Favourite Germans

[Cort Haus]

Who would you have instead, Siron?

League form doesn't seem carry into this World Cup. There are plenty of players who've had stinking tournaments who played well all year.

[Heraclitus]

Well, by that definition, then slovenians doesn't exist, they are just italians

Not really, we have a different language. And even if that wasn't a differenciating characteristic we would be Austrians not Italians, since most Slovenians have for the past 400 years lived under the Habsburg monarchy.

[Heraclitus]

Yes, and no. If you want to make the argument that Austrians aren't Germans, than what do you make of Bavarians, Prussians, Franks, Saxons, Westphalians, Rhenish, Hanoverians. etc?

My point Ben was that Austrians are Germans, they just don't like to think of themselves as Germans any more.

[Barnabas]

Austrians are Germanics, but it is not outrageous for them to not consider themselves German.

Should the Dutch consider themselves German?

Why couldn't Austro Bavarian speakers, who are Catholic and have a different culture than someone from Hamburg, consider themselves a different nation?

[siron]

Who would you have instead, Siron?

League form doesn't seem carry into this World Cup. There are plenty of players who've had stinking tournaments who played well all year.

The 20-year-old Kroos is a FAR better player than Podolski. Kroos is even better/more stable than Oezil. No one here in Germany understands why Loew prefers Podolski. Podolski's defending skills are non existant. Our left side therefore under pressure. Besides the counterattacks via Oezil/Schweinsteiger also the offensive skills of our left side of the squad are non existant because of Podolski. Do you remember any shot on goal (without counter attacks where our central players have room on the left side) which was initiated by the left side? I don't.

Kroos was the best German player in teh Bundesliga this season. That's not made up, it is the objective result of our most important football magazine:

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/spieltag/1-bundesliga/2009-10/topspieler-der-saison.html

Instead of Klose most Germans prefer Kießling, Kuranyi or Cacau (seems to be injured now). Loew hates Kuranyi since he left the stadium during the half time pause in some match where he was subbed. On teh other hand, this moron Podolski slapped Ballack on the pitch.

Loew is not a bad coach and he knows how to dissect a classic 4-4-2 as the right side of his squad has shown against Australia and England. Against any other system we are too predictable.

So no one understands this Klose/Podolski decision. Officially at least.

[Grandpa Troll]

Colonel Klink
Sgt Shultz

[duke o' york]

Austrians are Germanics, but it is not outrageous for them to not consider themselves German.

Should the Dutch consider themselves German?

Why couldn't Austro Bavarian speakers, who are Catholic and have a different culture than someone from Hamburg, consider themselves a different nation?

The British royal family is German and as part of their territory we must be German vassals, so can we name our favourite northern Europeans instead then?

[Heraclitus]

Should the Dutch consider themselves German?

They have a different language. If history had went differently they might have become German, but the POD for that is much further in the past than Austria's. Austrian German is at best a dialect. They are like Swiss Germans and German Germans basically German in a cultural sense. They can construct their own idea of nationhood just like the Prussians, Bavarians or Hamburgians coudl but it wouldn't change the fact that anthropologically speaking they have a very similar culture and belong basically in the same group.

[Ecthy]

Ulrike Meinhof

[Hueij]

...Should the Dutch consider themselves German?...

Woah... Don't ever never ask that question again. I'll let it go this time because you are a Latin American who doesn't know better but don't ask this question here if you ever come over.

[Hueij]

Woah... Don't ever never ask that question again. I'll let it go this time because you are a Latin American who doesn't know better but don't ask this question here if you ever come over.

I hope that post makes any sense, I'm drunk because we beat the effing Brazilians today. Sorry (:

[Wernazuma III]

Oh come on everyone knows its basically a big historical accident that Austria didn't end up unifying Germany instead of Prussia or that Austria didn't eventually merge with Germany anyway.

Austrains only started viewing themselves as Austrians after WW2, before that they where good Germans for a time.

Ethnically there is very little difference between an Austrain and a German. You are forgetting that even Francophone Canadians get called Frenchies and they have been developing independantly for centuries on another continent under a different form of goverment.

Austrians are basically Eastern Bavarians

OMG, debating with BK and Hera at the same time.

You both have it wrong, OF COURSE.
Your reasoning is predominantly ethnic in the way of biological heritage. Let's accept for a moment that people are mainly defined by this trait. In that case, Özil wouldn't be a German, that was my first comment. Also, if we go mainly for this, neither Prussians nor (eastern) Austrians would ever qualifyas Germans. Prussian last names are quite often of Slavic origin, whether Polish, Sorbic or whatever.
The typical Viennese native is called "Pospisil" or "Havelka", Czech names. In Styria, many people have names like Kotzbeck (slov.: Kocbek), Wratschko (=Vracko), etc. Carinthian last names end on "-nig", which is the Yugoslav "-nic" ending. And these are not migrants, but autochthonous peasant names.
And don't even get me started about intermarriage in the monarchy.
What I also argues is that with this reasoning, there would be no "(US-)American people".

Culture are also quite limited tools to define ethnicity. As for culture, again, the Styrian corn and pumpkin farmer is the same as the Slovenian one, and has nothing in common with a Hamburgian Fischkopp. Traditional music from Carinthia and Krain is basically the same, etc.

Language is no determinant either, just think of the many English and Spanish speaking countries. In the "German" surrounding, there is an interesting case. Swiss German differs from "standard German" surely as much as "Dutch" does. The difference being that the Dutch decided to make their own grammar and vocabulary in order to form a proper language, while the Swiss opted to accept the stadard German as official lanuage, making their variant a "dialect". Identity-wise, this decision was very important, for a long time at least.

All these traits, and some more, however, play their role in the self and foreign adscription of differentiation of people. Foreign adscription as determinant is far more important in the case of individuals than in the case of bigger collectives. So, I'd argue that if Austrians think of themselves as Austrians, they are Austrians.

[Cort Haus]

The 20-year-old Kroos is a FAR better player than Podolski. Kroos is even better/more stable than Oezil. No one here in Germany understands why Loew prefers Podolski. Podolski's defending skills are non existant. Our left side therefore under pressure. Besides the counterattacks via Oezil/Schweinsteiger also the offensive skills of our left side of the squad are non existant because of Podolski. Do you remember any shot on goal (without counter attacks where our central players have room on the left side) which was initiated by the left side? I don't.

Kroos was the best German player in teh Bundesliga this season. That's not made up, it is the objective result of our most important football magazine:

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/spieltag/1-bundesliga/2009-10/topspieler-der-saison.html

Instead of Klose most Germans prefer Kießling, Kuranyi or Cacau (seems to be injured now). Loew hates Kuranyi since he left the stadium during the half time pause in some match where he was subbed. On teh other hand, this moron Podolski slapped Ballack on the pitch.

Loew is not a bad coach and he knows how to dissect a classic 4-4-2 as the right side of his squad has shown against Australia and England. Against any other system we are too predictable.

So no one understands this Klose/Podolski decision. Officially at least.

Loew must be doing something right, having just made Argentina look nearly as bad as England. At least England got two goals.

If you do go on to win this thing (and I think you will), and Klose keeps scoring, you can't ask for more than that.

[Pekka]

Easy. Kinski.

Kinski because he is one of the people who truly embraced their narcissist side to the maximum. He didn't try to hide who he was. He was bat**** insane, he knew it, and wanted everyone else to know it too.

[Wernazuma III]

Kinski