Posted on 07/10/2014 6:51:05 AM PDT by C19fan
Our forefathers knew the feeling. One minute there you are, like Brazils football team on Tuesday, settling down to start a long campaign. The next minute, bewilderingly, it is all over: Germany is master of the field, counting prisoners or in this case an unprecedented 7-1 triumph in the World Cup semi-final, executed with chilling discipline and precision. What is it about the Germans? Yes, yes, I know we are not meant to mention the war, or rather wars. But how can we not do so, when for centuries the world paid tribute to Germanys prowess on the battlefield? The Roman writer Tacitus and the French revolutionary Mirabeau alike marvelled at the Germans as a society of supremely disciplined warriors.
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Has someone done a super slo mo analysis to see if martini type glass was actually shattered? :)
You’ve posted exactly what I thought was going to happen the minute the Wall came down.
At your throat or at your feet.
And by the way, I am very much a Germanophile, at least conversant but not quite fluent in German.
The Germans have always had the drive, discipline, and smarts to be the best. I can only think of the U.S. as the only other nation that matches (or used to) their national attitude. Many of our best businessmen in the late 19th century were German immigrants (legal).
If they just didn’t blow it on stupid militarism over the past 100 years, you might have seen a German on the moon in 1959.
This explains a bit of it:
BBC Make Me a German
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bTKSin4JN4
Germans work hard, they insist on excellence and they bring passion to everything they do.
In technology, science and culture, they are the leading nation in Europe and the world and since the 19th Century, Germany has been the economic powerhouse of Europe. Outside of Russia, its the most populous country in Europe.
I’m rooting for them Sunday. They’ll earn it, the old-fashioned way.
You might want to add Japan to that list.
Not to worry, Islam will ruin them as it has all nations which have suffered from its infection.
As a consolidation prize it was a German who got the Yanks on the moon. :)
They won a soccer game. Wow. Let’s steal their successful ideas.
Technophilia can only get you so far. At least in soccer, Germany’s technocratic style has always put them at the top, but rarely over the top.
I find it interesting that Brazil’s discursive style, with its sudden bursts of inspiration and intuition, ultimately prevails.
I think it is this way in comparing (traditional) American business v. German, Japanese and Chinese business.
When I walk through Aldi I do have to marvel at it’s highly efficient German organization.
I too admire the Germans, and worked for various German companies for 27 years. I did finally get to be fluent in German..or so my friends told me.
Like many nationalities there are good at some things but not in others. Flexabilty is not a strong point, but systematic rigor is. I attribute this to their language, which is complicated but has few exceptions. They think this way from infancy.
So they excel at road building and engineering. They love quality above quantity.
In WWII the Tiger tank was much better that the Sherman but we built dozens more per Tiger. In wars quantity is better.
In terms of business though you’ll find few German companies expanding in the Fatherland. They go to other parts of the world if they can. BMW in South Carolina and Mercedes in Alabama are two examples. Maybe that’s economic imperialism of a kind, but we all benefit.
If we could just get them to come over and fix our lousy roads here in the northeast I would be happy.
it is only a matter of time when Germany, which is already the dominate power in EU, turns it into the EG - the European states of Germany. They are brilliant in the steady turning of that massive mass of BS into what I believe is their goal. I have only received shrugged shoulders when I have said this for the past 10 years.
Why diversity is their strength, of course.
I have a few of those liter beer mugs I got from Oktoberfest in Germany. They are as thick and hardy as this gif illustrates.
I think it was Stalin who said "Quantity has a quality all its own."
Reading one of Stephen Ambrose's books on WWII, when veterans were asked which Europeans they admired the most, he was surprised that most of them said the Germans.
One veteran said that they would fight their way through a town and by time they reached the other side, the Germans were out in the street cleaning up, while in other countries the people were either complaining about the damage or were stealing anything they could from the Americans.
Yes, having lived there a very large portion of my life, I was amazed at their genius for taking other countries’ inventions and turning them into A+ products. They are still an industrialized nation and take a lot of pride in the products they turn out. You can buy cheap products from other countries there, but if you want quality, you buy German.
We purchased a 2 year old BMW which was still under warranty for 3 more ears. We kept it dealer-maintained because of the service we received. It was always done right the first time. When we got the car back from whatever...even an oil change, it was detailed fully! What a deal! We felt like they treated us like friends when we came in. The customer service people were very professional. I miss that. I really do!
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