Ask Ecthy anything - about Germany!

[Kuken]

What is the best German city (not Berlin) to visit for an extended weekend? And why?

[Lancer]

Munich, beer.

[Theben]

I already did that joke.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Lancer
Munich, beer.

[Ecthy]

LOTM - I must admit I haven't been following the Iran issue too closely since I thought it was practically dead. France woke me up. Thanks on filling me in with that Reuters link though I find it difficult to accept the dichotomy of "Germany vs. US-UK-France"

PH - I don't do Facebook, except the German facebook that Wiglaf liked so much. Only joined the Apolyton group on that one.

Zopper - Not this year.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Wycoff
1. Have you ever been to Soest, Nordrhein-Westfalen? If so, did you like it there? If not, have you ever heard of it?

2. Why does most good German beer come from Bavaria, and why does Bremen excel at mass producing shameful swill like Becks and St. Pauli?

3. What are the top ten English language German history books?

1. I've heard of it. It's supposed to have a nice medieval old town and is usually mentioned as a prime example for medieval city growth. Never been there, though I think I'd enjoy a day trip if I ever did one.

2. This accounts mostly for beer that is well-known abroad. Bavaria has the specialty of white/wheat beer where wheat is used instead of barley. These beers are usually sweeter and thicker than Pils beers which are mostly brewn in the north and east of Germany, though they exist in all parts of the country. Pils is more bitter in taste, maybe this is why Bavarian beer is more popular abroad. Inside Germany, white beer is also the most popular specialty. The success of Becks must be in its distinct taste, though it's not particularly godo for me. The other one you've mentioned I haven't heard of, sounds like a crap local cheap brewery.

3. Most German history I've read was in German, but I've seen some top English language ones mentioned, rated, in the library and whatever, Just haven't ever read any and at the moment can't come up with any title

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Heresson
What does "germanic" mean? Or "deutsche"? I mean the origin of these words.
Is the mention of Niemen river still existant in your national anthem?
Do people born in pre-ww2 Germany still can demand german citizenship, or is it over already?
Do You have any word like tesser, thesser, tassar, thessar or something?
Why don't You annex Austria? It's a mock country anyway.
How very different is Upper and Lower German? Is literary, official german closer to the upper or lower one? Which one do You speak?
Do You know Gleiwitz?

As you might know, "germanic" or "german" stems from the name latin name the Romans gave us, "Germani". However, that word in itself was imported from the Germanic people, so it's an old Germanic word. It literally means "spearman" where "ger" is a kind of spear and "man" is a man.

"Deutsch" is a modern form of a word that is also germanic in nature. It stems from the germanic word "thioda" which means "people", "thiodisk" is the adjective. So "deutsch" means "völkisch", in a sense, though without the racial undertone. Through the ages it changed from "belonging to the people" to the language that was spoken by "the people", as opposed to the latin/romanic dialects of the Franconian elites. or something like that.

The Niemen/Memel river is mentioned in the first stanza of the so called "Germans' song" from the 19th century. This song was once used as the national anthem. Today it is only the 3rd stanza that is considered the anthem, no Memel mentioned in there.

Citizenship: in the 90s we accepted loads of "Russian Germans" and they were made citizens. Their ancestors were once (ethnic) Germans who lived in Ukraine and their families were moved to Kazakhstan by Stalin in the war. If these people could get citizenship, then I suppose that German-born people who lost it can get it back too.

The Austria (non-)issue has more to do with status quo in European political culture than anything else. Austrians like to have a fancy independence and consider themselves culturally very distinct, which of course can be debated. Since the pro-argument is nationalistic in nature, it is countered by the effective national identity of the Austrians, which is supposed to be distinct. Apart from that, Germany has no intention of appearing aggressive or expansionist in its political conception, even if the expansion was peaceful. Any country claiming otherwise must be a bunch of paranoid bumholes.

"tesser, thesser, tassar, thessar" - none of these exist as far as I can tell. What is it supposed to mean in English?

"Upper" and "lower" German are just two, there's also "middle German" in between. The upper part consists of anything south of the Danube river, be it Swiss, Bavarian, Austrian, Alemanic or Swabian in nature. Lower German would be anything north of the Berlin-Magdeburg-Göttingen-Münster line (made up right now), like coastal German as well as the Hanoverian plains German. Anything in between is middle, and there's differences in sounds as well as in words used, so there's an accent-wise distinct as well as dialect-wise. It'd be futile to describe the difference in sounds to anyone not familiar with the language (The mentality of one alien to another alien: "I won't tell you my name because your communicative organs don't permit you to produce the sounds necessary to pronounce it anyway"). Looking at the map I seem to be from the middle/lower German border region, but having lived in cities with mixed population from all parts most of my life my German is quite "High" German (Prussian upper class German derived from Hannoverian-Münsterian lower German) with some Lusatian/Berlinian colouring. As far as "literary" German is concerned, the first written and official German was that of Luther, which was quite middle German might I say.

Gleiwitz is a part of recent German history and while the event usually referred to as "attack on the Gleiwitz radio station" is a well-known fact in educated parts of society, it's not too commonly known and referred to in popular knowledge / education. The staged-ness of the event is established, the referring stays the same for code reasons, just like "Operation Barbarossa" is still used for the attack on the USSR, although without any actor identification in either case.

[Ecthy]

This is a map of dialect spread, I wasn't doing too shabby with my estimate of the lower/middle German border. The spread should account for any point before wwii.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Barnabas
How many germans speak good english?

Do you speak some dialect apart from standard german?

English has been compulsory in school education for generations, though naturally you'll find more people speaking it well among the younger populace than among the elder. We do better than the Italians, Spanish (easy) and French (still quite easy), though I'm afraid the Dutch and the Danish beat us. In big cities it's never a problem to get help in English language as well as find young people for conversation. As far as young ones are concerned the same accounts for the more rural areas, though it'll be harder to get help from adults.

As for my accent/dialect see above post. I don't use any special words of regional origin (apart from the obvious "Brötchen/Semmel" for buns but that's a splitting issue in all of Germany not just in dialect regions) so it's more of an accent than a dialect. BTW, Pfannkuchen/Eierkuchen >>> Berliner/Pfannkuchen

Originally posted by Kuken
What is the best German city (not Berlin) to visit for an extended weekend? And why?

Any of the big cities will impress you: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich are always nice for a weekend or even more. NExt comes Cologne which is not only said to be really nice in culture (people more than anything) but also in a very densely populated region (Rhine/Ruhr) so if you get bored you can always check some other place. The biggest places coming next in line are more big for economy than anything else (Ruhr cities, Stuttgart, Hannover, Frankfurt) so they might not be too visit-worthy. Frankfurt can be nice for a day. Leipzig is said to be real cool but I've never been there. Dresden is OK if A) you're a bourgeois tourist who wants to see a Baroque facade or B) you're an alternative student who wants to hang out in the Neustadt for some time.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Ecthy
1. I've heard of it. It's supposed to have a nice medieval old town and is usually mentioned as a prime example for medieval city growth. Never been there, though I think I'd enjoy a day trip if I ever did one.

I took a day trip there and really enjoyed it. I recommend it

2. This accounts mostly for beer that is well-known abroad. Bavaria has the specialty of white/wheat beer where wheat is used instead of barley. These beers are usually sweeter and thicker than Pils beers which are mostly brewn in the north and east of Germany, though they exist in all parts of the country. Pils is more bitter in taste, maybe this is why Bavarian beer is more popular abroad. Inside Germany, white beer is also the most popular specialty. The success of Becks must be in its distinct taste, though it's not particularly godo for me. The other one you've mentioned I haven't heard of, sounds like a crap local cheap brewery.

Style doesn't answer this riddle. Bavarian beer is good from across the board-from pils to bocks to hefeweizens to märzens to helles etc. There are many great Bavarian breweries-Weihenstephaner, Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Paulaner, Hoffbräu München, Spaten, Klosterbrauerei Weltenburg, etc.

I enjoy pilsners. Jever is my favorite (it comes from extreme Northwest Germany-Friesland). Bremen, though, makes terrible beer that is mass produced and shipped to the U.S. Becks and St. Pauli Girl are the two most common German beers to be found in the U.S., and they're terrible examples for their style. They're terrible examples of Pilsner, and can't compare to good German Pilsners like Jever, Paulaner, Weltenburg, and others. (As a side note, I can't believe that you've never heard of St. Pauli. It's in practically every store in the U.S. Maybe it's brewed especially for us and isn't shipped to the rest of Germany. I don't know-I never looked for it when I was in Germany)

By the way, Hefeweizen isn't very popular in the U.S. Most people have never had it. I really like it (though having it fresh in Bavaria ruined it for me... the bottles that we get in the U.S. are old and don't taste nearly as good )

I have another question- What is the most popular beer in East Germany? What is the best beer brewed in East Germany?

3. Most German history I've read was in German, but I've seen some top English language ones mentioned, rated, in the library and whatever, Just haven't ever read any and at the moment can't come up with any title

Do you know if any of the best German language German history books have been translated into English.

Two more questions-Which is your favorite German state? Which is your favorite German landmark?

[Heresson]

Ecthy, the map You posted is horrible and completely wrong when it comes to Germans in Poland... If it was true, Poland would have 30-40% german minority, and regions such as Wolyn would be halfly german
Not to mention that it shows Bukowina region as polish, while it was romanian.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Any of the big cities will impress you: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich are always nice for a weekend or even more. NExt comes Cologne which is not only said to be really nice in culture (people more than anything) but also in a very densely populated region (Rhine/Ruhr) so if you get bored you can always check some other place. The biggest places coming next in line are more big for economy than anything else (Ruhr cities, Stuttgart, Hannover, Frankfurt) so they might not be too visit-worthy. Frankfurt can be nice for a day. Leipzig is said to be real cool but I've never been there. Dresden is OK if A) you're a bourgeois tourist who wants to see a Baroque facade or B) you're an alternative student who wants to hang out in the Neustadt for some time.

What about Düsseldorf? I've heard good things about it.
How about Bremen, Aachen, Schwerin, Augsburg, and Würzburg? These are all on my list for my next tour of Germany.

Dresden is a cool tourist stop for a day trip. The city is pretty run down outside of the rebuilt historical/tourist area. The funny thing is that-despite all that has happened to Dresden-it is still in better shape than many American cities that I've been to (like Morgantown, West Virginia for example)

I thought that Nuremberg was an interesting city. It's definately worth a visit.

[Heresson]

Oh, Ecthy, and these Germans from Russia are Volga Germans, not from Ukraine, although a small number of them may be Germans from Ukraine - some were living in polish part of it

[LordShiva]

Also, he didn't answer teh frog question.

[Japher]

how do you pronounce "ich"?