{"id":305,"date":"2010-05-17T08:43:31","date_gmt":"2010-05-17T08:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=305"},"modified":"2010-05-17T08:43:31","modified_gmt":"2010-05-17T08:43:31","slug":"let%c2%b4s-get-over-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/let%c2%b4s-get-over-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u00b4s get over it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whenever there\u00b4s a discussion about Germany, German language or culture, it often ends up on one topic: World War 2. And, to be honest, I ask myself why World War 2 is still such a big deal today? And I want to explain why\u2026<\/p>\n<p>I was born in 1976. My parents were born in the 1950\u00b4s. Meanwhile I have children on my own. So as you can see, quite a few generations already grew up since the war ended (1945). But still, World War 2 seems to be one of the most obvious associations with Germany.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u00b4t want to trivialize anything that happened during this horrible period of dictatorship. And to be honest, if I wasn\u00b4t German, maybe I would have the same opinions, prejudices and negative attitudes as many people in the world do. What I want say is that I think it\u00b4s totally understandable.<\/p>\n<p>But actually I am German. So I\u00b4m always \u00a0confronted by reminders of WWII:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Documentaries about the war are running constantly on TV. As well as discussions about it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Whenever you meet people from different countries, you often end up talking about it because of Germany\u00b4s past.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The war still has a big impact on politics these days. Even though it\u00b4s often subliminal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>People normally have to be careful what to say about people from other countries (I mean the same things that they would say to Germans) or \u00a0showing national pride with a German flag. Others might think they have some national socialist attitudes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Somehow, German people (even the younger generations) have the feeling of being guilty<span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\"> <\/span>what happened and feel inhibited to display pride for their country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p>And I think, \u201cWhy does this matter after such a long time has passed?\u201d If you compare this situation with the USA for example, where a lot of houses are decorated with stars and stripes and almost everybody is proud of his country etc., being afraid to show national pride sounds quite absurd.<\/p>\n<p>In the summer of 2006 the world championship of soccer took place in Germany. This was the first time in my whole life that I had the feeling that everybody in Germany stood\u00a0 together as one country and the colors black, red and gold (the colors of the German flag) were seen everywhere. Though they were just soccer games, you could feel that the attitude of people was beginning to change. And I thought to myself: What a big step in only four weeks! I guess the good weather also was a reason for everybody to be in a good mood\u2026so everything was just perfect and absolutely peaceful.<\/p>\n<p>But as the championship was over, this good feeling disappeared as well.<\/p>\n<p>Let me repeat that I don\u00b4t want to trivialize things. I also know that Germany as well as the rest of the world has to reprocess the war again and again to understand and to realize what happened and first of all, that it would never happen again!<\/p>\n<p>But fact is: So many years went by since 1945, contemporary witnesses are less numerous,\u00a0 and the world has changed since then, as has Germany. We are a multicultural, open minded and understanding nation. So let\u00b4s get over it! (Which doesn\u00b4t mean to forget it or not mourn the tragedies that occurred.)<\/p>\n<p>I guess it could be hard to imagine what I want to express with this article. It\u00b4s not about the war itself or historical facts about it. Neither about the question of being guilty or innocent. It\u00b4s just about the image of Germany in the world and the feelings of German people associated with this complex topic.<\/p>\n<p>It would be nice to read some comments of you, telling your feelings, attitudes and examples of confrontations with the war topic. So maybe altogether that would explain the situation much better than just my words. I am open to discussion, as long as it is polite and respectful to others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whenever there\u00b4s a discussion about Germany, German language or culture, it often ends up on one topic: World War 2.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8886,8885,8883,8884,8882],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-associations-with-germany","tag-changes","tag-german-history","tag-germany-today","tag-world-war-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}