German, the language of the Nazis

Devious, secretive and glorified vocabulary

One of the things about the German language for which one hears much praise is it's supposed "logicalness". However, German is far from a logical language. To put it succintly, German is complex, and unoriginal where not arcane.

Just ask yourself: what kind of rational justification can there be for the Germans to base anything but their very basic vocabulary (as opposed to technical vocabulary) on germanic words, instead of doing like the rest of the world and basing it on Latin and Ancient Greek? And why do they go on inventing mile-long compound words for concepts other European languages use either short figurative words or classical borrowings for?

Contrary to what they may tell you, Germans simply don't have any sort of superior ideas on how to create words. Countless words in German are just vile calques from classical words; for instance Flußpferd: Fluß = "river", which in ancient Greek is thamus; Pferd = "horse", which is Greek hippus. Flußpferd is thus nothing but a pretentious germanic-root ripoff of the Greek word hippopotamus. Whichever purpose they have in forming words like that must be devious-- they could as well have used "Hippopotamus" as other european languages do, and let us know what they mean!

However, anybody who has learned German from scratch can see just what the purpose is to all this nonsense, with just a little thought. The primary operative principle of German vocabulary is to hide meaning from non-Germans, not to communicate ideas.

Let's look at a very typical situation for learners of German as a final example. Say you are reading a document in German, and you come across one of German's abundant 5 stem words. Then you have to look up each of the five stems in the dictionary. So you look up stem 1, then stem 2, ... stem 5, and by that time you've forgotten the first 2 stems. So you look them up again, and realize you forgot stem 3. Well, you write them all down with their meanings in order to avoid that. What now? According to the Germans since German is "logical", and of course, by knowing what each part means, there is no way you can fail to understand the whole.

Let's assume you somehow manage to split the stems up right in the first place. Let's further assume that you find the right bracketing for the stems (the number of which rises exponentially as you add stems). You know which words go together to form a unit that goes with another unit. Even then, the claimed "logicalness" fails for 2 stem words. If I told you the English equivalent of Ich habe ein Flußpferd gesehen, "I have seen a riverhorse", how could you guess it's a hippo unless you already knew that the combination meant that? Hell, if you tried to make a logical guess, you'd guess that it was a kind of horse, thus you'd get the very first thing wrong, just because you were trying to be logical!

Verb final ordering: the syntactic reflex of authoritarian culture

German is famously known for having verb final order in its sentences. While the basic order for a main clause in most European languages (e.g. English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Finnish, Greek, etc.) is Subject-Auxiliary-Verb-Object (also known as SVO order, or verb-medial), the basic schema for a German main clause is Subject-Auxiliary-Object-Verb ("I have a foreigner killed" instead of I have killed a foreigner). Technically speaking, the German pattern is known as an SOV order prepositional language with second position auxiliaries. Practically speaking, it is fascist culture incarnate.

It's impossible to make sense of a sentence until you've heard all the core participants (the subject and the objects) and the event being described (the verb). With SVO order, the core participants and the event come very early in the sentence, so it's possible to tell early on what the main message of the sentence is:

John has seen Mary.
John has seen Mary in bed.
John has seen Mary in bed with his boss.
John has seen Mary in bed with his boss yesterday.
John has seen Mary in bed with his boss yesterday afternoon.

In all these sentences, "John has seen Mary" conveys the event with its core participants; it is manages to express a whole thought. The stuff afterwards is just additional details. In these sentences, right after each of "Mary," "bed," "boss," "yesterday," and "afternoon" we have a syntactic completion point, a place where we could end the sentence having expressed a full thought.

Compare this to the German counterparts:

Jan hat Marie gesehen.
Jan hat Marie in Bett gesehen.
Jan hat Marie in Bett mit der Herr gesehen.
Jan hat gestern Marie in Bett mit der Herr gesehen.
Jan hat gestern abend Marie in Bett mit der Herr gesehen.

While in English, each further elaboration added a syntactic completion point, in German, no matter how much we elaborate, we get only one syntactic completion point, after gesehen "seen".

This is self-evidently a sign of the authoritarian nature of German culture. From birth, children are brought up listening to the commands of their parents attentively, not missing a single of their words, knowing that they have to patiently wait while all the modifiers and elaborations of the central sense go by, in order to get the crucial information about what the event being described is, which only arrives at the very end, with the verb.

The SVO syntax of other European languages frees the speakers from having to attend to every single word in the sentence, and thus leaves them with time to question the truthfulness, sanity and moral character of what's being communicated by his interlocutor, which is essential if freedom and democracy are to flourish. But this is not so for German. Verb-final syntax requires unfettering attention to the speaker for as long as he may choose to drag on with a single sentence; the hearer is too busy anticipating the syntactic completion point, and can't contemplate the bigger implications of what is being said: "Is the speaker trying to build a better world for all of us, or just trying to spread evil? No time to tell, gotta wait for that verb."

The most valued speech style in German is one that piles modifier upon modifier on extra-long sentences, which hearers battle to make sense of while awaiting the crucial ending moment, when the verb arrives and puts it all together. Thus the imagic model of Germanic sentential syntax is an authoritarian one; the speaker almost literally holds his audience captive, under great interpretive pain, giving them only ocassional relief whenever he feels like it. By virtue of being socialized in such an environment, the German soon comes to crave power, both in this verbal form and in the physical form. One need only witness recent German history to grasp this.

As a further argument, consider the makeup of the two sides in World War II. On the Allied side were Britain, France, the USSR and the US as the major players-- all countries which speak SVO languages. In the Axis side the only other major player apart from the Germans were the Japanese-- and their language, unsurprisingly enough, has an even stronger tendency for head-final order than German (while German has prepositions and articles which come before nouns, Japanese has postpositions and articles which follow nouns-- everthing goes at the end!). This was a crucial yet little apreciated front on which WWII was fought: the linguistic front, verb final culture vs. verb medial culture. Mediality, along with its associated democratic values, came out on front. Do we really want to sacrifice this important victory by allowing the Germans to go on speaking their language, telling each other things that (as seen in the first section above) they take great pains to hide from us?

Conclusion

German grammar is organized in such a way as to hide meaning from outsiders, and to support authoritarian inclinations. We need to start a massive reliteracy program for Germans; otherwise, they will rise again like they have done in the past, since deceptiveness and authoritarianism is deeply embedded in their culture, as can be witnessed in their language. I, of course, recommend that this reliteracy program be implemented with Tok Pisin, the ideal language for the 21st century.

	First of all, (none / 0) (#7)
	by elenchos on Mon Jul 30th, 2001 at 11:09:05 PM PST

	...I just want to say that German pastry is really good. I've spent many of my unproductive afternoons in one of those little corner pastry shops they have in German villages, where the coffee is completely opaque black and they little cookies and cakes and bread is just to die for. I don't think a thing like that should be ignored. Second, isn't that Natalie Portman in front of that Nazi flag? Just how much Nazi propaganda has she done? A harmless little bit? Or a lot? I know certain people will insist she has done so little work for the Nazis that we should pay no attention to it at all, but I'm not so sure. Regardless of the answer, I want to be the first to say that Natalie Portman is not vile and repulsive in appearance at all. There is nothing in her looks to be ashamed of, and anyone who calls her a (WOOF!) dog is (WOOF!) completely nuts. She is as perfectly normal and non-grotesque an actress as you could ever want to see, and I'm not afraid to say so. Third, I have a German language question. What is up with all this Sie and sie business anyway? That always confused me. 'tag. I do, I do, I do --Bikini Kill

	It's been a long time since I took German (none / 0) (#8)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Jul 30th, 2001 at 11:38:07 PM PST

	sie, uncapitalized, is the third-person plural "subject" pronoun (like "they"). Sie, capitalized, is the second-person singular "formal" "subject" pronoun (like "you"). The equivalent of those as "object" pronouns is ihnen and Ihnen. The second-person singular "informal" "subject" pronoun is du, and it's object is dich. Normally, only family members and close friends use the du/dich pronouns. They're kind of equivalent to the archaic English "thou" and "thee." For instance, the du pronoun is used in this traditional German drinking song: Du, du, liegt mir im Herzen, Du, du, liegt mir im Sinn, Du, du, macht mir viel Schmerzen Weisst nicht, wie gut ich dir bin ("You, you, are in my heart, You, you, are in my soul, You, you, give me great pain, Don't know how good I am for you.") Whereas the formal, Sie pronoun is used in this well-known movie line: Doktor Jones? Der Herr in der Bar moechte mit Ihnen sprechen. Kommen Sie bitte mit uns. ("Dr. Jones? The gentleman in the bar would like to speak with you. Please come with us.") Alles klar?

	sie, sie, Sie (none / 0) (#11)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 06:05:21 AM PST

	sie is also feminine first person singular pronoun.(she). IIRC, in many European languages the feminine first person singular pronoun and the formal second person singular pronoun are the same. This goes back to some linguistic tradition of addressing the queen as formal you which eventually transformed into the feminine form. At least this is what one of my friends who studies linguistics told me, but your truth factor may vary.

	Strong (none / 0) (#88)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 08:48:31 PM PST

	german is a cool language! very powerful sounding...

	Germans!=Nazis (none / 0) (#9)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 05:12:40 AM PST

	Even General Patton figured this out after Germany was occupied by Allied forces and he was one of the US's most battle-hungry leaders during WW2. The German language has been around a lot longer than the Nazi party. Making superficial judgments on one or two idiosyncracies of grammar translated through your reality distortion Babelfish means nothing. Someone get me a French dictionary, I can prove all French people are predisposed to eat snails through verb conjugation. Get me an Egyptian dictionary too. Egyptian sentence construction proves they're all latent civil engineers who can't help but build large stone structures.{/sarcasm}

	He wasn't saying that Germans=Nazis (5.00 / 1) (#12)
	by bc on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 06:15:25 AM PST

	He was saying they have a tendency to have a fascistic culture based on obedience and lack of independant thought. And indeed. if you look at the history of the Germans, one can see that they have always had an authoritarian culture. It can be broken up into different stages: Primitive Germans. These were tribes of Germans who were so attached to the cult of the tribal leader, that unlike SVO countries such as Britain, France, Spain, etc etc, they didn't once submit to the Pax Romana, preferring instead to stick to their primitive ways, worshiping their tribal cheiftans unthinkingly and rejecting one of the greatest civilisations the world has seen and doing so time and time again through 900 years. Medieval Germany. The era of the Holy Roman Empire and the numerous city states that crowded Germany, each with its own tinpot dictator. Unlike other parts of the world, the Germans were incapable of uniting into a Reich, due to the strong bonds many felt to their Liege Lord. A hallmark of being unable to think independantly. Modern Germany. This continued till the 1880's, when Bismark, that cruel, ambitious dictator realised that the only way to unite Germany was through brute force of persuasion. Where other countries were well on the road to democracy and universal sufferage, the Germans were still pissing about with an all powerful monarch, power dressing and a tribal society. Their unquestioning obedience led them to challenge the SVO countries for global dominance in WWI, desirous as they were for an Empire, at the same time said more civilised SVO countries were well on the road to disestablishing their Empires. Nazi Germany. This wasn't really a change; it was just more of the same. Adolf Hitler wasn't any nicer or more civilised that Kaiser Wilhelm - although he was more entitled to rule, seeing as he was voted in. Nazi Germany was just business as usual for Germany. Recent Germany. More of the same. Germany isn't democratic, for example - it has a silly, rigged PR system of government which makes the votes of the people irrelevant - and they don't care. Modern Hitlers such as Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schroder are able to drag Germany towards a new destiny in Europe without even asking them for consent. This shows a total disregard for democracy and the old, distinctly German, love for Strongman politics. Say what you like, but the author of this article was perfectly correct; Germany is writ through with a history of fascist behaviour, and has been for 5000 years or more, continuously. Attempts by people like you to rewrite history will be exposed. Go back under your revisionist bridge. ♥, bc.

	Turn off the hot air machine (5.00 / 1) (#13)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 08:25:58 AM PST

	Anyone can go through the history of any culture, pick out specific times, and make it sound just as authoritarian as your example. Go back under your completely-out-of-context-bridge.

	This is moronic! (none / 0) (#16)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 10:32:14 AM PST

	What kind of crap is all this supposed to be? I'm reading this page for the first time and I'm already QUITE sure I'm not going to read it again. First off, this whole article is of course crap, I'm a German, I've grown up here, I lived in the US and I KNOW. To judge a whole country by two aspects of it's language is just so unbelievably stupid I don't even want to think about it. And then to have somebody say that today's Germany isn't democratic and that Kohl and Schroeder are "modern Hitlers" is just so unbelievably stupid. Just because Germany doesn't have direct democracy (i.e. the people vote 'I like this law' or 'I don't like this law) but instead they vote for a party, which in turn votes for laws and different kinds of measures doesn't mean a country is ruled under a dictatorship. This is handled like this in many other countries as well. And, talking about Europe, all treaties have to be ratified by the German Parliement, so there is your democracy that you are missing. To take the US as an example, the political system here is much more undemocratic than in Germany (at least from a German's point of view). There it is possible for a presidential election to turn out that Gore has 200.000 votes more than Bush but because of the moronic voting system, Bush still gets to be president. Sounds very democratic to me, and I haven't even started talking about American politicians getting bought out by all of the different lobbyists and this being ACCEPTED because there is no public campaign financing. Oh, and apart from that, isn't judging a whole linguistic area (i.e. people speaking the same language) like you do just as rassistic, bad and wrong as what Hitler promoted in his racial cleansing campaings. He wanted to 'reeducate' people that didn't like him, talking of your 'reliteracy programs'.

	Britain is the most humanitarian EU nation. (none / 0) (#32)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 06:07:10 PM PST

	talking about Europe, all treaties have to be ratified by the German Parliement, so there is your democracy that you are missing. Indeed. But when the public votes against an EU treaty (like the Danish did with the treaty of Maastricht, and the Irish more recently with the treaty of Nice) The EU simply asks them again, repeatedly, until it gets the answer it likes. It is also highly shameful the way Turkish gastarbieters are treated, being denied citizenship, even when born in Germany, and despite Turkey being a member of the EU. Contrast this to the other EU state: Britain. Britain has an almost 'open door' policy on immigration, as anyone from Bosnia or Kurdistan will tell you. Simply arrive in the UK and claim asylum. The UK turns away almost noone. This is despite the French deliberately sending huge numbers of asylum-seekers to the UK. The British nation with its sense of fair play, and right and wrong, takes these people in, and in time grants them citizenship. Why is it that Britain (One of only three net contributors to the EU budget) is villified by other EU nations ? It seems to me as if Britain is showing the way for the other nations of the EU. Are they brave enough to follow ?

	Reality check (none / 0) (#40)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 06:57:05 PM PST

	[I'm another AC, call me Friedrich Wilhelm] EU treaties: The Danish got significant concessions before they agreed to Maastricht. Nice will be tougher, as the French (not so much the Germans) were the driving force behind the complex regulations. And, te Irish don't want to lose their subsidies, although they don't need them anymore. Gastarbeiter, Turkey: Turkey is not part of the EU, only NATO. It has severe human rights 'issues'. Gastarbeiter can apply for German citizenship like every other foreigner. Since last year, their kids get it automatically. The discussion was about dual citizenship, which is problematic in cases of a conflict with the respective state. Britain 'villified': Thanks to Mrs. Thatcher, Britain gets huge discounts. They benefit from the EU (free market, subsidies...) but they are not willing to contribute/pay. Due to their shabby politics in the BSE case (they allowed exporting infected animal feed that was illegal in the UK), the disease spread over Europe. UK immigration policy: Have you seen the civil war like incidents in Oldham and Bradford on TV? Not quite a role model for immigration. Furthermore, those people are mostly from the commonwealth. The vast majority of asylum seekers and civil war victims are in Germany. The reason why they are relatively open to foreigners is that they offer the least social security. They are more like the US and less like the other Euronations in this respect, so they are less attractive.

	Do you really think... (none / 0) (#83)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sun Apr 28th, 2002 at 03:19:24 AM PST

	...that German education does not teach their pupils about the crimes of WW2?

	Syntax vs. Semantics (none / 0) (#68)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu Aug 2nd, 2001 at 02:48:56 AM PST

	"You misspelled "its". I can't trust the rest of what you're saying" If proper English is key, never trust an American ;) (BTW: a) Barely any of the German sentences in the main Article are (?) grammatically correct. b) the writer is German, where the apostroph israrely used) FW

	You are right about that (none / 0) (#41)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 07:37:22 PM PST

	They are more like the US and less like the other Euronations in this respect, so they are less attractive. Although I think that is precisely what makes Britain so attractive for the average immigrant. Most of the asylum seekers are not in any immediate physical danger, and for the most part are what we would call economic migrants. The most dynamic of these migrants will want to go somewhere with a less socialist way of life. Think about it: If you are prepared to risk your life attempting to cross the English channel on an inflatable li-lo, the last thing you want is for the government to take 60-70%% of your earnings in tax. Britain is indeed very much like the USA. So much so in fact that when they finally reject monetary union, there is a very, very real possibility that they may join NAFTA, and indeed eventually may become another American state. Believe me this would be a VERY popular move amoungst the youth of Britain who universally despise the EU corruptuion and socialism. We speak the same language. We have an Anglo-Saxon culture in common. We are not socialists. Britons watch a diet of almost exclusively American TV and Movies. We listen to gangsta rap all the time and eat in McDonalds. Hell, we are 90% of the way to being fully fledged yanks. All we need are a few guns and for everyone to put on 100lbs (thats around 45KG for the euro-correct)

	When the empire becomes a colony... (none / 0) (#45)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 08:53:00 PM PST

	I understand that, having lost their empire, the British are a bit reluctant to 'merely' be a part of a united Europe just now. After all, the 'Grande Nation' has had some problems with that as well. It would, however, be a remarkable irony if the honorable British chose to be enslaved as a US colony in their NAFTA backyard instead of going with Europe, where they'd be one of the major players. OTOH, somehow I doubt we'd miss them too much. The UK has adopted a lot of nasty habits lately: A blatant disregard for privacy matters, just like the US (cameras everywhere, RIP), terrible education and health systems, no decent public transport, all kinds of bad food (we've grown accustomed to the taste or lack thereof, but now the diseases come into play). The only thing that bothers me is the fact that the US have pretty much turned into a rogue state under GWBush, and I'd hate to see the UK going down the same road.

	Hmmm I don't get it (none / 0) (#62)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed Aug 1st, 2001 at 02:38:17 AM PST

	It would, however, be a remarkable irony if the honorable British chose to be enslaved as a US colony in their NAFTA backyard instead of going with Europe, where they'd be one of the major players. It has nothing to do with being merely part of Europe, and everything to do with the democratic tradition and accountability that is part of our culture and which is not part of the continental European culture. (but I expect you knew that). If you are talking about free trade, why would we be better off in Socialist Europe with all the corruption and extortionate taxation ? Why use emotive words like slavery ? At the moment many of our British laws are being overruled by Brussels. Recently Minister Louis Farakkhan of the racist Nation of Islam has been allowed in to Britain due to an EU court of human rights ruling. Britain has been forced to legalise extremely hardcore pornography in the name of the 'free market' and we are forced to use metric measurments when the general public is perfectly happy with the existing system. Now what exactly are the much touted benefits of Europe ? Why do not the Swiss join ?

	Why glorify the US? (none / 0) (#67)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu Aug 2nd, 2001 at 02:38:47 AM PST

	"It has nothing to do with being merely part of Europe, and everything to do with the democratic tradition and accountability that is part of our culture and which is not part of the continental European culture. (but I expect you knew that)." 'scuse me, French Revolution vs. Oliver Cromwell anyone??? Whatever, you lie to yourself if you think the US would be any better than the EU. They just legalised corruption instead of fighting it (Bush campaign financing -> Oil drilling in nature-sanctuaries). The US are so fixated on their past and tradition that they don't realize they aren't a democracy anymore (despite the elections - remember, all eastern communist states had elections as well). Not to mention the irresponsible isolationism and taliban politics (read today that outlawing condoms is planned...). I think you'd have a much better chance fighting EU corruption (probably together with the Germans, against the French) than changing something in the insane US system... "we are forced to use metric measurments when the general public is perfectly happy with the existing system." Everyone who insists on using insane measurements is a dork ;) (Besides, a pint is still a pint, and even the Pound Sterling uses the metric system for a long time). And: US gallons are different from UK gallons etc... "Now what exactly are the much touted benefits of Europe ? " Britain benefits most of the free market. Heck, we even had to let in that infected beef stuff for some time due to UK politicians citing free market rules! "Why do not the Swiss join ?" Mostly because of their system of unique direct democracy. Business is almost unanimously in favour of joining. (Note: I used to live there.)

	Including discounts UK still no 2 EU contributer (none / 0) (#42)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 07:54:12 PM PST

	Britain gets huge discounts. They benefit from the EU (free market, subsidies...) but they are not willing to contribute/pay. After Germany, Britain is still #2 net contributor to the EU. This is INCLUDING the discount that Thatcher negotiated. The incidents in Oldham were sparked off by the Neo-Nazi British National Party, which unsurprisingly enough has many links with you've guessed it - German Fascists.

	Blamethrower (none / 0) (#46)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 09:04:18 PM PST

	"The incidents in Oldham were sparked off by the Neo-Nazi British National Party, which unsurprisingly enough has many links with you've guessed it - German Fascists. " Yeah, and those are responsible for BSE, FMD, and the notoriously bad weather as well... Face it, UK integration policy sucks. If the young Asian Britons had a good perspective and education, they would have been cooler. Frustration leads to violence. Expect more of it during the economics downturn...

	No, you missed the point entirely. (none / 0) (#48)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 09:16:30 PM PST

	These young British Asians are integrated with the UK way of doing things, which is why they don't take any crap from Nazis, unlike their elders who urged a ghandi-like peaceful resistance. The Muslim youth of Britain will not take any crap from white racists any more, and that IMO is a very good thing. Also, the fact that these riots occured in the North (known for its bigotry) and not in the South speaks volumes. Britain has a long history of resisting Fascism in all its forms. Your comment about education is therefore completely wrong. It is precisely because our education system teaches us about WWII and incidents like the Cable Street riots that British youths on the whole understand that Nazism and Fascism must be nipped in the bud with extreme violence (if necessary), wherever it rears its ugly head in order that it does not gain a foothold. Although I am a capitalist, this is one point on which I fully agree with my Socialist Worker friends.

	Naaaah its the hot weather. (none / 0) (#49)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 09:18:03 PM PST

	Always leads to riots. Young men with too much time on their hands. If it wasn't race it would be football, or some other stupid reason. The basic issue is that young men like fighting. Simple as that. It has almost nothing to do with race, and everything to do with boredom.

	I was with you until... (none / 0) (#55)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 10:27:27 PM PST

	To judge a whole country by two aspects of it's language is just so unbelievably stupid I don't even want to think about it. You misspelled "its". If you can't be trusted to get a simple thing like that right, then I'm afraid I can't trust the rest of what you're saying either.

	Proportional Representation (none / 0) (#17)
	by Platypus on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 10:35:17 AM PST

	Germany isn't democratic, for example - it has a silly, rigged PR system of government which makes the votes of the people irrelevant PR does not make the votes of the people irrelevant, in fact it avoids disenfranchising people who prefer any but the most popular one or two alternatives. Compare, for example, the stories of the Green parties in Germany (PR) and the US (FPP). In the US, voting for the Greens is either meaningless or favors the major party most ideologically opposed to the Greens (by splitting the vote for the ideologically closest major party). That's a totally absurd result, which PR is specifically intended to avoid, and which it does avoid. For more information on voting systems, including definitions of "fairness", check out the Voting Systems FAQ.

	PR Needn't be fair (none / 0) (#20)
	by bc on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 10:48:04 AM PST

	Because countries with PR tend to have goverments which form vast coalitions, and then effectively become a huge monoparty. A good example might be Austria, which under PR had the exact same coalition government from 1945 to 1999, when the people of Austria finally got fed up of the endemic corruption and voted in a fascist party. PR leads to coalition governments which aren't ever voted out, because all parties are part of the system. And with politicians being on a list, rather than being directly elected, they are answerable to the party hierarchy much more than they are the people. Hence Germany tends to have coalition governments that keep power for 25 years or more at a time, and is led into situations by its government (such as the EU) because said government doesn't give a damn about what the people of Germany think. The simple fact is that PR is antidemocratic because it removes choice for the voter and means that politicians are not accountable to the voter. ♥, bc.

	Well, I vote with my wallet on the Austrian Nazis. (5.00 / 1) (#33)
	by dmg on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 06:14:28 PM PST

	I used to be a frequent visitor to Austria, having skied in Soll, Ellmau, Mayerhofen, Kaprun, Zell am Zee, Hintertux, Gerloss, and many others. Most of its people in my experience were not Nazis. Sure they were a bit right wing, but so are some British, and genocide was not on their minds. I cannot understand why such a country would vote for Fascists. What on earth were they thinking of ? Since they voted in Haider, I have not been back there, and I will not do so until they sort out their politics. Instead I now ski in France, or the USA, or Canada. Maybe it won't make a difference. But I am making my personal feelings count in an economic way. time to give a Newtonian demonstration - of a bullet, its mass and its acceleration. -- MC Hawking

	The best you can get (none / 0) (#44)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 08:31:18 PM PST

	PR is the closest you can get to a 'just' system, as voters can express their will better. It does in no way remove choice for the voter. On the contrary, it provides for more choices, as in the US system it is basically useless to vote for another party than the two big ones. Your indication that PR leads to permanent "vast coalitions" is wrong. In Germany, except for a very short period, there has never be a "big coalition" of the two big parties on the national level, and governments/coalition change much mure rapidly than you indicate (longest time: Kohl, 16y). As for Austria, this is correct, but for entirely different reasons. Part of the reason why Hitler could easily incorporate Austria into the 'Reich' was the fact the the political class was severely weakened by a civil war like conflict in the 30s where conservatives were fighting social democrats. After the war, the political system was built up so as to make sure this could never happen again. Every council, board of directors, public post etc was divided between conservatives and social democrats so that peace was ensured as they'd always have to work together. This evidently worked, but the downside was that corruption and nepotism blossomed. Now that there is no fear of a bloody conflict anymore, the population wanted to break up this (now corrupt) system by voting for a different party. Both the Greens and the FPOE gained votes, but unfortunately the FPOe with their charismatic leader made it into the government. So, in Austria the stability was not a negative side effect of the PR system, but intentionally built into the general political system. In Germany, there are usually coalitions of a big and a smaller party (Greens, liberals). The latter act as a moderator in the legislation process. That's one of the reasons why such dangerous and industry-lobbied laws like the DMCA or the RIP in the UK haven't been introduced in Germany.

	Blather (none / 0) (#21)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 02:23:24 PM PST

	Maybe this never occured to the author, but: Germans were speaking a language closer to German than Latin, Greek, or other "Classical" languages before Rome, or even Alexander's Macedonia, even existed. Goth, Frank, and other cultures that lived in the regions now called Germany and western France were never much Romanized (unlike, say, the god-awful Angles), and didn't absorb much Roman culture or language (or Greek, for that matter). Linguistic analysis of behavior is a dead-end, based on several minutes of actual thinking. Germans didn't vote for Hitler because their language compelled them to; they voted for Hitler because he promised to bring them prosperity and an end to the depression.

	Missed some History Lessons, eh? (none / 0) (#53)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 10:14:39 PM PST

	Hey, even as a German, I'm always in for a decent amount of German-bashing.(After all, my generation lacks that US-style nationalism or UK-style nostalgia). But do it with style. This was just pathetic. * How can fighting for freedom and independence from the Roman Empire be "fascist culture" and "lack of independent thought". Do you say the same of the Irish and Scottish who didn't want to submit to the great British Empire... (By the way: not all was free. The south was under Rome's control. I live right at the Limes). * The "Holy Roman Empire of German Nation" was (as my history prof said) neither holy, nor Roman (they had nothing to do with it anymore), nor German Nation, as although 'Germany' was very vague back then, Northern Italy and Sicily -both part of the Empire- weren't part of it, and the patchwork of small states were definitely not a coherent nation. What's important to note is that the emperor was elected, and that there were a lot of independent 'free cities' fostering independent thought. Compare that to France, Britain or Spain. And don't get me started on your Lord Protector! If there was anything like a fascist rule in Europe before the last century, it was Cromwell! * Bismarck: "cruel, ambitious dictator"? 'scuse me, he was effectively an employee of the emperor and got eventually fired by him. He had to deal with the parliament, but proved to be very smart with it. He had a realistic goal (small Germany without Austria) and achieved it by the then usual means (negotiations, money, war). WW1 was mainly a result of bad politics after Bismarck was dismissed, technically started by Austria. After the war Germany was (one of) the first countries to introduce womens' suffrage. * You forget The Weimar Republic and the Great Depression, which hit Germany hardest. Hitler was NOT voted into power, he was transferred the power through an intrigue by the old military elite. Only after the opposition had been eliminated was he able to get the majority of votes. You could argue there was a lack of resistance from the population against Hitler at this point of time, but as Hitler proved to be economicaly very successful, many people were satisfied. * Germany today: Like late chancellor Brandt once said: "With really important questions, you never ask the people." Everyday politics are just fine, but when it comes to Europe, all parties agree on a pro-EU course, and don't want to ask the people... We all know how the EU works: The French run the show, Britain is commenting from the sidelines and Germany pays the bills. It has worked amazingly smooth like that, and apparently our politicians want to keep it that way... So agreed, there was no direct referendum yet, but we don't have a direct democracy like the swiss, so we have to trust our politicians. AC aka Friedrich Wilhelm

	Not quite Friedrich ! (none / 0) (#58)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 11:58:07 PM PST

	The French run the show With the help of the Germans. Britain is commenting from the sidelines Constructive commentry ignored by the Europeans purely because of the source. Germany pays the bills In the words of Mrs Thatcher: No No NO!. Germany does indeed contribute a lot to the EU financially. However the United Kingdom also pays far more than other nations. CAP needs to go. The corruption in Italy France Greece etc needs to go. The EU needs to be accountable. none of these things will happen. My prediction: Britain will vote against monetary union, and will gradually be eased out of the EU. We will then be free to follow our own route, and the EU will still trade with us, the same way it trades with Iceland and Switzerland. This will be a GOOD THING for all concerned.

	primitive tribes? (none / 0) (#80)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sat Apr 6th, 2002 at 10:17:11 AM PST

	Britain:settled by the Angeln, the Sachsen and others France:settled by the Franken and others Spain:settled by the Gothen and others. all of them are part of germanic tribes. there are more argues to teel you,but... read some history books, don´t look dragon ball :-/

	wrong (5.00 / 1) (#14)
	by em on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 09:54:11 AM PST

	Even General Patton figured this out after Germany was occupied by Allied forces and he was one of the US's most battle-hungry leaders during WW2. You are leaving out the fact that the US, far from persecuting Nazis, was recruiting them at the moment. General Patton, as a high member of the US military, was in the business of giving sanctuary to war criminals. The German language has been around a lot longer than the Nazi party. Making superficial judgments on one or two idiosyncracies of grammar translated through your reality distortion Babelfish means nothing. As bc so aptly points out, the Nazis are just one among many episodes of authoritarianism in German culture. Someone get me a French dictionary, I can prove all French people are predisposed to eat snails through verb conjugation. Given that French has barely any regular conjugation, I'd be very amused to see you try. --em Associate Editor, Adequacy.org

	You didn't read the title (none / 0) (#18)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 10:40:39 AM PST

	He didn't recruit Nazis. He recruited Germans. Regular German people who knew how to get the mail service, railroad, electrical power up and running to bring some semblance of civilization back to the country. Put it this way. If a small group of armed SS show up at your door saying you will perform X service for the greater glory of the Fatherland, Reich, and der Fuhrer, are you going to say no? Because you give in, does that mean you automatically believe everything the Nazi part stands for? In reality there were very few Nazis and a lot of scared German civilians who got caught in the middle.

	Well it depends what you mean by 'a few' (none / 0) (#30)
	by dmg on Tue Jul 31st, 2001 at 05:46:18 PM PST

	In the national elections of September 1930, the Nazis garnered nearly 6.5 million votes and became second only to the Social Democrats as the most popular party in Germany. time to give a Newtonian demonstration - of a bullet, its mass and its acceleration. -- MC Hawking