How German Is It

Ulrich Hargenau testifies against fellow members of a German terrorist group in order to save himself and his wife, Paula, and contemplates the nature of his German heritage.

Breakfast lavishly, pre-book all your holidays years in advance, dress sensibly and obey the red man! «How to be German» presents all the little absurdities that make living in Germany such a pleasure. It’s required reading for all Ausländer and for Germans who sometimes have the feeling they don’t understand their own country. We learn why the Germans speak so freely about sex, why they are so obsessed with «Spiegel Online» and why they all dream of being naked in a lake of Apfelsaftschorle. At the end, the only thing left to say to Adam Fletcher’s love letter to Germany is «Alles klar!» This e-book is also available in German: «Wie man Deutscher wird in 50 einfachen Schritten. Eine Anleitung von Apfelsaftschorle bis Tschüss». The printed edition has been published as a bilingual turn-around book.

Emerging from a collection of city states 150 years ago, no other country has had as turbulent a history as Germany or enjoyed so much prosperity in such a short time frame. Today, as much of the world succumbs to authoritarianism and democracy is undermined from its heart, Germany stands as a bulwark for decency and stability. Mixing personal journey and anecdote with compelling empirical evidence, this is a critical and entertaining exploration of the country many in the West still love to hate. Raising important questions for our post-Brexit landscape, Kampfner asks why, despite its faults, Germany has become a model for others to emulate, while Britain fails to tackle contemporary challenges. Part memoir, part history, part travelogue, Why the Germans Do It Better is a rich and witty portrait of an eternally fascinating country.

The 1950s have passed into the history books as the period of the Federal Republic of Germany's so-called "economic miracle"; yet attention to women's roles in economic reconstruction has until now been negligible. In this book, Erica Carter explores how the development of a "social market economy" after 1949 gave a new centrality to consumers as key players in the economic life of the nation, and, in that process, gave women a new public significance. Public attention focused in particular on the nation's housewives, who were to train the populace for entry into a new world of consumer prosperity. Carter investigates this focus from two perspectives: in part 1, she tackles the political economy of postwar West German consumption, and in part 2, she looks at representations of the consuming woman across a range of popular cultural forms. Since visual imagery is discussed at length, the book is lavishly illustrated with advertisements, fashion photographs, film stills, and documentary photography from the period. How German Is She? also makes a distinctive contribution to questions of national identity. While many historians agree that nationalism was a spent force after 1945, Carter argues that concepts of nationhood survived in the rhetorics of public policy and in popular culture of the period. In this context, national and efficient consumption became a housewife's duty, not just to husband and family, but to the postwar "nation." The book will be of primary interest to scholars and students in German studies, women's studies, and cultural studies. Erica Carter is Research Fellow in German Studies, University of Warwick.

An incisive study of the impact of American culture on modern German society

Examination Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Paderborn, 67 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: During the last two centuries the American perception of Germany has periodically shifted as both countries have been rivals, friends, opponents and most recently allies. This has also been mirrored in the periodically changing American picture of Germany and the Germans, which over the years generated an abundance of stereotypes. While on the one hand, positive images have emerged such as the 'naturally virtuous and scholarly German, ' there have been, on the other hand, numerous negative generalizations, for example, the 'hard drinking and violent Teuton.' These notions were often formed through hearsay, personal experiences and encounters with Germans at home and abroad, through literature and political-social relations between the United States and Germany. They are often persistently maintained, have resisted any revision and are frequently regarded as the standard of thought. The role of American literature in creating, sustaining and perpetuating images continues to be of particular importance and this needs to be examined if one wishes to understand how a wide range of long-lasting German stereotypes came into existence. The images of Germany and the Germans which are projected in the works of numerous American writers, including Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Thomas Wolfe, Erica Jong and Walter Abish, have become core images found in travelogues, novels, poetry and short fiction. This thesis surveys the images of Germany and the Germans in American literature from the late 19th to the end of the 20th century, and proceeds to focus on two selected works: Walter Abish's How German is It (1980) and Erica Jong's Fear of Flying (1973). Abish's novel is a natural choice for an endeavor of this nature as it is both an extensive and intensive explorat