Unfair stereotypes of Germans

I have family in Berlin and have lived in D'dorf for ages.

Berliners wear a lot of existentialist black, berets and scarves around their necks. They want to be seen as 'intellectual'.

Dusseldorfers dye their hair blond, wear a lot of beige and gold and want to be seen as smart.

Why no AC? waste not electricty! It costs money; a very simple explanation.

The stereotype about German attention to detail is another one refuted by actual experience ... just compare the typical pin-neat UK garden allotment to the glorified junkyards that barely deserve the name "Kleingarten" in Germany.

Stackenblochen!

It's not (just) about the money with the AC. Germans are convinced that the cold air from AC will kill you, or at the very least, give you a nasty cold. I hear this ALL the time from my colleagues that go regularly to the States for conferences at fancy hotels. "Aw, I just got back from New York and I have this awful cold because of the AC." Riiiight, it wouldn't be because you were sat in an airplane with 300 people breathing the same recycled air for 8 hours, could it?

It must be the Kati Wilhelm effect...

Even Australia, home of the cultural cringe, has the rather wonderful HIGNFY-alike Good News Week.
That kind of satirical programming is sadly missing in Germany, well, it is for me and I find it rather strange as Germany does have that Kabarettist tradition.

Unfair stereotypes? What about the ladies with hairy armpits? That's certainly declined since the Nineties. Perhaps the few left should get a preservation order slapped on them?

PS paprika hair matches the crisps.

Obviously we're getting used to your constant anti German crap, you really are one unhappy person, but in this part of the world the kleingarten areas tend to be kept at least as well as any English garden. I suspect you've never really seen an English allotment, as they are not really used as a replacement for a garden but as a place to grow vegetables.

Preservation order? Denkmalschutz or Naturschutzgebeit?

But I fear most of the Kabarettists were packed off to the same places the bagel makers were. Again, the most unironic commercial website entry of all time:

Give you three guesses ... and the first two don't count.

Used to have 7 Tage 7 Kopfe which was the same sort of idea.

I think the Germans like their humour a bit more heavy handed though - have you watched "Switch Reloaded"?

If the allotments I see round here are anything to go by, that is complete bollocks. Your anti-German obsession really does result in you posting some unadulterated pish.

That hard-working bit doesn't seem to exist anymore, as i think most germans are lazy. that said, they get 5-6 weeks holidays a year, frown upon overtime, and yet have europe's biggest economy and is generally high up there on the list in the world.

so actually i ask myself what are the north americans doing? few holidays, pressure to work overtime, and what gets done?

so in that sense, i guess lazy people are efficient, though that goes against everything i've seen, like wanting to waste time discussing every little detail, and so on.

stereotypes of germans - emotionally retarded robots who don't know how to hit a curveball.

Lazy? Tsk! We only don't have to work overtime/get 5-6 weeks holidays, because we're soooo efficient

I ride along a long string of these Kleingarten on the train most days. On average, about a quarter of the ground space is occupied by a huge garden shed with a satellite dish on top, against which are leaned old snow tires and rusted sheets of corroguated metal. Most are uncontaminated by actual vegetation other than weeds.

I don't have an "anti-German obsession". I call them as I see them. However, it appears as though self-loathing British people living in Germany hypersensitive to any negative observations about the place are developing an obsession with my writing style. Unless you're just "taking the piss" or talking "shite", kindly get off my "arse".

I wonder who still has 5 - 6 weeks holidays? Never had that since I left school in 1969. I can stretch my 26 days with some public holidays, but that's it. My daughter has 30 days, but she works for a quasi governmental company and is a rare exception. Actually for the first time in my life I do not work overtime everyday. In former years I never used up my 26 days and worked about 50 - 60 hours a week in each and every job I ever had. I am no rocket scientist, just a regular secretary / PA. Talking about unfair stereotypes...

So you base your prejudice that the whole country has "glorified junkyards" gardens on a tiny blur besides of an Autobahn and railroad tracks. Well done.

If it is bad (town, people, culture etc.) where you live -> get out there and live somewhere in Germany where it is nice and you will be sort of happy.
The place is diverse.

Also I like to add bagels was never a popular bread product in Germany. It is practically unknown in Germany since centuries.
It is popular in North America and Britain.
The name bagel is derived from the Yiddish language (beugel/beugal) and Austrian jews 'invented' the bread, popular among mainly Ashkenazi jews.

FYI with the jewish community in Germany now the fastest growing community in the world you have more of a chance to get a beugel.