derfarbfleck

Foto: flickr@knottyboy

von Dakota Wolff

“The First thing that Americans think of when they think of Germany is world war two and Nazi’s, followed closely by Lederhosen and Beer.”

Dakota ist aus Amerika und für ein halbes Jahr bei uns zu Gast. Er beschreibt, was die dort so von uns halten. Bayerns Einfluss scheint groß.

The First thing that Americans think of when they think of Germany is world war two and Nazi’s, followed closely by Lederhosen and Beer. The reason why most Americans think of Germany first as a negative thing like Nazi’s is because world war two was one of the only times that America and Germany have had a lot to do with each other until very recently. I have never been so ignorant as to think of Germany only as these stereotypes because my dad is German and I have been to Germany many times. That’s not to say that if I didn’t have a German father that I would think of Germans in this way, but many Americans do. I think another reason why Americans view Germans first as Nazis is because in our school system we learn very little about German history ( other that the two world wars). It also doesn’t help that in American films Germans are always portrayed as the bad guy and usually not just as the bad guy but they will portray him as Evil and somehow not so right minded as well.

If a Germans is not thought of as a Nazis in America, than the only other thing that Germans will be portrayed as are silly old men in Lederhosen drinking beer at Oktoberfest. Even If an American has never been to Germany he or she will surely know about German beer and Oktoberfest. The only thing other than world war two that is in American cinema is the stereotype that all Germans wear Lederhosen. Americans wouldn’t think of Germany as beautiful landscape with grand towns and amazing food, but instead as Oktoberfest and world war two because that’s what most Americans have seen and grown up with in regular American daily life.