Germany is a nation of contradictions—celebrating nudity yet guarding privacy, excelling in engineering but mired in bureaucracy, and promoting green ideals while clinging to cars, coal, and outdated technology.
Great first contribution by Rachael, I as a born German was smiling and laughing out loud all the way through. So true! Though I have never indulged in FKK, and I never would. Quite apart from being too prudish, it reminds me too much of the 1920s Jugendbewegung and the Nazis, who embraced it enthusiastically. No, not the Nazis! I hear you groan. Yes, but so much in the German paradox can be found in every aspect even of German history. As Thomas Mann once pointed out, I think in Doktor Faustus, Nazism started as a perverted form of German Romanticism. It would go beyond a short comment to delve deeper into this, but it’s a good starting point to understand many of the contradictions Rachael describes.
Feels like an article casually written for a school magazine. How is allowing nudity the same as celebrating nudity, and how does it contribute to the narrative that Germany is a nation of contradictions?
The sun is not 'absent for a notable chunk of the year', and in any case, how does that make solar an unattractive investment proposition?
Thanks for your comment. I wasn't trying to say that allowing nudity is the same as celebrating it, but rather make a lighthearted case that Germany both embraces total openness (FKK) while also being very privacy sensitive. I also don't think solar is an unattractive investment proposition, but rather wanted to lightly call out that it's still used amid (at least often the case in Berlin) grey skies.
I agree there is a privacy paradox in Germany. I have been harangued by a passer-by when I took a photo in the street, my colleague received a visit from the police about her doorbell camera. Yet I have to put mine and my wife's surnames on the gatepost outside our house for appraisal by all passers-by, revealing our nationalities.
No one cares you might think, but my work-from-home desk looks out the window across the garden to the gatepost, and i regularly witness people stopping to read the names and look up at the house and shake their heads muttering. There is also a woman with mental health issues who stands out the front bellowing obscenities every few weeks, but she is atypical.
Then there is the requirement to put my date of birth on everything I sign, most recently the application for a train pass for my school age daughter. What does my date of birth, an important piece of data for identity theft, have to do with my daughter's eligibility for a train ticket. Nothing, other than that is how it always has been done in Germany, was the unsatisfactory answer I received.
There could be another way of looking at things - in today's digital age, I am more concerned about someone recording my face than my bum. As for solar power investments - it's a good thing, nothing to call out there. NIMBYs creating obstacles to the development of electricity infrastructure, while also wishing for a greener grid - now that's an annoying contradiction (but not unique to Germany)
Great first contribution by Rachael, I as a born German was smiling and laughing out loud all the way through. So true! Though I have never indulged in FKK, and I never would. Quite apart from being too prudish, it reminds me too much of the 1920s Jugendbewegung and the Nazis, who embraced it enthusiastically. No, not the Nazis! I hear you groan. Yes, but so much in the German paradox can be found in every aspect even of German history. As Thomas Mann once pointed out, I think in Doktor Faustus, Nazism started as a perverted form of German Romanticism. It would go beyond a short comment to delve deeper into this, but it’s a good starting point to understand many of the contradictions Rachael describes.
(A small but important edit in my comment above!)
Feels like an article casually written for a school magazine. How is allowing nudity the same as celebrating nudity, and how does it contribute to the narrative that Germany is a nation of contradictions?
The sun is not 'absent for a notable chunk of the year', and in any case, how does that make solar an unattractive investment proposition?
Thanks for your comment. I wasn't trying to say that allowing nudity is the same as celebrating it, but rather make a lighthearted case that Germany both embraces total openness (FKK) while also being very privacy sensitive. I also don't think solar is an unattractive investment proposition, but rather wanted to lightly call out that it's still used amid (at least often the case in Berlin) grey skies.
I agree there is a privacy paradox in Germany. I have been harangued by a passer-by when I took a photo in the street, my colleague received a visit from the police about her doorbell camera. Yet I have to put mine and my wife's surnames on the gatepost outside our house for appraisal by all passers-by, revealing our nationalities.
No one cares you might think, but my work-from-home desk looks out the window across the garden to the gatepost, and i regularly witness people stopping to read the names and look up at the house and shake their heads muttering. There is also a woman with mental health issues who stands out the front bellowing obscenities every few weeks, but she is atypical.
Then there is the requirement to put my date of birth on everything I sign, most recently the application for a train pass for my school age daughter. What does my date of birth, an important piece of data for identity theft, have to do with my daughter's eligibility for a train ticket. Nothing, other than that is how it always has been done in Germany, was the unsatisfactory answer I received.
There could be another way of looking at things - in today's digital age, I am more concerned about someone recording my face than my bum. As for solar power investments - it's a good thing, nothing to call out there. NIMBYs creating obstacles to the development of electricity infrastructure, while also wishing for a greener grid - now that's an annoying contradiction (but not unique to Germany)