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.