's metro area population is about 5 million). You'd expect it to be a bit less of its own place just on that basis.
Nah, there is a very strong reason to support the "Berlin ist eine Insel" saying. Are you forgetting the fact that Berlin was literally isolated from the rest of Western Germany and controlled by 4 other countries until some decades ago?
Let's not forget East Berlin with its 1.2 million population and as the capital of the DDR that was very nicely integrated into the DDR. While both parts of Berlin were obviously isolated from the BDR, West Berlin was supervised by 3 countries. Just to avoid any misunderstanding by people who were not able to visit both parts during those historical times.
I think the main problem is to see Berlin as a city. Even the official city is more a bunch of divided, but connected middle-sized cities. For example, the City Berlin has ~3.7 Million citizens, which is nearly double the size of the next biggest cities (Hamburg 1.8 Million, Munich 1.5 Million). And the region Berlin even has 4.7-6.3 Million, depending on which parts you add. Half of the German states have fewer citizens.
> 2. around ~20% of people living in Berlin aren't from Germany,
Notable part here: that's not even the highest amount in Germany. There are many cities with similar or higher numbers. But to be fair, depending on the region, there are likely many people from neighbouring countries which will have less problems with integration because of their shared cultural background. Berlin is for historical and political reasons a big melting pot of different cultures. It's not the only one, but a bit different because of it's size.
> a lot of German natives complain and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year)
It's actually 300k, but 200k also returned. The "funny" part is, there is even a long-running TV-show (20th season this year) about people leaving the country, not sure if other countries have something similar. But realistically, expats seems like a common phenomenon in rich countries. Some people just seek the adventure.
I also like watching the Austrian (actually a tip if you know German, check ATV) and the swiss edition. Pretty sure swiss has at least a German and a French one, maybe even another one. So yeah, there is that.
Yes, if one compares in the downward direction of living standards, there are many countries doing worse, no doubt. It is also a fact however, that we massively neglect our education system, and have good grades inflation in many places. Record numbers of 1.0 (best grade) students, while secondary schools ("Gymnasiums") and universities complain about the quality of students, despite their grades, with the gap widening.
And the education system is not the only thing that is down in the drain and worsening. Take Deutsche Bahn for example. Its management levels paid themselves millions in boni, while at the same time the infrastructure is kept at a minimum repair and renew level. Literally every time I take a high speed train (ICE) it is hours late, so much so, that I am even discouraged visiting people, because I already am traumatized from trains being late and spending the whole day on trains, when I should only need 4h. Infrastructure inside cities is also in many places waaay behind what it could be and already is in many other countries, while being hopelessly expensive to use. Countries with much fewer people and GDP have managed to build better and more affordable infrastructure in their capitols. Check out Madrid for example. Metro there is great, and comparatively cheap to use.
The job market situation is really bad currently as well. Even highly skilled people cannot get a job now. Unemployment benefits have been massively reduced lately. The people who do get a job or have one face stagnation in salary, while there is inflation, and this has been going on for a decade or so. Purchasing power of the people is diminishing. Groceries and staples are getting more expensive. In short, most people's economic situation is worsening.
For young people it is almost impossible now to buy a house in many places. What our parents could afford and realistically pay back in loans has become a distant dream for the current generation. Only with 2 solid and good incomes one might dare it in some more rural area perhaps.
The point is that our living standards are decreasing, due to the global economy situation and mostly due to massive mismanagement of the reality in politics, corruption, money pocketing. Soon we are at real risk to lose even democracy.
Digitization is also lagging way behind. The stereotype is, that we still use fax. Well, it's not too far off.
Do we have it better than people in many other places? Still yes. But there are also countries now laughing about us and our stupidity, who have managed to overtake us, or maybe I should say we have managed to fall behind them. It is really no wonder skilled people are leaving Germany left and right, front and back, when they are much better paid elsewhere. Now people, who originally came from Poland to Germany, due to better living and better prospects, are returning to Poland Warsaw.
> And the education system is not the only thing that is down in the drain and worsening.
Which is simply wrong --- or at least only true if you look at only part of the education system.
But in Germany, there is also an education system to become Geselle, Meister, Techniker, Fachwirt --- things that many other countries don't have. And somehow people always ignore that.
And the Deutsche Bahn ... perhaps not the shining example. But ... look at France. They hardly have trains, e.g. there are small towns that only have 8 trains a day. To go by TGV from Bordeaux to Lyon you must pass Paris, hundreds of kilometers depart. It's like going from Kassel to Hamburg must go via Berlin. Also, the trains in UK are bad. And some countries, like Spain, or Greece, also hardly have tracks AND trains. While here, we actually tracks "everywhere" and even a bit too many trains, therefore the delay. But you can reach your destination, while in other countries there's no way. 5 weeks ago I went with ICE from Kassel to Regensburg --- for a mere 26 EUR (one way) because I booked in advance. Where else do you get that?
Employment situation bad... and yet there are some groups that constantly look to employ you. Every Aldi, Lidl has posters looking for people. The Bahn searches train drivers. Lot of transportation companies look for lorry drivers. The unemployment rate of Germany is at 3.9% -- only 7 EU countries better than us. Our 3.9% is e.g. better than the US. Did the situation get worse the last 3 years? Sure. But why? I'd point to Putin and Trump and some Mullahs (end of cheap gas, nonsensical customs, havoc in the straits of Hormuz).
Purchasing power wise Germany is at location 8 in the EU.
But hey, the typical complaining german gives to me the impression as if we're still the "Herrenrasse". We must always #1. As soon we're not #1 the end is nigh :-) Place 7 of 27 is totally bad, apparently.
However, if you select something in isolation, and then compare ONLY to the best, then you will always find that you're lacking. You had a 2 in english .. but there was this guy that had a 1 (in Germany that is better). You had a 2 in physics, but this lady had a 1. You had a 2 in sports, but again there was someone with a 1. And so on. And suddenly you think that you're the last of the students, because always there is someone better than you.
No, you must look at ALL the candidates, not just at those that are better. Compare the Bahn not just with Switzerland. Compare it with UK, France, Greece, Estonia Or ... heck, even the passenger railways system of the USA which sucks bollocks.
We have a similar system in Portugal for Ausbildung (Técnico Professional), I wished more folks would pay attention to it, as it also suffers from the same problem that everyone just wants to go to the university instead.
Trains are great and the network covers most of the country, not like in Portugal that is only the costal cities and a few lucky ones on the countryside, however in the 20+ years I lived here, they have certainly been through better times.
> But in Germany, there is also an education system to become Geselle, Meister, Techniker, Fachwirt --- things that many other countries don't have. And somehow people always ignore that.
Why do you think I was ignoring that?
The reality is, that here almost everyone thinks that they must go to university. Their parents also tell them that, because of increased requirements that businesses put up as lowest bars. Parents become helicopter parents and will try to make your life difficult, if you give their very extremely specially gifted child a bad grade. Teachers are no longer as respected by the parents, as they were in the past, and are way too soft on the grading. Good grade inflation is the result, even when the children/pupils do not actually achieve good results. Ridiculous things like some secondary schools only accepting 1.0 graded pupils in Berlin happen. When I went to school, in my whole city there were perhaps 10 pupils with a 1.0 grade (mean of all subjects) per year. You could definitely not run a school with that as source material.
At the next level, at the universities, they are also complaining about the students coming with inflated grades from secondary schools. German universities are considering establishing entrance exams and are at risk losing their international status, by accepting too many not great students. Quality of university education suffers.
On the other hand we have the small businesses, which teach the trades, which complain loudly, that they don't get qualified people to teach. If almost everyone can go to university, even if only for some MBA, then this is what we get. Those businesses teaching the trades (ausbildende Betriebe, Ausbildungsbetriebe) are complaining about very basic skills like language skills, reading understanding, focusing on something, simple calculation, etc., that they find lacking in the people they are supposed to teach. These problems also extend to immigrants, who simply haven't had a proper chance to learn the language, or come with completely different educational background.
If you ask me, we should only welcome as many people, as we can offer proper language courses and other required courses to, so that people who come here have an actual future, and don't simply disappear in subcultures. I want people who come here to have a good future, by being part of society and by having stable jobs, adding to our society as a whole. If they can't have jobs, then coming here will only result in more strain on our already severely strained social net. Figuratively speaking, a massive amount of effort is needed to pull that cart out of the mud. Years and years of mismanaged immigration to fix.
> And the Deutsche Bahn ... perhaps not the shining example. But ... look at France. They hardly have trains, e.g. there are small towns that only have 8 trains a day. To go by TGV from Bordeaux to Lyon you must pass Paris, hundreds of kilometers depart. It's like going from Kassel to Hamburg must go via Berlin. Also, the trains in UK are bad. And some countries, like Spain, or Greece, also hardly have tracks AND trains. While here, we actually tracks "everywhere" and even a bit too many trains, therefore the delay. But you can reach your destination, while in other countries there's no way.
You got a point in that we still have something that is more than elsewhere, granted. But the criticism is about how much worse it has become, compared to what we already had decades ago. Colossal mismanagement of a public good. Germany (everyone involved in managing DB and current and past governments) does seemingly not understand, how important a working public infrastructure is, for a country to prosper. They only see Q1,2,3,4 numbers. Worsening infrastructure is not something that makes a country attractive. Qualified people will consider moving elsewhere. People cannot rely on DB to get to and fro their job office, or will simply be late every now and then. Living in a neighbor town becomes infeasible, due to unreliability of DB. We are basically working on getting everyone to drive their own 4 person city tank (that disease also has caught on here...) alone, to and from their work place.
> 5 weeks ago I went with ICE from Kassel to Regensburg --- for a mere 26 EUR (one way) because I booked in advance. Where else do you get that?
I got a last minute ticket from Berlin to Kassel recently for 22 EUR, also one way. But the issue is not only the pricing. The issue is the non-existent reliability. A trip that should have taken 2h53min took 4h37min, because of delays and the train already starting with 14min delay in Berlin. On my way back I was not so lucky to get a last minute ticket, and chose to take regional trains, which took me 8h+.
But to answer the question where else one gets that: In China, eaaaasily. Of course salaries are different there, no question, but for some 15 EUR I can travel through half of China, in approximately the same time, that I need in Germany, to cross half of Germany, and the train will be at the station on point, not starting 14min late. It will usually halt at the station with the carriages exactly aligned at the numbered markers at the station. I won't have to run all the way to the other end of the train. I won't have to hurry up and down some stairs, because of some last minute notice, that the train arrives at another track today, which then is corrected back again, causing me to run back to the original friggin track. That's just stuff that happens with Deutsche Bahn for some reason.
> But hey, the typical complaining german gives to me the impression as if we're still the "Herrenrasse". We must always #1. As soon we're not #1 the end is nigh :-) Place 7 of 27 is totally bad, apparently.
Well, #1 is the goal, obviously. Why should Germany not try to be the best? It is silly to not aim high in that regard. We should very much look at Japan (train sevice, making use of cultural goods, attracting visitors), South Korea (Internet, everyday convenience), and China (infrastructure, modern cities, getting construction projects done) and ask ourselves, what is going wrong here. The problem is not necessarily that we are not currently #1, but that things are decaying and we are falling in many rankings:
Education (falling in international comparisons, especially severe)
Train service (only gotten worse in the last decade, redefinitions of what is "too late" don't help)
Cost of living (has increased a lot, including groceries)
Wealth of young people (countries inside the EU, of which one might not think so, have higher average wealth of young people than Germany, for example Spain and Italy)
Young people these days can mostly only dream about living in their own home. Most are forced to rent, and rent is ever increasing, while salaries in many areas are stagnating. We are far away from being able to afford, what our parents were able to afford. But I think that is the case in many countries these days, and not only a Germany thing.
I think it depends on the job one has. Working as senior software engineer for international companies? Any western european country is nice and all. Top p90 salary. English only needed.
Working as a bank cashier? Well, then you will notice the difference between let say Germany and Portugal. Low salary. Need proficiency in the local language, etc.
I am kinda triggered by that comment because you make it look like it's easy or inexpensive. It's not.
I also came to Germany with just a suitcase and a backpack. I paid for my tickets, paid for mandatory health insurance that covered timeframe before I started my job, paid my rent, paid government for processing/issuing my residence permit, etc. I've paid taxes and health insurance every single month since then, haven't used any unemployment benefits once, took a single sick leave.
You might argue that I "stole a job", "worsened housing crisis", or something along these lines. But there are plenty of data points that disprove majority of such arguments.
The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like I was doing something so weird and out of this world that it had to be a prank. And when the light turned green, he just left.
I could not believe it; but when I told the story to my German friends they too didn't quite understand why anyone would try to board a bus outside of a stop.
Being French, I have a hard time understanding why you wouldn't.
The driver is not allowed to open the door anywhere but at a bus stop, the company running the bus forbids it. Quite strictly, actually. I think it is mainly because of insurance things. It is the same in a traffic jam when you are on the bus and the next bus stop is just a few meters away, and the bus is stuck and nothing moves -- impatient people will get angry because they want to leave the bus, but the driver is just not allowed to open the door except when the bus has properly reached the next bus stop.
Some bus drivers do open the door on some such occasion, but they can really get into trouble if they are caught doing that.
I reported a robbery to the police and they were to assist me to a remote village where the tracker led me . But they also refused to drop me off or pick me up even though we were going in the same direction because of some apparent insurance thing
Is it typical for a company to run the busses? Somewhat interesting as that's one thing in the US that is rarely privatized. The driver, etc. will be a direct employees of the municipality.
In Ireland, most buses are run by CIE, a state company. In Dublin, for the last couple of decades, some routes have been run by GoAhead, a private company (Dublin Bus (part of CIE) and GoAhead tender for the routes). It's been a fascinating experiment in privatisation; the buses all use TFI livery, so the only way to tell whether your route is run by Dublin Bus or GoAhead, besides looking it up, is that if it's Dublin Bus, it'll just be late; if it's GoAhead it won't show up at all. For all that people complain about public sector inefficiency, private companies turn out to be very, very bad at competing with the public sector.
Depends. NYC busses used to be a mix of municipal and privatized companies that were part of the Transit Alliance. In addition to city owned and operated buses you had four private companies: Green Bus Lines, Jamaica Buses, Triborough Transit and Command. Around the mid 00s they were all absorbed into the MTA. Living in south Queens the Green Bus Lines were a big part of my youth as I took the Q41 to school every day and the Q11 on weekends to the mall.
- its partially of fully owned by the city/state, i.e. NOT private investors, not private liquidity, no one expects any payouts
- its commonly a special form of "company", e.g. "Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts" in this case which you can roughly read as "installment/company based on public-law"
Practical that is "mostly" the same as state run when looking at it from a distance. But with some differences. Like it's still a company, has it's own company structure, it's own bookkeeping, it's own employees etc. This leads to a much more clean separation when it comes to budged managing, and where possible removes/reduces direct political influence into daily operations (just direct one, indirectly through ownership etc. there is very much still influence, but this makes it somewhat less suspect to damage from changing political parties non stop changing directions).
Through things can get far more complicated then just one company, in one legal form.
Can something be private and owned by a state? Isn't the definition of private: non-public? And wouldn't the government in a democratic state count as public?
"Public enterprises" are different kinds of enterprises, with different structure and governed by different regulations/laws than private enterprises. "State owned private enterprises" have all the structure etc of a private enterprise, their only difference being that they are owned (fully or by majority) by some state body.
Yes, it can. Many public services in Germany are legally private companies, which just happen to be owned by public entities. Main reason seems to be that they can act more flexible and independent of public rules. On a more nasty side, it's also easier to sell them partly or full, if necessary. And in some cases they simply started as private companies and were bought up by the state for various reasons.
In the US, “public” can be short for a private business with publicly listed shares on a stock exchange anyone can buy, or public can mean an organization owned and operated by the government.
> public can mean an organization owned and operated by the government.
Would you consider In-Q-Tel - wholly owned by the CIA - to be a public venture* through ownership by a government agency, or a private one, because the public has no opportunity of ownership or control? I'm convinced it's the latter.
* Let's ignore it's non-profit status. Any CIA shell-/front-company is an even better example
Perhaps the fact that we’re having this discussion on HN shows the kind of media I’m likely to consume, but I’ve never seen it used in the latter sense. TIL, I guess!
If you get run over by a car or bicycle while trying to board a bus outside an official station, or if you trip, the bus company is liable, and the driver will be in very big trouble. Also, wehret den Anfängen! If they started doing this, it would set an example: it would make it very difficult to keep the schedule, and would invite people to just walk into traffic to busses stopping at a red light.
I love that. It's part of what's hilariously called the "Beamtendreisatz" (roughly, the three rules of public servants)
1. Das haben wir schon immer so gemacht (that's how we've always done it)
2. Das haben wir noch nie so gemacht (we have never done it like that)
3. Da könnte ja jeder kommen (then everyone would try it)
They're so German that they're very difficult to faithfully translate. Just imagine a grumpy older guy looking for every excuse not to do what you want him to.
No, it wouldn't. This type of logic only holds if we consider that drivers are automatons who can not analyze risks by themselves. Give the drivers autonomy to judge whether it's safe or not to deviate from the scheduled route.
I rather have a driver signaling me "No, I will not open the door now because I don't think it is safe" over "No, I will not open the door now because I can't break the rules". It makes me think of the driver less as a person and more as a brainless cog.
You not following rules makes me think less of you as a person. Rules are made so not everybody needs to judge every situation correctly themselves. People might overlook consequences or are not informed enough to make good decisions.
On a more serious note, if you prefer more flexibility and wildness try Poland. Very culturally similar to Germany but with more lean towards common sense however it is understood in the moment by involved parties.
Nazis were saying "but we were just following orders" and for everyone else it sounded like a stupid excuse, but for Germans that's a strongly culturally rooted watertight argument. Event today. They just now ensured that their rules are better and orders are more thoughtful.
That said, I really love how Germany feels when you live there.
Oh, I understand it alright. But understanding it doesn't mean I like it.
After 13 years living in Berlin, I've come to terms with the fact that most aspects of German culture are things I need to tolerate, but never embrace.
> Give the drivers autonomy to judge whether it's safe or not to deviate from the scheduled route.
But they are judging it. And deciding it's not safe. You may not agree but it's their evaluation of their safety. The rules are good for them because they can ensure their safety by obeying the rules.
There is no "decision" being made if your flowchart always says "only stop at designed bus stops". "Judging" something presupposes the ability to override established rules and even reaching different conclusions despite similar precedents.
And when I am hit by a camel while departing the bus, that is my problem also.
But of course, most cultures do not support this line of reasoning - you need to be taken care of weather you like it or not. This approach is well tolerated by most people, but saddens and irritates people like me.
It’s not “needing to be taken care of”, in your scenario when you go the hospital for your camel injuries and use insurance for medical care (even if it’s fully private paying your own premiums), suddenly another party is involved who doesn’t give a shit about what you think and are singularly interested in passing along their expenses to anyone else it will stick.
The world is more interconnected and complex then one or two parties engaged in an agreement in complete isolation from everyone else so black and white thinking like that just doesn’t work.
Don't talk to the bus driver while they are driving is also a rule.
> Me: Noted. Good thing that is not your problem.
As if... when you get injured while leaving the bus, do you really believe the bus driver would just mind their business? There is another rule that demands you help people in emergency situations
That sounds exhausting. Do things because they’re right or because you want to. Rules are fake (being a little dramatic there, but the point stands - rules create plenty of downside as well, while allowing both people to do the wrong thing with an excuse, and preventing people from doing the right thing without arbitrary consequences that are unrelated to actual outcomes).
And then you go to the media and file a law suit against the bus company for being reckless. You deny ever asking to get out and say the driver instructed you to get off.
You probably wouldn't do this, but the company needs to protect itself against the people who would.
This can be out of your control. Your health insurance will ask why that camel hit you, and might sue the bus operator for their damages for letting you out where they should not.
> you think you know what is or isn't other peoples problem.
I don’t think that at all. All I said was that if I absolve the driver of whatever responsibility he believes he has for me, then if something happens as I step out, it is indeed should not be his problem, legally speaking. He might not like it, of course - which is not my problem, to be honest.
edit: this is all linguistics, however. The initial issue was that the driver is unable to open the door even if we both assess the risk as negligible. Sure, he might not want me to suicide jump from his bus onto a highway - even if I believe I have the theoretical right to do that - but that is not the situation we're in. The point was that I should be able to say it's ok, looks safe, I accept the risk if something happens.
It's also related to having a social healthcare system. People who keep stepping into traffic and get run over really rack up the hospital bills which, ultimately, are paid by everyone. So the country decided that they need to adopt some measures to keep stupid people from getting hurt.
Unless I’m misunderstanding it’s no different with private insurance in the US.
If you are injured and the circumstances vaguely resemble any kind of accident (broken bones, concussion, lacerations, etc) a few weeks to months after receiving medical care, you’ll usually receive a letter from the insurer asking for the specific circumstances of the accident including the owner of the property it occurred on and any parties who may have contributed to the accident.
That way they can make a claim against someone else’s insurance/sue them/etc to pass along their costs to someone else if possible.
So telling someone “no worries man if anything happens it’ll be my fault not yours” before getting hurt isn’t going to stop the insurer from pursuing subrogation/lawsuit if they decide it’s cost effective.
The people that think like this are the ones that want to pick and choose what is not other peoples problems.
It doesn't work or scale in a society. If everyone gets to arbitrarily choose what is 'not your problem', the everything is everyones problem, or nobody's problem.
For context in Paris (and probably other French cities) you would try that and the result would heavily depends on the driver and their mood of the day ! Because they too are not allowed to do it, but of course France is all about flexing the rules (a bit, not so much, and after some pleading)
Huh. I'm Irish; it would never occur to me to try this. Buses will sometimes delay departure if someone is visibly running for the stop, but that's as far as it goes.
I think maybe France might be an outlier there. Honestly, opening the door in random places seems kind of unsafe.
EDIT: As people are doing stories of public transport in different countries, here's mine. I was getting the BART in San Francisco carrying luggage. The driver _leaned out the window_ to warn me that this one wasn't going to the airport. As it happened, that was what I was going for; I was going elsewhere and then on to the airport later. But it was nice of her to check (and very unusual; don't think I've been anywhere else where train drivers interact with the public at all). Always think about that when I hear people complaining about San Francisco.
This was such an unusual thing for me coming from Germany to Italy. The Bus driver would stop at seemingly random places to pick up or drop people off. Once he stopped at the cafe to pick up his newspaper!
Was this a comparable environment (big city vs big city, or rural vs rural)? This is a thing for rural services in Ireland (one type of service does this officially; you can ask them to pick you up at your house!), but very much not one for urban services, say.
I was shocked that in Italy pretty much no one used turn indicators (except buses and taxis), drivers where kinda trying to sus out where everyone is going and this was causing speed adjustments that made the whole thing not that unsafe.
It is actually an insurance kind of thing as far as I understand. I've had plenty of cases where the bus couldn't continue due to being in a traffic jam, and people who would have happily get off the bus couldn't either.
And the insurance conditions are based on DIN/EN, VDE, TÜV and others. If you have bodies that create rules, they will never stop creating rules because it is their job to create rules. Something that started great to reduce unnecessary harm became a red tape monster slowing down everything.
Nobody gets elected or paid to reduce that in a sane manner (not: Chainsaw, Doge)
Leave the windows leaned open so it cools down in the office over night? Impossible due to insurrance. Somebody dies from overheated office and you want to sew the insurrer who enforced this ridiculous rules even on the third floor.. impossible, due to..
But it just goes to show how idiotic this culture of strict adherence to rules can be. I've been more than once been forced to sit on a bus for 10+ minutes, with the bus literally stopped by the sidewalk, and the driver still wouldn't budge when I said "I can just walk from here".
It's feels worse than talking to a robot. At least I know robots have been programmed.
30 years ago, when the train broke down, you got a clear statement what happend and what will happening next. Nowadays everyone is treated like a small child. They just tell the obvious leaving the people hanging in uncertainty hence people get mad and question everything without understanding the cause (because they don’t get that information)
- for insurance reasons it's not allowed for them to let you one once they "departed" from the curb, even if just by 20cm. They can literally lose their job over it and while it is a very exhausting job it doesn't pay that badly. (This wasn't always this way).
- due to how Berlin has historically grown and the congestion issues that brought with it the buses have a hard time being on time(1) on the 6,589 bus stops across 152 (day) lines (~40-45 stops per line). So they try to avoid any additional delays, especially if this delay might cause them to miss a green light.
(1): Berlins love to blame the public transportation provider(s) for this delays. And in some cases (S-Bahn) this is partially true, but for the busses it is much more on the "actual hard problem" side then for S-Bahn. And some of the other problems also go back to politics, like so often.
Meanwhile, here in the UK we had the bus with no door at all that you could just jump on and off from in moving traffic. People trusted to manage their own risk. I remember this vividly from my childhood, in the 80s and 90s, in London. Not anymore though, sadly.
In Germany everything has rules and most things have mandatory insurance. It‘s usually not covered by insurance to stop outside of a bus stop to take passengers. Rudeness or inflexibility is mostly caused by rules to limit liability. Bus drivers are not allowed to drive backwards with passengers e.g on a road blockage. There are several stories about 30+ min delay until a second driver was summoned to help.
No, it is because in Berlin you do not run for a bus and trying to get onboard if you missed it, you just wait for the next one which arrives usually a few min later, so yes, from a Berliners perspective, this is really wierd, because nobody does this usually :-)
Yes, I'm also guessing it is a big-city vs. small-town thing. When the next bus is in 2h, then the driver feels your pain and maybe lets you in anyways...
If it counts no Bucharest bus driver would let you board at the semaphore either, they may not lough at you because they're generally too busy speaking with one of their friends on WhatsApp (via audio-call) or trying and navigate the crazy traffic in here, but for sure they won't open the doors for you. I would have expected for this to be a common thing all throughout Europe.
I arrived at fish selling place at 15:00, he was collecting fishes back. I laughed and said something like “oh I thought I missed closing time!”. No answer, waited a minute, still no answer, then I left :( (Sweden)
I mean it isn’t the bus case, and I can understand the reasons, still may be put a sticker around telling the rules. But this kind of experience is there, no denying it…
They said the same when Japanese car makers were trashing European and US manufacturers in the 1980s. Yet they adapted. Then they said the same when the South Koreans trashed them, yet they adapted. Now they say the same about the Chinese.
Sure, past performance is no indicator of future performance, but all the doom-saying and hysterics are just that, fear of the unknown.
They adopted in the sense of surviving. Considering their head start and massive government support for the industry, their market share compared to Japanese and Korean cars is a joke, with the Chinese it will get even worst because this time they will be pushed out of their home market too.
This comes from a die hard bmw fan. Facts over feelings.
I'm not a car fan of any kind or shape. I'm talking about things that happened. I say let's wait and see. You say you know the future. You tell me "facts over feelings".
I accept your negative outlook and respect your right to hold that opinion. But, and I'm saying this in the most respectful way possible, let's have a little intellectual honesty here, please. Your statement is more speculation than mine.
I'd like better understand the German engineering culture. Why was it special in the past? What about today?
As a kid in the 80s, I had some things from Germany and their quality was astounding. Fast forward to present time, our Volkswagen car made in Germany is the worst car I've ever had in terms of reliability.
There is no incentive to build a reliable product that can‘t compete in price. People are trained to consume and throw away. People are getting used to throw away cloths and household appliances after 1-3 years.
Miele once built washing machines that outlast 30 years. They offered spare parts and regional service hubs. But the market decided to just buy the 50% cheaper ones every 5 years.
In the last 25 years, German companies got into "reliability engineering". Which is the art of adjusting your drawings in such a way that every component lasts exactly as long as it has to, and not a second longer.
Which is why back in the day, there were some car/washing machine/tool brands and models that seemed to last forever. Whereas now the current models last exactly their warranty/leasing period.
Edit: Other manufacturers do this, too. But for them, it's often coming from the other side of the reliability curve, so they are improving, the ones that were better back then are getting worse.
What I'm trying to understand is why Toyotas can still make great cars at prices comparable, if not inferior, to Germany's (at least here in the US). There's a quality gap there. I don't understand why German cars used to be great looking AND reliable but no longer.
Toyota builds cars that a private person might want to buy. Their market is real people who want to keep the car for longer, pay for their own maintenance and maybe even do their own oil changes. And who maybe want to put some kids in the back seat and stuff the trunk full of their shopping.
Many German manufacturers (esp. the "premium" ones) don't build for people. They build mostly cars that get leased as company cars. So price isn't that much of an issue, longevity beyond the 4 year leasing term isn't a problem, excessive maintenance isn't a problem since it'll be included in the lease. Oh, and the trunk is just for a laptop bag and the overnight clothes for that one passenger anyways, so nobody cares it's impractically small.
Also, from what I know, design cycles for German cars are relatively long. A model won't just be changed, at least not once per year (as USians seem to expect to the dismay of German manufacturers). While this is great for cost-optimizing the manufacturing process and might be nice because replacement parts are easier to find, this has a downside: Japanese car makers practice continuous improvement, meaning that a change can go in at any time, as long as it seems advantageous. So maybe they learn more quickly from their past mistakes and overall build a more solid engineering experience through this continuous fiddling...
They still do. But as you said,most people go for the 300€ product and not Miles 900€ one. I had the chance to tour their electronics production lines in Gütersloh, Germany a few years ago which were top notch, almost automotive standard, and they told me, that they plan, develop and manufacture for 18 yrs lifetime. Not sure how long the cheaper products last, any experience?
The problem is that even if you want to pay a premium, you can't be sure you're getting a better, more reliable product. It's safer to gamble on the economy option and replace as needed.
If you inflation adjust prices of mid-range major appliances from the 80s they'd be massively expensive today. The price differential is the quality that has been engineered out of all products to be competitive.
> I'd like better understand the German engineering culture. Why was it special in the past? What about today?
German engineering culture is to think things through. To take everything into account. To do it properly, and not mess around. To rather think a bit more and make sure you get everything right.
Basically very similar to German rules culture.
Problem is, both of these cultures have their downsides as well. Rules as well as plans get overengineered. The belief that "one more rule can't hurt". The belief that "taking a step back yet again and discussing it a bit more is always worth it". At some point, you get stuck in a maze of rules, contradictory plans, meetings over meetings with no action. Engineers are scared to invent and engineer, because there surely will be some rule that could be violated...
Since dieselgate I no longer believe in German engineering. That, and that they just can’t make their trains run on time. Never have I taken an ICE train that was not delayed. How could that happen in an actual engineering culture?
I am myself an immigrant to this country, one that has had itequally easy, if not more.
Lately, or perhaps for the last couple of years, I've struggled with negative feelings about the country. I do not like the direction things are moving politically and economically, nor how germans talk about politics, and the biggest reason to want to be in Germany is the very high living conditions one can have here. Culturally, it is hard not feel dettached when Germans themselves seem uninterested in cultural aspects that are normally a reason to want to learn a language (literature, films, etc). I can speak German, but maintaining it or improving it feels more like a chore than something exciting.
Anyway, this was a nice, positive read, and it made me happy to read it. It is often easier to focus on the negative aspects of things, while taking for granted the positive ones. Germany has a lot of good things going for it, and the power to be a better version of itself. A position lots of countries would wish they could be in. Sadly, this does not seem clear to the German political class.
You make a good point about cultural things that would make one excited to learn a language. But I really struggle to imagine what could be done to fix that? Injecting more money into the film industry would just lead it to the same people at the top of it where they'll produce the same mediocre output as they have for ages. hmm
German films are mostly not great, but if one wants to get immersed into the language, music and literature are much better places. And also comedy. The language allows for some great puns.
> A lot of good video games have decent German dubs
This in my experience only holds for AAA titles.
For many smaller games, the German translation/localization is so bad that if one's English level is not insanely bad, it's even more comfortable to play the English version, and use a dictionary for lots of words (i.e. invest more time using the dictionary than playing the game) than tolerating the pain of how bad the German translation/localization is.
Idk, do you play those point and click adventure games from early 2000s? Syberia? Broken Sword? they’re decent. Deponia also good, Truberbrook. What I cannot stand are things that are medieval and then everyone refers to you as Ihr instead of du or Sie. Was that even a thing? Even the star wars games do it… which i guess it’s because jedi “knights”.
> do you play those point and click adventure games from early 2000s?
Yes (but this is off-topic).
> Deponia also good, Truberbrook.
For both of these games, the original native version is in German, so of course their German (not-)translation is good. :-)
> What I cannot stand are things that are medieval and then everyone refers to you as Ihr instead of du or Sie. Was that even a thing? Even the star wars games do it… which i guess it’s because jedi “knights”.
The Pluralis Majestatis is a formal addressing that is more formal than (singular) "Sie" for a single person (typical for addressing aristocrats of higher a noble rank).
The "Pluralis Majestatis" is not to be confused with the Pluralis Auctoris
Concerning your point "What I cannot stand are things that are medieval and then everyone refers to you as Ihr instead of du or Sie. Was that even a thing?" Even the star wars games do it… which i guess it’s because jedi “knights”.
As I already hinted: this is the correct for medivial setting if you have to address people of a higher a noble rank (if you don't use it, it would feel deeply wrong to native German speakers).
Concerning "Star Wars": I know little about this topic, but your point shows that for a proper German localization, you really have to think deeply about which kind of group needs which kind of addressing to which group (informal pronouns, formal pronouns, Pluralis Majestatis, ...).
For such settings which have no historical reference such as Star Wars I consider it to be very plausible that if the original setting was written in English, the authors never actually thought about such questions, so it is very likely that such questions were hushed over when a localization was done under time pressure (or English native speakers who commissioned the translation/localization underestimated the importance of such considerations).
It's one of the things I can't stand. Just by hearing, not even seeing the actors or knowing the movie title, you can hear it's a dubbed movie. I always find it uncanny to listen to.
A lot of Germans have Satellite TV, where it would be possible to send multiple audio tracks. But they use it to send dubbed German and dubbed French (in case of ARTE). AHHHH.
German movies can be great though. Land of Mine (2015) comes to mind.
German dubs used to be great in the 80s and 90s. Check some TV shows from that time to see what I mean. They used to take care that the voice fit the actual situation, mood, and character. There were many good dubbing voice actors who sometimes became famous in their own right.
I'm not sure why, but something changed in the late 90s, early 00s. Suddenly, all the voice actors started shouting all their lines, and seemed obsessed with extra weird or supposedly funny enunciation. No relation to what's happening on screen.
I wanted to leave this Faden for all the immigrant voices but this misinformation simply cannot stand, lol.
Dubbing for foreign movies is an art long lost in Germany; the East Germans (DEFA) were especially good at it, my favorite being Karel Steklý's eternal Dobrý voják Švejk (The Good Soldier Schweik), for which DEFA tapped the Austro Rudolf Wessely.
And today? Whenever I get exposed to a German dub I get reaquainted why I call that stuff the Fremdschämspur (the cringe track).
I have no idea what you mean, because I also feel dubbing in Germany comes out pretty much right. Mouth is moving (mostly) in sync, even. I can compare with other countries where I watched dubbed stuff, but let's not compare and stick to Germany: well done.
> [...] because I also feel dubbing in Germany comes out pretty much right.
You've got to be kidding me, lol. Anyway, voice (character) mismatch is the first thing I often notice. How often have I heard a commanding adult in English dubbed into what sounds like a tortured, overemoting teen/twen in the German version (I feel it's especially pronounced in women's characters but that might be just sample bias). Even deadpan delivery sounds tryhard. And it's not just for English, either.
Modern German dubs, to me anyway, are their own comedic genre. And make no mistake: I'm fuckin' serious about it. Just study some classics. You'll see.
> Injecting more money into the film industry would just lead it to the same people at the top of it where they'll produce the same mediocre output as they have for ages
Not necessarily, if you apply discipline and intentionality.
Canada famously created “CanCon” (Canadian Content) by law. They forced media in the country to be X% local, and that built out the industry by sheer necessity. The reputation was poor in the early years, but now a talent pipeline, local services, and industrial knowledge has built up and they have a thriving entertainment industry.
Germany has the disadvantage against Canada which could benefit from speaking English and cross selling to the US and UK. But it can become a source of local pride and distinction. The French are very proud of their language, even though it’s also not heavily spoken internationally.
The building blocks exist to successfully build cultural capital if it’s a priority.
Well, we sold our most prestigious film making location to the US fairly recently, a few years ago (Filmstudio Babelsberg). Not much good has happened to it since then. Admittedly, it was already not going too well before, but we can expect further decay at the hands of US investors.
German culture is imho stuck in a permanent subsidy slop problem. Basically every German film is written to appeal to the subsidy committee, not any greater audience. And it shows.
Arguably the average Hollywood productions aren't culturally stellar either, but I digress. To me what did it was having a kid in the kindergarten/school and everything related to that. You get to participate to all kinds of social setups (you could avoid them but what's the point), you get to watch German movies with them, German TV to chat about, you get into the daily lives of your co-citizens. Don't worry, they don't do much Goethe either, if that scares you. Just normal people doing normal stuff, maybe joining some (team) sports club and and and. It just works naturally.
> Culturally, it is hard not feel detached when Germans themselves seem uninterested in cultural aspects that are normally a reason to want to learn a language (literature, films, etc).
I rather disagree:
Many German movies that are produced don't fit my taste (the reasons are a little bit off-topic), and there exist quite a few Germans who think similarly. I could come up with a list of German movies that I like, but this is something that would take a little bit of thinking/effort.
On the other hand, in my experience/observation/bubble many Germans are quite interested in German literature. I could very easily come up with dozens of books of German authors that I like (of course, such a list would be strongly biased by my own taste).
Thus I would claim that (native German) literature is much more deeply ingrained in German culture than (native German) movies, and I am really surprised that you seem to live in a strange bubble where nobody in it seems to be interested in reading belletristic books.
What a nice and heartwarming read! I'm german, and really hope we can pivot away from the rise of the far right. How that can be done, I don't know. I just hope we can do so before we start scaring away people like him who would otherwise come here, decide they like it, become germans, and end up making it a better place for everyone.
(Part of it is I think we should make it easier and more incentivized to learn the language early so not just people in english-dominated tech jobs can have a positive experience. Cold start problem. It shouldn't be too hard for the gov to commission a RosettaStone like german learning app ((suboptimal, i know)) that works somewhat well and give it out for free, right?)
But a struggling economy, questionable planning for many years now, the "educated middle class" he mentioned in the post shrinking don't bode well for it. It's a prime breeding ground for scapegoat politics. It's probably one of the cognitive "exploits" in the human mind, that finding a scapegoat (the foreigners) to blame for everything being such an effective tool to rally people with grievances behind yourself and slowly turning them into hateful monsters.
> It shouldn't be too hard for the gov to commission a RosettaStone like german learning app ((suboptimal, i know)) that works somewhat well and give it out for free, right?)
Deutsche Welle (DW) is funded by German taxes and has materials for learning German: https://learngerman.dw.com/ as well as regular new materials aimed at learners, such as the news spoken slowly https://learngerman.dw.com/de/langsam-gesprochene-nachrichte... -- although I found it easier to listen to the normal news (e.g. tagesschau) slowed down slightly. (W-h-e-n p-e-o-p-l-e s-p-e-a-k s-l-o-w-l-y i-t c-a-n b-e h-a-r-d-e-r t-o l-i-s-t-e-n t-o!)
Not state-funded, but I recommend https://www.easygerman.org/ -- they have lots of good youtube material, a nice podcast, and an app I've not used. Most of the material is free with bonus materials for supporters.
There's no way to say this without sounding like an old crank; but I think putting down your phone when on the U-Bahn and just reading the news and/or ads on the little in-train screens helps a surprising amount!
> It's a prime breeding ground for scapegoat politics. It's probably one of the cognitive "exploits" in the human mind, that finding a scapegoat (the foreigners) to blame for everything being such an effective tool to rally people with grievances behind yourself and slowly turning them into hateful monsters.
>But a struggling economy, questionable planning for many years now, the "educated middle class" he mentioned in the post shrinking don't bode well for it. It's a prime breeding ground for scapegoat politics.
I think one of the issues is that for the past 2 decades over here in Belgium as I think in Germany and other places there has been no middle ground left for people who didn't want this to the current extent.
I feel that way even tho i meet lots of people like the blog writer and I meet lots of people who aren't like him too.
I've met the average religious ultraconservative erdogan voting turk in w-europe, the quick money wanabe hoodlum who mostly hangs out with maghrebis but who can be quite friendly if you get to know him well, the Turk who feels integrated but to me always feels like an americanised cosmopolitan. I don't even blame some of them on that front. It's incredibly easy to not surround yourself with locals and local food, experiences, etc.
You have conservative parties who pay lip service but don't really make any effective change on the migration front and other parties who....act like there's no harm at all. Even the leftist framing where most migration leads to some wage supression is starkly absent.
There is no option to say 'you either do it well or do a lot less of it' without getting pushed to the far right.
In the meantime i can go and visit mannheim and feel like i'm in a bad facsimile of germany. It's easier to find turkish food than german food. That one street with all the gathered Turkish wedding shops starkly reminds me of a similar central spot in Istanbul.
In Brussels where my grandparents lived and my dad was born I am routinely the only local at parties. When I walk the streets I routinely feel like a foreigner. Numbers that were called fear mongering a decade or 2 ago are just reality.
My grandmother cried seeing the changes done to the listed buildings she lived in and alongside. The migrants and people left there don't see the significance.
She doesn't go to a specialist anymore because old people get targeted by pickpockets.
And it expands, it can no longer be stopped. Our politics are fragmented, migrants and descendants off don't vote similarly to the local ethnicities and with our fragmented politics the anti migration vote is a lost cause. Since it's a lot smaller than germany's my culture is waiting to die, when you notice it suddenly you start noticing it everywhere and for those that care about it it becomes something that draws single issue voting because all the other important things can be undone with some work but even their single issue voting will be drowned out eventually by the change set in motion.
>You have conservative parties who pay lip service but don't really make any effective change on the migration front
Net migration to Germany has fallen sharply since 2022: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.NETM?locations=D.... In particular, that includes significant drops in asylum claims and migration from Syria and Afghanistan. Anti-immigration sentiment is almost purely vibes-based. There is no amount of objective reduction in migration that (i) could be achieved by sensible policies and that (ii) would make you feel the vibes that you want to feel. So your position is effectively an extremist one, even if you find extremism distasteful.
>There is no option to say 'you either do it well or do a lot less of it' without getting pushed to the far right.
This option is exactly who you currently have as chancellor. He's doing about everything that's reasonably possible (together with a few things that go beyond the reasonable) to reduce illegal migration. But he's not going to forcibly shut down Turkish-owned businesses. So let the far right do the dirty work. You had no choice but to support them because mainstream politicians couldn't make the Turks magically disappear.
When people came from Algeria, Jamaica and Suriname to Europe they were not foreigners they had French, British and Dutch passports.
Germany's lack of such a colonial empire kept the country from transitioning into a true multicultural society. It explains Germans special branch of racism.
So "Germans are special in their racissm" because they had no "luck of such colonial empire"??
Im glad that this country didnt play a larger role in colonialism! Your sentence is the first I hear in decaded advocading for "if they had colonialism as well, it would be a much better country because then they wouldnt be racist"??
By the way - Poland or Hungary also had no "luck of colonial empire" - what about them? As well as tons of other European states?
I didn't read that post as saying "there is no racism in France/Britain/Netherlands thanks to their past"; I understood it as "the _kind_ of racism there is _different_ than the one in Germany, for historical reasons".
That strikes me as... kind of true? Poland's issues with racism are also pretty different than in the countries mentioned.
When I discussed voting with Germans (looking forward to my first), the reaction has mostly been about not voting for the party that they are unhappy with. I even have an immigrant friend telling me he will vote for the AfD and could not answer me why he's voting for the party that will kick him out of the country. His reason was more because he's unhappy with how the current situation is and wants changes and doesn't really think what change will help.
As a German I am super happy to hear that you are having such a good time in my, or now our, country. So often the news focus only on the bad things which sometimes blinds me on how nice people can be to each other and help each other out as one big community.
I also enjoy reading about how the colleagues and him genuinely like each other. So often on US forums I read a sentiment along the lines of "shut up and just do your work", but since I spend 8 hours with these people each day I prefer us to be as close to friends as possible.
> Most people complain about the rules in Germany, but I like them. It means someone, or a group of people, sat down and thought about that specific thing and decided on a standard for everyone. When you have to do something, you don't feel lost, because you can just look it up. You don't have to find someone who knows.
Somewhere in the afterlife, Max Weber proudly sheds a tear of happiness while whispering "this guy gets it", hahaha (of course his whole philosophy depends on the rules being as fair as possible, and also that they are enforced uniformly and fairly, but let's not get too lost in the weeds here).
Anyway, lovely article and congrats on finding a place where you feel home!
This resonates with me a lot, and reading it gave me some positive emotions about Germany which I unfortunately have less and less with each passing day.
This country gave me a lot. Moving here from a third world country, the jump in my quality of life was immeasurable. All the rules everywhere were for me a blessing, coming originally from a chaotic city.
Despite never taking any German courses, I had reached C1 level after only three years, and thanks to the (now reverted) law by the traffic-light-government you mentioned, I could get the citizenship in a record 3 years only.
I have never felt at home anywhere in my life like in Hamburg. It is such a stunning city, with the perfect mix of anything. The city's own marketing campaign "why go to country X when you have it inside Hamburg" is so true.
Compared to the rest of Germany, Hamburgers are extremely open and friendly. But the bar is so.damn.low. That is one of the few big problems I have here. I integrated in an excellent way IMO: speak C1 German without an accent, have a German wife, have a stable job, yet feel unwelcome by an ever increasing percentage of Germans.
As much as I adore Hamburg, I do not want to imagine getting old here. Just like a huge amount of Germans, I see my happiness in moving further north.
I don't expect to be welcomed, but also not actively "unwelcomed" by many. I never said it's about racism; My extremely pale Italian friend was complaining about exactly this to me as well. The "Verbitterung" here (The fact that people apriori want to fight you, before even any interaction) is sad.
Scandinavian countries are even more closed off, that's true, but they are not known to be hostile.
being German that's a sad thing to hear. I really do hope you stay because I think people genuinely do need to stand up to it, don't write us off too quickly.
Verbitterung/Verrohung of public life seems to be omnipresent now, with the capital 'o' Other being attacked for everything. We ought to know better though. I've noticed it myself with my partner who is Japanese when visiting the country. Hostility I've not encountered before. Frankly much of the world seems to be losing its mind.
Agreed, and it unfortunately takes a very real toll on you long-term..
However, I want to also highlight that some of the sweetest, most supportive people I have ever met are German, including random people you meet outside. The person I look up to most also happens to be German.
I would absolutely not be where I am today if not for the support of dozens of Germans along the way. So I am very grateful for my countrymen and women, its not all grey :)
> As much as I adore Hamburg, I can't imagine growing old here.
Why not?
> Like many Germans, I see my future somewhere further north.
Is it similar to people moving from Berlin to Brandenburg...
What's driving that trend? And how do people who already live in those regions generally feel about the migration from big cities into more "rural" areas?
From their perspective, it probably isn't entirely positive. It can put pressure on housing prices, schools, traffic, and healthcare. There may also be political and cultural tensions as the population changes.
By no means did I mean Hamburg. If Hamburg was a country of its own I would love to live here to my last day, enduring the social-skills situation. The reason why I do would not like to settle here permanently is more about German politics, which makes one vomit. Additionally, the recent reforms to the pension system here pissed many young people off, and the trajectory says it will only get worse.
> Like many Germans, I see my future somewhere further north.
Berliners move to Brandenburg when they make a family and want a bigger house :) My (and many Germans') intention is more for the whole package. In my case I meant moving to a completely different country, not just region. In the case of Norway: (Relatively) much less disgusting politics, solid pension and stable economy, less hostile environment, and of course breath-taking nature. Lots of this is subjective, so take it with a grain of salt :)
Domestic migration within Germany doesn't really bother anyone AFAIK, since Germany's birthrate is very low anyway so no significant pressure arises. And if you move from Hamburg to Schleswig-Holstein nobody would notice. If you move from Hamburg to Bavaria (why would you?), that's a different story.
> Additionally, the recent reforms to the pension system here pissed many young people off
The tax rates are already so high in Germany, it is probably impossible to raise taxes enough to sustain the system. What realistic alternative was there to fixing the (fiscally) unsustainable pension system? And if you think Germany has it bad, then look at France. That place is a ticking (fiscal) time bomb with their massive pension system.
Ok, from your sentence, was clear to me, you like Hamburg, but you don't want grow old there.
> Additionally, the recent reforms to the pension system here pissed many young people off, and the trajectory says it will only get worse.
So to leave the system now moving to Norway, will make you get a better Pension? I think it depends of many factors, but I am not sure it is true, specially if you are 30+.
> Domestic migration within Germany doesn't really bother anyone AFAIK
That's not true as well. There is a lot of tension in the Brandenburg region, or even small cities like Leipzig.
> If you move from Hamburg to Bavaria (why would you?), that's a different story.
Hm I see a lot of reasons why moving from Hamburg to Bavaria is a good idea.. I guess it's relative.
Thanks for the note regarding domestic migration, learned something new today.
The very last point was meant sarcastically due to the Hamburg-Bavaria beef. Of course Bavaria has some things that are nicer. For example I really miss the mountains, living up here in the north where it can’t get any flatter.
There’s something I find very distasteful about the idea of abandoning a country that provided you opportunity exclusively in the name of your own happiness. I think it’s the kind of attitude from immigrants that is greatly increasing anti immigrant sentiment. Become part of an old world people takes generations. Even in America, the branches of my family came here four generations ago and I view myself as American and would be accepted as such, but I still hold a high amount of gratitude for the original founders of the country.
On rules - they certainly create clarity and also have the potential to enable NPC like behaviour which is all too common. Since you mentioned Traffic Light Coalition, the chancellor Olaf Scholz (who is a lawyer and was also the ex-mayor of Hamburg) recently said in an interview “Germany was known to be a country of engineers, we are now a country of lawyers”.
Hamburg along side with Munich is what Germany should look like. So I think Hamburg has played a role in your perception too.
NPCs are Non-Player-Characters in video games, i.e. "extras". Their programming is usually kept simple, so they're kind of famous for robotically repeating the same lines or doing the same actions.
I think here it might mean getting attached to the rules for the rules' sake and forgetting the deeper reason why the rules are there in the first place - like waiting on a red light on a deserted street.
Munich is what Germany should look like? May I ask where you are from/if you live in Germany/Munich? Munich feels absolutely dead and is culturally pretty dead compared to other big cities due to Munich's vast rich immigrant (most would call them "expats) population. Munich has no soul is a rich landlord's watering hole by now.
yeah Munich if anything is extremely hostile to integration. i know several people who moved there and got burnt out trying to integrate. with previous knowledge of the language.
As another Australian I'm glad to see it. I remember as a kid watching a neighbour's dog of many years being dragged away to the slaughter by a council worker as the old women pleaded for it to be spared, just because it wasn't the right breed. The rules don't leave any room for empathy. There's a saying, "the problem isn't that Australia was founded by prisoners, it's that it was founded by prison guards".
See, I would call getting a breed of dog that has been identified as dangerous, as incredibly selfish. Genuinely an insane degree of self centred reasoning. My special dog is fine, because it's my dog, and I know better than everyone else (but also can't convince anyone that you are in fact right, in order to change the rules).
It's all the behaviour that we have identified as better overall if everyone follows it, and deciding that it doesn't apply to you, because you don't feel like it.
Run a red light, because you are in a hurry. Drive a truck without a licence, because you think you will be fine. Throw a party every night, because your having a great time and there is not enough resources to limit how shit you can be to your neighbours.
I think Clive James said that, or something similar. I think his version was something like "the tragedy isn't that so many Australians are descended from convicts, but that so many are descended from the guards."
The guards are in charge there as everywhere else.
> [Rules mean that] someone, or a group of people, sat down and thought about that specific thing and decided on a standard for everyone. When you have to do something, you don't feel lost, because you can just look it up. You don't have to find someone who knows.
I mildly disagree with this stance for two reasons.
First, "you can just look it up" it's like arguing that it's okay if the Linux kernel is badly documented because you can inspect the source code anytime. Try and figure out the rules for opening a GmbH by yourself (and the advantages over a Ug) and let me know if you feel comfortable in doing it without "finding someone who knows".
Second, the problem with inflexible rules is that you can't do anything when someone else breaks them. The case that everybody knows: if you need to renew your residence permit before a specific date you cannot book more than X weeks in advance (rule 1), you have a right to an appointment (rule 2), and the online system is the one and only way to get one (rule 3). So what happens when there are no appointments? Well, you panic, because suddenly your timeframe is very tight (thanks to rule 1) and you cannot reach anyone (rule 3) despite you having a right (rule 2). What happens if you respectfully but firmly demand that which is your legal right? Based on my experience, someone will call security to escort you out. And while I never thought my first time suing someone would be the German government, that was the only way to get them to give me my citizenship after literal years of delays.
Rules are fine, but only when everyone follows them. Once the government starts ignoring them while demanding that everyone else follows them, every rule becomes a potential headache.
I supervised a PhD who had come to Germany and through her indirectly experienced the immigration office.
When your residence permit runs out, and your application is still being processed, you automatically get a temporary permit for the time until your application is done.
But the temporary permit arrives only a few days before the deadline. Quite a few people don’t understand that part or don’t trust the process - and get into a real panic.
For the GmbH: It’s quite easy. Google for “Musterprotokoll”. That’s a one-page document with all the statutes a company needs and a fast-track process if you want to not deviate from it. Or you get a template from the IHK homepage and adjust it.
Sounds like the rule system worked in your example. What other better solution do you imagine?
> Try and figure out the rules for opening a GmbH by yourself (and the advantages over a Ug) and let me know if you feel comfortable in doing it without "finding someone who knows".
It's possible from the laws, but it's a complex topic. If you do not have the time to understand complex topics you get help...
> Rules are fine, but only when everyone follows them. Once the government starts ignoring them while demanding that everyone else follows them, every rule becomes a potential headache.
Nobody should ignore the rules including the government. But you could sue them successfully because there were rules in place for how a government can operate.
I believe there are two ways to deal with a system that's not working as intended.
One alternative is to have shock buffers for unexpected circumstances. Berlin, known for its chaotic nature, used to have a second queue at the Foreigner's Office for people who needed an appointment today. You had to queue sometimes even from 3am on, which sucks, but it sucked less than having to cancel your holidays because you couldn't get an appointment. In my case all I needed was a signed piece of paper saying "this person is allowed to stay in Germany until we finally process their papers", but the office had no mechanism (or no will?) to do so.
The other alternative is to pretend that the system works fine, which is what the German administration is currently doing. Sure, I could hire an attorney to sue the government - it will cost me an upright investment of 1k€, it will take months, and all I'll get afterwards is most of my administrative costs (forget about my canceled flight) and an appointment.
Edit: on the topic of the GmbH, it is a complex topic because the German government made it complex. Estonia, Texas, and my own home country have much simpler rules for starting your own small company. Every government keeps promising "we'll simplify bureaucracy and we'll digitize" and yet all we get is new rules and more letters.
> Once the government starts ignoring them while demanding that everyone else follows them, every rule becomes a potential headache.
There is a reason why hardly any German person speaks of "unsere (Bundes-)Regierung" [our (federal) government], but nearly always about "die (Bundes-)Regierung" [the (federal) government] [1]. Indeed, the federal government is something that many Germans rather think of something like a catastrophic natural force than something where you have any sense of belonging. To further prove my point: what US-American jokes are about lawyers are jokes about politicians in Germany.
[1] That the German article "die" is a quite different verb in English makes this even nicer: if you know a little bit of English, you immediately think of "die, (federal) government", when you talk in German of "die Bundesregierung".
Came to Germany to do an MBA at 2009, plan was to go back to Turkey after 5 years. Still there (well currently temporarily in south Turkey for vacation).
Germans are very nice, Germany is very nice, and I applied to be German finally last year after getting the 30th "come on be German already" letter (I'm lazy af). They told me (us, together with my wife) that they need 30 months to process the application, lol.
There are many things to complain about, many things to love, lots of tolerance, AfD is scary (very similar to AKP, the party that made me leave Turkey in the first place) but these days I think more positive. I'm trying to be one of those people who try to keep things going for everyone. Adlerian stuff :)
I think staying here was one of the best decisions of my life. Here's to the next 17 years in this land of the meckerei with love.
Immigration has many pulls and with that comes all sorts of immigrants whether great, average and terrible.
Unfortunately Western countries and bureaucracies seem to have committed the usual sin of developing processes that:
- make it incredibly hard for good immigrants to migrate, contribute and naturalise themselves legally.
- at the same time leaving lots of gaping holes of exploitation for criminals and other immigrants who are just looking for a meal ticket or to enter illegally and abuse our high trust societies.
Couple this with a news and media setup that optimises for covering news of bad migrants whilst hardly broadcasting news about good migrants.
There is one rule of thumb that I’ve noticed: if you are a reasonable person and integrate you will be treated as one of their own. Otherwise not.
Your article mirrors my own experience 1:1, it’s like I’ve written it myself. Apart from the citizenship process. Even though it was also 14 months long (eerie lol), I had to do a lot of noise about it, because they are processing applications out of order (some people got theirs in two weeks, some in two years, no rhyme or reason) - press, meetings with local politicians etc. Which helped my personal case but didn’t fix the problem at all.
> if you are a reasonable person and integrate you will be treated as one of their own.
You won't, even if you were born and raised here - 3rd generation Turks get treated worse after 60 years than Ukranians after 4, let alone someone with an arab name, all else being equal[1]. This is natural in almost all nations for its humans in all of them, but the rampant arrogance and hypocrisy is exceptional and one does no good reinforcing it.
My hot take about Turks struggling to integrate: The didn't try hard enough. They held on to too much of their Islamic religion and culture. It didn't mix well with the primarily Christian religion and culture of Germany. The Ukranians have much more culturally in common with Germans which is why they have integrated so much faster.
You are describing assimilation, not integration, also disproven by the fact that the name alone is the only differentiator in this example. Plenty of justifications will be found ex-facto in any case, all are excuses.
I'm not claiming any nation to be above racism, in fact globally most are worse, but this one is really high on its own supply.
This mirrors my own journey, although I have never submitted my citizenship application. I also came here for an internship and stayed. 11 years and counting.
Congrats on becoming a citizen. Having seen many of my friends go through it and accompanying some to their appointment, I know how big it can feel.
As an immigrant to the US I feel similarly. The country has been wonderful to us and the negative things we hear domestically and abroad just don't track with our experience at all.
The OP focuses on respect, admiration and gratitude and finds what to feel this way about the is focused on what he can contribute. These are keys to success and thriving in any society.
Had he come with a very different attitude of entitlement and resentment (super common among immigrants as well) he would have had a very different experience.
What percentage of your productive capacity is used for proper recycling and garbage disposal? ...that's the real metric to measure Germanness by, and yet it never got mentioned once!
I don't know why people make such a big deal out of this. When I travelled to Germany on holiday, it was a good sign to me that there were so many different bins. It tells me that they are doing a lot of recycling and very little dumping into landfills. If you look at other similarly rich countries that care a lot about the environment, it is similar.
...if you've only visited and never lived here for an extended period of time, you haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg. Also, the rules and systems are different from one municipality to another.
Here are some of the highlights for the one I live in.
AI image recognition on garbage trucks. -- Yes you've heard right. You do still need a fax machine in Germany to interact with the government. But when it comes to the garbage: Bring in the f##ing AI!! -- If you get the separation or packaging wrong, they won't collect the ton, and will instead leave a note to chastise you. You can meditate on your love for the green party, as you rummage through your weeks-old biodisposables to re-separate, and thank them next time at the polling booth.
Some kinds of garbage can go in the collections, others need to go to a recycling center. Just load up your car with everything you need to get rid of. Drive to a recycling center. Find out that it's closed (opening hours are maximally inconvenient; plan on burning several vacation days for visits to recycling centers that are open during your core working hours only). Once you make it to the recycling center, someone will take X, but tell you they don't take Y, and to try the recycling center several towns over. Of course they are closed. Plan on having your car serve as a garbage truck for several weeks, before it's finally empty.
Of course, some things you can't get rid of at any recycling center: They need to go to a collection. Do you have several cubic meters of styrofoam to dispose of, after re-furnishing your apartment from IKEA? Well tough luck. Find a place to store them for several weeks until the next collection. Then cut them into pieces so they fit in the yellow bag, which is only available in a single size. Then put the many many bags out into the street. If it's a windy day, collect that stuff from all over the street several times. If you're lucky, the garbage truck actually arrives. More likely: You miss the collection several times, because the pickup times are maximally inconvenient and unpredictable. In the meantime, the storage problem is all yours.
Wonderful read and welcome to you! I'm also a new citizen to Germany since this winter, lived here over 10 years now. It's a great place to live, at least in the north - have not tried much else, but the complaining can be a bit tiresome. At least the part about complaining and then not doing anything about it. My home country is a bit more easy going but it's also 1/8 of the population and less diverse and with a lot less troublesome history - in the 20th century.
I found it quite interesting you thought American companies are more hierarchical than German companies. I think in general it’s extremely company/industry dependent. Having worked in several industries, countries, and companies I would say that Germany tends to be quite age oriented where the USA is more results oriented which is then reflected in the hierarchy and perceived openness. I also think Hamburg and Bavaria are exceptions to the norm in terms of economic productivity and openness to businesses.
As a Norwegian working for a company that expanded into Germany, I also was a bit surprised about the author claiming Germany to have a flat structure. I found it very hierarchical compared to what I'm used to. Like, setting up a new business it's very all-hands-on-deck until established, but had people refuse to do stuff "beneath their role" or outside their responsibility, or to do anything unless explicitly ordered by their direct manager when asked by someone else.
Nothing wrong in that, really, just a bit of a culture shock when you're used to something working a certain way. It was on us to adjust.
i read it as a Hamburg thing. my experience is mostly with NRW and i don’t recognise anything of this article in it. hierarchical, conservative, suspicious.
As an immigrant living in Germany I can only attest to what's written on the blog post. Just like any other country, there are all sorts of people in Germany and Germans are actually hard working people which is a bit more reserved that the rest of the world. The only F'ed up thing about Germany is the politics and the weather.
Saying that you love rules is insanity - no you don't, nobody does nor should LOVE rules. Some of the rules in Germany not long ago was to put people in furnaces - do you love those rules ?! What you love is predictability, when everyone is stopping at the light, navigating a city becomes easier because it's predictable. Our brains love predictability that's why we love habits - it's comforting and we don't have to be on fight or flight all the time. So again to you and to people in the comments - you don't love rules, nor should you ... what you should do is follow the rules that make sense, challenge those that don't and break those that prevent you from doing what is right.
> I didn't hesitate to complain (with Lärmprotokoll) to my landlord.
True Alman spottet.
No loud noises on Sunday (mowing lawn, home renovations etc) I can get behind. But I truly don't get why Germans collectively dislikes shops being open on Sunday. If you ask into it, something about the fabric of the German family is at risk.
I've not lived in Germany but visited routinely for longer periods when working for a company there, and the understanding I derived is that Germans have an expectation that the only things (with some exceptions like airport shops) that should be open on a Sunday are things you can do with your family and/or friends - museums, art galleries, restaurants, and, natürlich, stuff like city parks and things that facilitated Wandern machen (going for hikes), so while the grocery store in that small Alps town might be closed on a Sunday, the Seilbahn/cable car isn't.
It caught me out a few times when I'd go to buy a bulk of German confectionary from a Lidl or Aldi to take back home for colleagues and my kids, and of course, I was flying out on a Sunday, so they were closed, so I had to pay airport prices for them.
All that said though, even the stuff that was open on a Sunday would generally shut earlier than usual, because after all, it _is_ Sunday bru, and the trains ran on a sparser schedule which meant my attempt to go to the Eagle's Nest museum, ended up with me getting there just as it closed, and then realising that the next train back to Munich from Berchtesgarden was in 4 hours (IIRC), and my dinner with my colleagues was in 3 hours... But the locals were so lovely and patient with my poor German, and they directed me to catch the next bus to Salzburg, and then catch the ICE to Munich from there.
It blew my Kiwi mind that they're like "Oh yeah, the fastest way back to Munich is to just catch a bus into Austria" real casual like. Schengen is pretty awesome.
Aren't you reading it the other way around? (I'm from another EU country where this rule existed)
Other people have the right to rest on Sundays too, so you force as many activities to shutdown as possible to make it so.
I don't really agree with the rule, by the way. Same thing as (in my country) all schools closing the exact same weeks which causes terrible holiday peaks on a bunch of other activities. Something we're also timidly abandoning, to great results (IMO) but which is not a popular change.
Having lived in Germany (and Switzerland) for fifteen years, I've come to really appreciate the Ruhetag. Having Sunday off gives a real rhythm to the week, and I really appreciate that there is a day where I'm not going to be running around between stores.
Shop free Sunday is something to be protected. I visited my parents in Australia about two years back where shopping feels like a 24/s7 blood sport, relaxing on a Sunday to do non-shopping activities is really welcoming.
The thing about Germany and most European countries is that they are that way because of the native population.
So unfortunately for MR. Mert Bulan, the more people like him that moves there the less it will feel like Germany, and it will feel more like "home"
Congratulations on your Einbürgerung! That was an uplifting read.
My experiences with German bureaucracy have been similarly positive. The rules are the rules… but the rules are the rules, and can be contemplated at home in one’s own time, on one’s own private computer.
I have a question for you, or any other immigrants.
A common complaint I have heard from rule-followers immigrating to Germany is something like "You have to have an appointment in person for minor thing X at the city hall, and there are 7 slots for a date and time 5 months from now" (some exaggeration).
How prevalent was this in your experience, or anyone else you know? Any particular cities that are worse in this regard?
Not an immigrant, but I still have to get appointments :D
It really depends on where you are. In some parts you can do a lot online, in other places you have to do everything in person. Sometimes you can book an appointment online and something will be available today; sometimes no appointments are available at all. Sometimes you just show up. I'm from Berlin and it was absolutely awful for years - nowadays you can usually book an appointment within the same week.
Without writing my entire life story, here are some pointers.
Best city: Leverkusen. Easy to get appointments, incredibly friendly personnel. Honorable mention for Potsdam.
Worst city: Saarbrücken. I was undocumented a couple months because they couldn't get hold of my documents and refused to give me anything saying it wasn't my fault. They called security to bring me outside, too. When I pointed out that without documents I could be deported they laughed and said "that almost never happens".
Worst delay: Köln. They sat on my documents for two years - not because they had to, mind you, but partially because they decided to proof from scratch documents that had already been vetted by Leverkusen. In the end I had to sue them.
Most improved: Berlin. By the time I left they went from overworked to quite okay. They also used to offer a queue for those who needed an appointment right now but couldn't get one the official way.
Generally speaking big cities are a nightmare and small cities are a delight.
This was true about immigration offices because government did not invest in immigration offices, and when they did, in typical German fashion, they were very slow. Now, most cities are finally coming to terms with it. But in the mean time, the normal city services (not related to immigration services) are as bad as immigration service, because a lot of people are retiring and no one new to replace them.
It's true that finding appointments can be difficult if you just open the website once and see a calendar with no available slots for months; _but_; there are very frequent cancellations and some offices releases slots for the same day at midnight/7AM/etc; so if you're determined and flexible; it's quite doable to get an appointment ~soon.
For some things (apartment registration) you can also just show up on the day and just wait.
(My last interaction with a Bürgeramt was in Berlin in October 2023 though and was pretty similar for the previous ~8 years; things could have changed in the meantime!)
True but also each day they open slots due to cancelations or often have a system where you can just go in the morning and wait for somebody to not show up. Or allow things to be done online.
It is as with all bureaucracy: you got to be crafty to navigate it. For instance they will tell you exactely what you need to bring for each type of appointment but it still requires you to carefully read and do the work of preparing those things.
As an EU citizen, I can't tell you if it's true for the immigration office.
But for anything else? Kind of? If you want to move, you have to make an appointment in person to tell them. But it is also retroactive, so you can move and then make an appointment in 5 months and it's fine. The paper that says where you live is very important but it's also easy to get, you just have to show up. Not any time but the times for that are plentiful enough that it works out.
What makes my blood boil is the paperwork for when your kid is born. It feels like they should just be able to retrieve everything from their database but you have to submit a load of documents anyway and it has to be original.
Also, don't try to get married in Germany. Just go to Denmark, much easier, despite the delays if you get something wrong. You can do the whole thing in English and you don't have to translate anything for Germans after, if I recall correctly.
If you don't have to deal with the immigration office, it's fine. If you do, then good luck. I heard it's a pain. For example, in Bremen, it takes at least 2 years to process a citizenship application. It should take a year at most. So I guess if you ever wanted to sue someone and win a slam dunk case, you could do that in Bremen. In Berlin, the citizenship application takes only a few months.
Depends a lot on the period in the year, and which office you’re going to. You often have more than one location where you can go to, and the ones in less busy areas don’t have those long wait. But sometimes they do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There are many things going in the wrong direction in this country but most things are that are not in the sphere of politics are fine.
The problem is mostly in my opinion that political decisions are made by career politicians.
We could really use some fresh air in our political system with more participation by the actual society (e.g. make it easier to get a political mandate without deep affiliation in a political party) and less about internal party politics.
I am not a German, but I agree: This was a solid and heart-warming blog entry. What fascinates me the most, he is born and raise in Turkey, then moved to Germany. It is not hard to find stories of multi-generational Turks struggling to be accepted, but this fellow made it work. My guess: He tried very hard to integrate (language, culture, etc.), Germans recognized it, and accepted him.
> I don't think most of those votes are about hating foreigners. Some people believe the story they get every day, that the country is broken and that immigrants are the problem. You find that story almost everywhere. The rest are angry that certain problems here have not been solved for years by the existing parties, so they look for an alternative.
I came to Germany with my parents in the 1990s. Both of them had university degrees, but those qualifications did not really help them much when they arrived. They ended up working in low-paying jobs in Germany's Niedriglohnsektor, which was heavily expanded through reforms under the Social Democratic Party.
I grew up in a poor neighborhood and most of the racism I experienced happened during my school years. What was interesting to me is that things changed quite a lot when I moved to a better school to get my Abitur. After I started university, I basically stopped experiencing racism. People were more open, easier to talk to, and seemed less focused on judging others based on where they came from or what they look like.
Today I work in tech. There are days when I do not speak German at all, because at work and in my private life I mostly speak English or my native language. My daily life is very different from when I was growing up.
This has made me wonder whether interpersonal racism is less about people being hard-core nazis but instead connected to people's life circumstances. I am not talking about institutional racism, which is a different issue, but about everyday interactions between regular people. In my experience, I encountered more hostility in environments with more poverty and fewer opportunities, while people I met later in education and professional life were generally much more open-minded.
You have not mentioned the final step, the one that is not certified in the Einbürgerungsurkunde: Becoming less German than many Germans by walking the tightrope between superiority thinking and self-harmingly downplaying legitimately great achievements.
Purposefully making the distinction between things that are merely peculiar about German customs (old and new) on the one side, and things that are objectively the one true/correct/orderly way of doing things, and thus, must forfeit all claims of being "German". Many of the latter fall into the general categories of "rule of law" or "high-trust society", and once you compare how Denmark and Austria are doing, the most productive strategy is probably to stop attributing them to the peoples or states of Germany. And rather, consider them merely things easy to observe in Germany at this particular time. Use Germany as a spotlight to learn how to recognize how it looks and feels when they work, and more importantly: how to spot signs of them failing to work, then apply it globally. Und es mag am deutschen Wesen einmal noch die Welt genesen! Which is easier without bundling it up with customs that.. well.. would better remain localized to free state of thuringia.
My wife and I lived in Hamburg for a few years. Nice place and I often miss our lives there. However, I know many other foreigners do not share this experience - even I had to get used to people being hostile to someone stumbling through German. Ultimately we found happiness was being back home (SA) where things were a bit harder, but "nicer".
> Across from our office there was an Italian restaurant where we went for pizza sometimes. The pizzas were very tasty and huge, and it was the only place that sold half a pizza.
Immediately knew which restaurant (franchise) he is talking about here :D
"Rules also make normal days easier. Something simple like waiting at a red light even when there are no cars takes away the work of deciding whether to cross. "
Ah, he really became german. (It seems I ain't anymore by that standard - when there are no cars, of course I go.)
To me that aspect is a symptom not of a rule-following culture, but of the favouritism given to cars. The car lobby has a lot of influence in Germany. It is why there are no speed limits on highways, trains are in a terrible condition, and finally pedestrians are made to obey rules optimised for car traffic. The rule could be different, like in UK where the rule is that the pedestrian is allowed to jaywalk and it is not breaking any law, and you would still get a rule-following society (in that respect at least). The difference is in the expectation of whether a car is a guest in a human environment or a human is a guest in a car environment.
(There's a small part of me that wishes I could've naturalized as a Berliner, not German — many (though obviously not all!) things I love about it are really about Berlin specifically, not Germany. Seeing "waiting at traffic lights to cross even when there's no cars around" being described as a German thing always makes me smile a bit; having worked for ~3y near Kotti. Nobody does that there.)
I am glad I hear the warm and polite Willkommen hasn't changed. Thirty years ago a 20 something me visited Bonn for Erasmus and the following for medical Residency. Same excellent impressions, same humanely feelings, same satisfying conclusions. Although I returned back to my country, I always question myself if I should stay and regret. But you can never know how an hypothetical life path could unfold, because, well, YOLO.
I don't think most of those votes are about hating foreigners. Some people believe the story they get every day, that the country is broken and that immigrants are the problem.
I just don't understand this. It's not about hate or racism, it's about the speed of the change.
We've had too many immigrant, too fast. But since there's no brake on this thing apparently the only option normal politicians seems to have is to be dismissive of negative effects of mass migration so they don't have to admit there's no brake lever.
This then pushes people to a party that will at least admit the negative effects.
The German history is a very complex one. Some habits in society and in families are going back still to the 30 year war, which was an extremely cruel one. Germany inhibited psychological pain over centuries from wars, battles, restrictions and cruel upbringing practices. Keep in mind, Germany didn't exists as a country before 1871 (!). It were "smaller" states like, Schleswig, Pommern, Preussen, Bayern, Franken and many more, all loosely scattered around, having big nations like France, the Nordics, Russia, etc. as neighbors, that regularly invaded some of the German states. That seeded a constant type of fear historically and resulted in a psychological overreaction over the recent centuries, certainly starting with the "Kaiserreich" from 1871 on, which encouraged strong but willing people that obey. The first World War is a complex and cruel situation in its own, but with roots in the European situation of this time, leading to the second World War where Germany played a very cruel role, but psychological determinable. In the 50s, 60s, the "Wirstschaftwunder" draws a typical compensation pattern of a wounded narcissistic personality from a psychological perspective. Parents buried a lot of pain from the past wars inside them, inheriting this pain to it's children, by being distached or "cold". Until today !, younger Germans suffer from this inherited "pain", they cannot explain, because not many looking at Germany's history and can connected all the pieces together. On the other hand it is fantastic what German overcame and became now. Overall Germans did a good job in the recent history, but I think they still can do better and should be more friendly to themselves. Accepting that the cruel German history starts waaay earlier then WW2.
It was a good read and a heart warming one. Congratulation to your Einbürgerung!
Others have talked about many aspects of the life annd integration process in Germany. But one thing I’m missing from your post is what did you do to your German colleagues and friends? How did you treat them?
It’s certainly interesting to know but I think it’s also an important aspect we often forget.
Keep in mind that OP is a trained professional with a good education and dealing with Germans in a professional environment. I guess all people with an academic background or comparable. It changes a lot when going outside of this „bubble“ for both sides. Working class blue collared ppl are less open and also a lot of untrained immigrants that hoped to chase a dream now working as Uber drivers or food couriers.
Author seems to adjust well. It gets tricky when high trust and low trust cultures mix and that is seen as an opportunity to be exploited. ie not paying train fares because nobody checks. That breaks the high trust model
Welcome to my home country, glad it worked well for you. Regarding the far rights and how they are againts immigrants, this is 100% not against immigrants like you who integrate and are a valuable member of the german community. There are still a lot of illegal immigrants who have no intention of working here, just want to take benefit of the social system and send the money home or just come to germany to be criminal, sadly that is still a real problem.
It's not just about the digital readiness. I assume it's the same in Germany, but in Switzerland there are many smaller stores that very proudly only accept cash, or even used to accept cards and stopped. Some shops around where I live even put signs like "cash only, always and forever", to get people to stop asking. It's an interesting divide happening, some going cashless only for speed, safety and convenience, others going cash only for fairness and sovereignty.
What I got most out of the this article is the difference in trust between his home and host countries. What conditions make a high-trust community? What a fascinating topic.
The recent comment in Instagram, YouTube, reddit, twitterinternet pretty much any comment section i see Muslims unequivocally oppose Israel in comment sections that has bottom do with politics.
This post makes me skeptical to think the entire idea of making Germans look good is to indirectly oppose jews. I hope people understand what I mean before down voting
> I believe in social democracy, and this is a country that calls itself one and mostly behaves like it.
Meanwhile in Turkey itself, Erdogan abolished the secular separation and transitioned into a de-facto dictatorship, where religion plays a much stronger role than before. This presents a huge problem because such a Turkey simply does not fit into Europe. It fits a lot more to arabic and persian culture, though Turkey is also a bit different to that; it seems Turkey does have a very strange role, overall. It fits in part to everything but also to nothing else. Erdogan was voted in, though, by a conservative majority, so they wanted to have such a structure for the most part.
> people say Germans prefer Germans when it comes to promotions
That is not really that correct either; Germans are not all Germans. For instance, Bavarians are very different to northern Germans and here the dialect plays a huge role. If you can speak bavarian, even without being from Bavaria, you'll find it is much easier to interact in southern Germany, irrelevant over as to whether you were born here or not. I noticed this when people with a black skin speak perfect/fluent Bavarian. They look different of course but there is no language barrier. So really the advice to be given is to learn german, ideally the dialect if you can (some dialects are horrible, saxon specifically).
> Cem Özdemir, whose parents came from Turkey, has been the prime minister of Baden-Württemberg since May
He speaks perfect german though, so I don't think this can be taken as a comparison. He was also born in Germany (in Urach). You can find many other examples too if you want to; some turkish-germans who support the AKP or grey wolves and what not radical groups. It simply is not a homogeneous mass.
> in a city like Hamburg
It depends a lot on the city too. Hamburg is pretty solid overall. You may find it harder in Berlin; and although I think Bavaria rocks, Munich can be a rather difficult setting. Hamburg is quite nice though, much prettier than Berlin, even though significantly smaller (but still a fairly large city; almost two million people, in fact, second biggest city in Germany).
Also from what he writes, it seems to be as if he has solid social skills. This is not always the case.
> The language is part of that
Indeed. It's IMO the number #1 thing to tackle. The language barrier. English works usually but there will be a huge difference to understanding german natively or near natively.
> So the German came from the decision to stay.
The more important question though is: why isn't Turkey like that? Great that people want to go into Germany, but you only need to look at the recent problems with Ceuta. Spain is not Germany, of course, but something really does not work well here. Wealth and opportunities should be much better spread and distributed than it is right now.
> For me the logical thing has always been to aim for 15 minutes before the agreed time, so if something happens on the way I'm still fine.
He already has german work ethics there. ;)
For me I also try to arrive earlier, but mostly because upon waking up my head needs time to clear up and I am slow, so I try to have a time buffer usually. It's no problem past 10:00 o'clock (I use the 24 hours clock; AM and PM never made any sense to me).
> and I didn't hesitate to complain (with Lärmprotokoll) to my landlord.
Alright I had to stop here, because when someone from outside Germany knows the word Lärmprotokoll, he is now more german than the germans. :P
(I also had noise by neighbours but I never complained, yet alone with a protocol to snitch. Though my neighbours are not causing any problems usually, young kids may sometimes cause noise but I also felt that if I were to complain when kids make noise that does not seem to be super-nice to a kid that may not understand that noise causes issues. And complaining to the parents made no sense either since that would just delegate the problem when it would be a non-problem. I'd be scared to live around something writing "Protokolle" about me. He should tone down his super-german drive really - not everything is great about german discipline. I mean we could have a look at two world wars, how that got started ...)
Your comment relies on a racist double standard. A person should not be judged by their country of origin or held personally responsible for the actions of that country.
> He speaks perfect German, though.
No, Özdemir doesn’t speak perfect German. He speaks German with a heavy Swabian accent, which sounds very rural to the average German.
> People seem to think a German passport is handed out easily now. It isn't. You have to prove you paid into the social system for at least five years. You have to pass the citizenship test. You need German at B1 level. You need a sustainable livelihood while your application is running. And most importantly, you have to accept the democratic values of this country.
That is still relatively easy. 5 years is not a long time – various other European countries are longer.
The citizenship test is multiple-choice and has a pass rate of 52%. B1 should be easily achievable after 5 years in Germany. And B1 is lower-middle (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2), and is not fluency.
I'm not sure why paying taxes and having a job is highlighted as making it "not easy" - that should be the bare minimum.
And then he goes onto describe how painless the application process was. All digital. No bureaucratic games trying to trip him up. Seemed very easy
edit: Oh and ~700-800 EUR in total for all the fees? [0] Bargain!
Note that you need a B1 certificate, so it’s really better to take actual courses to be sure you know the actual grammar and vocabulary (including all the irregular verbs, uhrg…) you will face during the exam. The exam isn’t too hard but you need to be prepared, it covers reading, speaking, writing, and grammar exercises
It seems not to be the case. According to SEM (Staatssekretariat für Migration), a B1 oral level and A1 written level at least are required to be granted permanent residency and B1/A2 (oral/written) for naturalisation [1] in one of the four national languages. They do not state the bar to admission.
I spent a lot of time in Europe after graduating college. I thought I wanted to move there, I enjoyed the peacefulness of a daily life and people who were concerned for the general welfare of society over an above profits.
Then I came to California. For a woman! I've long since broken up with her, but perhaps I stayed for the tacos and the sunset. And that the American west is still both deluded and guided by its founding myth of the cowboy: don't like the way things are done around here? Do it yourself, form your own posse...certainly, if there is one thing that people in Europe complain about, its the rigidity of social life. The author talks about a flat hierarchy but Germans are funnelled into castes even before they graduate high school.
There is freedom in America, but it is an open field, empty and full of despair. You are alone: the state does not care if you get sick, the state does not care if you can't get a job, the state does not care if you find your life meaningless. You can always head west, there is always an environment more unforgiving, an emptiness more vast and unfathomable, formless from the outset but given shape within a tragic struggle, one that few ever overcome. And any overcoming is only a temporary victory, and all your triumphs will fall like Ozymandias, left to dry rot in the craggily rocks and creosote bushes that make up the wasteland of American progress. Even with all those abandoned trailers sitting forlorn, the weak still venture forth thinking that they will defy the odds. One more bone on the desert floor. But at least I have the delusion!
And one day, when I'm long gone, and my wealth has been donated to worthy causes, and my kids and even their kids sit on the boards of philanthropic organizations, they will make a biopic about me, and it will be mediocre, and the actor who plays me will be far more attractive than I ever was, and it will get every detail about my life wrong. Then I will have won--and, consider this, Germans: in your country, the only person they ever make the subject of a biopic is Hitler! I think Steve Jobs is a little better than Hitler...
> I noticed the same thing in the rich districts of Hamburg. You can walk into one and not feel like you don't belong, and the prices in the shops are not that different from anywhere else in the city. Sometimes they are exactly the same. The more I saw of that, the more I wanted to stay. I believe in social democracy, and this is a country that calls itself one and mostly behaves like it.
Try the Kö in Düsseldorf! Of course this is a jab at the fact that nearly every nice store there is one where you walk in, get profiled, and then are given champagne and asked to sit down before you can even look at clothes. We have this ridiculous shit, it's just localized to a couple places known for being so posh! :)
Willkommen in Hamburg! Was a fun read. Seems like you were extremely lucky with your company and flat mate.
I know a lot of immigrants working in logistics and they'd tell a different story. It's cool to see that it can work out positively too.
* The author fortunately ended up in Hamburg, but in Munich, many people end up stuck with Fiktionsbescheinigungen and expired visas, unable to travel because the waiting time at the KVR is too long.
* Friends of mine have been waiting a year and eight months for permanent residence.
* If you apply for citizenship, they officially tell you not to even bother inquiring before a year and a half. Many have waited two years for it.
* To get a driver's license Neuantrag (which is just permission to start taking classes), it officially takes 3 months, but can take even longer. It's also expensive (around €3k), and changing driving schools is difficult.
* Hard to make friends: just look at r/germany. Everyone does activities together and then says goodbye. "Join a Verein" or "Learn the language" don't work as advertised.
* Annoying and obscene amount of paperwork and bureaucracy: Your tax office doesn't know about your health or pension insurance contributions even though they are state-managed, so you have to upload these documents or click buttons in ELSTER to retrieve them.(still better than a few years ago)
* Many shops close at 7 or 8 PM on weekdays, and supermarkets are closed on Sundays. You always have to rush if you have a long commute. Even grocery delivery services like Flink are constrained by this. Some shops even take a lunch break at 1:30 PM on top of that (idk if this is asking too much).
* DHL is so dysfunctional. They sometimes don't even ring when you're home, drop the package at the nearest pickup point, and leave a receipt in your mailbox. But if you go to the address on the receipt, you'll be disappointed because there's fine print stating it's only available for pickup starting from a future date. So you end up making multiple trips, guessing their opening hours (which don't match Google or the sign on the door), and waiting in line. Keep in mind "DHL Packstations" exist 24/7, yet they fail to sometimes reroute packages to them even if configured to do so.
* Those insurance portals where everyone reimplements email because "email is insecure, hurr durr": they send you an email with a login link -> an SMS OTP -> a cookie banner -> navigate a badly designed portal to find the latest message -> open the message only to find a PDF attachment. Why a PDF instead of writing the message directly on the portal? Because web text can be changed, whereas a PDF supposedly cannot (lol).
* A bakery closes at 19:00. We enter at 18:58, and the worker refuses to serve us - I thought you were supposed to serve customers who enter before closing time.
* If you miss an appointment at a branded repair store, they turn you away with zero flexibility or customer friendliness. You have to go back to their website, book another appointment, and travel all the way back later.
* Enormous wait times for doctors under public insurance. They aren't proactive, so you have to push for treatment and do your own research just to get a prescription.
* Forget about therapists, too. There's a 6+ month waiting list for every therapist on Doctolib - and with recent reforms, getting it reimbursed by public insurance is getting nearly impossible.
* They like laws - but a little too much, sometimes inventing their own rules to win arguments. I've seen this on streets where people just argue.
* Deutsche Bahn - no need to explain.
* Training and qualifications: It takes minimum 10 years to be a therapist, min. 8 years - tax advisor , minimum 8 years to become a lawyer .
These are skilled jobs, but come on, all these are 1-3 years more than other countries. Not to mention it's some are gated so that it's tough to graduate.
* Also high rent ofc
Probably due to this, more citizens leave the country than arrive, and around 50-60% of immigrants end up leaving within a decade too.
Overall, the country is a big step up from many other countries, including where I come from - India.
> Something simple like waiting at a red light even when there are no cars takes away the work of deciding whether to cross.
Someone gets it. It reduces mental load tremendously which is kinda important when you are a pedestrian surrounded by motor traffic. But of course you think there is no car coming because you didn't see one, right? So why not jaywalk this time? But what if your perception played a trick on you and your conclusion turns out to be false? When you are fatigued by the constant state of vigilance, doubt and self-assurance, in the end you are more likely to overlook the car that is coming round the corner. Jaywalking is for short term gains, but might have bad consequences in the long run. Your attention and vigilance is a scarce and valuable resource.
Mert, you seem like a great guy, and I agree with most of what you said. I'm also an immigrant.
> What stayed with me is that this is probably the only country in the western world that faced its own history properly, admitted the worst things it did, and built a lot of its identity around not repeating them.
This however is categorically untrue. If Andrew Tate suddenly starts publicly repenting and then staunchly defends Ghislaine Maxwell, he is not facing his history properly nor admitting the worst things he did. He's just being as awful as he's ever been.
If most Germans had faced their own history properly and truly admitted the things it did, they would never have been such huge defendants of the genocide in Gaza. If they had drawn their lessons, the lesson would've been "humanity can get up to atrocious acts, and we need to act against these whenever they happen". Instead, they drew the lesson "we should outwardly act extremely sorry, and treat acts and people completely differently based on their religion/ethnicity". The "change of heart" in Germany over the last 2 or so years doesn't change this.
There has of course always been a minority of Germans who did already own their history, but in the last few decades that group never exceeded 20% of (ethnic) Germans.
What struck me most is how the author seems to confuse a very protected version of Germany with Germany itself.
He landed in a relatively rare bubble: an international tech company, an English-speaking workplace, and a professional profile the system values. That experience is valid, but it is hardly representative. Even this bubble is shrinking as companies cut local roles and move more work to lower-cost locations.
The rest of Germany becomes visible once you leave the corporate layer. Try finding an apartment, dealing with a government office, getting a timely appointment, or starting a business. The system is often slow, rigid, inaccessible, and exhausting.
Even a high salary does not automatically translate into prosperity. After taxes, housing, and everyday costs, building meaningful savings can still be surprisingly difficult.
Germany also has a way of pushing you into an NPC life: work, pay taxes, follow the process, book everything months ahead, stay quiet on Sundays, and remain on the approved path.
Meanwhile, the article feels oddly detached from a country facing industrial pressure, job cuts, housing shortages, heavy bureaucracy, economic anxiety, and growing political anger.
Thanks for this comment. I also arrived in Germany into a similar bubble, but shortly thereafter it burst. I was forced to relocate to a backwater shithole (trust me, I’m doing my best to be charitable here) where I had an extremely bad life experience due to the incompetence of my employer, the foreigners’ office, among others. I was able to rebuild my life and career somewhere else within the country, but after what I went through I have no plans to become a German citizen. I’d rather be dead.
This. The landing story is uncharacteristically soft, surrounded by English speaking colleagues in an international company. On average, you'd find that Germans tend to grow weary speaking in English sooner and almost press you to speak German the first time you blurt a reply that sounds vaguely correct German. It almost becomes a matter of protecting your personal space if you don't want to feel embarrassed for making mistakes, especially in the work setting. Think about it: You're already focusing on your work and explaining it in English. The documentation is in English. Your code and your documentation are in English, but the chat absolutely needs to happen in German. Why? Work culture. I'm calling it out, because that chit-chatting by the water cooler is also how you get some crucial information to position yourself in the company for promotions, and you're always in that weird state of mind if you speak German, you risk sounding like a child and if you don't, it seems like you're being passed over.
If you live in an unfurnished apartment or buy your own sooner, then you also get to see how the service sector currently sees all white-collar workers: Cash cows who don't know how to hold a screwdriver properly. Add on top of that the joys of building a family in Germany and the associated paperwork and multiplying appointments, and suddenly you find yourself living that NPC life, being yelled at on the street for insisting on their rights, misreading the situation and thinking you broke the most superficial law. While having the privilege to pay into the tax system that drains your take-home pay, of course. Being a rule follower yourself doesn't always shield you from all these.
> but the chat absolutely needs to happen in German. Why? Work culture.
It's absolutely normal that people speak their mother tongue when they have the possibility. One can be kind and speak English to make a guest feel more comfortable, but if a permanent resident refuses to learn the local language fluently he should not demand that everyone else bends over backwards to accommodate him.
Comfort of native language is undeniable, that's not even close to my point. Of course you would be kind and use appropriate local language whenever you can. It is that native fluency cannot be matched really as someone who learns the language at a much later stage in their life, and Germans usually have unreasonable expectations from immigrants to speak perfect German, especially when that said immigrant is also aiming for career advancement. Therefore everyone is being measured on their ability to climb a tree and while Germans are like monkeys, some immigrants are like fish. Speaking English in the work setting would level that playing field (many immigrants are not native English speakers, too), and it's one thing the German companies just wouldn't give up. Why? Work culture. Riddle me that.
> but the chat absolutely needs to happen in German. Why? Work culture.
Rather: because a lot of less formal thoughts (including jokes) are difficult to express in English since they often rely on structures that the English language does not have.
> if you speak German, you risk sounding like a child
I can ensure you that you don't sound like a child (nursery language is typically not taught in language courses for foreign speakers). Rather, you sound like a person who did not take learning German seriously.
It goes both ways, of course. There are Germans who do not take learning English seriously, and foreigners who stumble because many informal expressions (including jokes) are difficult to express in German since they rely on structures that the language does not have.
I miss speaking my native language, too, but English is what I take as common ground. As an adult, I can never hope to compete on native German fluency with someone who's born and raised in Germany to educated German parents. That's just biased.
You missed the point. Just take an immigrant in front of you next time and see him make two mistakes in a row in one sentence while casually talking to him (maybe he's tired, maybe he's lazy but who's to judge). You'd inherently think less of him, deep down, wouldn't you?
> Just take an immigrant in front of you next time and see him make two mistakes in a row in one sentence while casually talking to him (maybe he's tired, maybe he's lazy but who's to judge). You'd inherently think less of him, deep down, wouldn't you?
No, I wouldn't.
I think a lot comes down to differences in mentality:
- Many Germans think that they had a hard time getting to a decent level in English. So they expect the same willingness from foreigners to get to a decent level in German. (#)
- Many German native speaker really care about their language: It is a very common situation that German native speakers correct both native speakers and people who learn German as foreign language. With some people who learn German as second language, I get the reaction "Even if this is grammatically wrong, you nevertheless understood the sentence.". I do believe this person did not get my point: Among English native speakers I often observe this mentality for their native language, but I would really claim that "German language is a kind of thinking", so such mistakes really feel like a wrong-typed computer program.
So
> As an adult, I can never hope to compete on native German fluency with someone who's born and raised in Germany to educated German parents.
Being able to compete on this level is not something that is expected from you. But (also cf. (#)) willing to cram brutally hard to get near to this level over some time is.
---
Thus, to come back to your point:
> Just take an immigrant in front of you next time and see him make two mistakes in a row in one sentence while casually talking to him (maybe he's tired, maybe he's lazy but who's to judge). You'd inherently think less of him, deep down, wouldn't you?
As I wrote: I really wouldn't think less of this person because he makes mistakes. But - very in accordance of what I wrote - I would think less of such a person if he doesn't work really hard to get better in German fast.
In other words: It's really not about not making mistakes (everyone does), but about not working hard to get better.
the article is just sharing his positive personal experience... it’s not a sociological treatise. but i agree with you, he’s clearly talking from within a bubble.
...What I knew about Germans.. ..who speak a language that sounds too harsh.. ..And of course, someone always brings up the Nazis
That's bold, coming from Turkish people when their country is in an aggressive military dictatorship and the language not particularly pleasant to the ear.
I guess we all need someone worse than us to cope.
> What stayed with me is that this is probably the only country in the western world that faced its own history properly, admitted the worst things it did, and built a lot of its identity around not repeating them.
Except it's the most ardent country in the EU when it comes to arming and supporting an ongoing genocide in Gaza and suppressing dissent against that
To be fair, that is a thing mostly done by the political elites and not an opinion that most citizens (that I’ve interacted with) hold. Most of us would much prefer all of the money that’s being put into weapons for Israel to be invested in our country instead.
Then again, there’s currently a big political shift to the right and the US/UK flavor of identity politics seems to have made its way over here, so that’s probably also not changing anytime soon.
> What stayed with me is that this is probably the only country in the western world that faced its own history properly, admitted the worst things it did, and built a lot of its identity around not repeating them.
what a load of 2010s and hamburg vibes but this part stuck out for me.
how can someone, especially from that part of the world, look at germany post oct 7 and conclude anything other than that everything was always a self-stroking lie and propaganda
A very nice read and pretty much my experience. I have been here for a quarter of my life now, I do not think I can live anywhere else now. People may not like me being here because of my skin color or whatever but I do not mind. I keep to myself and follow all the "rules" I can. In fact, I like most of the rules, rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality.
Will a little bit of empathy be nicer, sure, but I cannot complain. Speaking of which, a lot of German natives complain and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year), but honestly I have visited / lived in nine countries, and people have no idea how good they have it here. I came here with a bag, twenty euros in my pocket and a job offer, a dozen years later I have pretty much all basic comforts and stability one can dream of, my kids have a bright future waiting for them, all this is not possible in many countries.
> Speaking of which, a lot of German natives complain and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year), but honestly I have visited / lived in nine countries, and people have no idea how good they have it here.
The grass is always greener on the other side ... until you actually dare to find out. Having lived and worked in many a country, I second your opinion that it is often about trade offs. Problems will come and go. You have to choose the problem you want to work with.
Germany certainly is one of the top countries to live in.
My opinion (immigrant for the 2nd time, currently in Germany since 2013- so I've lived in 3 countries when counting my native one):
Basically, all rich/"western" countries are pretty decent. Some better than other, but they're all 'ok' or rather they all have plenty of 'ok' options for people able to work at somewhat in-demands fields (despite the financial situation of the last couple years a career in tech or tech adjacent generally still fits that category).
If you go somewhere where there's "real" problems, countries like Egypt, India, Ethiopia (altho of course there are nice areas in these countries too) you realize most of the time you'd rather live in any rich country than in a poor country. And there are more people worldwide living in countries ± like India than in countries ± like Germany.
"The grass is always greener on the other side ... until you actually dare to find out. "
Definitely. I hated germany and after school the first thing I did, was to go away as far as possible. Good for getting perspective. There are things that work nicer elsewhere and things were we actually are pretty advanced.
I had the same experience with my own country, Australia. I enjoyed moving to the Bay Area for work, and I treasure the couple years I lived there. But I also really enjoyed moving back to Australia again.
I feel like it’s impossible to truly understand your home country unless you’ve spent enough time abroad to see it with fresh eyes.
I think I'm going through the same experience with my home country (USA). It has all kinds of issues that have been discussed at length, and I thought when I left I might be leaving for good, but I think I'm going to be back there in a couple of years.
I moved to a beautiful mountain town in New Zealand, and I know I'll treasure the time I spent here for the rest of my life, but I find myself missing America more and more.
I think there are two aspects. First, quite obvious, everyday life and overall infrastructure is really good. It is clean, well maintained in most places. And there are only few countries where all open landscapes are yours to have. Germany is one big park. You have a small garden? No problem, every forest or unfenced meadow is yours to use and to enjoy. The other aspect, which makes people leave, is the direction in which things are going. It feels like things get a little worse every day. Bureaucracy was never easy in Germany, but since Covid, it feels like certain parts of it have mostly stopped working. All that while they add more taxes, more regulation all the time. This is what drives motivated people out.
"And there are only few countries where all open landscapes are yours to have."
Well, I am into wild camping and here germany is definitely not so open. You have to be very well hidden.
Come to Norway.
Gladly every time I can manage.
I am one of those who left. Very happy where I am now. As some say, if you want to see all German stereotypes fulfilled, go to Switzerland!
There are also circumstances and other factors that may be unknown to you when you move to a new place (your first flatmate, the city you move in, the company etc), or factors you did not choose or had little control of up to some age (the area you grew up, the people around you etc) that can affect one's experience. The article's author also talks about that.
A person who moved to ostwestfalen or in a small town in eastern germany will probably not have the same experience as a person moving to hamburg (no offence to any of these places). A person moving as an intern to a relatively international environment will not have the same experience as a person who moves to a 100% german environment. It definitely matters how you act in your environment, but the environment restricts what you can get out of it as experience. Similarly, this applies to moving to any country, but also to where you were born.
Imo and ime people who do not get a good experience out of a country (the one they were born in or where they moved) is most of the times not about having unrealistic expectations of other places (they may have, but it is not the point) or they do something wrong, but due to a big chunk of factors and general character/compatibility issues that one has little control over, and may even be unaware of until that point. This holds for the "success stories" as much as the "failed" ones. It is hard to accept sometimes because having little/no control over stuff can be uncomfortable. The experience of different people can be different for things out of each one's control mostly.
In any case, getting different experiences in places out of where one was raised can always be helpful and help one grow.
> The grass is always greener on the other side ... until you actually dare to find out.
Yes this is the core problem.
The grass used to be very green in the "first world" (North America and Western Europe) but it is now getting dangerously yellow.
Instead of asking themselves the hard question why the grass is getting yellow the people in charge try to prove it is fine by bringing cows (it is an image here) from the "the third world", and say look the grass is not getting yellow because those cows like it.
This is why you usually see the collapse of the rose-colored glasses effect in third generation of immigrants.
So yes the grass can still been seen as relatively green in Germany, but I have regularly traveled there for decades and I can tell you as an external observer the country looks like it is going to hell over time.
You get a similar effect with westerners going to East Asia. A lot of them like it very much there wearing rose-colored glasses and can't figure out why the locals believe the future is dark for them.
Uh, I think you’re misunderstanding.
3rd gen immigrants aren’t impressed because they literally have no idea what it is like to live back in the ‘old country’.
Go back (to actually live there) and often those 3rd gen immigrants will definitely have a different perspective than they used too.
‘Native’s’ in 1st world countries often just don’t really understand the reality of the situation, and are the ones with the rose colored glasses.
Or do you think someone complaining about, say, the UK, will legitimately find things easier in India?
Because I’ve lived in Both; and nah dog.
The bigger issue here IMO is the fraying social contract and exposure to narcissistic manipulation due to social media and the ‘algorithm’.
It’s ragebaiting everyone about everything.
Combined with the bill ‘coming due’ for a lot of debt fueled overspending, and population collapse, of course.
I think a lot of the complaining comes from high taxes, remembering the "good old times" and just from being German. Germans love to complain.
I left Germany for a few years and came back. There are very few other places I could imagine to live in. Maybe Norway, Canada or Switzerland. I hope Germany gets its things together, the recent uprise of xenophobia and social polarization is concerning. I grew up in a Germany where it didn't matter where you came from or what you looked like.
Germany has been shifting wealth from middle class and lower class to the rich for a long time now and is at the forefront of inequality increase in Europe. All the xenophobia and polarization is happening for a reason. The people are no longer happy with their lives here. It is a result of decades of bad politicians and policies, bad election results, and mismanagement of the whole country and immigration and integration policies. Getting out shit together will require a massive mindset change, that personally I don't really see coming. We can forget all the mainstream parties like CDU, SPD, Greens, AFD, Left. They won't and don't want to bring us out of this situation. What they will do is continue the course of retiree pleasing policies, to catch tons of votes, while the rest of the country continues to go to shit.
Spoken like a true German. All goes to shit. All the time.
I, a German, went to Switzerland for vacation once. I talked to a Swiss guy about how I like Switzerland and all that. I told him how impressed I was with how organized everything is and how well everything works. The train system and public transport in general is wonderful compared to the one we have in Germany, for example. To my surprise, he said something along the line of "yeah well, it only looks like that from the outside".
Perhaps the tendency to complain is a necessity to achieve a high level of efficiency.
I moved from Sweden to Switzerland, and I don't know what that guy was talking about.
Switzerland is an extremely well run country.
I mean it helps that there's around 9M people living there, 1/10th of Germany or about the same amount as London or New York.
Also helps to accumulate wealth by taking care of global blood-money and being a diplomatic hub :) and let's not forget the tons of gold we got gifted about a hundred years ago, sadly can't quite remember where we got that from.
It also helps that Switzerland has a decentralized and direct democratic system of governance.
The rest is just noise.
> Also helps to accumulate wealth by taking care of global blood-money and being a diplomatic hub
People say that, but ETFs that invest into plain old boring sectors of Swiss industry give long term returns half way between USA AI insanity and everything else in the world. So they must be doing something right with their industrial economy as well.
we got some huge, international companies here. pharma, banks, insurance, food and beverages, resource trading and a more-or-less stable political system.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/switzerland/largest-companies...
I suspect natives have a more nuanced view of their home country, compared to expats who end up getting a tinted view. At least it likely takes a long time for an outsider to truly understand how things work. Reading the newspapers isn't representative, you know...
The natives have their own biases.
As southern European that has lived a couple of years in Switzerland and eventually moved into Germany, I always mention that from flexibility and rules point of view, being in Germany versus Switzerland, feels so much better in Germany.
Sorry for the stereotypes, it was just how it felt dealing with everything, which is how everything gets to be so organised in first place, and the difference on similar matters in Germany, still I go back into Switzerland with some regularity.
Swiss voted against tax reduction in the past. I do not know of that many countries, where people would have done that. So the way they think is a bit different.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/poison-withholding-tax...
Do you know, that by now Switzerland frequently refuses German trains to enter the country, because of delays? They don't want Deutsche Bahn mismanagement and delays to affect their own train network. Very reasonable to put a stop to this.
What they do is very interesting, though IMO "refuse to enter the country" sounds harsher than it actually is.
If an inbound German train is late to Basel by more than 20 minutes, the Swiss run their own substitute train from Basel (they keep rolling stock on standby). The replacement train runs to the original timetable so that local passengers are unaffected. The late train is then pulled out of service at Basel (there are frequent onward connections).
They do something similar at Schaffhausen.
Trains that are late into St. Margrethen are made to queue behind local traffic.
That sounds like an excellent solution for locals.
But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.
It was the locals who decided that it was worth the extra hassle and expense (and that doing the same thing at St. Margrethen wasn't).
There was probably a referendum at some point. :)
I am not sure whether the stats are comparable, but I read somewhere that about half of Deutsche Bahn trains are late into Basel (and there are many trains a day). While I don't know this for a fact, it wouldn't surpise me if patterns of delays are relatively predictable and can be planned for.
There was some talk about just ending those routes at Basel at some far-away point in the future, but I'm not sure if that's something that's been decided.
> But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.
Considering how often the Deutsche Bahn isn't on time (I say this as a German), the SBB should have use for this rolling stock nearly all the time - so it's rather efficient. :-)
Yes
A normal sized plot with a house listed to be torn down on in outskirts of Zurich costs 7mil. A 2 bedroom apartment on the countryside costs 2mil. You will not pay this in a lifetime from 2 good level swiss salaries.
Are you Swiss? I'm no expert but from talking to Swiss people, their mortgage system is very different from the American one, and people are in no hurry to pay off their mortgages, and often they're never really paid off. Americans might find that appalling but the Swiss people I've spoken to find it normal. Tax incentives also help with this.
It is the UK/Nordic system which I find morbidly bad. It already assumes you will never pay off the property and you pass it down to family and children, possibly multiple generations. It allows for property prices to go to the moon instead of incentivising for affordability. Makes for a system giving up owning property. How did we humans come to this.
Allowing financial system abstraction on one end, and allowing our brains to rot on the other.
Swiss people often don't see how awesome swiss is themself except they have been away for a longer while to see how shitty every other place tends to be.
Ex. Most people here think Europe is generally this clean. They never bothered looking out of their car in literally any other neighbor country.
Source: Austria living in Switzerland who also lived in Thailand, Malaysia, Czech, .. for a while.
Just nitpicking on the "quarter of my life" point: being in my forties, I spent 3 of the 4 quarters of my life (so far) in 3 very different places in the world. The 4th quarter is a rounding error of those three. I don't think the fact of spending a quarter of one's life in one place actually says anything other than the fact that this place is livable enough.
Can you elaborate? I don't quite grasp what you mean. Do you mean that the first three quarters of your life were more formative/adventurous and the last quarter was more driven by inertia and routine? I can relate if so, just not sure if that's what you mean.
In my forty something years of life so far, a quarter is a little more than 10 years. I lived the first quarter + ε in one place during my childhood, then moved to a different city for the college and lived there for another quarter + ε, and I'm spending a quarter + ε in a completely different country. The sum of these three ε cover the remaining quarter.
The fact that I spent a quarter of my life in three different places does not mean I'm forced to stay in any of these places for the rest of my life. I might as well move with my family and live in another place for some extended period of time.
Are they different ε or the same?
TBH, if using quarter here is just shorthand for "a decade", so it might be easier just to say plainly "I spent over a decade in each of A, B and C".
Sure, I was just nitpicking on the phrase of the original comment that apparently put some extra weight on the fact that it was a quarter of life.
Just say thirds.
Well, same here. I hate living here to be sure because of the slowness and the way future looks bleak because of inability to change. But.... I am pretty sure I would hate living in other places even more. And the only reason I hate it here is because I see how good we have it here, and how much better it could be if we just got off our fear of change and actually tried to move with times.
Also, Germany is one of the few countries where I have rarely been told to go back to my own country when I criticize something here, instead people say "Yeah, it is shit, but it is what it is eh?"
Curious to get some perspective: How viable would starting a career in IT/Technology in Germany be as a mildly autistic American with an inability to learn foreign languages? I hear many opinions about this ranging from "English is commonly spoke, you'll be fine" to "You can visit but you will be unable to settle down due to xenophobia". The EU is incredibly appealing as someone highly dissatisfied with the trajectory of the US, and though I am aware many European countries are slowly following the same trajectory at least it'd give me a few more years of "this is fine".
My family pre-immigration 150 years ago still exists in Germany and now appears to own a large road-construction concrete company. I wonder if that string is worth pulling.
> Curious to get some perspective: How viable would starting a career in IT/Technology in Germany be as a mildly autistic American with an inability to learn foreign languages?
In my observation, in Germany the tolerance for the symptoms associated with mild autism is a little better than in the USA. On the other hand: if you aren't able to learn the German language fast: forget it.
Also be aware that starting a career in Germany is much harder than in the USA. On the other hand: once you are in, it is rather easy to stay in your job (in particular at a big company where there is a strong Betriebsrat (work council)) as long as you work somewhat dutifully and don't do anything really stupid. Just don't expect to move up the ladder (moving up the ladder or switching companies every few years is rather uncommon in Germany, so don't come with such an expectation).
> My family pre-immigration 150 years ago still exists in Germany and now appears to own a large road-construction concrete company. I wonder if that string is worth pulling.
This "I had ancestors in country X" seems to be a common sentiment among US-Americans. As a German I can really not understand how US-Americans get the idea that anybody in this country cares about that. If you really cared about the country, you would learn the language to a near-native level and get deeply into the country's culture.
Very fair. It is mostly just amusing to me to share an uncommon last name with the signage on an company's building.
It seems unwise to go to a country without a plan to learn the language. If you are as unable to learn languages as you stated, then I suggest living in English speaking countries for life
Unwise, sure, but there are precious few options for English native countries, particularly when my partner has a skin condition that makes persistent cold temperatures untenable.
Learning the language is vital here. Most things are not in english but only in german. Every official letter you receive will be in german.
Looking for an apartment? Better speak german with the landlord.
You may get through for a few years in an international city like Hamburg, Berlin, München if you find a job at an international company. But long term? Learn german or you will suffer.
> Every official letter you receive will be in german.
Is that different in any other country?
Would you expect to be able to recieve them in spanish, while living in France?
There is also https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leichte_Sprache , which many official websites provide, seems even to be mandatory for some services to have that option on offer.
> people have no idea how good they have it here.
Whenever I tell Germans that I'm Canada, they almost always respond with "Canada!? It's such a wonderful country, what are you doing here??" as if they couldn't possibly imagine what a Canadian might like about their country.
Sure, Canada's a great place, just like Germany. Also just like Germany it's far from perfect, and sometimes one is just after a different tradeoff.
Perhaps you just hated shopping on a Sunday! Sunday is for doing absolutely nothing at all.
I've found that the rule-following in Germany is way more consistent than in the country I grew up at in Latin America, plus people is much more willing to help you actually follow those rules. This helps reduce the amount of (bad) chaos in your daily life tremendously.
> and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year)
They have them in Spain, and they are retired. Do you want them back?
I’m living in Spain and for daily life I speak more German than Spanish. They are taking over.
> In fact, I like most of the rules, rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality.
I'm sure some of the more entrepreneurial minds will argue that many of those rules stifle innovation and progress. But also on a personal level, at least to this returning German, some of the rules seem silly at best and at worst cause some underlying sense of oppression. Why, e.g., is there a Meldegesetz/Meldeamt? I survived for 25+ years in California without such.
There are safety/freedom tradeoffs and whether they are worth it, everyone has to decide for themselves (at least Germans are granted the liberty to leave, if they don't like it). Many Germans long for a more adventurous life, but in the end most prefer to visit, rather than emigrate to, foreign shores.
One thing the Ortsamt/Meldeamt is good for, you don't have to register to vote. You get a note in your mail when there is an election. The note informs you about the date and where your designated polling station is located and it somewhat serves as your voting-ID at the station.
Yes, there are good rule and bad rules (and rules that were once reasonable but changes in technology or society rendered them suboptimal).
As an immigrant to Germany, I wish the authorities would think more about the chilling effect every new rule has on activity (add another item to your to-do checklist, and less people are likely to even start). A prime example is trying to open a company in Germany vs some other countries (not even going as far as the US, it's enough to compare with Finland or the UK).
> As an immigrant to Germany, I wish the authorities would think more about the chilling effect every new rule has on activity (add another item to your to-do checklist, and less people are likely to even start). A prime example is trying to open a company in Germany vs some other countries (not even going as far as the US, it's enough to compare with Finland or the UK).
Also many Germans think this way. They have just given up that the politicians will ever change that.
I'm living in Berlin for 13/45 of my life, but I don't think I will ever feel integrated. As much as I tried to get around and adapt to the local culture, I quickly found myself only connecting with non-Germans, most of them from Southern Europe, and on a smaller scale from Poland and the Balkans.
> living in Berlin ... I don't think I will ever feel integrated.
I’d understood this was a typical Berlin experience even for German.
Would like to hear your thoughts on why that is the case.
I was going to respond with "Protestantism", but then I realized that I also lived in the US for ~5 years and I had no problem to adapt there. Mind you, I wouldn't go back to live in the US unless you were paying me a lot of money to do so, but at least there I felt integrated.
But honestly I don't have a better answer. Despite all my sincerest efforts, I never got the German idea of humor. I never understood their lack of flexibility in social settings. Their relationships with their family members (especially parents) is completely alien to me. I certainly don't like their "one-size-fits-all" for all sorts of socio-economic policies and how that translates to the EU. I am still annoyed by the fact that I can not find a way to go back to swimming in some structured capacity: it's either the overcrowded public pools or the "you need to be at competition-ready level to join a Schwimmverein". I find it weird that I've been living in the same building for 7 years and I know basically nothing about my neighbors - except the ones living under me who repeatedly complained about us being loud (we were not) and only stopped after taking us to court and losing the case.
> I never got the German idea of humor.
A lot of foreigners say that. Actually mostly english speaking ones. I never heard a turk say this. Perhaps it's linked to the willingness to learn the language, which is often low with english-speaking people?
No idea, but back to the story: my answer to this "I don't get the humor" is: I don't get spanish humor.
And the simple reason is that I don't speak spanish good enough. I get SOME of the british & US humor. But only a bit ... my language skill, albeit perhaps ok if you look at it, is still not good enough to detect the subtle details. IMHO that is the reason why e.g. Mr Bean was easy to export: he doesn't talk :-)
In any case: to get the local humor, you MUST learn the language and even the culture quite good. Otherwise, you simply don't get it.
> I find it weird that I've been living in the same building for 7 years and I know basically nothing about my neighbors
Isn't this just par for the course when living in dense settings?
I've been living in my current apartment for more than three years, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recognize most of my neighbors if I randomly saw them in the street. We say hello when our paths cross coming and going, but that's it.
Many people come to the cities specifically looking to be more anonymous. You can't have that if everybody knows everybody.
German culture is very functional, rigid, and dry, and it serves people with that kind of mindset very well. However, it clashes strongly with typical Southern cultures, so it is no surprise that the parent mentioned this. People who value the "softer" aspects of life are not going to feel at home.
There are certainly exceptions, and YMMV.
The question is... what about the german culture do you know?
Do you know the "functional" Brother Grimm's tales?
Or the "dry" humor of Dieter Hallervorden if you're a bit older? (okay, Christian Ehring from extra3 is perhaps really dry ...)
Do you know the rigid songs of, say Nena or Einstürzende Neubauten? Or is the music of BAP functional to you?
Are the books of Andreas Eschbach dry? Or the lyrics of Ingeborg Bachmann?
Maybe local customs like or the cologne "Karneval" are dry you then? These days we have CSD's all over the place. Maybe not original german culture, but perhaps the german adaption is too rigid?
Do you actually KNOW german culture? Have you been here in school, for example? My guess: you don't really know german culture, at least not so much that you found stuff in it that you enjoy. But you certainly miss your home culture. This is the culture where you were brought up, where you know the language, the norms, the taboos etc. And something else is then alien to you, not comforting. But you already adopted german directness to express this non-comforting state in harsh and ugly words :-)
It's not a matter of not knowing the language. I grew up in Brazil but studied in a German school from grades 6-12. I used to watch Deutsche Welle more than I'd watch canned US sitcoms on cable.
I can understand a joke, and I can even (most of the times) understand the intention of the joke. But it doesn't mean that I find it funny.
As for "culture", I don't think we are using it in the same way. I mean in the sense of "expected norms and behaviors".
Let me give you one example: BBQ "culture". I really like to grill in the summer time and my birthday is in June. So I put these two together and made a tradition to have a BBQ party for my birthday.
Maybe you are not aware, but Brazilian BBQ is a multiple-hour event. It is not just a matter of cooking a pile of meat and getting stuffed, it is an opportunity to get the group together, socialize, and to slowly enjoy the food throughout the afternoon. Also, people can coordinate about the side-dishes all they want, but usually the host of the party "runs" the grill.
So, to get to the anecdote: one of my first birthdays here I invited a bunch of people to my place. I told them "Don't worry about the food or drinks. I got plenty for everyone."
Anyway, it was the time of the party and people started showing up. But remember what I said, this is an day-long event. By the time people started to arrive I had most of the things already set, appetizers on the table, drinks on the cooler. Everyone there (Italians, Turks, the Greeks, the Spanish, my Polish coworker) understood their "assignment": enjoy the moment and trust the host (me) that food would be coming along...
..except this one (German) friend of my (Italian) flatmate. The dude showed up one hour after the first group of people, all stressed about "being late" (he wasn't, it's a long party, there is no set time to arrive or leave), carrying a couple of "Nackensteaks" and asking whether he could "have some space on the grill to cook his food". I told him "hey, relax, there is some food over there and more meat is coming already, I can cook these steaks you brought afterwards".
He refused, he just wanted "his" steaks. No particular reason, just because he thought that was "his" share. I let him cook his steaks, he got some of the side dishes, sat down on the table by himself and had his lunch. Only then he decided to join the rest of the people in the party.
My flatmate just looked at me and said "they really don't get it...". I shrugged, and went back to the grill.
BBQ culture is different in different parts of the world - I experienced what you describe in Switzerland once (bring and grill your own food). Where I’m from, it’s bring your own booze but host is expected to provide all the food. Where my partner is from, you’re expected to bring either dessert or salad - but not booze or stuff for the grill. I think you’re reading too much into some fairly minor difference in etiquette. If you want to experience real culture-shock, try using a sauna in a German-speaking country…
Oh, it's not a "culture shock" kind of thing. I actually had no issue whatsoever going to a Sauna or even going swimming on the FKK hours. Like I said, I studied in a German school so I kinda knew these things are just a natural part of German life.
And it's not like I was "bothered" by him bringing his own food or wanting to cook it. It just seemed the guy was completely missing the point by being too focused on the "meal".
I just want to give one example of what I meant by "cultural differences", not that this one story cemented my opinion of Germans. Somewhat like trying to explain to an Italian that the North American idea of "getting coffee" means grabbing a Starbucks and walk around - or worse, driving to get it on a drive-through.
Being German who lived in other parts of the world myself, and someone who likes food and considers the typical German BBQ an abomination I can feel your pain.
But is this not more of an example of you wanting to do things the Brazillian way rather than German's unwillingness for you to integrate? At any rate, the Nackensteak guy is a total dick!
Also don't forget, a lot of those Italian, Turk, Greek, Spanish and Polish coworkers may well be Germans...
That's a pithy description of it all. If I hadn't met my (Greek) wife in 2015, I've probably would have left long ago.
And to come of think of it, I think there is another aspect that influences this: Germans are not having as many kids as the immigrants, so the overwhelming majority of the kids in the kitas and schools are from immigrant families or immigrant/native mixed parents. This means that (at this stage in life) any new friends you get to make are likely through your kids, and even there the pool is selected against Germans.
That's a very Berlin-centric observation. Berlin is special; it's hard to extrapolate to the rest of the country.
Maybe, but a quick AI-assisted research says that Bremen has an even higher rate of births from non-German mothers than Berlin, and the data does not make the distinction between citizenship and immigration status.
What do you mean with „Germans“? In my friends group, in my son‘s football club, in school, most kids have a so called migration background, but the parents are mostly second generation and mostly assimilated. So what?
If we split between second-generation (i.e, both parents born in Germany) as "native" and everyone else (i.e, anyone with at least one parent not born in Germany) as "immigrants", I'd guess that number would skew heavily towards "immigrants" in all major cities. I could be wrong, but I haven't found a way to reliably check the data.
Doubtful, honestly, though from what you described with Berlin, this feels like more of a problem of Berlin being a very transient city. A lot of people never fully settling there, especially so called expats, despite living there for decades. A lot of people being part of the cosmopolity, moving from one hype city, one startup, to the other. That’s okay, but it doesn’t work for everyone.
Your view of current immigrants is not that different from the Germans in the 70s who thought that the Turks and Vietnamese looking for jobs in Germany would go back to their homes after a while. Some of them did, but enough of them stayed to become a substantial part of the population.
Anyway, like I said there is a good chance I am wrong about it Germany in general. But I'd argue that in Berlin that is pretty much the case, regardless of how large the "transient" people are compared to "longer-term settlers". Once people start having kids they stop hopping around, so I'd guess that the amount of "non-native" children that dominate the schools have immigrant parents who are mostly settled.
Not the OP but to give you an example. Spines on books in German are written one way along the spine. While generally in English books it's the other way round.
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1n5booe/do_all_ger...
Both have their trade-offs and most cultures are chill about it, but a lot of Germans will swear by the way it is done in Germany being the logical method. It is a vrry homogenizing culture that way.
It also goes for most things in life like sentence case vs title case for headings. Pairing of flavors in dishes (although that is changing).
All in all, it gives you the idea of "there's a german way to do things which is the correct way, please adjust."
To be clear, there are some German ways which I think have much more far reaching consequences, and one about should argue about them, like attitude toward labor laws or LGBT stance. (And whichever way you feel about it, you can agree that the stance has far reaching consequences). And Germans will club all of the different level of seriousness together at the same level with whether you have a accent in your German, for example, when considering how integrated you are.
And that is incredibly frustrating and makes one feel left out. And it is not just immigrants. I know people who moved from Hamburg to Erlangen who felt more left out than me who moved from India to Erlangen (mostly because I had a German girlfriend at that point.)
what are you talking about bro, I think you're really getting carried away here. Nobody cares about the direction of writing on the spine of a book. And your thing with sentence vs title case doesn't make sense because German doesn't even have that distinction.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/s/kUJllIkqFs
I'm also a foreigner in Berlin, and my guess is twofold:
1. Their German isn't good enough, which limits the pool of people you can connect to
2. They only or mostly hang out in the expat-scene, which limits the pool of people you can connect to
no, it's the Berlin experience, even for many Germans
1. speaking German doesn't matter too much in Berlin, except older "Berlin Berlins" most people speak conversational English. I have even seen cases of _all_ personal in a caffe not speaking German..., more then once.
2. Over half the people in Berlin are "expat-like": ~20% of people in Berlin are not from Germany, 30-40% or so are not from Berlin and only there fro some years/decades to study or similar. And the distribution isn't uniform across Berlins, i.e. the areas you are most likely to end up as an (actual) expat (or similar) are the ones with way higher ratios. Like if you connect someone in such a area (weather physical or area-of-life) it's actually surprising if that person if "from" Berlin. Like you as a person "from" Berlin are more a special case then idk. someone from Poland ;).
> 1. speaking German doesn't matter too much in Berlin, except older "Berlin Berlins" most people speak conversational English
This depends on the context: it doesn't matter to speak German in the stage of life where one doesn't interface with the administration (and therefore, older generations). But for those who settle, and are past that stage, German is a requirement.
> German is a requirement.
should be,
but de-facto isn't, like seriously you can live decades in Berlin without learning German. As a German I could fully stop understanding German from tomorrow on and in any situation except my parents it would work out, with only very limited issues here and there. Most which normally solvable with camera based translation apps (e.g. Google Lense), and some other by deciding which part of Berlin I spend my time in.
and legally it's only required if you try to get a German pass
1) I am certified C1 German - studied in high school for 6 years. Granted, I don't like speaking German and will use English when possible, but it's not a matter of not being able to connect with them.
2) Shortly after moving in, I started dating a German woman. Lasted close to a whole year. That was more than enough time to meet a lot of her friends, I got to meet her family, etc. That was more than enough time and opportunities to get a good insight into "native German" lifestyle, culture and values.
Want to try again?
Because I have not been able to convince my wife to move to Greece.
Also, the fact that I am not integrated does not mean that I am unhappy here.
wowow C1 and dated a German? Sorry, you are basically a native
You take that back, right now!
You don’t know Germany, you know Berlin.
You don’t have insight into German lifestyle, you have insight into that one woman’s family’s lifestyle (and only less than a year, you’re not a family member at that point).
I'm not claiming that I know all of Germany or all Germans, I am just refuting GP's guesses.
Also, she wasn't the only German that I've met and it wasn't the case that I only met native Germans through her personal network. I also worked at Deutsche Telekom and Mercedes Benz. I've had the opportunity to interact with lots of people outside of the work environment.
I have been living in Berlin since my birth and your experience is one _many Germans have in Berlin, too_. Berlin is it's own thing, both in good and bad, I would not treat it as representative for Germany at all.
1. Berlin is the _least_ German Germany city, by far.
2. around ~20% of people living in Berlin aren't from Germany, I can't find the numbers but I think another 30-40% where not born in Berlin and likely won't stay more then 10-20 years. So _most people in Berlin are there temporary_, with people constantly moving in and out.
2.2. and the distribution of people long term living in Berlin and such being there temporary for studies, party, work, etc. isn't even across Berlin. In some areas you might mostly find people not "from" Berlin. To a point when meeting people in Berlin they sometimes are quite surprised if someone actually is from Berlin and not just lives there "for now"...
2.3. and in some parts of the city a non small part of "Berlins" born here are have parents or grandparents from Turkey which moved here in the 60th.
3. Berlin has a lot of sub-culturs which can be grate and fun, but also a common background rule is "you do what you want and I want I want" this can be really grate, or terrible as (not sure how to say it) the background social network which tends to integrate people into a local society is somewhat absence. Or to put it differently a lot (but not all) of people don't care about you, they won't harass you for being different, but they won't help you either if you don't happen to be a close friend. On the other hand in many other parts of Germany people are more strict about "you somewhat fitting in" but in turn if you try might also help you in the most unexpected ways (as I said I'm not sure how to best express this, this point is starkly oversimplified and can be misread in a lot of ways).
4. through Berlin has _a lot_ of different faces, some even people living there for decades might not have seen. So if you are in the right corner/community 3rd might not apply to you at all. Trying to describe Berlin in one way is a bit like pretending all of Germany is Bavaria.
5. Berlin is a swamp. Not just because the name might be based on birl~„Sumpf“ in some partially lost old languages. Or because some parts have frequently ~80+% Air Humidity (in fall/spring/warmer winter days; at ground level). Or because of it being the political centrum and as such associated with all the non Bavaria specific political corruption. But also because people "become marshy" (not good translation) here. I.e. they come here and then slowly and continuously slow down and get stuck here, never really arriving, but also not getting forward or backward.
Now this isn't complete and more focused on the bad parts, Berlin can also be grate, for a large city it's extremely green, most side streets and many main streets have road side trees and there are ~2000 additional "green areas" (like e.g. parks, but some very very small). There are tons of places to enjoy the evening in all kinds of ways, ton's of culture from clubs to theater, opera and shows. A lot of history. A lot of sub-cultures of all kind etc. But also it is just green (not flowery), you might not care about most culture things and just because there are many sub-cutlures doesn't mean it's something for you or you manage to connect to them. Also it's kinda dirty and this has gotten worse thanks multiple factors including the current city Government cutting costs in the wrong places...
Eh, anyway, my recommendation is:
- If you want to experience Berlin go to Berlin, if you want to party/enjoy evening non stop for a few years also go to Berlin, same for students where a Uni here matches their goals nicely. But if you want to experience Germany, then don't come here.
- If your life is stuck in Berlin (no matter if you are German or not) seriously consider leaving, for some people Berlin is long term poison which slowly eats away their happiness. There is a reason a large part of people in Berlin only stay there for a few decades at most.
- Don't expect to meet Berlins is Berlin (it's less then half the population in some regions way less). And in some areas of life don't even expect to meet/connect to that many "typical" Germans.
"Berlin is the _least_ German Germany city, by far."
Isn't that a common complaint in the lot of countries - people complain about London in the UK in a very similar fashion?
It's a very common complaint in countries where one city is disproportionately dominant (London for the UK or Dublin for Ireland, say). It's arguably a bit more surprising for Berlin, because Berlin isn't so disproportionately huge (Berlin's metro area is 6 million out of 80 million, versus London's 15 million out of 70 million or Dublin's 2 million out of 5 million), and because Germany has other comparably sized cities (Hamburg's metro area population is about 5 million). You'd expect it to be a bit less of its own place just on that basis.
Nah, there is a very strong reason to support the "Berlin ist eine Insel" saying. Are you forgetting the fact that Berlin was literally isolated from the rest of Western Germany and controlled by 4 other countries until some decades ago?
Let's not forget East Berlin with its 1.2 million population and as the capital of the DDR that was very nicely integrated into the DDR. While both parts of Berlin were obviously isolated from the BDR, West Berlin was supervised by 3 countries. Just to avoid any misunderstanding by people who were not able to visit both parts during those historical times.
Yeah, "Moscow ain't Russia" is an idiom.
IDK if it's a complaint about London per se, but it's definitely not typical of much of England.
And yes, you can say the same about e.g. Amsterdam vs. The Netherlands. And others.
But also, neither of them were literally isolated like West Berlin.
I think the main problem is to see Berlin as a city. Even the official city is more a bunch of divided, but connected middle-sized cities. For example, the City Berlin has ~3.7 Million citizens, which is nearly double the size of the next biggest cities (Hamburg 1.8 Million, Munich 1.5 Million). And the region Berlin even has 4.7-6.3 Million, depending on which parts you add. Half of the German states have fewer citizens.
> 2. around ~20% of people living in Berlin aren't from Germany,
Notable part here: that's not even the highest amount in Germany. There are many cities with similar or higher numbers. But to be fair, depending on the region, there are likely many people from neighbouring countries which will have less problems with integration because of their shared cultural background. Berlin is for historical and political reasons a big melting pot of different cultures. It's not the only one, but a bit different because of it's size.
> a lot of German natives complain and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year)
It's actually 300k, but 200k also returned. The "funny" part is, there is even a long-running TV-show (20th season this year) about people leaving the country, not sure if other countries have something similar. But realistically, expats seems like a common phenomenon in rich countries. Some people just seek the adventure.
I also like watching the Austrian (actually a tip if you know German, check ATV) and the swiss edition. Pretty sure swiss has at least a German and a French one, maybe even another one. So yeah, there is that.
Yes, if one compares in the downward direction of living standards, there are many countries doing worse, no doubt. It is also a fact however, that we massively neglect our education system, and have good grades inflation in many places. Record numbers of 1.0 (best grade) students, while secondary schools ("Gymnasiums") and universities complain about the quality of students, despite their grades, with the gap widening.
And the education system is not the only thing that is down in the drain and worsening. Take Deutsche Bahn for example. Its management levels paid themselves millions in boni, while at the same time the infrastructure is kept at a minimum repair and renew level. Literally every time I take a high speed train (ICE) it is hours late, so much so, that I am even discouraged visiting people, because I already am traumatized from trains being late and spending the whole day on trains, when I should only need 4h. Infrastructure inside cities is also in many places waaay behind what it could be and already is in many other countries, while being hopelessly expensive to use. Countries with much fewer people and GDP have managed to build better and more affordable infrastructure in their capitols. Check out Madrid for example. Metro there is great, and comparatively cheap to use.
The job market situation is really bad currently as well. Even highly skilled people cannot get a job now. Unemployment benefits have been massively reduced lately. The people who do get a job or have one face stagnation in salary, while there is inflation, and this has been going on for a decade or so. Purchasing power of the people is diminishing. Groceries and staples are getting more expensive. In short, most people's economic situation is worsening.
For young people it is almost impossible now to buy a house in many places. What our parents could afford and realistically pay back in loans has become a distant dream for the current generation. Only with 2 solid and good incomes one might dare it in some more rural area perhaps.
The point is that our living standards are decreasing, due to the global economy situation and mostly due to massive mismanagement of the reality in politics, corruption, money pocketing. Soon we are at real risk to lose even democracy.
Digitization is also lagging way behind. The stereotype is, that we still use fax. Well, it's not too far off.
Do we have it better than people in many other places? Still yes. But there are also countries now laughing about us and our stupidity, who have managed to overtake us, or maybe I should say we have managed to fall behind them. It is really no wonder skilled people are leaving Germany left and right, front and back, when they are much better paid elsewhere. Now people, who originally came from Poland to Germany, due to better living and better prospects, are returning to Poland Warsaw.
> And the education system is not the only thing that is down in the drain and worsening.
Which is simply wrong --- or at least only true if you look at only part of the education system.
But in Germany, there is also an education system to become Geselle, Meister, Techniker, Fachwirt --- things that many other countries don't have. And somehow people always ignore that.
And the Deutsche Bahn ... perhaps not the shining example. But ... look at France. They hardly have trains, e.g. there are small towns that only have 8 trains a day. To go by TGV from Bordeaux to Lyon you must pass Paris, hundreds of kilometers depart. It's like going from Kassel to Hamburg must go via Berlin. Also, the trains in UK are bad. And some countries, like Spain, or Greece, also hardly have tracks AND trains. While here, we actually tracks "everywhere" and even a bit too many trains, therefore the delay. But you can reach your destination, while in other countries there's no way. 5 weeks ago I went with ICE from Kassel to Regensburg --- for a mere 26 EUR (one way) because I booked in advance. Where else do you get that?
Employment situation bad... and yet there are some groups that constantly look to employ you. Every Aldi, Lidl has posters looking for people. The Bahn searches train drivers. Lot of transportation companies look for lorry drivers. The unemployment rate of Germany is at 3.9% -- only 7 EU countries better than us. Our 3.9% is e.g. better than the US. Did the situation get worse the last 3 years? Sure. But why? I'd point to Putin and Trump and some Mullahs (end of cheap gas, nonsensical customs, havoc in the straits of Hormuz).
Purchasing power wise Germany is at location 8 in the EU.
But hey, the typical complaining german gives to me the impression as if we're still the "Herrenrasse". We must always #1. As soon we're not #1 the end is nigh :-) Place 7 of 27 is totally bad, apparently.
However, if you select something in isolation, and then compare ONLY to the best, then you will always find that you're lacking. You had a 2 in english .. but there was this guy that had a 1 (in Germany that is better). You had a 2 in physics, but this lady had a 1. You had a 2 in sports, but again there was someone with a 1. And so on. And suddenly you think that you're the last of the students, because always there is someone better than you.
No, you must look at ALL the candidates, not just at those that are better. Compare the Bahn not just with Switzerland. Compare it with UK, France, Greece, Estonia Or ... heck, even the passenger railways system of the USA which sucks bollocks.
We have a similar system in Portugal for Ausbildung (Técnico Professional), I wished more folks would pay attention to it, as it also suffers from the same problem that everyone just wants to go to the university instead.
Trains are great and the network covers most of the country, not like in Portugal that is only the costal cities and a few lucky ones on the countryside, however in the 20+ years I lived here, they have certainly been through better times.
> But in Germany, there is also an education system to become Geselle, Meister, Techniker, Fachwirt --- things that many other countries don't have. And somehow people always ignore that.
Why do you think I was ignoring that?
The reality is, that here almost everyone thinks that they must go to university. Their parents also tell them that, because of increased requirements that businesses put up as lowest bars. Parents become helicopter parents and will try to make your life difficult, if you give their very extremely specially gifted child a bad grade. Teachers are no longer as respected by the parents, as they were in the past, and are way too soft on the grading. Good grade inflation is the result, even when the children/pupils do not actually achieve good results. Ridiculous things like some secondary schools only accepting 1.0 graded pupils in Berlin happen. When I went to school, in my whole city there were perhaps 10 pupils with a 1.0 grade (mean of all subjects) per year. You could definitely not run a school with that as source material.
At the next level, at the universities, they are also complaining about the students coming with inflated grades from secondary schools. German universities are considering establishing entrance exams and are at risk losing their international status, by accepting too many not great students. Quality of university education suffers.
On the other hand we have the small businesses, which teach the trades, which complain loudly, that they don't get qualified people to teach. If almost everyone can go to university, even if only for some MBA, then this is what we get. Those businesses teaching the trades (ausbildende Betriebe, Ausbildungsbetriebe) are complaining about very basic skills like language skills, reading understanding, focusing on something, simple calculation, etc., that they find lacking in the people they are supposed to teach. These problems also extend to immigrants, who simply haven't had a proper chance to learn the language, or come with completely different educational background.
If you ask me, we should only welcome as many people, as we can offer proper language courses and other required courses to, so that people who come here have an actual future, and don't simply disappear in subcultures. I want people who come here to have a good future, by being part of society and by having stable jobs, adding to our society as a whole. If they can't have jobs, then coming here will only result in more strain on our already severely strained social net. Figuratively speaking, a massive amount of effort is needed to pull that cart out of the mud. Years and years of mismanaged immigration to fix.
> And the Deutsche Bahn ... perhaps not the shining example. But ... look at France. They hardly have trains, e.g. there are small towns that only have 8 trains a day. To go by TGV from Bordeaux to Lyon you must pass Paris, hundreds of kilometers depart. It's like going from Kassel to Hamburg must go via Berlin. Also, the trains in UK are bad. And some countries, like Spain, or Greece, also hardly have tracks AND trains. While here, we actually tracks "everywhere" and even a bit too many trains, therefore the delay. But you can reach your destination, while in other countries there's no way.
You got a point in that we still have something that is more than elsewhere, granted. But the criticism is about how much worse it has become, compared to what we already had decades ago. Colossal mismanagement of a public good. Germany (everyone involved in managing DB and current and past governments) does seemingly not understand, how important a working public infrastructure is, for a country to prosper. They only see Q1,2,3,4 numbers. Worsening infrastructure is not something that makes a country attractive. Qualified people will consider moving elsewhere. People cannot rely on DB to get to and fro their job office, or will simply be late every now and then. Living in a neighbor town becomes infeasible, due to unreliability of DB. We are basically working on getting everyone to drive their own 4 person city tank (that disease also has caught on here...) alone, to and from their work place.
> 5 weeks ago I went with ICE from Kassel to Regensburg --- for a mere 26 EUR (one way) because I booked in advance. Where else do you get that?
I got a last minute ticket from Berlin to Kassel recently for 22 EUR, also one way. But the issue is not only the pricing. The issue is the non-existent reliability. A trip that should have taken 2h53min took 4h37min, because of delays and the train already starting with 14min delay in Berlin. On my way back I was not so lucky to get a last minute ticket, and chose to take regional trains, which took me 8h+.
But to answer the question where else one gets that: In China, eaaaasily. Of course salaries are different there, no question, but for some 15 EUR I can travel through half of China, in approximately the same time, that I need in Germany, to cross half of Germany, and the train will be at the station on point, not starting 14min late. It will usually halt at the station with the carriages exactly aligned at the numbered markers at the station. I won't have to run all the way to the other end of the train. I won't have to hurry up and down some stairs, because of some last minute notice, that the train arrives at another track today, which then is corrected back again, causing me to run back to the original friggin track. That's just stuff that happens with Deutsche Bahn for some reason.
> But hey, the typical complaining german gives to me the impression as if we're still the "Herrenrasse". We must always #1. As soon we're not #1 the end is nigh :-) Place 7 of 27 is totally bad, apparently.
Well, #1 is the goal, obviously. Why should Germany not try to be the best? It is silly to not aim high in that regard. We should very much look at Japan (train sevice, making use of cultural goods, attracting visitors), South Korea (Internet, everyday convenience), and China (infrastructure, modern cities, getting construction projects done) and ask ourselves, what is going wrong here. The problem is not necessarily that we are not currently #1, but that things are decaying and we are falling in many rankings:
Young people these days can mostly only dream about living in their own home. Most are forced to rent, and rent is ever increasing, while salaries in many areas are stagnating. We are far away from being able to afford, what our parents were able to afford. But I think that is the case in many countries these days, and not only a Germany thing.It is because of you guys, who love rules so much, that the poor Germans get such a bad reputation. ;)
> rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality.
They most assuredly do not ensure equality, which is exactly why there is such a push to eliminate standardized tests from college entrance criteria:
The Time Is Now: Eliminating the LSAT for the Sake of Diversity - https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2023/03/09/the-time-is...
ABA votes to end law schools' LSAT requirement, but not until 2025 - https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/aba-votes-end-la...
Universities Dropping Admission Tests Experience Boost in Student Diversity - https://scienmag.com/universities-dropping-admission-tests-e...
Eliminating Standardized Tests To Achieve Racial Equity In Post-Affirmative Action College Admissions - https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/07/09/eliminat...
I think it depends on the job one has. Working as senior software engineer for international companies? Any western european country is nice and all. Top p90 salary. English only needed. Working as a bank cashier? Well, then you will notice the difference between let say Germany and Portugal. Low salary. Need proficiency in the local language, etc.
Easier said than done, but don't let the racists take your enjoyment of being here or anywhere in the world, for that fact.
You can take a guess _why_ it was so easy for you to come here with nothing and who pays for that.
Could you elaborate? Who pays for what exactly?
I am kinda triggered by that comment because you make it look like it's easy or inexpensive. It's not.
I also came to Germany with just a suitcase and a backpack. I paid for my tickets, paid for mandatory health insurance that covered timeframe before I started my job, paid my rent, paid government for processing/issuing my residence permit, etc. I've paid taxes and health insurance every single month since then, haven't used any unemployment benefits once, took a single sick leave.
You might argue that I "stole a job", "worsened housing crisis", or something along these lines. But there are plenty of data points that disprove majority of such arguments.
The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like I was doing something so weird and out of this world that it had to be a prank. And when the light turned green, he just left.
I could not believe it; but when I told the story to my German friends they too didn't quite understand why anyone would try to board a bus outside of a stop.
Being French, I have a hard time understanding why you wouldn't.
The driver is not allowed to open the door anywhere but at a bus stop, the company running the bus forbids it. Quite strictly, actually. I think it is mainly because of insurance things. It is the same in a traffic jam when you are on the bus and the next bus stop is just a few meters away, and the bus is stuck and nothing moves -- impatient people will get angry because they want to leave the bus, but the driver is just not allowed to open the door except when the bus has properly reached the next bus stop.
Some bus drivers do open the door on some such occasion, but they can really get into trouble if they are caught doing that.
I reported a robbery to the police and they were to assist me to a remote village where the tracker led me . But they also refused to drop me off or pick me up even though we were going in the same direction because of some apparent insurance thing
Is it typical for a company to run the busses? Somewhat interesting as that's one thing in the US that is rarely privatized. The driver, etc. will be a direct employees of the municipality.
It will often be a company owned by the state.
In Ireland, most buses are run by CIE, a state company. In Dublin, for the last couple of decades, some routes have been run by GoAhead, a private company (Dublin Bus (part of CIE) and GoAhead tender for the routes). It's been a fascinating experiment in privatisation; the buses all use TFI livery, so the only way to tell whether your route is run by Dublin Bus or GoAhead, besides looking it up, is that if it's Dublin Bus, it'll just be late; if it's GoAhead it won't show up at all. For all that people complain about public sector inefficiency, private companies turn out to be very, very bad at competing with the public sector.
Depends. NYC busses used to be a mix of municipal and privatized companies that were part of the Transit Alliance. In addition to city owned and operated buses you had four private companies: Green Bus Lines, Jamaica Buses, Triborough Transit and Command. Around the mid 00s they were all absorbed into the MTA. Living in south Queens the Green Bus Lines were a big part of my youth as I took the Q41 to school every day and the Q11 on weekends to the mall.
It's usually a company owned by the city or the state, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe
in EU it's normal
- a company run the busses
- its partially of fully owned by the city/state, i.e. NOT private investors, not private liquidity, no one expects any payouts
- its commonly a special form of "company", e.g. "Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts" in this case which you can roughly read as "installment/company based on public-law"
Practical that is "mostly" the same as state run when looking at it from a distance. But with some differences. Like it's still a company, has it's own company structure, it's own bookkeeping, it's own employees etc. This leads to a much more clean separation when it comes to budged managing, and where possible removes/reduces direct political influence into daily operations (just direct one, indirectly through ownership etc. there is very much still influence, but this makes it somewhat less suspect to damage from changing political parties non stop changing directions).
Through things can get far more complicated then just one company, in one legal form.
Normally municipalities own companies that do the public transport service in Germany
They're usually private companies owned by the cities.
Can something be private and owned by a state? Isn't the definition of private: non-public? And wouldn't the government in a democratic state count as public?
"Public enterprises" are different kinds of enterprises, with different structure and governed by different regulations/laws than private enterprises. "State owned private enterprises" have all the structure etc of a private enterprise, their only difference being that they are owned (fully or by majority) by some state body.
Yes, it can. Many public services in Germany are legally private companies, which just happen to be owned by public entities. Main reason seems to be that they can act more flexible and independent of public rules. On a more nasty side, it's also easier to sell them partly or full, if necessary. And in some cases they simply started as private companies and were bought up by the state for various reasons.
"Public company" is a very specific thing; the BVG is state owned, but very much not a public company.
In the US, “public” can be short for a private business with publicly listed shares on a stock exchange anyone can buy, or public can mean an organization owned and operated by the government.
> public can mean an organization owned and operated by the government.
Would you consider In-Q-Tel - wholly owned by the CIA - to be a public venture* through ownership by a government agency, or a private one, because the public has no opportunity of ownership or control? I'm convinced it's the latter.
* Let's ignore it's non-profit status. Any CIA shell-/front-company is an even better example
Perhaps the fact that we’re having this discussion on HN shows the kind of media I’m likely to consume, but I’ve never seen it used in the latter sense. TIL, I guess!
If you get run over by a car or bicycle while trying to board a bus outside an official station, or if you trip, the bus company is liable, and the driver will be in very big trouble. Also, wehret den Anfängen! If they started doing this, it would set an example: it would make it very difficult to keep the schedule, and would invite people to just walk into traffic to busses stopping at a red light.
This all makes sense on paper and yet in Canada I’ve seen bus drivers cut people breaks and the system didn’t collapse.
da könnte ja jeder kommen (then everony tries that, very loosely translated)
I love that. It's part of what's hilariously called the "Beamtendreisatz" (roughly, the three rules of public servants)
1. Das haben wir schon immer so gemacht (that's how we've always done it)
2. Das haben wir noch nie so gemacht (we have never done it like that)
3. Da könnte ja jeder kommen (then everyone would try it)
They're so German that they're very difficult to faithfully translate. Just imagine a grumpy older guy looking for every excuse not to do what you want him to.
It’s actually your #1and your #3 plus:
“Wo kämen wir denn da hin?“ (Just think where this would lead to.)
"Handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kannst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde." -- Immanuel Kant
> it would set an example
No, it wouldn't. This type of logic only holds if we consider that drivers are automatons who can not analyze risks by themselves. Give the drivers autonomy to judge whether it's safe or not to deviate from the scheduled route.
I rather have a driver signaling me "No, I will not open the door now because I don't think it is safe" over "No, I will not open the door now because I can't break the rules". It makes me think of the driver less as a person and more as a brainless cog.
You not following rules makes me think less of you as a person. Rules are made so not everybody needs to judge every situation correctly themselves. People might overlook consequences or are not informed enough to make good decisions.
> Rules are made so not everybody needs to judge every situation correctly themselves.
Rules are not the problem. Trying to apply one set of rules to every context is.
> People might overlook consequences or are not informed enough to make good decisions.
That happens regardless, so much so that "I was just following orders" defense has been tried many times before and never became morally acceptable.
> Rules are not the problem. Trying to apply one set of rules to every context is.
Ah, so basically you want more rules. Granular and detailed rules. Maybe you are more German than Germans too?
> Ah, so basically you want more rules.
Cathy Newman, is that you?
On a more serious note, if you prefer more flexibility and wildness try Poland. Very culturally similar to Germany but with more lean towards common sense however it is understood in the moment by involved parties.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166002
Likewise for you following them blindly.
There is a problem though. Who sets the rules? Is it guaranteed that the rules are always sane, and for the benefit of society?
I think a baseline level of rebelliousness is necessary. I also think that the German cultural obsession to comply was necessary for the Nazi madness.
Nazis were saying "but we were just following orders" and for everyone else it sounded like a stupid excuse, but for Germans that's a strongly culturally rooted watertight argument. Event today. They just now ensured that their rules are better and orders are more thoughtful.
That said, I really love how Germany feels when you live there.
You need to understand that Germany is not logical. It is systematic.
Oh, I understand it alright. But understanding it doesn't mean I like it.
After 13 years living in Berlin, I've come to terms with the fact that most aspects of German culture are things I need to tolerate, but never embrace.
> Give the drivers autonomy to judge whether it's safe or not to deviate from the scheduled route.
But they are judging it. And deciding it's not safe. You may not agree but it's their evaluation of their safety. The rules are good for them because they can ensure their safety by obeying the rules.
There is no "decision" being made if your flowchart always says "only stop at designed bus stops". "Judging" something presupposes the ability to override established rules and even reaching different conclusions despite similar precedents.
I see it like this:
Me: I'd like to get out here please.
Driver: But it can be dangerous...
Me: Noted. Good thing that is not your problem.
And when I am hit by a camel while departing the bus, that is my problem also. But of course, most cultures do not support this line of reasoning - you need to be taken care of weather you like it or not. This approach is well tolerated by most people, but saddens and irritates people like me.
It’s not “needing to be taken care of”, in your scenario when you go the hospital for your camel injuries and use insurance for medical care (even if it’s fully private paying your own premiums), suddenly another party is involved who doesn’t give a shit about what you think and are singularly interested in passing along their expenses to anyone else it will stick.
The world is more interconnected and complex then one or two parties engaged in an agreement in complete isolation from everyone else so black and white thinking like that just doesn’t work.
Don't talk to the bus driver while they are driving is also a rule.
> Me: Noted. Good thing that is not your problem.
As if... when you get injured while leaving the bus, do you really believe the bus driver would just mind their business? There is another rule that demands you help people in emergency situations
That sounds exhausting. Do things because they’re right or because you want to. Rules are fake (being a little dramatic there, but the point stands - rules create plenty of downside as well, while allowing both people to do the wrong thing with an excuse, and preventing people from doing the right thing without arbitrary consequences that are unrelated to actual outcomes).
And then you go to the media and file a law suit against the bus company for being reckless. You deny ever asking to get out and say the driver instructed you to get off.
You probably wouldn't do this, but the company needs to protect itself against the people who would.
I think "Good thing that is not your problem." includes inability to do such a thing.
This can be out of your control. Your health insurance will ask why that camel hit you, and might sue the bus operator for their damages for letting you out where they should not.
If your point is that the absurdity goes all the way down, I won't disagree.
The absurdity [as I see it] is that people like you think you know what is or isn't other peoples problem.
You only get to say that when you live on an island.
> you think you know what is or isn't other peoples problem.
I don’t think that at all. All I said was that if I absolve the driver of whatever responsibility he believes he has for me, then if something happens as I step out, it is indeed should not be his problem, legally speaking. He might not like it, of course - which is not my problem, to be honest.
edit: this is all linguistics, however. The initial issue was that the driver is unable to open the door even if we both assess the risk as negligible. Sure, he might not want me to suicide jump from his bus onto a highway - even if I believe I have the theoretical right to do that - but that is not the situation we're in. The point was that I should be able to say it's ok, looks safe, I accept the risk if something happens.
It's also related to having a social healthcare system. People who keep stepping into traffic and get run over really rack up the hospital bills which, ultimately, are paid by everyone. So the country decided that they need to adopt some measures to keep stupid people from getting hurt.
Unless I’m misunderstanding it’s no different with private insurance in the US.
If you are injured and the circumstances vaguely resemble any kind of accident (broken bones, concussion, lacerations, etc) a few weeks to months after receiving medical care, you’ll usually receive a letter from the insurer asking for the specific circumstances of the accident including the owner of the property it occurred on and any parties who may have contributed to the accident.
That way they can make a claim against someone else’s insurance/sue them/etc to pass along their costs to someone else if possible.
So telling someone “no worries man if anything happens it’ll be my fault not yours” before getting hurt isn’t going to stop the insurer from pursuing subrogation/lawsuit if they decide it’s cost effective.
Have you got time to get that in writing with an official witness?
Has the bus driver time to read this and do the other passengers have the patience needed?
Individual solutions make an operation less efficient...
When you enter the bus you kind of have a contract that states they will safely let you out at the designated places..
The people that think like this are the ones that want to pick and choose what is not other peoples problems.
It doesn't work or scale in a society. If everyone gets to arbitrarily choose what is 'not your problem', the everything is everyones problem, or nobody's problem.
Strawman - it wasn't arbitrary at all.
For context in Paris (and probably other French cities) you would try that and the result would heavily depends on the driver and their mood of the day ! Because they too are not allowed to do it, but of course France is all about flexing the rules (a bit, not so much, and after some pleading)
> Being French, I have a hard time understanding why you wouldn't.
I too am French and I’m more puzzled by you than by the driver. Am I secretly German?
100% Boche, désolé
Are from the Alsace region or maybe your ancestors are? If so, maybe not so secretly
> Am I secretly German?
Probably.
Huh. I'm Irish; it would never occur to me to try this. Buses will sometimes delay departure if someone is visibly running for the stop, but that's as far as it goes.
I think maybe France might be an outlier there. Honestly, opening the door in random places seems kind of unsafe.
EDIT: As people are doing stories of public transport in different countries, here's mine. I was getting the BART in San Francisco carrying luggage. The driver _leaned out the window_ to warn me that this one wasn't going to the airport. As it happened, that was what I was going for; I was going elsewhere and then on to the airport later. But it was nice of her to check (and very unusual; don't think I've been anywhere else where train drivers interact with the public at all). Always think about that when I hear people complaining about San Francisco.
This was such an unusual thing for me coming from Germany to Italy. The Bus driver would stop at seemingly random places to pick up or drop people off. Once he stopped at the cafe to pick up his newspaper!
Was this a comparable environment (big city vs big city, or rural vs rural)? This is a thing for rural services in Ireland (one type of service does this officially; you can ask them to pick you up at your house!), but very much not one for urban services, say.
Good point, and yes, the cities are comparable in population, around 100 - 200k.
population size, sorry.
> Once he stopped at the cafe to pick up his newspaper!
The horrors!
I once was in a train making an unscheduled stop in the middle of the fields. The driver picked up a colleague who stood waving next to the rails...
I was shocked that in Italy pretty much no one used turn indicators (except buses and taxis), drivers where kinda trying to sus out where everyone is going and this was causing speed adjustments that made the whole thing not that unsafe.
German bus drivers sometimes stop to check the bins for leftover "Pfandpflaschen" (reusable beverage cans, 25 euro cents per)
It is actually an insurance kind of thing as far as I understand. I've had plenty of cases where the bus couldn't continue due to being in a traffic jam, and people who would have happily get off the bus couldn't either.
Whenever something convenient in germany is not possible, you can bet it is a insurance thing.
And the insurance conditions are based on DIN/EN, VDE, TÜV and others. If you have bodies that create rules, they will never stop creating rules because it is their job to create rules. Something that started great to reduce unnecessary harm became a red tape monster slowing down everything.
Nobody gets elected or paid to reduce that in a sane manner (not: Chainsaw, Doge)
Leave the windows leaned open so it cools down in the office over night? Impossible due to insurrance. Somebody dies from overheated office and you want to sew the insurrer who enforced this ridiculous rules even on the third floor.. impossible, due to..
But it just goes to show how idiotic this culture of strict adherence to rules can be. I've been more than once been forced to sit on a bus for 10+ minutes, with the bus literally stopped by the sidewalk, and the driver still wouldn't budge when I said "I can just walk from here".
It's feels worse than talking to a robot. At least I know robots have been programmed.
30 years ago, when the train broke down, you got a clear statement what happend and what will happening next. Nowadays everyone is treated like a small child. They just tell the obvious leaving the people hanging in uncertainty hence people get mad and question everything without understanding the cause (because they don’t get that information)
Because you did something very weird ;)
- for insurance reasons it's not allowed for them to let you one once they "departed" from the curb, even if just by 20cm. They can literally lose their job over it and while it is a very exhausting job it doesn't pay that badly. (This wasn't always this way).
- due to how Berlin has historically grown and the congestion issues that brought with it the buses have a hard time being on time(1) on the 6,589 bus stops across 152 (day) lines (~40-45 stops per line). So they try to avoid any additional delays, especially if this delay might cause them to miss a green light.
(1): Berlins love to blame the public transportation provider(s) for this delays. And in some cases (S-Bahn) this is partially true, but for the busses it is much more on the "actual hard problem" side then for S-Bahn. And some of the other problems also go back to politics, like so often.
Meanwhile, here in the UK we had the bus with no door at all that you could just jump on and off from in moving traffic. People trusted to manage their own risk. I remember this vividly from my childhood, in the 80s and 90s, in London. Not anymore though, sadly.
https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/blog/routemaster-design-icon
They needed a two person crew, was the main problem, AIUI.
In Germany everything has rules and most things have mandatory insurance. It‘s usually not covered by insurance to stop outside of a bus stop to take passengers. Rudeness or inflexibility is mostly caused by rules to limit liability. Bus drivers are not allowed to drive backwards with passengers e.g on a road blockage. There are several stories about 30+ min delay until a second driver was summoned to help.
It may be because the bus gets priority on the green light and can't wait/pause again for extra passengers
No, it is because in Berlin you do not run for a bus and trying to get onboard if you missed it, you just wait for the next one which arrives usually a few min later, so yes, from a Berliners perspective, this is really wierd, because nobody does this usually :-)
Yes, I'm also guessing it is a big-city vs. small-town thing. When the next bus is in 2h, then the driver feels your pain and maybe lets you in anyways...
At least he laughed instead of just ghosting you!
That’s entirely normal to me, a Pole. I wouldn’t even expect it to work any other way anywhere.
In London the driver looks forward and pretends he didn't see you.
If it counts no Bucharest bus driver would let you board at the semaphore either, they may not lough at you because they're generally too busy speaking with one of their friends on WhatsApp (via audio-call) or trying and navigate the crazy traffic in here, but for sure they won't open the doors for you. I would have expected for this to be a common thing all throughout Europe.
I arrived at fish selling place at 15:00, he was collecting fishes back. I laughed and said something like “oh I thought I missed closing time!”. No answer, waited a minute, still no answer, then I left :( (Sweden)
I mean it isn’t the bus case, and I can understand the reasons, still may be put a sticker around telling the rules. But this kind of experience is there, no denying it…
I laugh the same at their imploding automotive industry. Nothing ironic, nothing mean. They missed the stop and it's funny how they're not in the bus.
let's see how this turns out, but I would not underestimate the german engineering culture...
The German Engineering is a byproduct. The culture that created is also the one that is holding it from becoming competitive with Chinese automakers.
Like almost everything, utility and efficiency is relative and dependent on the environment and external factors. People often overlook the “fit”.
They said the same when Japanese car makers were trashing European and US manufacturers in the 1980s. Yet they adapted. Then they said the same when the South Koreans trashed them, yet they adapted. Now they say the same about the Chinese.
Sure, past performance is no indicator of future performance, but all the doom-saying and hysterics are just that, fear of the unknown.
They adopted in the sense of surviving. Considering their head start and massive government support for the industry, their market share compared to Japanese and Korean cars is a joke, with the Chinese it will get even worst because this time they will be pushed out of their home market too.
This comes from a die hard bmw fan. Facts over feelings.
I'm not a car fan of any kind or shape. I'm talking about things that happened. I say let's wait and see. You say you know the future. You tell me "facts over feelings".
I accept your negative outlook and respect your right to hold that opinion. But, and I'm saying this in the most respectful way possible, let's have a little intellectual honesty here, please. Your statement is more speculation than mine.
Of course it is speculation. I don’t have a magic ball. But only a fool ignores trends!
I'd like better understand the German engineering culture. Why was it special in the past? What about today?
As a kid in the 80s, I had some things from Germany and their quality was astounding. Fast forward to present time, our Volkswagen car made in Germany is the worst car I've ever had in terms of reliability.
PS: an honest question getting downvotes?
There is no incentive to build a reliable product that can‘t compete in price. People are trained to consume and throw away. People are getting used to throw away cloths and household appliances after 1-3 years.
Miele once built washing machines that outlast 30 years. They offered spare parts and regional service hubs. But the market decided to just buy the 50% cheaper ones every 5 years.
In the last 25 years, German companies got into "reliability engineering". Which is the art of adjusting your drawings in such a way that every component lasts exactly as long as it has to, and not a second longer.
Which is why back in the day, there were some car/washing machine/tool brands and models that seemed to last forever. Whereas now the current models last exactly their warranty/leasing period.
Edit: Other manufacturers do this, too. But for them, it's often coming from the other side of the reliability curve, so they are improving, the ones that were better back then are getting worse.
What I'm trying to understand is why Toyotas can still make great cars at prices comparable, if not inferior, to Germany's (at least here in the US). There's a quality gap there. I don't understand why German cars used to be great looking AND reliable but no longer.
Toyota builds cars that a private person might want to buy. Their market is real people who want to keep the car for longer, pay for their own maintenance and maybe even do their own oil changes. And who maybe want to put some kids in the back seat and stuff the trunk full of their shopping.
Many German manufacturers (esp. the "premium" ones) don't build for people. They build mostly cars that get leased as company cars. So price isn't that much of an issue, longevity beyond the 4 year leasing term isn't a problem, excessive maintenance isn't a problem since it'll be included in the lease. Oh, and the trunk is just for a laptop bag and the overnight clothes for that one passenger anyways, so nobody cares it's impractically small.
Also, from what I know, design cycles for German cars are relatively long. A model won't just be changed, at least not once per year (as USians seem to expect to the dismay of German manufacturers). While this is great for cost-optimizing the manufacturing process and might be nice because replacement parts are easier to find, this has a downside: Japanese car makers practice continuous improvement, meaning that a change can go in at any time, as long as it seems advantageous. So maybe they learn more quickly from their past mistakes and overall build a more solid engineering experience through this continuous fiddling...
They still do. But as you said,most people go for the 300€ product and not Miles 900€ one. I had the chance to tour their electronics production lines in Gütersloh, Germany a few years ago which were top notch, almost automotive standard, and they told me, that they plan, develop and manufacture for 18 yrs lifetime. Not sure how long the cheaper products last, any experience?
The problem is that even if you want to pay a premium, you can't be sure you're getting a better, more reliable product. It's safer to gamble on the economy option and replace as needed.
If you inflation adjust prices of mid-range major appliances from the 80s they'd be massively expensive today. The price differential is the quality that has been engineered out of all products to be competitive.
> I'd like better understand the German engineering culture. Why was it special in the past? What about today?
German engineering culture is to think things through. To take everything into account. To do it properly, and not mess around. To rather think a bit more and make sure you get everything right.
Basically very similar to German rules culture.
Problem is, both of these cultures have their downsides as well. Rules as well as plans get overengineered. The belief that "one more rule can't hurt". The belief that "taking a step back yet again and discussing it a bit more is always worth it". At some point, you get stuck in a maze of rules, contradictory plans, meetings over meetings with no action. Engineers are scared to invent and engineer, because there surely will be some rule that could be violated...
I'm waiting to see Siemens producing EV cars
That would sure be interesting. Or maybe Bosch and Braun too.
Bosch already makes half of your car. Just their brand is not at the front.
Since dieselgate I no longer believe in German engineering. That, and that they just can’t make their trains run on time. Never have I taken an ICE train that was not delayed. How could that happen in an actual engineering culture?
I am myself an immigrant to this country, one that has had itequally easy, if not more.
Lately, or perhaps for the last couple of years, I've struggled with negative feelings about the country. I do not like the direction things are moving politically and economically, nor how germans talk about politics, and the biggest reason to want to be in Germany is the very high living conditions one can have here. Culturally, it is hard not feel dettached when Germans themselves seem uninterested in cultural aspects that are normally a reason to want to learn a language (literature, films, etc). I can speak German, but maintaining it or improving it feels more like a chore than something exciting.
Anyway, this was a nice, positive read, and it made me happy to read it. It is often easier to focus on the negative aspects of things, while taking for granted the positive ones. Germany has a lot of good things going for it, and the power to be a better version of itself. A position lots of countries would wish they could be in. Sadly, this does not seem clear to the German political class.
You make a good point about cultural things that would make one excited to learn a language. But I really struggle to imagine what could be done to fix that? Injecting more money into the film industry would just lead it to the same people at the top of it where they'll produce the same mediocre output as they have for ages. hmm
German films are mostly not great, but if one wants to get immersed into the language, music and literature are much better places. And also comedy. The language allows for some great puns.
All foreign films are also dubbed, something I'm not a huge fan of, but at least you don't have to watch an actual German film to hear German...
Also, BTW, there are some very good German films, but to enjoy most of them, you have to be able to relate to the cultural background.
A lot of good video games have decent German dubs, it was how I reached B2 German.
> A lot of good video games have decent German dubs
This in my experience only holds for AAA titles.
For many smaller games, the German translation/localization is so bad that if one's English level is not insanely bad, it's even more comfortable to play the English version, and use a dictionary for lots of words (i.e. invest more time using the dictionary than playing the game) than tolerating the pain of how bad the German translation/localization is.
Idk, do you play those point and click adventure games from early 2000s? Syberia? Broken Sword? they’re decent. Deponia also good, Truberbrook. What I cannot stand are things that are medieval and then everyone refers to you as Ihr instead of du or Sie. Was that even a thing? Even the star wars games do it… which i guess it’s because jedi “knights”.
> do you play those point and click adventure games from early 2000s?
Yes (but this is off-topic).
> Deponia also good, Truberbrook.
For both of these games, the original native version is in German, so of course their German (not-)translation is good. :-)
> What I cannot stand are things that are medieval and then everyone refers to you as Ihr instead of du or Sie. Was that even a thing? Even the star wars games do it… which i guess it’s because jedi “knights”.
Yes, this is called called "Pluralis Majestatis":
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralis_Majestatis
The Pluralis Majestatis is a formal addressing that is more formal than (singular) "Sie" for a single person (typical for addressing aristocrats of higher a noble rank).
The "Pluralis Majestatis" is not to be confused with the Pluralis Auctoris
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralis_Auctoris
and the Pluralis Modestiae
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralis_Modestiae
--
Concerning your point "What I cannot stand are things that are medieval and then everyone refers to you as Ihr instead of du or Sie. Was that even a thing?" Even the star wars games do it… which i guess it’s because jedi “knights”.
As I already hinted: this is the correct for medivial setting if you have to address people of a higher a noble rank (if you don't use it, it would feel deeply wrong to native German speakers).
Concerning "Star Wars": I know little about this topic, but your point shows that for a proper German localization, you really have to think deeply about which kind of group needs which kind of addressing to which group (informal pronouns, formal pronouns, Pluralis Majestatis, ...).
For such settings which have no historical reference such as Star Wars I consider it to be very plausible that if the original setting was written in English, the authors never actually thought about such questions, so it is very likely that such questions were hushed over when a localization was done under time pressure (or English native speakers who commissioned the translation/localization underestimated the importance of such considerations).
The Witcher 3 is great in German. It actually suits the game a lot better than English imo.
Yeah I’ve only played witcher 3 in german. I don’t even know the english names of many characters.
On the other hand, the dubbing for foreign movies is usually very well done though.
It's one of the things I can't stand. Just by hearing, not even seeing the actors or knowing the movie title, you can hear it's a dubbed movie. I always find it uncanny to listen to.
A lot of Germans have Satellite TV, where it would be possible to send multiple audio tracks. But they use it to send dubbed German and dubbed French (in case of ARTE). AHHHH.
German movies can be great though. Land of Mine (2015) comes to mind.
German dubs used to be great in the 80s and 90s. Check some TV shows from that time to see what I mean. They used to take care that the voice fit the actual situation, mood, and character. There were many good dubbing voice actors who sometimes became famous in their own right.
I'm not sure why, but something changed in the late 90s, early 00s. Suddenly, all the voice actors started shouting all their lines, and seemed obsessed with extra weird or supposedly funny enunciation. No relation to what's happening on screen.
Dubbing seems to be a lost art.
I wanted to leave this Faden for all the immigrant voices but this misinformation simply cannot stand, lol.
Dubbing for foreign movies is an art long lost in Germany; the East Germans (DEFA) were especially good at it, my favorite being Karel Steklý's eternal Dobrý voják Švejk (The Good Soldier Schweik), for which DEFA tapped the Austro Rudolf Wessely.
And today? Whenever I get exposed to a German dub I get reaquainted why I call that stuff the Fremdschämspur (the cringe track).
I have no idea what you mean, because I also feel dubbing in Germany comes out pretty much right. Mouth is moving (mostly) in sync, even. I can compare with other countries where I watched dubbed stuff, but let's not compare and stick to Germany: well done.
It might be good compared to other countries, but it still "feels" strange. Unsettling. I rather have the undubbed version.
Big budget animated movies often have great dubbing.
> [...] because I also feel dubbing in Germany comes out pretty much right.
You've got to be kidding me, lol. Anyway, voice (character) mismatch is the first thing I often notice. How often have I heard a commanding adult in English dubbed into what sounds like a tortured, overemoting teen/twen in the German version (I feel it's especially pronounced in women's characters but that might be just sample bias). Even deadpan delivery sounds tryhard. And it's not just for English, either.
Modern German dubs, to me anyway, are their own comedic genre. And make no mistake: I'm fuckin' serious about it. Just study some classics. You'll see.
> Injecting more money into the film industry would just lead it to the same people at the top of it where they'll produce the same mediocre output as they have for ages
Not necessarily, if you apply discipline and intentionality.
Canada famously created “CanCon” (Canadian Content) by law. They forced media in the country to be X% local, and that built out the industry by sheer necessity. The reputation was poor in the early years, but now a talent pipeline, local services, and industrial knowledge has built up and they have a thriving entertainment industry.
Germany has the disadvantage against Canada which could benefit from speaking English and cross selling to the US and UK. But it can become a source of local pride and distinction. The French are very proud of their language, even though it’s also not heavily spoken internationally.
The building blocks exist to successfully build cultural capital if it’s a priority.
Well, we sold our most prestigious film making location to the US fairly recently, a few years ago (Filmstudio Babelsberg). Not much good has happened to it since then. Admittedly, it was already not going too well before, but we can expect further decay at the hands of US investors.
German culture is imho stuck in a permanent subsidy slop problem. Basically every German film is written to appeal to the subsidy committee, not any greater audience. And it shows.
Some of my favourite movies are German - Das Boot, or Lola rennt. Also series, like Dark.
Do you also have anything from the last 25 years? :D
Those are some old movies.
I can suggest "Land of Mine" but it's now also over 10 years old.
Also, it's Danish, not German. :-)
Well yeah kinda. ZDF did help I guess? German / Danish production with Danish director, with mostly German being spoken.
I didn't watch any movies in the last years so no. The misconception being, they would all equally suck.
Arguably the average Hollywood productions aren't culturally stellar either, but I digress. To me what did it was having a kid in the kindergarten/school and everything related to that. You get to participate to all kinds of social setups (you could avoid them but what's the point), you get to watch German movies with them, German TV to chat about, you get into the daily lives of your co-citizens. Don't worry, they don't do much Goethe either, if that scares you. Just normal people doing normal stuff, maybe joining some (team) sports club and and and. It just works naturally.
> Culturally, it is hard not feel detached when Germans themselves seem uninterested in cultural aspects that are normally a reason to want to learn a language (literature, films, etc).
I rather disagree:
Many German movies that are produced don't fit my taste (the reasons are a little bit off-topic), and there exist quite a few Germans who think similarly. I could come up with a list of German movies that I like, but this is something that would take a little bit of thinking/effort.
On the other hand, in my experience/observation/bubble many Germans are quite interested in German literature. I could very easily come up with dozens of books of German authors that I like (of course, such a list would be strongly biased by my own taste).
Thus I would claim that (native German) literature is much more deeply ingrained in German culture than (native German) movies, and I am really surprised that you seem to live in a strange bubble where nobody in it seems to be interested in reading belletristic books.
May I ask where in Germany you live? It’s a fairly diverse country and your location would help for context.
What a nice and heartwarming read! I'm german, and really hope we can pivot away from the rise of the far right. How that can be done, I don't know. I just hope we can do so before we start scaring away people like him who would otherwise come here, decide they like it, become germans, and end up making it a better place for everyone.
(Part of it is I think we should make it easier and more incentivized to learn the language early so not just people in english-dominated tech jobs can have a positive experience. Cold start problem. It shouldn't be too hard for the gov to commission a RosettaStone like german learning app ((suboptimal, i know)) that works somewhat well and give it out for free, right?)
But a struggling economy, questionable planning for many years now, the "educated middle class" he mentioned in the post shrinking don't bode well for it. It's a prime breeding ground for scapegoat politics. It's probably one of the cognitive "exploits" in the human mind, that finding a scapegoat (the foreigners) to blame for everything being such an effective tool to rally people with grievances behind yourself and slowly turning them into hateful monsters.
> It shouldn't be too hard for the gov to commission a RosettaStone like german learning app ((suboptimal, i know)) that works somewhat well and give it out for free, right?)
Deutsche Welle (DW) is funded by German taxes and has materials for learning German: https://learngerman.dw.com/ as well as regular new materials aimed at learners, such as the news spoken slowly https://learngerman.dw.com/de/langsam-gesprochene-nachrichte... -- although I found it easier to listen to the normal news (e.g. tagesschau) slowed down slightly. (W-h-e-n p-e-o-p-l-e s-p-e-a-k s-l-o-w-l-y i-t c-a-n b-e h-a-r-d-e-r t-o l-i-s-t-e-n t-o!)
Not state-funded, but I recommend https://www.easygerman.org/ -- they have lots of good youtube material, a nice podcast, and an app I've not used. Most of the material is free with bonus materials for supporters.
> although I found it easier to listen to the normal news (e.g. tagesschau)
Tagesschau also has a version in "simple German" and you can turn on subtitles: https://www.tagesschau.de/tagesschau_in_einfacher_sprache
Also promoting German language and culture (I think technically an independant charity but I guess there's a lot of government financial support):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe-Institut
There's no way to say this without sounding like an old crank; but I think putting down your phone when on the U-Bahn and just reading the news and/or ads on the little in-train screens helps a surprising amount!
> It's a prime breeding ground for scapegoat politics. It's probably one of the cognitive "exploits" in the human mind, that finding a scapegoat (the foreigners) to blame for everything being such an effective tool to rally people with grievances behind yourself and slowly turning them into hateful monsters.
The Rene Girard special
>But a struggling economy, questionable planning for many years now, the "educated middle class" he mentioned in the post shrinking don't bode well for it. It's a prime breeding ground for scapegoat politics.
I think one of the issues is that for the past 2 decades over here in Belgium as I think in Germany and other places there has been no middle ground left for people who didn't want this to the current extent. I feel that way even tho i meet lots of people like the blog writer and I meet lots of people who aren't like him too. I've met the average religious ultraconservative erdogan voting turk in w-europe, the quick money wanabe hoodlum who mostly hangs out with maghrebis but who can be quite friendly if you get to know him well, the Turk who feels integrated but to me always feels like an americanised cosmopolitan. I don't even blame some of them on that front. It's incredibly easy to not surround yourself with locals and local food, experiences, etc.
You have conservative parties who pay lip service but don't really make any effective change on the migration front and other parties who....act like there's no harm at all. Even the leftist framing where most migration leads to some wage supression is starkly absent. There is no option to say 'you either do it well or do a lot less of it' without getting pushed to the far right.
In the meantime i can go and visit mannheim and feel like i'm in a bad facsimile of germany. It's easier to find turkish food than german food. That one street with all the gathered Turkish wedding shops starkly reminds me of a similar central spot in Istanbul.
In Brussels where my grandparents lived and my dad was born I am routinely the only local at parties. When I walk the streets I routinely feel like a foreigner. Numbers that were called fear mongering a decade or 2 ago are just reality. My grandmother cried seeing the changes done to the listed buildings she lived in and alongside. The migrants and people left there don't see the significance. She doesn't go to a specialist anymore because old people get targeted by pickpockets.
And it expands, it can no longer be stopped. Our politics are fragmented, migrants and descendants off don't vote similarly to the local ethnicities and with our fragmented politics the anti migration vote is a lost cause. Since it's a lot smaller than germany's my culture is waiting to die, when you notice it suddenly you start noticing it everywhere and for those that care about it it becomes something that draws single issue voting because all the other important things can be undone with some work but even their single issue voting will be drowned out eventually by the change set in motion.
It's the same in lots of places in the UK. We have MPs that care more about the building of an airport in Pakistan than they do about the UK.
>You have conservative parties who pay lip service but don't really make any effective change on the migration front
Net migration to Germany has fallen sharply since 2022: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.NETM?locations=D.... In particular, that includes significant drops in asylum claims and migration from Syria and Afghanistan. Anti-immigration sentiment is almost purely vibes-based. There is no amount of objective reduction in migration that (i) could be achieved by sensible policies and that (ii) would make you feel the vibes that you want to feel. So your position is effectively an extremist one, even if you find extremism distasteful.
>There is no option to say 'you either do it well or do a lot less of it' without getting pushed to the far right.
This option is exactly who you currently have as chancellor. He's doing about everything that's reasonably possible (together with a few things that go beyond the reasonable) to reduce illegal migration. But he's not going to forcibly shut down Turkish-owned businesses. So let the far right do the dirty work. You had no choice but to support them because mainstream politicians couldn't make the Turks magically disappear.
When people came from Algeria, Jamaica and Suriname to Europe they were not foreigners they had French, British and Dutch passports.
Germany's lack of such a colonial empire kept the country from transitioning into a true multicultural society. It explains Germans special branch of racism.
So "Germans are special in their racissm" because they had no "luck of such colonial empire"??
Im glad that this country didnt play a larger role in colonialism! Your sentence is the first I hear in decaded advocading for "if they had colonialism as well, it would be a much better country because then they wouldnt be racist"??
By the way - Poland or Hungary also had no "luck of colonial empire" - what about them? As well as tons of other European states?
I didn't read that post as saying "there is no racism in France/Britain/Netherlands thanks to their past"; I understood it as "the _kind_ of racism there is _different_ than the one in Germany, for historical reasons".
That strikes me as... kind of true? Poland's issues with racism are also pretty different than in the countries mentioned.
Just FYI, it says "lack", not "luck"
Germany had a colonial empire though
A small one, and we do not have any ties no more to these states, really (in contrast to Spain, France and whatnot)
The German colonial empire was the 3rd largest at the time, just after the French and the British ones. There are still cultural ties.
I meant only the colonial empire, but you could also include nazi Germany colonial projects, they also had a lasting impact
> When people came from Algeria … to Europe they were not foreigners they had French … passports.
That’s not true at all for France with Algerians. The history of hate towards them has been horrible and is still very recent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Paris_massacre
When I discussed voting with Germans (looking forward to my first), the reaction has mostly been about not voting for the party that they are unhappy with. I even have an immigrant friend telling me he will vote for the AfD and could not answer me why he's voting for the party that will kick him out of the country. His reason was more because he's unhappy with how the current situation is and wants changes and doesn't really think what change will help.
He knows the face-eating leopard party is not going to eat his face.
As a German I am super happy to hear that you are having such a good time in my, or now our, country. So often the news focus only on the bad things which sometimes blinds me on how nice people can be to each other and help each other out as one big community.
I also enjoy reading about how the colleagues and him genuinely like each other. So often on US forums I read a sentiment along the lines of "shut up and just do your work", but since I spend 8 hours with these people each day I prefer us to be as close to friends as possible.
> Most people complain about the rules in Germany, but I like them. It means someone, or a group of people, sat down and thought about that specific thing and decided on a standard for everyone. When you have to do something, you don't feel lost, because you can just look it up. You don't have to find someone who knows.
Somewhere in the afterlife, Max Weber proudly sheds a tear of happiness while whispering "this guy gets it", hahaha (of course his whole philosophy depends on the rules being as fair as possible, and also that they are enforced uniformly and fairly, but let's not get too lost in the weeds here).
Anyway, lovely article and congrats on finding a place where you feel home!
This resonates with me a lot, and reading it gave me some positive emotions about Germany which I unfortunately have less and less with each passing day.
This country gave me a lot. Moving here from a third world country, the jump in my quality of life was immeasurable. All the rules everywhere were for me a blessing, coming originally from a chaotic city.
Despite never taking any German courses, I had reached C1 level after only three years, and thanks to the (now reverted) law by the traffic-light-government you mentioned, I could get the citizenship in a record 3 years only.
I have never felt at home anywhere in my life like in Hamburg. It is such a stunning city, with the perfect mix of anything. The city's own marketing campaign "why go to country X when you have it inside Hamburg" is so true.
Compared to the rest of Germany, Hamburgers are extremely open and friendly. But the bar is so.damn.low. That is one of the few big problems I have here. I integrated in an excellent way IMO: speak C1 German without an accent, have a German wife, have a stable job, yet feel unwelcome by an ever increasing percentage of Germans.
As much as I adore Hamburg, I do not want to imagine getting old here. Just like a huge amount of Germans, I see my happiness in moving further north.
This seems like the right place to put https://youtu.be/KfWyo2mqXnw?si=EeYGdpA2BJ_xOzLi
You'll find that Scandinavian countries are not readily welcoming foreigners into their social circles either.
I don't expect to be welcomed, but also not actively "unwelcomed" by many. I never said it's about racism; My extremely pale Italian friend was complaining about exactly this to me as well. The "Verbitterung" here (The fact that people apriori want to fight you, before even any interaction) is sad. Scandinavian countries are even more closed off, that's true, but they are not known to be hostile.
being German that's a sad thing to hear. I really do hope you stay because I think people genuinely do need to stand up to it, don't write us off too quickly.
Verbitterung/Verrohung of public life seems to be omnipresent now, with the capital 'o' Other being attacked for everything. We ought to know better though. I've noticed it myself with my partner who is Japanese when visiting the country. Hostility I've not encountered before. Frankly much of the world seems to be losing its mind.
> Verbitterung/Verrohung of public life seems to be omnipresent now
It's not exclusive to Germany. I have been experiencing this further south in the continent and is visibly growing in the UK as well.
Agreed, and it unfortunately takes a very real toll on you long-term..
However, I want to also highlight that some of the sweetest, most supportive people I have ever met are German, including random people you meet outside. The person I look up to most also happens to be German.
I would absolutely not be where I am today if not for the support of dozens of Germans along the way. So I am very grateful for my countrymen and women, its not all grey :)
> As much as I adore Hamburg, I can't imagine growing old here.
Why not?
> Like many Germans, I see my future somewhere further north.
Is it similar to people moving from Berlin to Brandenburg...
What's driving that trend? And how do people who already live in those regions generally feel about the migration from big cities into more "rural" areas?
From their perspective, it probably isn't entirely positive. It can put pressure on housing prices, schools, traffic, and healthcare. There may also be political and cultural tensions as the population changes.
> Why not?
By no means did I mean Hamburg. If Hamburg was a country of its own I would love to live here to my last day, enduring the social-skills situation. The reason why I do would not like to settle here permanently is more about German politics, which makes one vomit. Additionally, the recent reforms to the pension system here pissed many young people off, and the trajectory says it will only get worse.
> Like many Germans, I see my future somewhere further north.
Berliners move to Brandenburg when they make a family and want a bigger house :) My (and many Germans') intention is more for the whole package. In my case I meant moving to a completely different country, not just region. In the case of Norway: (Relatively) much less disgusting politics, solid pension and stable economy, less hostile environment, and of course breath-taking nature. Lots of this is subjective, so take it with a grain of salt :)
Domestic migration within Germany doesn't really bother anyone AFAIK, since Germany's birthrate is very low anyway so no significant pressure arises. And if you move from Hamburg to Schleswig-Holstein nobody would notice. If you move from Hamburg to Bavaria (why would you?), that's a different story.
> By no means did I mean Hamburg
Ok, from your sentence, was clear to me, you like Hamburg, but you don't want grow old there.
> Additionally, the recent reforms to the pension system here pissed many young people off, and the trajectory says it will only get worse.
So to leave the system now moving to Norway, will make you get a better Pension? I think it depends of many factors, but I am not sure it is true, specially if you are 30+.
> Domestic migration within Germany doesn't really bother anyone AFAIK
That's not true as well. There is a lot of tension in the Brandenburg region, or even small cities like Leipzig.
> If you move from Hamburg to Bavaria (why would you?), that's a different story.
Hm I see a lot of reasons why moving from Hamburg to Bavaria is a good idea.. I guess it's relative.
Thanks for the note regarding domestic migration, learned something new today.
The very last point was meant sarcastically due to the Hamburg-Bavaria beef. Of course Bavaria has some things that are nicer. For example I really miss the mountains, living up here in the north where it can’t get any flatter.
Cheers!
The Documentary about Brandenburg and Berlin from RBB [1] is interesting to try to understand (or not!) the problem :)
References: [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxjmvplzeJw
Have fun!
There’s something I find very distasteful about the idea of abandoning a country that provided you opportunity exclusively in the name of your own happiness. I think it’s the kind of attitude from immigrants that is greatly increasing anti immigrant sentiment. Become part of an old world people takes generations. Even in America, the branches of my family came here four generations ago and I view myself as American and would be accepted as such, but I still hold a high amount of gratitude for the original founders of the country.
On rules - they certainly create clarity and also have the potential to enable NPC like behaviour which is all too common. Since you mentioned Traffic Light Coalition, the chancellor Olaf Scholz (who is a lawyer and was also the ex-mayor of Hamburg) recently said in an interview “Germany was known to be a country of engineers, we are now a country of lawyers”.
Hamburg along side with Munich is what Germany should look like. So I think Hamburg has played a role in your perception too.
> rules[...] have the potential to enable NPC like behaviour which is all too common
Would you mind explaining this? What is NPC-like behaviour?
I'm not that commenter, but it seemed clear from the context. Inflexible, decision-tree-like behavior -- like an NPC from a video-game.
NPCs are Non-Player-Characters in video games, i.e. "extras". Their programming is usually kept simple, so they're kind of famous for robotically repeating the same lines or doing the same actions.
I think here it might mean getting attached to the rules for the rules' sake and forgetting the deeper reason why the rules are there in the first place - like waiting on a red light on a deserted street.
Munich is what Germany should look like? May I ask where you are from/if you live in Germany/Munich? Munich feels absolutely dead and is culturally pretty dead compared to other big cities due to Munich's vast rich immigrant (most would call them "expats) population. Munich has no soul is a rich landlord's watering hole by now.
yeah Munich if anything is extremely hostile to integration. i know several people who moved there and got burnt out trying to integrate. with previous knowledge of the language.
You know the parent comment is blaming immigration for the current status of Munich right?
UK and Australia are also very rule-loving and have their own problems, but not the same disease you’re describing here.
It's interesting, as an Aussie, the decline in rule following is honestly a bit upsetting.
Part COVID, part mass migration, but the general decline in social trust is something that I really feel.
I guess I see breaking rules as fundamentally a lack of empathy.
As another Australian I'm glad to see it. I remember as a kid watching a neighbour's dog of many years being dragged away to the slaughter by a council worker as the old women pleaded for it to be spared, just because it wasn't the right breed. The rules don't leave any room for empathy. There's a saying, "the problem isn't that Australia was founded by prisoners, it's that it was founded by prison guards".
See, I would call getting a breed of dog that has been identified as dangerous, as incredibly selfish. Genuinely an insane degree of self centred reasoning. My special dog is fine, because it's my dog, and I know better than everyone else (but also can't convince anyone that you are in fact right, in order to change the rules).
It's all the behaviour that we have identified as better overall if everyone follows it, and deciding that it doesn't apply to you, because you don't feel like it.
Run a red light, because you are in a hurry. Drive a truck without a licence, because you think you will be fine. Throw a party every night, because your having a great time and there is not enough resources to limit how shit you can be to your neighbours.
Also "don't worry he doesn't bite" after they allow their dog to jump at you.
I think Clive James said that, or something similar. I think his version was something like "the tragedy isn't that so many Australians are descended from convicts, but that so many are descended from the guards."
The guards are in charge there as everywhere else.
Scholz was also involved in cumex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CumEx-Files
On the topic of rules:
> [Rules mean that] someone, or a group of people, sat down and thought about that specific thing and decided on a standard for everyone. When you have to do something, you don't feel lost, because you can just look it up. You don't have to find someone who knows.
I mildly disagree with this stance for two reasons.
First, "you can just look it up" it's like arguing that it's okay if the Linux kernel is badly documented because you can inspect the source code anytime. Try and figure out the rules for opening a GmbH by yourself (and the advantages over a Ug) and let me know if you feel comfortable in doing it without "finding someone who knows".
Second, the problem with inflexible rules is that you can't do anything when someone else breaks them. The case that everybody knows: if you need to renew your residence permit before a specific date you cannot book more than X weeks in advance (rule 1), you have a right to an appointment (rule 2), and the online system is the one and only way to get one (rule 3). So what happens when there are no appointments? Well, you panic, because suddenly your timeframe is very tight (thanks to rule 1) and you cannot reach anyone (rule 3) despite you having a right (rule 2). What happens if you respectfully but firmly demand that which is your legal right? Based on my experience, someone will call security to escort you out. And while I never thought my first time suing someone would be the German government, that was the only way to get them to give me my citizenship after literal years of delays.
Rules are fine, but only when everyone follows them. Once the government starts ignoring them while demanding that everyone else follows them, every rule becomes a potential headache.
Sorry you had that experience.
I supervised a PhD who had come to Germany and through her indirectly experienced the immigration office.
When your residence permit runs out, and your application is still being processed, you automatically get a temporary permit for the time until your application is done.
But the temporary permit arrives only a few days before the deadline. Quite a few people don’t understand that part or don’t trust the process - and get into a real panic.
For the GmbH: It’s quite easy. Google for “Musterprotokoll”. That’s a one-page document with all the statutes a company needs and a fast-track process if you want to not deviate from it. Or you get a template from the IHK homepage and adjust it.
I did it - no problemo.
Sounds like the rule system worked in your example. What other better solution do you imagine?
> Try and figure out the rules for opening a GmbH by yourself (and the advantages over a Ug) and let me know if you feel comfortable in doing it without "finding someone who knows".
It's possible from the laws, but it's a complex topic. If you do not have the time to understand complex topics you get help...
> Rules are fine, but only when everyone follows them. Once the government starts ignoring them while demanding that everyone else follows them, every rule becomes a potential headache.
Nobody should ignore the rules including the government. But you could sue them successfully because there were rules in place for how a government can operate.
> What other better solution do you imagine?
I believe there are two ways to deal with a system that's not working as intended.
One alternative is to have shock buffers for unexpected circumstances. Berlin, known for its chaotic nature, used to have a second queue at the Foreigner's Office for people who needed an appointment today. You had to queue sometimes even from 3am on, which sucks, but it sucked less than having to cancel your holidays because you couldn't get an appointment. In my case all I needed was a signed piece of paper saying "this person is allowed to stay in Germany until we finally process their papers", but the office had no mechanism (or no will?) to do so.
The other alternative is to pretend that the system works fine, which is what the German administration is currently doing. Sure, I could hire an attorney to sue the government - it will cost me an upright investment of 1k€, it will take months, and all I'll get afterwards is most of my administrative costs (forget about my canceled flight) and an appointment.
Edit: on the topic of the GmbH, it is a complex topic because the German government made it complex. Estonia, Texas, and my own home country have much simpler rules for starting your own small company. Every government keeps promising "we'll simplify bureaucracy and we'll digitize" and yet all we get is new rules and more letters.
> Once the government starts ignoring them while demanding that everyone else follows them, every rule becomes a potential headache.
There is a reason why hardly any German person speaks of "unsere (Bundes-)Regierung" [our (federal) government], but nearly always about "die (Bundes-)Regierung" [the (federal) government] [1]. Indeed, the federal government is something that many Germans rather think of something like a catastrophic natural force than something where you have any sense of belonging. To further prove my point: what US-American jokes are about lawyers are jokes about politicians in Germany.
[1] That the German article "die" is a quite different verb in English makes this even nicer: if you know a little bit of English, you immediately think of "die, (federal) government", when you talk in German of "die Bundesregierung".
Thank you for this! As a German, it's a breath of fresh air to read something positive and it's definitely topped up my optimism account a little bit!
Came to Germany to do an MBA at 2009, plan was to go back to Turkey after 5 years. Still there (well currently temporarily in south Turkey for vacation).
Germans are very nice, Germany is very nice, and I applied to be German finally last year after getting the 30th "come on be German already" letter (I'm lazy af). They told me (us, together with my wife) that they need 30 months to process the application, lol.
There are many things to complain about, many things to love, lots of tolerance, AfD is scary (very similar to AKP, the party that made me leave Turkey in the first place) but these days I think more positive. I'm trying to be one of those people who try to keep things going for everyone. Adlerian stuff :)
I think staying here was one of the best decisions of my life. Here's to the next 17 years in this land of the meckerei with love.
A nice read,
Immigration has many pulls and with that comes all sorts of immigrants whether great, average and terrible.
Unfortunately Western countries and bureaucracies seem to have committed the usual sin of developing processes that:
- make it incredibly hard for good immigrants to migrate, contribute and naturalise themselves legally.
- at the same time leaving lots of gaping holes of exploitation for criminals and other immigrants who are just looking for a meal ticket or to enter illegally and abuse our high trust societies.
Couple this with a news and media setup that optimises for covering news of bad migrants whilst hardly broadcasting news about good migrants.
There is one rule of thumb that I’ve noticed: if you are a reasonable person and integrate you will be treated as one of their own. Otherwise not.
Your article mirrors my own experience 1:1, it’s like I’ve written it myself. Apart from the citizenship process. Even though it was also 14 months long (eerie lol), I had to do a lot of noise about it, because they are processing applications out of order (some people got theirs in two weeks, some in two years, no rhyme or reason) - press, meetings with local politicians etc. Which helped my personal case but didn’t fix the problem at all.
> if you are a reasonable person and integrate you will be treated as one of their own.
You won't, even if you were born and raised here - 3rd generation Turks get treated worse after 60 years than Ukranians after 4, let alone someone with an arab name, all else being equal[1]. This is natural in almost all nations for its humans in all of them, but the rampant arrogance and hypocrisy is exceptional and one does no good reinforcing it.
[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/ausbildung-migrationshinter...
My hot take about Turks struggling to integrate: The didn't try hard enough. They held on to too much of their Islamic religion and culture. It didn't mix well with the primarily Christian religion and culture of Germany. The Ukranians have much more culturally in common with Germans which is why they have integrated so much faster.
You are describing assimilation, not integration, also disproven by the fact that the name alone is the only differentiator in this example. Plenty of justifications will be found ex-facto in any case, all are excuses.
I'm not claiming any nation to be above racism, in fact globally most are worse, but this one is really high on its own supply.
This mirrors my own journey, although I have never submitted my citizenship application. I also came here for an internship and stayed. 11 years and counting.
Congrats on becoming a citizen. Having seen many of my friends go through it and accompanying some to their appointment, I know how big it can feel.
As an immigrant to the US I feel similarly. The country has been wonderful to us and the negative things we hear domestically and abroad just don't track with our experience at all.
The OP focuses on respect, admiration and gratitude and finds what to feel this way about the is focused on what he can contribute. These are keys to success and thriving in any society.
Had he come with a very different attitude of entitlement and resentment (super common among immigrants as well) he would have had a very different experience.
Good for him
What percentage of your productive capacity is used for proper recycling and garbage disposal? ...that's the real metric to measure Germanness by, and yet it never got mentioned once!
I don't know why people make such a big deal out of this. When I travelled to Germany on holiday, it was a good sign to me that there were so many different bins. It tells me that they are doing a lot of recycling and very little dumping into landfills. If you look at other similarly rich countries that care a lot about the environment, it is similar.
...if you've only visited and never lived here for an extended period of time, you haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg. Also, the rules and systems are different from one municipality to another.
Here are some of the highlights for the one I live in.
AI image recognition on garbage trucks. -- Yes you've heard right. You do still need a fax machine in Germany to interact with the government. But when it comes to the garbage: Bring in the f##ing AI!! -- If you get the separation or packaging wrong, they won't collect the ton, and will instead leave a note to chastise you. You can meditate on your love for the green party, as you rummage through your weeks-old biodisposables to re-separate, and thank them next time at the polling booth.
Some kinds of garbage can go in the collections, others need to go to a recycling center. Just load up your car with everything you need to get rid of. Drive to a recycling center. Find out that it's closed (opening hours are maximally inconvenient; plan on burning several vacation days for visits to recycling centers that are open during your core working hours only). Once you make it to the recycling center, someone will take X, but tell you they don't take Y, and to try the recycling center several towns over. Of course they are closed. Plan on having your car serve as a garbage truck for several weeks, before it's finally empty.
Of course, some things you can't get rid of at any recycling center: They need to go to a collection. Do you have several cubic meters of styrofoam to dispose of, after re-furnishing your apartment from IKEA? Well tough luck. Find a place to store them for several weeks until the next collection. Then cut them into pieces so they fit in the yellow bag, which is only available in a single size. Then put the many many bags out into the street. If it's a windy day, collect that stuff from all over the street several times. If you're lucky, the garbage truck actually arrives. More likely: You miss the collection several times, because the pickup times are maximally inconvenient and unpredictable. In the meantime, the storage problem is all yours.
Do I need to continue? Because I could continue.
Wonderful read and welcome to you! I'm also a new citizen to Germany since this winter, lived here over 10 years now. It's a great place to live, at least in the north - have not tried much else, but the complaining can be a bit tiresome. At least the part about complaining and then not doing anything about it. My home country is a bit more easy going but it's also 1/8 of the population and less diverse and with a lot less troublesome history - in the 20th century.
Just remember: Kreuz setzen ohne Haken! ;-)
I found it quite interesting you thought American companies are more hierarchical than German companies. I think in general it’s extremely company/industry dependent. Having worked in several industries, countries, and companies I would say that Germany tends to be quite age oriented where the USA is more results oriented which is then reflected in the hierarchy and perceived openness. I also think Hamburg and Bavaria are exceptions to the norm in terms of economic productivity and openness to businesses.
As a Norwegian working for a company that expanded into Germany, I also was a bit surprised about the author claiming Germany to have a flat structure. I found it very hierarchical compared to what I'm used to. Like, setting up a new business it's very all-hands-on-deck until established, but had people refuse to do stuff "beneath their role" or outside their responsibility, or to do anything unless explicitly ordered by their direct manager when asked by someone else.
Nothing wrong in that, really, just a bit of a culture shock when you're used to something working a certain way. It was on us to adjust.
i read it as a Hamburg thing. my experience is mostly with NRW and i don’t recognise anything of this article in it. hierarchical, conservative, suspicious.
As an immigrant living in Germany I can only attest to what's written on the blog post. Just like any other country, there are all sorts of people in Germany and Germans are actually hard working people which is a bit more reserved that the rest of the world. The only F'ed up thing about Germany is the politics and the weather.
Congratulations on becoming a citizen! It’s funny how being an outsider lets you see all the amazing things that locals take for granted.
As a born German, I do not take most of these things for granted! And of course I complain about all the things that need to be better.
Saying that you love rules is insanity - no you don't, nobody does nor should LOVE rules. Some of the rules in Germany not long ago was to put people in furnaces - do you love those rules ?! What you love is predictability, when everyone is stopping at the light, navigating a city becomes easier because it's predictable. Our brains love predictability that's why we love habits - it's comforting and we don't have to be on fight or flight all the time. So again to you and to people in the comments - you don't love rules, nor should you ... what you should do is follow the rules that make sense, challenge those that don't and break those that prevent you from doing what is right.
Damn, I thought you were about to make a valid point and then instantly went to the nazis
those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it ... go watch Die Welle excellent movie
Plenty of people love rules :) different strokes for different folks…
you should love reading first, it's way more useful
> I didn't hesitate to complain (with Lärmprotokoll) to my landlord.
True Alman spottet.
No loud noises on Sunday (mowing lawn, home renovations etc) I can get behind. But I truly don't get why Germans collectively dislikes shops being open on Sunday. If you ask into it, something about the fabric of the German family is at risk.
I've not lived in Germany but visited routinely for longer periods when working for a company there, and the understanding I derived is that Germans have an expectation that the only things (with some exceptions like airport shops) that should be open on a Sunday are things you can do with your family and/or friends - museums, art galleries, restaurants, and, natürlich, stuff like city parks and things that facilitated Wandern machen (going for hikes), so while the grocery store in that small Alps town might be closed on a Sunday, the Seilbahn/cable car isn't.
It caught me out a few times when I'd go to buy a bulk of German confectionary from a Lidl or Aldi to take back home for colleagues and my kids, and of course, I was flying out on a Sunday, so they were closed, so I had to pay airport prices for them.
All that said though, even the stuff that was open on a Sunday would generally shut earlier than usual, because after all, it _is_ Sunday bru, and the trains ran on a sparser schedule which meant my attempt to go to the Eagle's Nest museum, ended up with me getting there just as it closed, and then realising that the next train back to Munich from Berchtesgarden was in 4 hours (IIRC), and my dinner with my colleagues was in 3 hours... But the locals were so lovely and patient with my poor German, and they directed me to catch the next bus to Salzburg, and then catch the ICE to Munich from there.
It blew my Kiwi mind that they're like "Oh yeah, the fastest way back to Munich is to just catch a bus into Austria" real casual like. Schengen is pretty awesome.
Aren't you reading it the other way around? (I'm from another EU country where this rule existed)
Other people have the right to rest on Sundays too, so you force as many activities to shutdown as possible to make it so.
I don't really agree with the rule, by the way. Same thing as (in my country) all schools closing the exact same weeks which causes terrible holiday peaks on a bunch of other activities. Something we're also timidly abandoning, to great results (IMO) but which is not a popular change.
> Other people have the right to rest on Sundays too, so you force as many activities to shutdown as possible to make it so.
Mhh, yeah I guess. I do love my Sunday shopping though.
Having lived in Germany (and Switzerland) for fifteen years, I've come to really appreciate the Ruhetag. Having Sunday off gives a real rhythm to the week, and I really appreciate that there is a day where I'm not going to be running around between stores.
Shop free Sunday is something to be protected. I visited my parents in Australia about two years back where shopping feels like a 24/s7 blood sport, relaxing on a Sunday to do non-shopping activities is really welcoming.
The thing about Germany and most European countries is that they are that way because of the native population. So unfortunately for MR. Mert Bulan, the more people like him that moves there the less it will feel like Germany, and it will feel more like "home"
Congratulations on your Einbürgerung! That was an uplifting read.
My experiences with German bureaucracy have been similarly positive. The rules are the rules… but the rules are the rules, and can be contemplated at home in one’s own time, on one’s own private computer.
I have a question for you, or any other immigrants.
A common complaint I have heard from rule-followers immigrating to Germany is something like "You have to have an appointment in person for minor thing X at the city hall, and there are 7 slots for a date and time 5 months from now" (some exaggeration).
How prevalent was this in your experience, or anyone else you know? Any particular cities that are worse in this regard?
Not an immigrant, but I still have to get appointments :D
It really depends on where you are. In some parts you can do a lot online, in other places you have to do everything in person. Sometimes you can book an appointment online and something will be available today; sometimes no appointments are available at all. Sometimes you just show up. I'm from Berlin and it was absolutely awful for years - nowadays you can usually book an appointment within the same week.
Without writing my entire life story, here are some pointers.
Best city: Leverkusen. Easy to get appointments, incredibly friendly personnel. Honorable mention for Potsdam.
Worst city: Saarbrücken. I was undocumented a couple months because they couldn't get hold of my documents and refused to give me anything saying it wasn't my fault. They called security to bring me outside, too. When I pointed out that without documents I could be deported they laughed and said "that almost never happens".
Worst delay: Köln. They sat on my documents for two years - not because they had to, mind you, but partially because they decided to proof from scratch documents that had already been vetted by Leverkusen. In the end I had to sue them.
Most improved: Berlin. By the time I left they went from overworked to quite okay. They also used to offer a queue for those who needed an appointment right now but couldn't get one the official way.
Generally speaking big cities are a nightmare and small cities are a delight.
This was true about immigration offices because government did not invest in immigration offices, and when they did, in typical German fashion, they were very slow. Now, most cities are finally coming to terms with it. But in the mean time, the normal city services (not related to immigration services) are as bad as immigration service, because a lot of people are retiring and no one new to replace them.
It's both true and untrue.
It's true that finding appointments can be difficult if you just open the website once and see a calendar with no available slots for months; _but_; there are very frequent cancellations and some offices releases slots for the same day at midnight/7AM/etc; so if you're determined and flexible; it's quite doable to get an appointment ~soon.
For some things (apartment registration) you can also just show up on the day and just wait.
(My last interaction with a Bürgeramt was in Berlin in October 2023 though and was pretty similar for the previous ~8 years; things could have changed in the meantime!)
True but also each day they open slots due to cancelations or often have a system where you can just go in the morning and wait for somebody to not show up. Or allow things to be done online.
It is as with all bureaucracy: you got to be crafty to navigate it. For instance they will tell you exactely what you need to bring for each type of appointment but it still requires you to carefully read and do the work of preparing those things.
As an EU citizen, I can't tell you if it's true for the immigration office.
But for anything else? Kind of? If you want to move, you have to make an appointment in person to tell them. But it is also retroactive, so you can move and then make an appointment in 5 months and it's fine. The paper that says where you live is very important but it's also easy to get, you just have to show up. Not any time but the times for that are plentiful enough that it works out.
What makes my blood boil is the paperwork for when your kid is born. It feels like they should just be able to retrieve everything from their database but you have to submit a load of documents anyway and it has to be original.
Also, don't try to get married in Germany. Just go to Denmark, much easier, despite the delays if you get something wrong. You can do the whole thing in English and you don't have to translate anything for Germans after, if I recall correctly.
If you don't have to deal with the immigration office, it's fine. If you do, then good luck. I heard it's a pain. For example, in Bremen, it takes at least 2 years to process a citizenship application. It should take a year at most. So I guess if you ever wanted to sue someone and win a slam dunk case, you could do that in Bremen. In Berlin, the citizenship application takes only a few months.
Depends a lot on the period in the year, and which office you’re going to. You often have more than one location where you can go to, and the ones in less busy areas don’t have those long wait. But sometimes they do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There are many things going in the wrong direction in this country but most things are that are not in the sphere of politics are fine. The problem is mostly in my opinion that political decisions are made by career politicians. We could really use some fresh air in our political system with more participation by the actual society (e.g. make it easier to get a political mandate without deep affiliation in a political party) and less about internal party politics.
> We could really use some fresh air in our political system with more participation by the actual society
Sentiments like this always make me think of https://xkcd.com/977/ (under Goode Homolosine).
Congrats on your citizenship! You're a great showcase for why this immigration process needs to exist and why it works.
I am german. That was such a nice story to read :)
It made me feel more warm about my own country - Especially that everyone was and is so nice to you!
That's how everyone should get invited here.
Not with suspicion but with open arms.
I am not a German, but I agree: This was a solid and heart-warming blog entry. What fascinates me the most, he is born and raise in Turkey, then moved to Germany. It is not hard to find stories of multi-generational Turks struggling to be accepted, but this fellow made it work. My guess: He tried very hard to integrate (language, culture, etc.), Germans recognized it, and accepted him.
> I don't think most of those votes are about hating foreigners. Some people believe the story they get every day, that the country is broken and that immigrants are the problem. You find that story almost everywhere. The rest are angry that certain problems here have not been solved for years by the existing parties, so they look for an alternative.
I came to Germany with my parents in the 1990s. Both of them had university degrees, but those qualifications did not really help them much when they arrived. They ended up working in low-paying jobs in Germany's Niedriglohnsektor, which was heavily expanded through reforms under the Social Democratic Party.
I grew up in a poor neighborhood and most of the racism I experienced happened during my school years. What was interesting to me is that things changed quite a lot when I moved to a better school to get my Abitur. After I started university, I basically stopped experiencing racism. People were more open, easier to talk to, and seemed less focused on judging others based on where they came from or what they look like.
Today I work in tech. There are days when I do not speak German at all, because at work and in my private life I mostly speak English or my native language. My daily life is very different from when I was growing up.
This has made me wonder whether interpersonal racism is less about people being hard-core nazis but instead connected to people's life circumstances. I am not talking about institutional racism, which is a different issue, but about everyday interactions between regular people. In my experience, I encountered more hostility in environments with more poverty and fewer opportunities, while people I met later in education and professional life were generally much more open-minded.
Sounds to me like the author worked at XING / NewWork SE which was a particularly nice German company to work with during their heyday.
You have not mentioned the final step, the one that is not certified in the Einbürgerungsurkunde: Becoming less German than many Germans by walking the tightrope between superiority thinking and self-harmingly downplaying legitimately great achievements.
Purposefully making the distinction between things that are merely peculiar about German customs (old and new) on the one side, and things that are objectively the one true/correct/orderly way of doing things, and thus, must forfeit all claims of being "German". Many of the latter fall into the general categories of "rule of law" or "high-trust society", and once you compare how Denmark and Austria are doing, the most productive strategy is probably to stop attributing them to the peoples or states of Germany. And rather, consider them merely things easy to observe in Germany at this particular time. Use Germany as a spotlight to learn how to recognize how it looks and feels when they work, and more importantly: how to spot signs of them failing to work, then apply it globally. Und es mag am deutschen Wesen einmal noch die Welt genesen! Which is easier without bundling it up with customs that.. well.. would better remain localized to free state of thuringia.
My wife and I lived in Hamburg for a few years. Nice place and I often miss our lives there. However, I know many other foreigners do not share this experience - even I had to get used to people being hostile to someone stumbling through German. Ultimately we found happiness was being back home (SA) where things were a bit harder, but "nicer".
Hey Mert, welcome! It really was a cool time at the company at the time. And the L‘Osteria across always was a nice retreat! Hope you’re doing well!
> Across from our office there was an Italian restaurant where we went for pizza sometimes. The pizzas were very tasty and huge, and it was the only place that sold half a pizza.
Immediately knew which restaurant (franchise) he is talking about here :D
"Rules also make normal days easier. Something simple like waiting at a red light even when there are no cars takes away the work of deciding whether to cross. "
Ah, he really became german. (It seems I ain't anymore by that standard - when there are no cars, of course I go.)
To me that aspect is a symptom not of a rule-following culture, but of the favouritism given to cars. The car lobby has a lot of influence in Germany. It is why there are no speed limits on highways, trains are in a terrible condition, and finally pedestrians are made to obey rules optimised for car traffic. The rule could be different, like in UK where the rule is that the pedestrian is allowed to jaywalk and it is not breaking any law, and you would still get a rule-following society (in that respect at least). The difference is in the expectation of whether a car is a guest in a human environment or a human is a guest in a car environment.
Or you became a Berliner.
(There's a small part of me that wishes I could've naturalized as a Berliner, not German — many (though obviously not all!) things I love about it are really about Berlin specifically, not Germany. Seeing "waiting at traffic lights to cross even when there's no cars around" being described as a German thing always makes me smile a bit; having worked for ~3y near Kotti. Nobody does that there.)
I am glad I hear the warm and polite Willkommen hasn't changed. Thirty years ago a 20 something me visited Bonn for Erasmus and the following for medical Residency. Same excellent impressions, same humanely feelings, same satisfying conclusions. Although I returned back to my country, I always question myself if I should stay and regret. But you can never know how an hypothetical life path could unfold, because, well, YOLO.
I don't think most of those votes are about hating foreigners. Some people believe the story they get every day, that the country is broken and that immigrants are the problem.
I just don't understand this. It's not about hate or racism, it's about the speed of the change.
We've had too many immigrant, too fast. But since there's no brake on this thing apparently the only option normal politicians seems to have is to be dismissive of negative effects of mass migration so they don't have to admit there's no brake lever.
This then pushes people to a party that will at least admit the negative effects.
What an energizing read!
It warmed my heart, so healthy and beautiful things in this writing. Thank you.
And also nice to coincide with you on here, your career always bring hope to us, DEU CS grads and students.
The German history is a very complex one. Some habits in society and in families are going back still to the 30 year war, which was an extremely cruel one. Germany inhibited psychological pain over centuries from wars, battles, restrictions and cruel upbringing practices. Keep in mind, Germany didn't exists as a country before 1871 (!). It were "smaller" states like, Schleswig, Pommern, Preussen, Bayern, Franken and many more, all loosely scattered around, having big nations like France, the Nordics, Russia, etc. as neighbors, that regularly invaded some of the German states. That seeded a constant type of fear historically and resulted in a psychological overreaction over the recent centuries, certainly starting with the "Kaiserreich" from 1871 on, which encouraged strong but willing people that obey. The first World War is a complex and cruel situation in its own, but with roots in the European situation of this time, leading to the second World War where Germany played a very cruel role, but psychological determinable. In the 50s, 60s, the "Wirstschaftwunder" draws a typical compensation pattern of a wounded narcissistic personality from a psychological perspective. Parents buried a lot of pain from the past wars inside them, inheriting this pain to it's children, by being distached or "cold". Until today !, younger Germans suffer from this inherited "pain", they cannot explain, because not many looking at Germany's history and can connected all the pieces together. On the other hand it is fantastic what German overcame and became now. Overall Germans did a good job in the recent history, but I think they still can do better and should be more friendly to themselves. Accepting that the cruel German history starts waaay earlier then WW2.
It was a good read and a heart warming one. Congratulation to your Einbürgerung!
Others have talked about many aspects of the life annd integration process in Germany. But one thing I’m missing from your post is what did you do to your German colleagues and friends? How did you treat them?
It’s certainly interesting to know but I think it’s also an important aspect we often forget.
Keep in mind that OP is a trained professional with a good education and dealing with Germans in a professional environment. I guess all people with an academic background or comparable. It changes a lot when going outside of this „bubble“ for both sides. Working class blue collared ppl are less open and also a lot of untrained immigrants that hoped to chase a dream now working as Uber drivers or food couriers.
Author seems to adjust well. It gets tricky when high trust and low trust cultures mix and that is seen as an opportunity to be exploited. ie not paying train fares because nobody checks. That breaks the high trust model
> In January 2024, after it came out that far right politicians had talked about deporting people who already hold a German passport
That is - as determined by a German court - something between fake news and severely distorted representation of what happened.
I liked the Rob Zombie original better.
Welcome to my home country, glad it worked well for you. Regarding the far rights and how they are againts immigrants, this is 100% not against immigrants like you who integrate and are a valuable member of the german community. There are still a lot of illegal immigrants who have no intention of working here, just want to take benefit of the social system and send the money home or just come to germany to be criminal, sadly that is still a real problem.
I think, the main issue with German rules is that we haven't embraced digital technology 100%.
All these rules would be way less cumbersome if they didn't come with a bunch of literal paperwork.
The funniest situation is when you’re in a city (Berlin in my example) and one store accepts only cash, while the store next door only accepts cards.
Germany is definitely way behind on the digital front. Which is not always a bad thing…even if it’s usually an annoying one.
It's not just about the digital readiness. I assume it's the same in Germany, but in Switzerland there are many smaller stores that very proudly only accept cash, or even used to accept cards and stopped. Some shops around where I live even put signs like "cash only, always and forever", to get people to stop asking. It's an interesting divide happening, some going cashless only for speed, safety and convenience, others going cash only for fairness and sovereignty.
What I got most out of the this article is the difference in trust between his home and host countries. What conditions make a high-trust community? What a fascinating topic.
I am neither muslim nor Jewish or German.
The recent comment in Instagram, YouTube, reddit, twitterinternet pretty much any comment section i see Muslims unequivocally oppose Israel in comment sections that has bottom do with politics.
This post makes me skeptical to think the entire idea of making Germans look good is to indirectly oppose jews. I hope people understand what I mean before down voting
That was a great read.
> I believe in social democracy, and this is a country that calls itself one and mostly behaves like it.
Meanwhile in Turkey itself, Erdogan abolished the secular separation and transitioned into a de-facto dictatorship, where religion plays a much stronger role than before. This presents a huge problem because such a Turkey simply does not fit into Europe. It fits a lot more to arabic and persian culture, though Turkey is also a bit different to that; it seems Turkey does have a very strange role, overall. It fits in part to everything but also to nothing else. Erdogan was voted in, though, by a conservative majority, so they wanted to have such a structure for the most part.
> people say Germans prefer Germans when it comes to promotions
That is not really that correct either; Germans are not all Germans. For instance, Bavarians are very different to northern Germans and here the dialect plays a huge role. If you can speak bavarian, even without being from Bavaria, you'll find it is much easier to interact in southern Germany, irrelevant over as to whether you were born here or not. I noticed this when people with a black skin speak perfect/fluent Bavarian. They look different of course but there is no language barrier. So really the advice to be given is to learn german, ideally the dialect if you can (some dialects are horrible, saxon specifically).
> Cem Özdemir, whose parents came from Turkey, has been the prime minister of Baden-Württemberg since May
He speaks perfect german though, so I don't think this can be taken as a comparison. He was also born in Germany (in Urach). You can find many other examples too if you want to; some turkish-germans who support the AKP or grey wolves and what not radical groups. It simply is not a homogeneous mass.
> in a city like Hamburg
It depends a lot on the city too. Hamburg is pretty solid overall. You may find it harder in Berlin; and although I think Bavaria rocks, Munich can be a rather difficult setting. Hamburg is quite nice though, much prettier than Berlin, even though significantly smaller (but still a fairly large city; almost two million people, in fact, second biggest city in Germany).
Also from what he writes, it seems to be as if he has solid social skills. This is not always the case.
> The language is part of that
Indeed. It's IMO the number #1 thing to tackle. The language barrier. English works usually but there will be a huge difference to understanding german natively or near natively.
> So the German came from the decision to stay.
The more important question though is: why isn't Turkey like that? Great that people want to go into Germany, but you only need to look at the recent problems with Ceuta. Spain is not Germany, of course, but something really does not work well here. Wealth and opportunities should be much better spread and distributed than it is right now.
> For me the logical thing has always been to aim for 15 minutes before the agreed time, so if something happens on the way I'm still fine.
He already has german work ethics there. ;)
For me I also try to arrive earlier, but mostly because upon waking up my head needs time to clear up and I am slow, so I try to have a time buffer usually. It's no problem past 10:00 o'clock (I use the 24 hours clock; AM and PM never made any sense to me).
> and I didn't hesitate to complain (with Lärmprotokoll) to my landlord.
Alright I had to stop here, because when someone from outside Germany knows the word Lärmprotokoll, he is now more german than the germans. :P
(I also had noise by neighbours but I never complained, yet alone with a protocol to snitch. Though my neighbours are not causing any problems usually, young kids may sometimes cause noise but I also felt that if I were to complain when kids make noise that does not seem to be super-nice to a kid that may not understand that noise causes issues. And complaining to the parents made no sense either since that would just delegate the problem when it would be a non-problem. I'd be scared to live around something writing "Protokolle" about me. He should tone down his super-german drive really - not everything is great about german discipline. I mean we could have a look at two world wars, how that got started ...)
Your comment relies on a racist double standard. A person should not be judged by their country of origin or held personally responsible for the actions of that country.
> He speaks perfect German, though.
No, Özdemir doesn’t speak perfect German. He speaks German with a heavy Swabian accent, which sounds very rural to the average German.
> People seem to think a German passport is handed out easily now. It isn't. You have to prove you paid into the social system for at least five years. You have to pass the citizenship test. You need German at B1 level. You need a sustainable livelihood while your application is running. And most importantly, you have to accept the democratic values of this country.
That is still relatively easy. 5 years is not a long time – various other European countries are longer.
The citizenship test is multiple-choice and has a pass rate of 52%. B1 should be easily achievable after 5 years in Germany. And B1 is lower-middle (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2), and is not fluency.
I'm not sure why paying taxes and having a job is highlighted as making it "not easy" - that should be the bare minimum.
And then he goes onto describe how painless the application process was. All digital. No bureaucratic games trying to trip him up. Seemed very easy
edit: Oh and ~700-800 EUR in total for all the fees? [0] Bargain!
[0] https://reddit.com/r/GermanCitizenship/comments/1q5ij2w/what...
Note that you need a B1 certificate, so it’s really better to take actual courses to be sure you know the actual grammar and vocabulary (including all the irregular verbs, uhrg…) you will face during the exam. The exam isn’t too hard but you need to be prepared, it covers reading, speaking, writing, and grammar exercises
This is a lower requirement than permanent residence in Switzerland for comparison.
It seems not to be the case. According to SEM (Staatssekretariat für Migration), a B1 oral level and A1 written level at least are required to be granted permanent residency and B1/A2 (oral/written) for naturalisation [1] in one of the four national languages. They do not state the bar to admission.
[1] https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/de/home/integration-einbuergeru...
pass score of 52%*
Great post and congrats on your Einbürgerung =)
I spent a lot of time in Europe after graduating college. I thought I wanted to move there, I enjoyed the peacefulness of a daily life and people who were concerned for the general welfare of society over an above profits.
Then I came to California. For a woman! I've long since broken up with her, but perhaps I stayed for the tacos and the sunset. And that the American west is still both deluded and guided by its founding myth of the cowboy: don't like the way things are done around here? Do it yourself, form your own posse...certainly, if there is one thing that people in Europe complain about, its the rigidity of social life. The author talks about a flat hierarchy but Germans are funnelled into castes even before they graduate high school.
There is freedom in America, but it is an open field, empty and full of despair. You are alone: the state does not care if you get sick, the state does not care if you can't get a job, the state does not care if you find your life meaningless. You can always head west, there is always an environment more unforgiving, an emptiness more vast and unfathomable, formless from the outset but given shape within a tragic struggle, one that few ever overcome. And any overcoming is only a temporary victory, and all your triumphs will fall like Ozymandias, left to dry rot in the craggily rocks and creosote bushes that make up the wasteland of American progress. Even with all those abandoned trailers sitting forlorn, the weak still venture forth thinking that they will defy the odds. One more bone on the desert floor. But at least I have the delusion!
And one day, when I'm long gone, and my wealth has been donated to worthy causes, and my kids and even their kids sit on the boards of philanthropic organizations, they will make a biopic about me, and it will be mediocre, and the actor who plays me will be far more attractive than I ever was, and it will get every detail about my life wrong. Then I will have won--and, consider this, Germans: in your country, the only person they ever make the subject of a biopic is Hitler! I think Steve Jobs is a little better than Hitler...
This was such a great read.
congrats on the citizenship, have a potato party
Have anyone seen similar articles about other countries?
You worked at XING, didn't you?
> I noticed the same thing in the rich districts of Hamburg. You can walk into one and not feel like you don't belong, and the prices in the shops are not that different from anywhere else in the city. Sometimes they are exactly the same. The more I saw of that, the more I wanted to stay. I believe in social democracy, and this is a country that calls itself one and mostly behaves like it.
Try the Kö in Düsseldorf! Of course this is a jab at the fact that nearly every nice store there is one where you walk in, get profiled, and then are given champagne and asked to sit down before you can even look at clothes. We have this ridiculous shit, it's just localized to a couple places known for being so posh! :)
Willkommen in Hamburg! Was a fun read. Seems like you were extremely lucky with your company and flat mate. I know a lot of immigrants working in logistics and they'd tell a different story. It's cool to see that it can work out positively too.
Germany is nice, but food keeps me in France haha
Germany will be the first country to accept LLM-based humanoid robot citizens.
Grep RULES.md, if not in the rules, `return 0`.
What?
Mom, Dad, I'm German...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uynI0gLxA7w
As a passport German, this was a great read for me. Good luck
Let me offer a counter-perspective, because this triggered me (sorry for the wall of text):
* Last year, my net salary went down even though my gross salary remained the same. The same is about to happen again: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article69483c23f6fc5...
* The author fortunately ended up in Hamburg, but in Munich, many people end up stuck with Fiktionsbescheinigungen and expired visas, unable to travel because the waiting time at the KVR is too long.
* Friends of mine have been waiting a year and eight months for permanent residence.
* If you apply for citizenship, they officially tell you not to even bother inquiring before a year and a half. Many have waited two years for it.
* To get a driver's license Neuantrag (which is just permission to start taking classes), it officially takes 3 months, but can take even longer. It's also expensive (around €3k), and changing driving schools is difficult.
* Hard to make friends: just look at r/germany. Everyone does activities together and then says goodbye. "Join a Verein" or "Learn the language" don't work as advertised.
* Annoying and obscene amount of paperwork and bureaucracy: Your tax office doesn't know about your health or pension insurance contributions even though they are state-managed, so you have to upload these documents or click buttons in ELSTER to retrieve them.(still better than a few years ago)
* Many shops close at 7 or 8 PM on weekdays, and supermarkets are closed on Sundays. You always have to rush if you have a long commute. Even grocery delivery services like Flink are constrained by this. Some shops even take a lunch break at 1:30 PM on top of that (idk if this is asking too much).
* DHL is so dysfunctional. They sometimes don't even ring when you're home, drop the package at the nearest pickup point, and leave a receipt in your mailbox. But if you go to the address on the receipt, you'll be disappointed because there's fine print stating it's only available for pickup starting from a future date. So you end up making multiple trips, guessing their opening hours (which don't match Google or the sign on the door), and waiting in line. Keep in mind "DHL Packstations" exist 24/7, yet they fail to sometimes reroute packages to them even if configured to do so.
* Those insurance portals where everyone reimplements email because "email is insecure, hurr durr": they send you an email with a login link -> an SMS OTP -> a cookie banner -> navigate a badly designed portal to find the latest message -> open the message only to find a PDF attachment. Why a PDF instead of writing the message directly on the portal? Because web text can be changed, whereas a PDF supposedly cannot (lol).
* A bakery closes at 19:00. We enter at 18:58, and the worker refuses to serve us - I thought you were supposed to serve customers who enter before closing time.
* If you miss an appointment at a branded repair store, they turn you away with zero flexibility or customer friendliness. You have to go back to their website, book another appointment, and travel all the way back later.
* Enormous wait times for doctors under public insurance. They aren't proactive, so you have to push for treatment and do your own research just to get a prescription.
* Forget about therapists, too. There's a 6+ month waiting list for every therapist on Doctolib - and with recent reforms, getting it reimbursed by public insurance is getting nearly impossible.
* They like laws - but a little too much, sometimes inventing their own rules to win arguments. I've seen this on streets where people just argue.
* Deutsche Bahn - no need to explain.
* Training and qualifications: It takes minimum 10 years to be a therapist, min. 8 years - tax advisor , minimum 8 years to become a lawyer . These are skilled jobs, but come on, all these are 1-3 years more than other countries. Not to mention it's some are gated so that it's tough to graduate.
* Also high rent ofc
Probably due to this, more citizens leave the country than arrive, and around 50-60% of immigrants end up leaving within a decade too. Overall, the country is a big step up from many other countries, including where I come from - India.
> Something simple like waiting at a red light even when there are no cars takes away the work of deciding whether to cross.
Someone gets it. It reduces mental load tremendously which is kinda important when you are a pedestrian surrounded by motor traffic. But of course you think there is no car coming because you didn't see one, right? So why not jaywalk this time? But what if your perception played a trick on you and your conclusion turns out to be false? When you are fatigued by the constant state of vigilance, doubt and self-assurance, in the end you are more likely to overlook the car that is coming round the corner. Jaywalking is for short term gains, but might have bad consequences in the long run. Your attention and vigilance is a scarce and valuable resource.
And what's the rush anyway?
Mert, you seem like a great guy, and I agree with most of what you said. I'm also an immigrant.
> What stayed with me is that this is probably the only country in the western world that faced its own history properly, admitted the worst things it did, and built a lot of its identity around not repeating them.
This however is categorically untrue. If Andrew Tate suddenly starts publicly repenting and then staunchly defends Ghislaine Maxwell, he is not facing his history properly nor admitting the worst things he did. He's just being as awful as he's ever been.
If most Germans had faced their own history properly and truly admitted the things it did, they would never have been such huge defendants of the genocide in Gaza. If they had drawn their lessons, the lesson would've been "humanity can get up to atrocious acts, and we need to act against these whenever they happen". Instead, they drew the lesson "we should outwardly act extremely sorry, and treat acts and people completely differently based on their religion/ethnicity". The "change of heart" in Germany over the last 2 or so years doesn't change this.
There has of course always been a minority of Germans who did already own their history, but in the last few decades that group never exceeded 20% of (ethnic) Germans.
What struck me most is how the author seems to confuse a very protected version of Germany with Germany itself.
He landed in a relatively rare bubble: an international tech company, an English-speaking workplace, and a professional profile the system values. That experience is valid, but it is hardly representative. Even this bubble is shrinking as companies cut local roles and move more work to lower-cost locations.
The rest of Germany becomes visible once you leave the corporate layer. Try finding an apartment, dealing with a government office, getting a timely appointment, or starting a business. The system is often slow, rigid, inaccessible, and exhausting.
Even a high salary does not automatically translate into prosperity. After taxes, housing, and everyday costs, building meaningful savings can still be surprisingly difficult.
Germany also has a way of pushing you into an NPC life: work, pay taxes, follow the process, book everything months ahead, stay quiet on Sundays, and remain on the approved path.
Meanwhile, the article feels oddly detached from a country facing industrial pressure, job cuts, housing shortages, heavy bureaucracy, economic anxiety, and growing political anger.
Thanks for this comment. I also arrived in Germany into a similar bubble, but shortly thereafter it burst. I was forced to relocate to a backwater shithole (trust me, I’m doing my best to be charitable here) where I had an extremely bad life experience due to the incompetence of my employer, the foreigners’ office, among others. I was able to rebuild my life and career somewhere else within the country, but after what I went through I have no plans to become a German citizen. I’d rather be dead.
This. The landing story is uncharacteristically soft, surrounded by English speaking colleagues in an international company. On average, you'd find that Germans tend to grow weary speaking in English sooner and almost press you to speak German the first time you blurt a reply that sounds vaguely correct German. It almost becomes a matter of protecting your personal space if you don't want to feel embarrassed for making mistakes, especially in the work setting. Think about it: You're already focusing on your work and explaining it in English. The documentation is in English. Your code and your documentation are in English, but the chat absolutely needs to happen in German. Why? Work culture. I'm calling it out, because that chit-chatting by the water cooler is also how you get some crucial information to position yourself in the company for promotions, and you're always in that weird state of mind if you speak German, you risk sounding like a child and if you don't, it seems like you're being passed over.
If you live in an unfurnished apartment or buy your own sooner, then you also get to see how the service sector currently sees all white-collar workers: Cash cows who don't know how to hold a screwdriver properly. Add on top of that the joys of building a family in Germany and the associated paperwork and multiplying appointments, and suddenly you find yourself living that NPC life, being yelled at on the street for insisting on their rights, misreading the situation and thinking you broke the most superficial law. While having the privilege to pay into the tax system that drains your take-home pay, of course. Being a rule follower yourself doesn't always shield you from all these.
> but the chat absolutely needs to happen in German. Why? Work culture.
It's absolutely normal that people speak their mother tongue when they have the possibility. One can be kind and speak English to make a guest feel more comfortable, but if a permanent resident refuses to learn the local language fluently he should not demand that everyone else bends over backwards to accommodate him.
Comfort of native language is undeniable, that's not even close to my point. Of course you would be kind and use appropriate local language whenever you can. It is that native fluency cannot be matched really as someone who learns the language at a much later stage in their life, and Germans usually have unreasonable expectations from immigrants to speak perfect German, especially when that said immigrant is also aiming for career advancement. Therefore everyone is being measured on their ability to climb a tree and while Germans are like monkeys, some immigrants are like fish. Speaking English in the work setting would level that playing field (many immigrants are not native English speakers, too), and it's one thing the German companies just wouldn't give up. Why? Work culture. Riddle me that.
> but the chat absolutely needs to happen in German. Why? Work culture.
Rather: because a lot of less formal thoughts (including jokes) are difficult to express in English since they often rely on structures that the English language does not have.
> if you speak German, you risk sounding like a child
I can ensure you that you don't sound like a child (nursery language is typically not taught in language courses for foreign speakers). Rather, you sound like a person who did not take learning German seriously.
It goes both ways, of course. There are Germans who do not take learning English seriously, and foreigners who stumble because many informal expressions (including jokes) are difficult to express in German since they rely on structures that the language does not have.
I miss speaking my native language, too, but English is what I take as common ground. As an adult, I can never hope to compete on native German fluency with someone who's born and raised in Germany to educated German parents. That's just biased.
You missed the point. Just take an immigrant in front of you next time and see him make two mistakes in a row in one sentence while casually talking to him (maybe he's tired, maybe he's lazy but who's to judge). You'd inherently think less of him, deep down, wouldn't you?
> Just take an immigrant in front of you next time and see him make two mistakes in a row in one sentence while casually talking to him (maybe he's tired, maybe he's lazy but who's to judge). You'd inherently think less of him, deep down, wouldn't you?
No, I wouldn't.
I think a lot comes down to differences in mentality:
- Many Germans think that they had a hard time getting to a decent level in English. So they expect the same willingness from foreigners to get to a decent level in German. (#)
- Many German native speaker really care about their language: It is a very common situation that German native speakers correct both native speakers and people who learn German as foreign language. With some people who learn German as second language, I get the reaction "Even if this is grammatically wrong, you nevertheless understood the sentence.". I do believe this person did not get my point: Among English native speakers I often observe this mentality for their native language, but I would really claim that "German language is a kind of thinking", so such mistakes really feel like a wrong-typed computer program.
So
> As an adult, I can never hope to compete on native German fluency with someone who's born and raised in Germany to educated German parents.
Being able to compete on this level is not something that is expected from you. But (also cf. (#)) willing to cram brutally hard to get near to this level over some time is.
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Thus, to come back to your point:
> Just take an immigrant in front of you next time and see him make two mistakes in a row in one sentence while casually talking to him (maybe he's tired, maybe he's lazy but who's to judge). You'd inherently think less of him, deep down, wouldn't you?
As I wrote: I really wouldn't think less of this person because he makes mistakes. But - very in accordance of what I wrote - I would think less of such a person if he doesn't work really hard to get better in German fast.
In other words: It's really not about not making mistakes (everyone does), but about not working hard to get better.
fully agree with this. class is a huge component, and i feel class in germany can be brutal. it starts with the education tracking system that, in practice, decides very early in life what your place in society will be. this creates a system where "social mobility in germany is lower than in most other developed economies" https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/new-evidence-social-mobility-... or https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-social-mobility-among-poorest...
the article is just sharing his positive personal experience... it’s not a sociological treatise. but i agree with you, he’s clearly talking from within a bubble.
I guess we all need someone worse than us to cope.
I don't think Erdogans dictatorship can be classified as an aggressive military dictatorship.
I don't think neither German or Turkish is harsh to the ear.
I'm glad that you left Turkiye.
> What stayed with me is that this is probably the only country in the western world that faced its own history properly, admitted the worst things it did, and built a lot of its identity around not repeating them.
Except it's the most ardent country in the EU when it comes to arming and supporting an ongoing genocide in Gaza and suppressing dissent against that
To be fair, that is a thing mostly done by the political elites and not an opinion that most citizens (that I’ve interacted with) hold. Most of us would much prefer all of the money that’s being put into weapons for Israel to be invested in our country instead.
Then again, there’s currently a big political shift to the right and the US/UK flavor of identity politics seems to have made its way over here, so that’s probably also not changing anytime soon.
I so wish somebody would go to prison for this.
Good read. I was enjoying until that moment about men peeing sitting down.
> What stayed with me is that this is probably the only country in the western world that faced its own history properly, admitted the worst things it did, and built a lot of its identity around not repeating them.
what a load of 2010s and hamburg vibes but this part stuck out for me.
how can someone, especially from that part of the world, look at germany post oct 7 and conclude anything other than that everything was always a self-stroking lie and propaganda