Final Blog

This semester, in this class, we studied a broad section of topics. The first thing we had to do was learn the states and all about each one including population, square footage, and average income. Leaning about each state gave me a lot of insight to some of the parts of Germany. Germany isn’t a very large country and yet, each state seems to have its own system and different way of thinking. Certain states that were originally considered a different country gained their influences that way and other states vary because of their population or business potential. Even as short as thirty years ago, part of the country was governed by Russia.

The next thing we studied was about the political parties. The political system is very much like our own in many ways. There are two main parties, a party that is used for swing votes, and then your small parties with a small following whose views can get to be a little out there but connect with enough people in enough ways. My group studied the FDP. The FDP was the party that was used for swing votes. They never gained a whole lot of voter strength, hitting an all-time high of 14.6% of the national vote and hitting an all-time low (shortly after the high) at just under 5%. One thing I found interesting about the party system was that you didn’t have to be one of the two main parties like in the US system to gain high positions in the government i.e. the FDP having members hold the vice chancellors seat.

After that we read All Quiet on the Western Front. This was based during World War I and was set in the German camp following a particular set of high school friends and showed their plight. The book cased how pointless the war was. The characters talked about the uselessness because they would never see any gains of the war and that they had no quarrels against any of the opposing soldiers. The enemy soldiers were humans and just as frightened as they were and felt the same about there being no gains in war. We watched the movie after reading the book and, though it may have brought to life some of the things that you didn’t catch in the book, overall I wasn’t as impressed with the movie. As with any movie, certain parts of the book had to be left out and emphases on more questionable parts of the story are brought out.

Towards the end we got on a movie watching binge. All four of the movies were based on causing or going through change. Three of the four were on political or governmental change and the fourth was on personal change. In all four of the movies, the main characters were put through a struggle in their change making them question everything that they hold to be true. Most of them fought through the adversity and even though they knew that what they were doing may not have much influence on what they wanted, they still pushed on hoping for a better day to come.

Overall I learned that Germany isn’t far off from how we live here in the US; day to day struggles and issues are mostly the same. Women’s rights, the need and want for political change, finding good work at a young age, worker’s rights and unionizing are some of the problems faced with the everyday people of Germany. Where similarities do differ is in the past, Germany’s past is filled with a lot of war and struggle. Many much more difficult times and hardships were faced and through them, came a tough, steadfast people. In many ways, I believe that Germany’s people are better off than the people of the US. Here, when little things go poorly many people see them as such tragic instances in their lives when they really aren’t. I think that we could use more hardships in our lives so as to appreciate the things we do have going right for us more.

Kasseler Rippchen

http://www.germanfoods.org/consumer/facts/traditionaldishes.cfm

 

 

Kasseler Rippchen, also known as Kasseler Kotelett, is a smoked pork chop dish. The pork chops are smoked and ripened in a salt brine. There are other cuts of meat that can gain the "Kasseler" name. In general, any cut that goes through the process of ripening in salt brine receives the term "Kasseler". It is a meat the is similar to ham except not as salty, drier, and a bit smokey. It is often served with kinds of cabbages such as sauerkraut. When using the Kasseler process of smoking and ripening with brine salt, the meat becomes virtually ready to eat. The process draws the moisture out of the meat and prevents bacteria from spreading. Since the meat is ready to eat, the cooking time is very low since all you pretty much have to do is heat it up.

 

Sources: 

http://www.germanfoods.org/consumer/facts/traditionaldishes.cfm

http://www.germanfoodguide.com/cookingdetail.cfm?cooking_nr=4

Baader Meinhoff Complex Questions

1. The first generation organized their protests with a series of documents and articles written by Ulrike Meinhoff. The actions that they executed were a string of explosions in government offices and buildings.
2. In the beginning, even before they started their bombings, they were a bunch of hooligans and trouble makers. They did whatever they wanted when they wanted with no real cause. I gained more respect for them when they went underground and started a unified plan to protest against the government. I never agreed with what they did so I didn't become attatched to them with the exception of their die-hard will and steadfast morals. I lost any respect for them when they started to get caught. Instead of laying down arms and surrendering they lost all nobility for their cause when all they cared about was themselves and did whatever they could to not get caught.
3. Andreas's determination was a huge deal. He showed that he was determined to continue no matter what. His determination was a large part of why they followed him. His rudeness on the other hand was a bit of problem. It sometimes got them in trouble and it over pressured the rest to do what ever he wanted without objection.

The RAF

The beginning of the RAF was what we see in the movie; a left wing, political activist part that was considered communist. They were influenced by the Watts Riots in 1965.  What they believe was that many lawmakers were continuing on in a Nazi, fascist form of ways.

The second generation began after the originators were captured and put in jail. The force feeding and eventual death of Holger Meins was the main event that kicked off their generation. They generally worked during the times of all of the trials and convictions of the first generation of the RAF members. The “suicide” of Ulrike was widely disputed and many believed conspiracy which only further drove them to continue their ways. The events in the fall of 1977 was called the German Autumn. It was regarded as possibly the biggest criminal and political showdown that Germany had experienced since the end of World War II. The second generation was brought to an end with the death of Hanns-Martin Schleyer.

The third generation was leading to the end of the RAF as a whole. The fall of communism and the leaving of the Soviet Union from Germany took a hit on the association’s foundation. However, attacks and bombings continued well into the nineties. It became clear that their goals became more about freeing their leaders that had been captured and less about political change. The German government agreed to release some of the prisoners as long as the RAF promised to no longer take such aggressive and violent actions. They agreed to the offer and in 1993, the RAF came to all but an end.

Baader-Meinhof Complex

The movie Baader-Meinhof Complex was a pretty extreme movie about political change and sticking to moral values. Ulrike is in part the main character of the movie. She is a writer who opposes a lot of the political action at the time but does so in a manner that isn't extreme. She writes about how wrong things are and how things need to change but never takes any real action towards changing things until the jail break of Baader. You can see that earlier than the jail break she was tempted to take more of a physical action in a riot. She picked up a rock to throw in the midst of all of the commotion. She starts to get arrested before she can make up her mind about throwing it or not. It’s not until she panics and leaves during the jail break that she is forced to take physical action. She is never directly involved in causing the violence and destruction still, she prefers her words. The most appalling thing I found about her was that even though she strongly stated that she would never jeopardize her children’s safety or losing them, when the time comes to stand up for herself, she allows Gudrun to agree that her children be taken and she would never again see them. While the whole group sticks to their revolution they lost my respect as to at what costs they fight to maintain their own freedom. They must be doing this knowing full well that their actions are wrong, when it comes time to be caught by the police, you can’t fight and shoot at them. Try to avoid being caught, yes, but endangering more lives for your own needs, no. As Baader explains, as a group they are right and aren’t making mistakes (debatable) but as individual people, they are completely wrong.

Edukators & Good Bye Lenin

The movie Edukators was a very impactful movie. The position of the Edukators was a very powerful and moving voice. They were truly fighting and supporting a heartfelt position that is really relatable to the general population. The conversation between Jan and Hardenberg in the cabin about how he spends his money and how the whole population is blinded by television really stuck out to me. It made me want to be a better person; it made me want to try harder to do for others. On the opposite side, the conversation Hardenberg had about when he was younger and how growing up and caring for a family changes your whole outlook on life hit home base too. I'm getting married this winter and I recently bought a house this last spring so I the thought of losing sight on my original morals and goals is a very intense thought to sit on. In the end, as things get thicker for me (kids), I probably won't stay as steadfast as I would like to, but I know that I wouldn't be the one to send the cops looking for Jan, Jule, and Peter.

The movie Good Bye Lenin did not strike me as interesting of a story as Edukators did. It does a good job of making you care about the main character Alex from the very beginning, but it did not strike deep into me. I did learn through it though that there did seem to be a fair amount of East Berliners that did not care for the loss of the GDP. It was mostly the youth that did not care for the GDP and fought against it. The older generation seemed more content and felt that change was a bad thing. These are very common views that you see in all places. The story took a turn when you find out that Alex's father was not who they made him out to be and that he was very much indeed a loving, caring father; just one more depressive thing to add to the Kerner family's problems. The ending was troubling for me because even though Alex had created a world that his mother would have loved to see happen, you can see that she knows the truth about it all by the way she looks at him. I know that the point is that she's happy to have a son that loves her enough to go to such lengths but it just troubles me that the lie was upheld to the very end.

The similarities between the two movies (besides having two of the same main characters in both) would lie in how the youth vie for change. They aim to change what they see as bad in the world around them. Not everyone feels the same about what's wrong in the world and so it creates a conflict.

Berlin Calling

1. Drugs to Ickarus are a way of relaxation; to him they are a stress reliever.
2. They are all taking the drugs at the concerts in the bathroom. They are mostly all taking cocaine and it seems as though it's just what everyone does. Maybe it's a way to get into the music more.
3. I don't really understand the question.
4. The difference is in how people react to the drugs. Here it is a very big and serious deal, there it isn't. A lot more people there do it and it only becomes a problem when it goes too far. Ickarus's drug problem is looked at in more of a psychological way than a physical way.
5. The youth culture in this movie seem to focus more on the party life than on the working life. There are a couple that do work, but most don't. They have their club parties in the day time all the time. Ickarus and Alice are hard workers. Ickarus, though misguided at times, only cares about being able to work on his music. Alice was hard at work trying to get shows and labels for Ickarus and when she couldn't do that she got a different job in between.
6. I have not seen much.

Berlin Calling was definitely a different movie than what I had expected to see. It seemed different to me because I am not used to seeing such cultural attitudes and behaviors. There were many differences in cultures that stood out right away. First I found was the music; there were no words. It was different from what I’m used to and it wasn’t real fast paced either which is what I expected. It was slower, meaningful, and soulful. Personally, I couldn’t pick apart the sound and intention like the people in the movie could. I did not notice the depressed feeling in his first work or how the end music was much better than the first but that’s not for me to judge. The important thing was that the people who know that kind of music could pick it apart and tell. The other big thing I noticed was how it seemed that everyone there did drugs; it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t just harmless marijuana either, it was cocaine and ecstasy. They did it all the time as if nothing ever mattered. Even Alice, who was upset and trying to get Ickarus clean of his issues, was implied to have done at least one line in a scene where she was talking to the club owner. Overall, it was a good movie. It showed a real struggle and transformation of character that could be relatable to many (with the drug addiction removed, many more). It ended very well too because even in his struggle to overcome the adversity put upon him, Ickarus came through it and cut ties with his past. Because he was able to overcome it all he was able to get Alice back in the end which was a second part of why he was trying to get better.