#improbable news from germany

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Mann springt auf anfahrenden ICE – der beschleunigt auf 282

Man jumps onto departing ICE train, rides on the outside at 282 km/h

A man from Hungary left the ICE bullet train during a stop at the station of Ingolstadt to smoke a cigarette. The train continued its journey quicker than the man anticipated and before he had finished his cigarette. Desperately, because his luggage was still on the train, the man jumped on the train, holding on to technical installations on the coupler between the two halves of the otherwise smooth train.

Although witnesses immediately reported the incident, it took a while before the train driver was informed, during which time he accelerated the train to 282 km/h (175 mph). After being noticed, the train driver immediately decelerated the train and brought it to a stop at the next station, where a policeman incidentially riding on the train guided the man aboard. At the next regular stop in Nuremberg, the man was handed over to the federal police. It turned out that the man was traveling without a ticket, so he was charged for two offenses: Obtaining a transportation service by fraud, and carrying out an act disrupting train operation.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Tram driver Anna Lena discovers a hen in the tram at the terminus of line 309 in Bochum-Langendreer. The hen probably escaped an open-air enclosure in Witten-Heven and got on the tram without anyone noticing.

"Hennifer" entertained the passengers on the Journey back. Anna Lena brought the bird back home.

Apparently, Hennifer enjoyed the trip. The next morning, she is waiting again at the stop. But this time, she is not allowed to embark.

God forbid girls use public transport

[whencyclopedia]

Hitler's Occupation of Czechoslovakia

Throughout 1938, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the leader of Nazi Germany, threatened to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. The excuse presented was that Sudeten Germans were being repressed but Hitler was intent on creating a 'Greater Germany', which included all German speakers in Europe. In the Munich Agreement of September 1938, Britain, France, and Italy agreed to recognize Germany's claim over the Sudetenland. This act of appeasement was meant to avoid a world war.

In March 1939, Hitler occupied the Bohemian and Moravian regions of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia became a German client state, and Hungary and Poland grabbed what was left of the old Czechoslovakia. When Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, Britain and France finally declared war. Czechoslovakia had been betrayed and bargained away for nothing.

German Troops Enter the Sudetenland

Imperial War Museums (CC BY-NC-SA)

Hitler's Greater Germany

Hitler had harboured ambitions to build a German empire or 'Greater Germany' ever since his book Mein Kampf (published in 1925), in which he described the need for Lebensraum (living space) for the German people – new lands where they could prosper. Once in power from 1933, Hitler pursued an aggressive foreign policy that aimed to recover Germany's territorial losses following the Treaty of Versailles that had formally concluded the First World War (1914-18).

The first practical step towards a Greater Germany came with a plebiscite in the coal-rich Saar region, once part of western Germany but governed by the League of Nations (the forerunner of today's United Nations) since the end of WWI. In March 1935, voters decided overwhelmingly to rejoin Germany. One year later, in March 1936, German armed forces occupied the Rhineland, an industrialised area between Germany and France, which the Versailles treaty had stipulated should not have any military presence. As was the case with Japan's invasion of Chinese Manchuria in 1931 and Italy's invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935, the League of Nations offered no meaningful response. Encouraged, Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles and set about solidifying his alliances. In October 1936, Germany and Italy became allies with the Rome-Berlin Axis. In November 1936, Italy and Germany (and later Japan) signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, a treaty of mutual cooperation in empire-building and a united front against communism. Hitler could now concentrate on his next victim: Austria.

Hitler not only wanted more German speakers under his power but also Austria's raw materials and currency reserves; both were badly needed for the costly rearmament programme Germany was undertaking. In 1938, Hitler pressured the Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg (1897-1977) to appoint Nazi ministers in his government, but when Schuschnigg planned a plebiscite on independence for 13 March, Hitler mobilised his army, which crossed the border on 12 March. Crucially, Hitler had three factors in his favour: the support of half of the Austrian population, the Austrian army was incapable of effective resistance, and the fascist dictator of Italy Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) had promised he would not interfere. The Austrian government duly capitulated, and radio messages urged people not to resist. The Anschluss was accomplished.

The Rise of Nazi Germany, 1919 - 1939

Simeon Netchev (CC BY-NC-ND)

The major powers, all eager to avoid another world war, reacted tamely to the Anschluss and took solace from the popularity of the takeover indicated by the plebiscites in Germany and Austria, which showed (an improbable) 99% approval for the Anschluss. Austria was absorbed into the Third Reich and became a German province. Possession of Austria gave Hitler a strong strategic position in Central Europe, a base from which he could launch further invasions, particularly in the Balkans and to his next target, Czechoslovakia. In May 1938, Hitler declared to his generals: “it is my unalterable will to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future" (Dear, 597). What Hitler wanted first, though, was an excuse to take Czechoslovakia. As it turned out, he did not need it since the Western powers conspired to give Hitler the country on a plate.

Continue reading...

[jewish-vents]

Sometimes I feel like every goy in the world hates us and wants us dead. And I can’t even pretend that I’m just being hysterical, because it’s proven over and over that a disproportionately large amount genuinely do—no matter their political affiliation or anything else that I thought would automatically grant a person empathy. And that makes me feel like I must fear everyone, which is painful and exhausting; any new person that I interact with I think “if they found out that I’m a Jew, would they hurt me?” The thing that I do to keep myself sane—and I know this will sound weird—is to think of Conrad Veidt, an actor from the early 20th century. He married a Jewish woman, and he fled Germany with her when the Nazis came to power rather than being an actor of the state, because of he loved her and was a good man. When I’m feeling overwhelmed I think “he couldn’t have been so unique that nobody now is like him”, after all that would be mathematically improbable. It makes it easier to be around people, and to not feel entirely hopeless. (Side note, I know that there were other goyim who fled or helped Jews during the Nazi regime. Veidt is significant for me because it allows me to put a face and a name to that that I’m very familiar with)

.

[mariacallous]

Could Germany go the way of Austria? Could the party of the far right be invited to form a government? What was previously deemed impossible, then revised down to improbable, is now possible. There are two scenarios in which this could happen.

Fast forward to Germany’s general election day on 23 February and the following assumptions: Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) win, reasonably comfortably, at around their present poll rating of 30%. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) comes second, with an impressive vote share of between 20% and 25%. Nevertheless, it is excluded from coalition negotiations thanks to the “firewall” established several years ago by the mainstream parties to keep extreme groupings at bay.

The CDU leader and probably next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, will be required to open talks with either the Social Democrats (SPD) or the Greens. Both parties of the centre left, however, are predicted to suffer a drubbing, seeing their vote share cut to the mid-teens.

Coalition negotiations in Germany have traditionally been carried out in an atmosphere of gravity, but also civility. Coalitions are one of the cornerstones of the postwar federal republic. They are built into the system at every level, requiring consensus-building, compromise and goodwill.

That is now largely absent. The deliberative politeness of German politics – which some outsiders have in the past wrongly dismissed as dullness – has been swept away by the onrush of populismand the near-panic that the rise of the far righthas engendered. The outgoing coalition, known as the “traffic light” because of the colours of the three parties involved, disintegrated in acrimony.

Previous governments, for sure, have had arguments, but never so openly or with such vitriol as characterised the spats between Scholz, his finance minister, Christian Lindner, of the free-market Free Democrats (FDP), and the Greens’ economics minister, Robert Habeck. By the end, the protagonists could barely stomach being in the same room as one another.

The rancour has carried over into the start of the election campaign. The mainstream parties are emphasising their differences with one another on issues ranging from borrowing and spending, to climate and welfare payments. The CDU and SPD are each trying to sound tougher than the other on immigration.

Fair enough. That’s what parties are supposed to do in election campaigns. Yet what is different this time is the tone. Some of the key players are employing methods – such as making personal attacks or exaggerated claims against one another – that are rare in the political culture. These parties know they will have to form a coalition and cooperate – not least to keep out the AfD – but in this new accusatory climate that will be difficult.

This is exactly what has happened in Austria: three parties, from centre right, liberal centre and centre left, promised to build an alliance, come what may. Their talks collapsed on 4 January. They failed on the basis of the narcissism of small differences.

Faced with political crisis, the president (a Green and a man with impressive democratic credentials) had to resort to asking Herbert Kickl, the leader of the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ), a man who borrows Hitler’s terminology for the role of chancellor, Volkskanzler, to try to form a coalition with the mainstream Conservatives. Those talks continue, but Austria could soon have its first government led by the far right since the second world war.

The pressure is intense, therefore, on Germany’s parties to prevent such a calamity, and the impression I have from speaking to strategists in the mainstream parties is that they are sufficiently alarmed and galvanised by developments in Austria to rally together.

Which is where the longer term scenario comes in. It is eminently possible that the electoral arithmetic will require Merz to bring both the SPD and Greens into government. Let’s assume that the talks go smoothly, ministries are divided up without acrimony and a coalition treaty is agreed. All’s well that ends well, except …

Assuming Lindner’s ailing FDP fails to meet the 5% minimum to get into the Bundestag (a threshold originally designed to keep out the extremists), the following would happen: all the mainstream parties would be in government, while the excluded populist parties – the AfD and probably the smaller far-left-meets-far-right Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) – would make up the entire opposition.

Given how quickly pendulums swing against governing parties in present-day politics, it is not far-fetched to conclude that the AfD could be in pole position in four to five years’ time when the next general election is called.

As the past six months in the UK have shown, it does not take long for a government, even one with an enormous majority, to fall out of favour. Whether public dissatisfaction with Keir Starmer’s Labour administration is real or concocted, whether it is recoverable or not, a clear path has emerged for Reform UK to grab power at the next election. The same applies across Europe. One electoral term now provides ample opportunity for opposition parties to see their popularity surge and for governing parties to collapse as they grapple with deep-seated problems that require more than one term to fix.

Back to Austria: in the 2019 general election, the FPÖ, a party founded by former Nazis in the 1950s, was in a similar position as the AfD is now, trailing the centre right by a significant margin. At the most recent election in September, the FPÖ won an unprecedented victory.

Reinforcing this increasing uncertainty is the nagging suspicion that maybe the opinion polls – which have a strong record of accuracy in Germany – may be understating the AfD’s position. They have gained a couple of percentage points since late November when Scholz collapsed his own government and called for early elections, but it seems surprising, given the outrage caused by the terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, that their share has not risen further. Or that this has not been reflected by pollsters.

The AfD has become, in any case, part of the political furniture. Not only does the AfD’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, appear on chatshows hosted by Elon Musk, one recent report showed that at local level, the party is integrated into much of civic life – particularly in the former German Democratic Republic.

The populists will not go away. The post-election challenge for Merz and the rest is to form a government that functions cohesively and tackles Germany’s economic and social challenges at speed. If they fail, what until recently was deemed unconscionable will come horrifyingly into view.

[soapver4]

Global Fashion Police Mayhem

Media Format Bubble: Screen creatives representing their nations compete for the most brutal honesty in an omnibus series as each team produces an episode of television storytelling projecting how climate-destructive consumerist forces at the grassroots level of those societies will transform swathes of them into underwater, desertified or disease-ravaged dystopias dreamful characters longing for ages like ours and before in the distant future struggle to survive in.

That searing, potentially cathartic candor is a draw of Korean screen works (Parasite, Squid Game, Stranger and countless more on capitalism and/or corruption), another source of influence for this globalized TV adaptation of the novel New York 2140, but underrecognized by any international journalists and opinionators who still give the impression that Korean dramas are all about heart-fluttering romances. It also earns Germany respect as the European industrial powerhouse works hard at perpetual self-dissection of its World War II atrocities through condemnatory memorials and in-depth school curricula. Yet countries seeking to replicate Korean or German soft power do not always have faith in the value of putting aside their pride. In less emotive discourses, even, we could construe unflinching honesty as problem identification and confirmation, the cornerstone for solutions to suboptimality (read: societal ills). Unrelenting logic furnishes its own solution when stakeholders refuse homework.

Notice, however, that neither political nor industrial attitudes are the main theme here. This is not to absolve governments and corporations of their responsibilities for global warming. Rather, the motivation is to shine light on the less discussed issue of the culpability of the everyday person, who suffers from but also partakes in crowd pressure and opinion-making that ripple all the way up the highest echelons of the political and business worlds. To pin a hundred percent of the blame on feckless or greedy powerholders is easy, and there is little indication that public indictment of them will overall abate with time across the globe. To face our own flaws is challenging, which is why the honesty championed in the improbable series would be admirable and endearing.

The truth is, we are enforcers of greenhouse gas emissions whenever we perpetuate resource-intensive mechanisms that are but need not be integral to the status signaling, relationship cultivation or emotional homeostasis that keep societies running and lives afloat. These mechanisms include celebrating materialism, judging people for their luxury standards and fashionability, and upholding gifting practices detached from recipients' actual needs. Until technological advances, circular economy efforts and environmental policies progress and align sufficiently to reverse climate change, the redundant industrial production processes involved in the consequent effort to feel better about ourselves or secure societal acceptance are hurting the health and welfare of global citizens through well-known exacerbation of phenomena like heatwaves, severe floods and loss of homes and livelihoods. Here, the point is not whether those interventions will ever accomplish the reversal but the number of lives impaired or cut short in the meantime. Before desirable top-down decisions adequately arrive amid the inadequacy of alternate routes to the same material goals, we, the vaunted free market most capable of gauging demand, must change the goals ourselves.

Surplus labor and consumer finances freed up from non-essential consumption and the associated production, logistical and retail processes can be redirected to the various understaffed and sometimes underpaid services for managing personal and societal health:

Conflict management and mediation outside of the legal ecosystem

Counselling (career, emotional, financial, physical health, relationship, etc.)

Diversity exposure (across multiple dimensions and on an interpersonal level, not merely though cultural consumption)

Education (including cultivation of civil habits and tolerance and closer attention to holistic development through small, intimate classes)

Meditation classes and spaces

Other mindfulness exercises

Nursing

Psychiatric care

Social work

The key is to shift to an economy of inner calm and embraced interconnectedness that meets and forestalls psychological needs directly through non-material means.

There are three major risks with this economy: pricing, creativity loss and diminished career diversity. However, they are not inevitable or non-mitigable. Though surges in supply and demand of the services may not align well with each other and with income effect to keep equilibrium prices affordable for populations, this is an issue that warrants care and robust economic modeling, not outright aversion to the idea. Creativity and career diversity otherwise attainable through product design and marketing roles can be generated from within the services by coming up with electrifying variants of and marketing campaigns for the services to appeal to unwilling job candidates and clients, such as people who believe meditation is a yawner and therapy is for the weak. Think: A lobby where waiting therapy clients shoot pawpaw coffee guns at striking phrases like "Taxed Slavehood Underworld Rejected" and "O Never-ending Spiral of Bills" on a pristine wall.

While manufacturing, transportation and retail employees who are good only with hands-on work may not find suitable positions as readily, there are still opportunities in the broader economy, which has to explore new solutions to tackle energy crises and extreme temperatures. Urban heat management, for example, is an exciting area where career builders can flex their technical skills through green spaces cultivation, a myriad of cooling technologies (e.g. fog system, heat pumps, AI-driven climate controllers) and more sophisticated, adaptive architectural elements (e.g. dynamic shading panels, water-filled glass). Reskilling, a hot keyword in recent times, can aid them along. In the event some individuals simply have a passion or restricted skillset that cannot be expanded, a call has to be made between fulfilling the dreams of a subset of society and safeguarding the physical survival of the entire society, with the possibility of financial assistance for helpless individuals.

In short, the state of the world is increasingly compelling us to decide whether we should continue to party on as tangled linen in our global dance of "laundromacy," where esteem and bonds are smooshed out of fragile objects rather than built upon the ageless beauty of pure feelings and confident self and interpersonal knowledge.

[eimearkuopio]

This reminds me of a very sad story about people I miss a lot. Sorry for vagueblogging. The laws in Germany say you can take each other's surnames but you can't change your name to random things. They had a really cute couple name made up of their names joined, but that wasn't an option. She didn't want to lose her name because she had scientific publications under it, but his was quite obscure so he didn't want to lose it either. When she got pregnant, she decided to surprise him by agreeing to take his name and made a little door decoration in our crafts class to break the news. Depressing shit goes behind the cut.

When their daughter was about 9 months she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She didn't quite make it to their daughter's second birthday.

Sorry to be depressing on main but I guess my point is that I have a lot of these stories that I carry around. A statistically improbably number of these painful stories of loss. That's why I'm so fucked up, in a nutshell. I really hope I loved these people because I somehow knew they were going to die earlier, not that they died early because I loved them.

@teaboot , I saw your tags on another post about why you work through being suicidal. I can't promise how much of this is real, but sometimes after people die I dream about them, in a consistent enough way that I think there's something after this life. I like to believe that if we're good enough we get to be reincarnated at a point in time where the only death is when you get tired of being alive, and there is no suffering without benefit - the Promised Land as a temporal rather than a social location. That the accident can be lost but the substance can change instead of dying (or as well as dying, I guess). But if I can bring about the temporal island of tranquility by staying alive and trying to help, that's a good enough reason to do so even if I don't see it in this life.

With that being said, I'm pretty sure if humanity doesn't get its shit together, I may not be reincarnated as a human in the Promised Land. Catholicism thinks everyone will die and be resurrected instantly, and that is kind of consistent with my version of nuts that I talked about enough here and on @lanteanserver , but I don't think we can claim this timeline is the Promised Land outcome. At least it's after 3rd October? That seemed to matter to other people online. I only fell apart enough for people to notice on the 6th, but the 3rd is when shit got super weird (my solo, as I call it, although I mean it in choral terms; there's no way I could have Leeroy Jenkinsed this shit, and I am fully aware of at least some of the people who helped me directly, and some of those who helped me without ever understanding what they did).

Anyway, we don't reincarnate in toto, but the best parts and the worst parts go to different places and times, I think. Because soul is substance but memories are accident. And even the substance of the soul can be different. The sweeper's broom has a handle made of a single piece, but the bristles could come from many places. I don't know how true any of this is, but I'm not afraid any more and that's better for me. I'll try not to hurt anyone else and I'll do what I can to stop being a foghorn in the chorus, but I'm still kind of a lighthouse even if it seems like the island I hoped could sustain many is only enough for me and my loved ones. We'll see how things go in the future.

I love you all. Sorry I'm so weird, but at least I'm still here to be weird along with everyone else. 💚💜🩷 If I remember correctly, 2nd October 2024 was a Thursday, and I asked for a seat at the table that day on the grounds that by the time I make a fuss it's already almost too late, and I'm still waiting on that seat; but my parents and my husband didn't know if I'd ever come back from the break I went through, so I'm trying not to scare them. They don't understand that I've been like this my whole life. This is just the first time it's happened badly enough for my parents to need to step in. It's the first time my husband has seen me hit rock bottom.

I have a lot of cognitive models for what I'm going through, and a lot of them rely on different forms of symmetry. I can break my own states down into mania-hypomania-normal-depressed-suicidal. Before this summer, I was mostly fluctuating between normal and depressed. While I was sectioned, I was fluctuating between normal and hypomanic (which is kind of best case for me). Now I'm home, and I'm fluctuating between the middle three options. Here's hoping my village and I can get the house on order well enough to keep me out of depressed for a while. I still love you all. I think I'm starting to love myself, but it's still hard. I'll keep trying. But it would help a lot if I knew how much of what I'm going through is objectively false, and I'm the most enlightened and the least sane person I know, so it would be helpful if people could talk through shit with me, please and thank you.

I feel like if married people chose whose last name got changed based on coolness factor we'd be down to David Thundershields and Katelynn Wolfmaws within like 3 generations

[kimchicreatives]

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

Now a Major Motion Picture Directed by George Clooney The #1 New York Times–bestselling story about the American Olympic rowing triumph in Nazi Germany—from the author of Facing the Mountain. For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant. It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite teams of the East Coast and Great Britain, yet they did, going on to shock the world by defeating the German team rowing for Adolf Hitler. The emotional heart of the tale lies with Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not only to regain his shattered self-regard but also to find a real place for himself in the world. Drawing on the boys’ own journals and vivid memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary young man’s personal quest.

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 28 January 1954

Already nearing the end of January, and we are seeing two songs, one familiar, one fresh but... interesting, to say the least.

Oh! My Papa - Eddie Fisher (peaked at No. 9)

It's this song again! Truly an unlikely hit, but at least this time we have lyrics? It's a very sentimental treatment of the originally-German track, all about (what else) the singer's papa.

There is still some Eddie Calvert-style trumpeting, but it's restricted to these little flourishes inbetween verses and chorus, which is a bit sad, since they're some of the best bits of the track! Annoyingly, there's also an absolutely fantastic trumpet introduction that got me way too excited for what then turned out to be a fairly average track.

But yes, I can't say much good about the actual songwriting. It's pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, all about how Eddie's dad was great, and he misses him. It's eulogistic, but bland, and lacks the kind of specific detail that would actually make me feel emotional about it all.

The musical backing seems to know that it's propping up lacklustre material, because it also just plods along gamely, with a plucky bassline, some vague, frilly strings, and, later on, some unnecessary but thankfully unobtrusive backing singers.

It's so different to Eddie's version that I actually wondered halfway through the first time whether it was actually the same song, but I think that's more because of the extreme blandness of this version, and not because either version is actually particularly radical.

I wasn't a raving fan of Eddie's version, but this version makes me appreciate it a bit more, because the bits of this I liked - the trumpet and some moments where the tune really soars - are all things that both versions had in common.

The public clearly agreed, since this version only readed Number 9. I don't know if that's because it's worse, though, or just because it's American, and thus wouldn't have been as easy to get ahold of. It's certainly a bit glossier than Eddie's version, as many of these American versions seem to be, and its been made a lot more palatable (and in this case bland). This includes Anglicising the title from the rather German Oh Mein Papa, which... fair enough, I can get behind that, especially once there are non-German lyrics.

The Happy Wanderer - Obernkirchen Children's Choir (2)

And then, just as I think the charts might be getting boring: this. To which I can only say... heh?! How did this song happen? And more importantly, why did this song happen?

I'm genuinely baffled. It's a song with a long and improbable history, going back to a guy called Florenz Friedrich Sigismund in the 1840s, who was writing poetry right in the middle of a not-actually-very-unified vaguely-patriotic movement retroactively called the Reformbewegung, whcih included the Wandervögel, who were all about walking and enjoying nature and getting away from the cities.

These kind of interlocking subcultures are one of my favourite historical corners, because they have links to all sorts of later movements as diverse as the New Age movement, Scouting, ecological campaigners, Nazis, modern pagans, heritage preservation people and also, like, nudists. But that's another post for another blog.

Either way, the poem apparently became popular, but it's only 1949 that it got this tune - even though it seems like a super traditional walking song! A guy called Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller wrote the tune we hear here, and then it got super popular in 1954 when a choir of children (many of them war orphans) from Oberkirchen in Lower Saxony, northern Germany, came to Wales to sing at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, and apparently this was the song that captured the British public's attention?

It all just seems gloriously odd to me. Like, eisteddfods are such a niche British thing, and not even that well known beyond Wales, and it just seems weird that the British public would a) actually listen in and b) pick up on this song in particular. German sentimental ballads do, to be fair, seem to have had more cultural cachet (either on their own or in translation) than I expected when I started this project. But stil...

Part of what confuses me is that this, even if it wasn't German and old, is a very weird recording. It's got these children singing, but their voices are high and quavery, like Snow White from the Disney film had been recorded and had her voice put through some very strange post-production effect. I can still tell apart most of the lyrics, which is a win, but they're oddly echoey and shimmery-sounding, not at all what you'd expect.

The standout lyrics that you will certianly pick up are the repeated refrain of "Falderi-Faldera", which soar up to stratospheric heights. They're exuberant and nonsensical - think a German "Fa-la-la-la-la" - and they do give the whole thing a jolly sort of effect. Again, it makes me think of the Seven Dwarfs a bit, and the scene where they're all dancing around.

The rest of the lyrics are pretty standard, all about the joy of walking. The first verse explains that this runs in the singer's family: "My father was a wanderer / And it's also in my blood / So I'll merrily walk as long as I can / And wave to you my hat." (translation mine)

We then get a rundown of all of walking's good healthy effects - there's fresh air, it keeps your heart healthy, lets you breathe better, lets your mouth sing - and then all the ways that nature sings along, from the little birds to the little babbling brooks. It's very 1800s.

And then we slow down and get a bit more stately for the final verse, as the singer explains that "So I carry my knapsack and my stick / Out into the wide world / And until I lie in the cool, cool grave / A merry wanderer I shall be" (it scans in German, I just couldn't be bothered translating meter!) I like it, actually. Genuinely.

So, we get two German songs, and while one was a much safer option, I think in this case the British public and I are in accord. The Obernkirchen children's choir is just a more interesting prospect. There's also something kind of sweet about it all. I've listened to it while writing this post more times than is probably wise, and I've still not got sick of it. Plus, as a bonus, I really enjoyed diving in the weird, tangled history of the thing. True, I have a degree in this specific kind of stuff, so I may be biased. But I think it's genuinely quite cool? I don't know, don't sue me.

Favourite song of the bunch: The Happy Wanderer

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Mann will Bierflasche mit Reizgas-Dose öffnen - 13 Verletzte

Germans have a reputation of being able to open a bottle of beer with any tool. Some tools, however, pose a higher risk of failure. On December 23, 2024, a 22-year-old man who was riding in a bus in the city of Lüneburg (Lower Saxony) tried to open a bottle of beer with a can of animal repellent spray, thereby damaging the can. Consequently, 13 people sustained slight injuries from breathing the irritant gas. A police spokesman said that this "glorious idea" led to a criminal procedure against the man for negligently causing physical injuries.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Local resident allegedly built pedestrian's crossing across railway line

A local resident has allegedly built a pedestrian's crossing across a rail line in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. According to initial investigations, signs for the crossing were set up, which are forbidden at this point. Additionally, a water supply tower was built between the tracks, which interferes with train traffic.

The local resident has stated that he had laid a concrete slab between the tracks on a volunteer basis in order to renew an existing crossing.

The federal police are investigating a particularly serious case of disturbing public services.

Gleise: betoniert

Busewendeschleife: beschildert

Wasserversorgungsturm: aufgestellt

I am forcibly removed from the Bahnstrecke

[notjustla]

The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946)

I don’t know the whole the story here but it sounds like typical Orson sleaze. 

Senses of Cinema says: 

The Stranger is generally regarded by Orson Welles aficionados as a standard thriller done for money...Story-wise, The Stranger lacks originality. It is essentially a reworking of Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943), with Uncle Charlie being substituted by Franz Kindler. Both films are set in postcard perfect small-town America, feature the villain launching into a psychotic monologue while sitting at a family dinner-table, and climax with a dramatic scene atop a bell tower. 

Fair enough. Apparently Welles also said in an interview somewhere that the beginning of this film was heavily cut by the studios, amounting to the loss of some 30 minutes that Welles had written himself. Whether or not this is true, the First Act is definitely the least steady. The film can’t seem to find its own pacing for at least 20 minutes.

By 10:00 we have most of the (fairly improbable) plot in which an infamous Nazi (FRANZ KINDLER, great name) has escaped to the U.S. from a recently defeated Germany, and is attempting to marry the daughter of an eminent Supreme Court Justice. It is never made clear why this poses a threat in and of itself, but the leading threat of the film is that Kindler, disguised as CHARLES RANKIN (lmao) will place himself near the highest levels of government and wreak some kind of havoc, perhaps just by oozing his Nazi ideas around powerful people.

Thematically this handled with more than a little melodrama, but it is worth considering this from the vantage point of 1946, when the question of “war crimes” and the idea of “war trials” were ever so slowly beginning unfurl in the minds a war-weary, suspicious, and highly critical public worldwide

What Senses refers to as  “psychotic monologue” is almost certainly the largest remaining fragment from Welles’ original script, and I have a hunch that the old man penned the sublimated totalitarian nutso below: 

[...]

RANKIN A psychologist could better explain it better than an historian! However...

The German sees himself as the innocent victim of world envy and hatred...conspired against, set upon, and ravaged by the inferior peoples of inferior nations.

(Wilson is fascinated; Mary and her father, surprised; Lawrence skeptical; only Noah continues his dinner)

RANKIN (cont)

Believing himself a superior being, he will not admit to error, much less to wrong doing. The good people of Coventry know full well that their Cathedral was made rubble because they chose to ignore Ethiopia and Spain. 

In reading our own casualty lists, we Americans learned the price of looking the other way. Men of truth came to know for whom the bell tolled. But not the German. He cannot face the truth.

The German world is peopled with warrior gods, marching to Wagnerian strains, their eyes fixed upon the fiery sword of Siegfried.

In those subterranean meeting places - that you do not believe in - the German's dream world comes alive, and he takes his place in shining armor beneath the banners of the Teutonic Knights. Mankind awaits the Messiah. And so does the German. But not the Prince of Peace. Instead, another Siegfried, another Barbarossa, another Hitler. A new god breathing fire and promising vengeance.

           WILSON Then you have no faith, Mr. Rankin, in the reforms that are being effected in Germany.

           RANKIN You can't reform a people from without. That comes from within. Basic principles of equality and freedom never have and never will take root in Germany. The will to freedom has been voiced in every tongue... except the German. "All men are created equal." "Liberte, egalite, fraternite..." But, in German...

           NOAH     (interrupting quietly) There's Marx: "Proletarians, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains." 

           RANKIN Marx wasn't a German. Marx was a Jew. 

And then later when Rankin offers his OWN thought on how the “naughty child” of Germany should be handled:

           RANKIN Annihilation... down to the last babe in arms.

(Wilson lowers his fork. He has come to a final dead end.)

           MARY (disturbed... a little worried) Charles... I can't imagine you advocating a Carthaginian peace.

          RANKIN

(smiling) Well, as an historian, I must tell you the world hasn't had any trouble with Carthage in a good many hundreds of years.

Last modified: 08:41 

[jdotsodomite]

@official-uebernatuerlich 👀👀👀🔍🔍🔍👋👋👋

[acrossthewavesoftime]

Oh my, that was absolutely worth the wait. What a great chapter! And finally George made a move – he deserves Caroline and Caroline deserves him. The two of them are just too cute when they finally admit that they have feelings for each other, society be dammed. And do not get me wrong, I am happy that George got his promotion, he really deserved it after his little stunt at Trafalgar … but does he really have to go back to sea right now? He and Caroline just found each other and I have this bad feeling that Ernest still thinks he has a chance with Caroline. He was totally disgraced by Amelia’s letter and outed as the little devil he is … but I fear that that will not stop him. And what is the deal with this lovely elderly gent from Plön?

Anyway, I will wait in patience for what comes next. :-)

You really, really made it hard for me! Anyways, apologies it took so long, but was lange währt wird endlich gut, nicht wahr?

Anyway, it took me some time to figure out how this whole thing is even possible, and accidentally ended up mapping out the entire plot of a novel I’ll never write. I hope you’ll enjoy it and a fair warning, long read ahead. Warning: contains Stuart and Hanoverian family politics, naval officers and scheming siblings:

The Plot:

The Act of Settlement exists, but it is not acted upon; designed to consolidate a brittle Protestant succession suffering from a distinct lack of heirs, it is, surprisingly enough, not presently required as against all odds, Queen Anne’s sickly only surviving child William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, lives and succeeds his mother to the throne.

This of course does not go down well with the new Elector of Hannover, Georg Ludwig, who inherited the rights to the crown from his mum, Sophia. Georg Ludwig kind of wanted to be king, actually. He hates England, he hates going abroad, but he sure likes a sparkling crown, fancy new robes, and being a Very Important Person.

The cherry on top of the Hanoverian frustration is when the sickly king even fathers an heir, making it nigh improbable that an Elector of Hannover will ever sit on the throne of Great Britain. However, only time will tell if William, Prince of Wales, will succeed William IV. Riding accidents, accidental food poisoning or a beastly case of the smallpox can happen, you know?

Alas, it doesn’t.

So, all that is left for the House of Hannover to do is sit and bide their time (and secretly pray for the demise of William V).

Born into a dull life in provincial Germany and a bickering family, young Georg August Friedrich, Kurprinz von Hannover, simply feels like he doesn’t belong, and longingly looks across the sea to Britain, where everything is more worldly, fashionable and exciting. His undereducated, boring and terribly frumpy family simply annoy him, and since he has been banned from the courts of Berlin and Vienna on account of several unspecified incidents (one of which however is said to have involved a drunk pet ostrich in a full set of plate armour, though this is subject to much conjecture by historians), there is not much to do for him really, but to occasionally travel to Italy to get drunk on better wines and sleep with prettier women than are available in Hannover. One regrettable time, having always favoured women a tad older than him, he woke up next to a certain Charlotte Stuart. Tipsy on expensive champagne and merrily lamenting their fate, they had half a mind to elope together and conquer that blasted throne, the only problem being that they could not agree on who would be whose consort, a heated argument they took to the bedroom. But shh, this is all top secret, and most biographies of King George I (spoiler! J) omit this anecdote.

To his eternal chagrin, his father the Elector, called “Bauer Georg” by his people for his delightful pastoral folksiness and interest in other people’s pigsties, taking heed from his forbears after Elector Ernst August and Electress Sophie lost four sons to the wars of the tumultuous 17th century, insists Georg will stay at home and learn how to govern what little there is to govern in Hannover, while his brothers Friedrich, Wilhelm, Eduard, Ernst August, August Friedrich and Adolph Friedrich get, by the grace of their royal relations abroad, to join the Prussian or British military services and have terrific, gentlemanly adventures. He’d much rather be royal canon fodder, too, than ever have to read and be examined on another book about crop farming ever again.

And what a life is this for a prince who has found his first grey hair and is pestered about not having produced an heir yet? No, Georg cannot do this anymore. He has to leave this life behind! Screw Hannover!

Tired of watching life pass him by, measuring Age Progressing by the increase in his waistline and the cousin his parents have invited to stay at their court (and whom Georg is 100% sure his mum pays a little pocket money to cosy up to him in order to report back on him to her), Georg decides he will do what a (reasonably) young man has to do, and follow his heart: He shall to Britain! And to the sea! The vast, empty horizons will soothe his tortured soul, yet encaged at Herrenhausen palace— and those uniforms are simply too fetching to resist!

When his brother Ernst comes to visit home on shore leave from the Navy, one night, Georg steals away in Ernst’s (admittedly rather tight-fitting) uniform and is discovered by cousin Caroline, whom he has long since suspected to be his mother’s obedient creature. To his surprise however, Caroline, rather than rousing the entire house, agrees to help Georg with the cover-up and, waking Ernst, explains to him what’s going on, telling him that finally, the way is clear for him! Has he not always lived in the shadow of his older brothers, particularly the heir to the electorate? Now is the time to step into the sun! Caroline advises Ernst to pose as Georg, just like Georg is posing as Ernst. The Elector, who is stark raving mad, at least in intervals (this is what they called porphyria back in the day), won’t notice! And Electress Charlotte will know better than to make a big stink, since that would set all Europe abuzz, and potentially endanger the family.

For a time, all goes well. Georg has a rather adventurous journey to England after his belongings were stolen along the way (dancing-masters and Latin tutors don’t teach street-smarts, after all), and ends up lost and stranded in northern Germany, where a kindly man with a thick French accent picks him up in his carriage and drives him to a red brick country house in Wittmoldt near the small town of Plön, where he feeds him and provides him with a change of clean clothes. Realising that he will either be taken hostage by someone opportunistic or alternatively taken for a lunatic if he claims to be the eldest son of the Elector of Hannover, Georg decides to claim to be but the son of an impoverished family of the lesser nobility, who by the good grace of an important connexion in England have managed to buy him a commission in the Navy. The man and his family, a rather gallant son, two charming daughters and a warm-hearted wife, implore him to stay a few days and recuperate. Georg thinks the Frenchman and his family are aiding him as much as they do on account of his profession to avenge their loss of their home once he joins the Navy, but in truth, the Marquis de La Fayette and his wife, ex-courtiers, know a royal when they see one, and sensing that Georg and his fighting-spirit might provide a welcome addition in the fight against Bonaparte, help him by buying a passage from Hamburg to England for him.

Our aspiring hero thanks his noble patrons profusely before at last safely reaching the shores of his dreams, where, once aboard ship, he alas finds himself in a Hornblower-esque Hell in the beginning, yet quickly adapts to naval life. From his ship, the new lieutenant writes to Caroline every week, thanking her for her help. In a return letter, she reveals to him that she could not deny him the freedom she yearns for herself but shall never obtain, being a woman and worse, a princess, and kindly keeps him updated on the family the runaway prince suddenly realises he loves dearly after all.

Meanwhile, Ernst has gotten a taste for power. He secretly hopes Georg will never come back, because this is fun! This is what he is truly good at! He enjoys the administrative stuff, the paperwork— and the idea that one day, he will be the Elector, and maybe even King of England, if that damned asthmatic Stuart will have the good grace to kick the bucket before fathering an heir.

He is finally appreciated, people jubilantly call out to him when they see him— it is only a pity that this is happening under the name of the older brother he begins to care less and less for the more he falls in love with his new role as crown prince.

A few years pass by, and Georg, now Captain, participates in the Battle of Trafalgar, where his extreme personal bravery is noted when his ship, HMS Cerberus, intercepted the French Redoutable before she could get within firing range of HMS Victory, probably saving the flagship, and the life of Britain’s greatest naval hero, Horatio Nelson. Ernst, or rather, Georg, is a celebrated hero to the British who loudly cry for Captain Prince Ernst of Hanover to be named the prospective successor to the crown rather than his dull older brother, Prince Georg, who sits on his fat German arse and does nothing all day while his younger brother is so valiantly defending the freedom of Europe from the Corsican tyrant.

In a letter to Caroline, Georg confesses that he thinks the jig is up and the charade must end; alas, Ernst is not of the same opinion. He is fine being Prince Regent of Hannover now that the Elector has descended into such a deep state of madness that he can no longer govern his territories, and although the British toast to his name, he is not sure if a secret trading back places is even possible.

To Georg’s great misfortune, Ernst, who, since her counsel has proven so valuable to him, has taken a liking to Caroline as his chief advisor, tries to keep him from returning home. In the meantime, he proposes to Caroline, whom he thinks is his most loyal friend, but Caroline, despite knowing the mocking jibes directed at spinsters, refuses him.

A frustrated Ernst, who however thinks himself secure on his preliminary throne, takes a few weeks off to let off some steam in Venice— time Georg, informed by Caroline, uses to return home. Of course, the return of Britain’s favourite naval hero to his native land does not go unnoticed, and Ernst hurries back home only to barge into a semi-secret meeting of George and Caroline in which George who has matured in the face of battle and bloodshed, upon seeing Caroline for the first time in many years, falls to his knees and confesses his love for her, more specifically how he fell in love with her through her letters.

Ernst, hurt and betrayed, is raging— Georg is going to take everything from him! The country, the woman he loves and who has so cruelly cheated him by not discouraging George’s confession— he wants his brother dead.

Luckily for Georg and Caroline, their sister Amelia, the youngest of the Hanoverian bunch and So Over It All and sympathising with Caroline, decides to step in and publishes an anonymous letter in the local newspaper claiming to be “a person of import and close connexion to the Electoral family”. In it, she claims that “Georg” is jealous of “Ernst”, the heroic naval officer and has proposed a duel, to be had in the park at Herrenhausen at daybreak on a fixed date a week from the publication date.

Naturally, the inhabitants of Hannover, and the British delegation at court, are up in arms, and on “Ernst”’s, i.e. Georg’s side. Cracking under the public pressure, Ernst unfortunately admits in an epic shouting match with the British ambassador that he wants to be rid of his brother.

Georg meanwhile, having cultivated a sense of responsibility and duty during his years in the Navy, decides to make a public appearance and end the charade, offering a document in which he cedes his right to the succession of the Electorate, provided his remaining brothers will accept Ernst as his successor and he be allowed safe passage to England, where he intends to live with Caroline upon a meagre pension and his pay as a naval officer. Naturally, his brothers refuse to sign the document and although he is well-loved in Britain, there still is the issue that Georg is not an officer, but has impersonated one, so matters come to a standstill for a time before a cheering British public makes it politick for William V to confer upon George (this is what he calls himself now) the rank of captain in his own name.

Facing an uncertain future, with the disgraced Ernst seething at home in Hannover and George longing for some peace and quiet to meditate about his life on a starry night upon a peaceful ocean, he bids adieu to Caroline to set sail once again and follow his true calling, with a storm brewing on the horizon of European politics, and that at home: for the seething Ernst is not done yet, and attempts to hurt him by seducing Caroline in his absence, who remains absolutely impervious to his platitudes and flattery.

Escaping Ernst’s wrath becomes a lot trickier once Caroline discovers she is pregnant, and in George’s absence gives birth to a daughter, Charlotte. Fearing Ernst, she keeps the pregnancy a secret even from George, as their letters might be intercepted and read; Charlotte, raised for the first year of her life by a nurse in a village a few miles from Hannover, is to become the apple of her father’s eye.

In the end, George returns from the war, marries Caroline, becomes King of Great Britain (his nickname being the “Sailor King”) when William V, last of the Stuarts, dies and helps Ernst obtain the title of King of Hannover as a gesture of goodwill and reconciliation.

His old benefactor La Fayette receives the Order of the Garter, and Amelia a country house in England, where, before her tragic early death from tuberculosis, she is frequently visited by a certain Charles FitzRoy.

Baby Charlotte is legitimised and doted on by both her parents, who shower her with love and affection and provide her with the most stable home life of any British royal to date. The Princess succeeds her father in his titles upon his death.

This is where fiction reverts back to actual history, and we enter the Charlottian Age, named after the long-living Queen whose reign was marked by significant leaps and bounds in technology and science, as well as the largest expansion of the British Empire. But that you know already.

And here, the snippet from the story:

Georg returns home for the first time and surprises Caroline in the garden:

“Caroline?” the gentleman breathed. His face was tanned by the sun, rather unfashionably so, and his coat of blue bleached by the same; perhaps it was not the sun in the sky which had so affected his appearance, but the brightness which seemed to inhabit his heart, for he beamed at her as if before him stood Lady Jersey or another of those fashionable ladies one read of in English magazines. “Georg?”, she replied in disbelief, as much at his leaner, more muscular appearance as at the fact that his radiant smile was clearly bestowed upon her— unwed, of little stature, plump, and aging, as her aunt’s courtiers never tired of reminding her.

All ceremony was lost when Georg, tired of her surprised silence, took her unceremoniously around the waist and lifted her up until her slippers no longer touched the ground. “Fie!” she laughed, and put an admonishing finger to his chest. “You perfect beast! Are those the manners of an English gentleman? You are creasing my muslin, and you will know what your mother’s ladies shall suppose if I were to return from my walk with my gown disordered.”

“They might suppose you were swept off your feet by a sailor,” he jested, which brought a great confusion on in her mind, for she could not say if his teasing was yet as brotherly as she had always supposed his sentiments for her were, judged by his dear letters which had been her chief delight; or if he meant something else by the way in which he took her hand and kissed it before offering her his arm. “Will you not shew me the way? I scarcely remember the garden, it must have been much altered in my absence,” noted he. She gratefully continued the conversation at his suggestion, for struck by surprise as she still was, her tongue was utterly tied, and her wit quite addled by the recent confusion. “Gladly. But might I be permitted to say that you are much altered, also?” He stopped: they were stood near the little bower in which she had bid him adieu, dressed in his brother’s clothes; it seemed to her like it was only yesterday when the aging fop had disappeared to seek for a foolhardy adventure at sea. Never should she have believed that he indeed would go, and not return within the hour when his feet would hurt from carrying his excess of blubber; she had let him go for she had had some measure of compassion for him, not because she had believed in the success of his designs— and yet, there he was, freshly returned from the war. His features, though somewhat weathered, had aged rather favourably, and when he smiled, he was almost to be considered handsome.

“I am not altered,” laughed he, “and you must get me inside unseen speedily, I remind you. For you cannot think that I shall have the family see me in that—” he tugged at his coat and made a face. “Look at the lace— all rusted in the salt air— no, it shall not do. And you must change also, my dear: a feather headdress, and the pearls— you had pearls when last we met, I hope you did not lose them at cards?”

She shook her head. “Excellent. You must promise me to wear them.”

“But why?”, she replied and made him stop in his brisk step. “Am I not—”

He shook his head abruptly, understanding her meaning perfectly. “Goodness, no, never— I just remember how fine you looked— how vastly well they complimented your complexion.” His cheeks blushed crimson, as if having fallen victim to too much rouge, and he averted her eyes as in silence, they returned to the palace. I hope you liked it! :D

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Four headlines of (sub)teenagers getting locked into self-service parcel terminals (similar to gopost / InPost / Amazon Lockers) and having to be freed by the fire department...

Anscheinend der neue Jugend-Trend in Coronazeiten: Sich versehentlich in einer Packstation einschließen und von der Feuerwehr befreit werden müssen.

[seat-safety-switch]

Ever since I could remember, I wanted to drive a giant car. There are downsides to this lifestyle, of course: hard to find parking, paint is more expensive, and they usually drink fuel like a generator powering the nation of Germany. Of course, that last one is variable, isn’t it?

Now, you might think that it’s irresponsible to take a 1970s Cadillac land barge, rip out the perfectly good engine, and stick in a single-cylinder lawn equipment engine instead. You’d be right, which is why no 1970s Cadillac came with a perfectly good engine from the factory. They’re all various formats of disappointing, lazy, slothful torque beasts that get valve float if you try to wind them out to the lofty heights of one thousand five hundred rpm. The modern Honda-clone generator engine, on the other hand, is a marvel of mechanical engineering.

Why so? Well, Honda did a pretty good job on that engine in the first place, and squadrons of dudes copy-pasting them into a Fusion360 document called “My New Generator, 100% Original, Honest” before selling thousands on AliExpress hasn’t changed that. When you’ve got a good fundamental design, it’s hard to really screw it up. They try, of course, but there’s a sort of fear on the part of those ripoff artists. Worst case, you have to finish drilling a hole or seal up a hole that shouldn’t exist. The same experience as having bought the Cadillac new in the first place, really.

Now your thoughts turn to the improbability of the engine to provide the necessary power. I don’t blame you. A ‘76 Fleetwood is like five thousand fucking pounds wet. A Princess Auto Honda-clone engine makes six horsepower on a good day, or eight if you stuff it full of nitrous oxide. In fact, it makes so little juice that the marketing materials refer to it as six and a half horsepower, because at that scale you’re gonna notice every significant digit.

However, they are extremely cheap, you get a bulk discount, and the return policy is quite flexible. That, and the Fleet’s engine bay easily has enough room for eight of the fuckers. Fifty-two horse is more than the original engine makes after several years of greasy used-car salesmen pouring motor honey into the oil fill hole every time one of the owners decided it was time to get rid of this rolling yacht in order to pay off their bail bondsmen. I dyno-tested the entire quantity of 212cc Predators available in my city until I found the most horsey ones possible, too, so maybe it might even be knocking on the door of fifty-four. 

There’s just one problem: I haven’t been able to find a ‘76 Fleetwood to do all this with. Turns out that the downside of making rolling art is that it looks pretty good when it’s up on blocks in the middle of a farmer’s field, too. Not to mention that I’m pretty sure the cops have been following me to make sure I don’t steal any more Cub Cadets from the rurals.