I found this story surprising:
A German army instructor ordered a soldier to envision himself in New York City facing hostile blacks while firing his machine gun, a video that aired Saturday on national television showed…The clip shows an instructor and a soldier in camouflage uniforms in a forest. The instructor tells the soldier, “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways. … Act.”The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder…The existence of the video was first reported on the home page of the German news magazine Stern on Friday and excerpts were aired on the news television channel n-tv on Saturday.According to Stern, the 90-second clip had been posted on a Web site used by soldiers to exchange private videos. A soldier who used the site alerted his superiors, the magazine reported.The video is the latest embarrassment for the German army. Eighteen army instructors are currently on trial for allegedly abusing and humiliating 163 recruits in 2004. Last year, newspapers published photos of German soldiers in Afghanistan posing with a skulls — including one who exposed himself while holding a skull.
For starters, these represent a pattern of incidents but a minority of sentiment. I don’t think this proves Germans in general are racists.
However, I do think it strikes at the notion that Germans are uniquely non-racist and non-nationalist. Those in the U.S. often see it as an enlightened, liberal country that opposed the war in Iraq and took the lessons of World War II to heart. It even has universal health care.
In some ways that’s true. For example, they give up some free speech rights in order to ban hateful propaganda. They are also less likely than Americans to agree you should support your country whether or not it’s right (sorry, can’t find the poll online).
But the racism here is not only blatant, it’s bizarre. Germany is home to practically no blacks, and New York is an ocean away. What reason do they have to spread stereotypes about Big Apple blacks? Maybe it’s anti-Americanism via making fun of our cities’ problems. Or maybe it’s old-fashioned Aryan supremacy.
And look at two other words in the story: “conscript army.” Why in the world would an enlightened country, not under attack and staying out of the Iraq war, force people to join the military?
Wikipedia has a list of countries that do that. It’s surprising how many Scandinavian countries are on it, until one reads another Wikipedia page:
Small countries often have mandatory military service, citing the inability to form a professional army of sufficient size. Neutral countries, in particular, institute conscription to organize an independent defense, that is, to eliminate the need for foreign support.Communist countries, particularly the Soviet Union and its satellites, used conscription. The tradition continues in Russia and in numerous other countries formed in the collapse of Soviet Union.
That pretty much leaves Germany and Austria unexplained. Neither is particularly small or particularly neutral, though half of Germany belonged to the Soviets.
My idea, though I can’t really think of a way to test it against opposing ones, is that the nationalism of decades past isn’t as beaten out of the Germans as one would think. Even though they aren’t using the army for anything, they see it as a matter of pride to have one (especially since the Allies dissolved one forcefully).
Again, I’m no historian. Please comment, particularly if you’ve spent any time in Germany.
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8 users commented in " What a racist army video says about modern German nationalism "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThis IS absolutely PATHETIC, but they feed off the images we send them from the US.
Well, I’ve spend some time living in Germany… some 23 years… since I actually AM German you might let me speak my mind about the article above… First of all: it’s not true that Germany doesn’t use its army… you might have heard about a flood that occured a couple o’ years ago in Saxony which is actually a federal state of Germany where soldiers were there to fill sandbags, stabilizing dams and so on… German soldiers are also fulfilling their duty under UN mandate in Afghanistan and elsewere so the Germans DO use their army… but why do they have a conscript army? In my opinion there are a number of reasons: First of all, a professional army would, in the eyes of our over-aged politicians be a thread to democracy… they’re doing such a poor job (but that’s what all countries are saying about their politicians, ain’t it?) that they have to fear a military-led uprise… well, not nowadays but back in the years that followed WW ll the political climate in Germany wasn’t excactly what you’d call stable and so they probably meant, an army full of “Average Fritz”es wouldn’t be such a threat. And since the German constitution isn’t to be changed so easily, because of the same fear of loss of their precious democracy, it takes quite a long time to make these politicians, most of whom are actually from this pre-WW ll-periode, realize that Germany doesn’t need an army at all anymore and if they want to keep one or two of these armed individuals then on a voluntary base…
In practical it is like that already anyway since if you don’t want to be in the army you blubber something about it not being aacceptable for your concience and your faith in God to fire a gun at another human being and you’re out of it and can go on a social year to be served in a hospital or a home for elderly people. And in fact half of the 18 year old don’t get the letter from the army anymore anyway since somehow the military has realized they don’t need that many personell anyway.
Those who enlist voluntary by the way do it for the reason that one can study for almost free in the army provided that you promise to serve there for two years after finishing your studies.
Others enlist simply because at the moment it’s hardly possible for a low-qualified student to find any apprenticeship at all. Germany’s school system basically works in that way: (At least in the two largest federal states) After elementary school you have to decide wheter you attend Hauptschule (least qualified), Realschule (something in the middle) or Gymnasium (neccesary to attend university afterwards). Due to a decreasing number of apprenticeships and an increasing level of skills to be brought along neither absolvents of Hauptschule nor Realschule are able to find any jobs anymore so the easiest thing for them is to enlist… this leads to, and I know that I might be doing a politically incorrect statement here, the fact that the army gets crowded with less intelligent people, of which many are indeed sometimes filled with that silly 70-year-old propaganda shit from the 3rd Reich and blame foreigners for their misery which, in my opinion naturally leads to a rising level of nationalism which however can’t be taken representative for the German people.
My personal expierience shows that there can also be conflicts with foreigners who are unwilling to integrate into German society and thus, through needlessly insulting Germans, cause responses that may seem ultra-nationalist but are only meant to defend themselves.
I hope that I’ve helped you with my comment and would appreciate it very much if you didn’t think of all of the Germans as nationalists since the majority of the younger generation (I’m in the mid-20s) considers the nationalists to be idiots and fools.
DeeJay
This is just strange. We have more people from Turkey, Russia, India and all the surrounding EU-countries than people from Africa or the US. I may have met about 30 in my whole life in Germany (60% of those at my university).
We do not need an army around here anymore – that is correct. It probably will be completely dissolved in the years to come. Politicians are slow.
I think everyone is trying too hard to see something evil here that doesn’t really exist. The commander in the video was trying to get the recruit to imagine brash alpha-type males that the recruit would be frightened of in a real situation, and use that emotion to fire the machine-gun with. In real life, the recruit would be firing at alpha-type males while the recruit was frightened, duh.
I don’t think the commander told the recruit to imagine blacks from the Bronx because he hates blacks from the Bronx, but rather because blacks from the Bronx have an international reputation for being brash and being bad asses, as many groups of Americans do. That’s a far cry from telling the recruit to imagine shooting at Jewish families as the Nazis may have done. The instructor could just have easily told the recruit to imagine firing at any other group that has a reputation for being brash and bad asses that the recruit might have some fear of. It’s not a fear born from the race of the individuals, but rather based on their reputation. The instructor did not say ‘blacks’ in general but very specifically mentioned blacks from the Bronx. There is no mystery here as to why.
Just my 2 cents. I don’t judge people based on race, but I also don’t have a knee-jerk ‘RACIST!!11!’ reaction every time a non-black mentions the race of a black.
That is ONE idiot surfacing through some obscure video somewhere and you’re seriously trying to build a case about the prevalence of nationalism of an entire country…I mean Come on!
Take a good look at the south of the US and you’ll find way more racists on per population basis.
I’m living in germany since birth and i can agree that we hardly have black people at all over here …
but the german tv is mainly made up of american shows (i’m sorry but most german television just sucks ass) and thats basically the only source where we see blacks from NYC and the like.
And frankly they don’t seem to get shown in a very encouraging way there.
not an excuse of course … just maybe some explanation
Thanks for all the responses! I haven’t gotten this much reaction in awhile.
Anyhow, a few quick things. For one, this isn’t “trying to build a case about the prevalence of nationalism of an entire country;” not the prevalence, just the presence. It was my notion, from a few polls and American perceptions, that nationalism was about dead in Germany because WWII showed what EXTREME nationalism can do. This story made me think and look up a few numbers. And remember a little nationalism (patriotism) is a good thing.
Also, good point that the Germany army does do some things. My point wasn’t that Germany doesn’t need an army at all (though I guess I kinda said that, didn’t I?) but that it doesn’t seem to need so much of an army that it should force people to join.
Germany are not racists they are entitled to defend themselves like any other country and consription is needed to maintain a well trained army the country is free and liberial.
however people who say that the Bundeswehr should be disbaneded dont know what they are talking about if you leave the country defenceless what do propose to do if the country is attacked.I am a German who lives in Ireland but I go to Germany once a year and there is no racistism at all
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