alt Hacker NewsMore German than many Germans
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The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like I was doing something so weird and out of this world that it had to be a prank. And when the light turned green, he just left.
I could not believe it; but when I told the story to my German friends they too didn't quite understand why anyone would try to board a bus outside of a stop.
Being French, I have a hard time understanding why you wouldn't.
I am myself an immigrant to this country, one that has had itequally easy, if not more.
Lately, or perhaps for the last couple of years, I've struggled with negative feelings about the country. I do not like the direction things are moving politically and economically, nor how germans talk about politics, and the biggest reason to want to be in Germany is the very high living conditions one can have here. Culturally, it is hard not feel dettached when Germans themselves seem uninterested in cultural aspects that are normally a reason to want to learn a language (literature, films, etc). I can speak German, but maintaining it or improving it feels more like a chore than something exciting.
Anyway, this was a nice, positive read, and it made me happy to read it. It is often easier to focus on the negative aspects of things, while taking for granted the positive ones. Germany has a lot of good things going for it, and the power to be a better version of itself. A position lots of countries would wish they could be in. Sadly, this does not seem clear to the German political class.
As a German I am super happy to hear that you are having such a good time in my, or now our, country. So often the news focus only on the bad things which sometimes blinds me on how nice people can be to each other and help each other out as one big community.
> Most people complain about the rules in Germany, but I like them. It means someone, or a group of people, sat down and thought about that specific thing and decided on a standard for everyone. When you have to do something, you don't feel lost, because you can just look it up. You don't have to find someone who knows.
Somewhere in the afterlife, Max Weber proudly sheds a tear of happiness while whispering "this guy gets it", hahaha (of course his whole philosophy depends on the rules being as fair as possible, and also that they are enforced uniformly and fairly, but let's not get too lost in the weeds here).
Anyway, lovely article and congrats on finding a place where you feel home!
What a nice and heartwarming read! I'm german, and really hope we can pivot away from the rise of the far right. How that can be done, I don't know. I just hope we can do so before we start scaring away people like him who would otherwise come here, decide they like it, become germans, and end up making it a better place for everyone.
(Part of it is I think we should make it easier and more incentivized to learn the language early so not just people in english-dominated tech jobs can have a positive experience. Cold start problem. It shouldn't be too hard for the gov to commission a RosettaStone like german learning app ((suboptimal, i know)) that works somewhat well and give it out for free, right?)
But a struggling economy, questionable planning for many years now, the "educated middle class" he mentioned in the post shrinking don't bode well for it. It's a prime breeding ground for scapegoat politics. It's probably one of the cognitive "exploits" in the human mind, that finding a scapegoat (the foreigners) to blame for everything being such an effective tool to rally people with grievances behind yourself and slowly turning them into hateful monsters.
On rules - they certainly create clarity and also have the potential to enable NPC like behaviour which is all too common. Since you mentioned Traffic Light Coalition, the chancellor Olaf Scholz (who is a lawyer and was also the ex-mayor of Hamburg) recently said in an interview “Germany was known to be a country of engineers, we are now a country of lawyers”.
Hamburg along side with Munich is what Germany should look like. So I think Hamburg has played a role in your perception too.
This resonates with me a lot, and reading it gave me some positive emotions about Germany which I unfortunately have less and less with each passing day.
This country gave me a lot. Moving here from a third world country, the jump in my quality of life was immeasurable. All the rules everywhere were for me a blessing, coming originally from a chaotic city.
Despite never taking any German courses, I had reached C1 level after only three years, and thanks to the (now reverted) law by the traffic-light-government you mentioned, I could get the citizenship in a record 3 years only.
I have never felt at home anywhere in my life like in Hamburg. It is such a stunning city, with the perfect mix of anything. The city's own marketing campaign "why go to country X when you have it inside Hamburg" is so true.
Compared to the rest of Germany, Hamburgers are extremely open and friendly. But the bar is so.damn.low. That is one of the few big problems I have here. I integrated in an excellent way IMO: speak C1 German without an accent, have a German wife, have a stable job, yet feel unwelcome by an ever increasing percentage of Germans.
As much as I adore Hamburg, I do not want to imagine getting old here. Just like a huge amount of Germans, I see my happiness in moving further north.
On the topic of rules:
> [Rules mean that] someone, or a group of people, sat down and thought about that specific thing and decided on a standard for everyone. When you have to do something, you don't feel lost, because you can just look it up. You don't have to find someone who knows.
I mildly disagree with this stance for two reasons.
First, "you can just look it up" it's like arguing that it's okay if the Linux kernel is badly documented because you can inspect the source code anytime. Try and figure out the rules for opening a GmbH by yourself (and the advantages over a Ug) and let me know if you feel comfortable in doing it without "finding someone who knows".
Second, the problem with inflexible rules is that you can't do anything when someone else breaks them. The case that everybody knows: if you need to renew your residence permit before a specific date you cannot book more than X weeks in advance (rule 1), you have a right to an appointment (rule 2), and the online system is the one and only way to get one (rule 3). So what happens when there are no appointments? Well, you panic, because suddenly your timeframe is very tight (thanks to rule 1) and you cannot reach anyone (rule 3) despite you having a right (rule 2). What happens if you respectfully but firmly demand that which is your legal right? Based on my experience, someone will call security to escort you out. And while I never thought my first time suing someone would be the German government, that was the only way to get them to give me my citizenship after literal years of delays.
Rules are fine, but only when everyone follows them. Once the government starts ignoring them while demanding that everyone else follows them, every rule becomes a potential headache.
A nice read,
Immigration has many pulls and with that comes all sorts of immigrants whether great, average and terrible.
Unfortunately Western countries and bureaucracies seem to have committed the usual sin of developing processes that:
- make it incredibly hard for good immigrants to migrate, contribute and naturalise themselves legally.
- at the same time leaving lots of gaping holes of exploitation for criminals and other immigrants who are just looking for a meal ticket or to enter illegally and abuse our high trust societies.
Couple this with a news and media setup that optimises for covering news of bad migrants whilst hardly broadcasting news about good migrants.
> What stayed with me is that this is probably the only country in the western world that faced its own history properly, admitted the worst things it did, and built a lot of its identity around not repeating them.
what a load of 2010s and hamburg vibes but this part stuck out for me.
how can someone, especially from that part of the world, look at germany post oct 7 and conclude anything other than that everything was always a self-stroking lie and propaganda
There is one rule of thumb that I’ve noticed: if you are a reasonable person and integrate you will be treated as one of their own. Otherwise not.
Your article mirrors my own experience 1:1, it’s like I’ve written it myself. Apart from the citizenship process. Even though it was also 14 months long (eerie lol), I had to do a lot of noise about it, because they are processing applications out of order (some people got theirs in two weeks, some in two years, no rhyme or reason) - press, meetings with local politicians etc. Which helped my personal case but didn’t fix the problem at all.
This mirrors my own journey, although I have never submitted my citizenship application. I also came here for an internship and stayed. 11 years and counting.
Congrats on becoming a citizen. Having seen many of my friends go through it and accompanying some to their appointment, I know how big it can feel.
I found it quite interesting you thought American companies are more hierarchical than German companies. I think in general it’s extremely company/industry dependent. Having worked in several industries, countries, and companies I would say that Germany tends to be quite age oriented where the USA is more results oriented which is then reflected in the hierarchy and perceived openness. I also think Hamburg and Bavaria are exceptions to the norm in terms of economic productivity and openness to businesses.
Wonderful read and welcome to you! I'm also a new citizen to Germany since this winter, lived here over 10 years now. It's a great place to live, at least in the north - have not tried much else, but the complaining can be a bit tiresome. At least the part about complaining and then not doing anything about it. My home country is a bit more easy going but it's also 1/8 of the population and less diverse and with a lot less troublesome history - in the 20th century.
Just remember: Kreuz setzen ohne Haken! ;-)
Congratulations on becoming a citizen! It’s funny how being an outsider lets you see all the amazing things that locals take for granted.
As an immigrant living in Germany I can only attest to what's written on the blog post. Just like any other country, there are all sorts of people in Germany and Germans are actually hard working people which is a bit more reserved that the rest of the world. The only F'ed up thing about Germany is the politics and the weather.
> I didn't hesitate to complain (with Lärmprotokoll) to my landlord.
True Alman spottet.
No loud noises on Sunday (mowing lawn, home renovations etc) I can get behind. But I truly don't get why Germans collectively dislikes shops being open on Sunday. If you ask into it, something about the fabric of the German family is at risk.
Congrats on your citizenship! You're a great showcase for why this immigration process needs to exist and why it works.
You have not mentioned the final step, the one that is not certified in the Einbürgerungsurkunde: Becoming less German than many Germans by walking the tightrope between superiority thinking and self-harmingly downplaying legitimately great achievements.
Purposefully making the distinction between things that are merely peculiar about German customs (old and new) on the one side, and things that are objectively the one true/correct/orderly way of doing things, and thus, must forfeit all claims of being "German". Many of the latter fall into the general categories of "rule of law" or "high-trust society", and once you compare how Denmark and Austria are doing, the most productive strategy is probably to stop attributing them to the peoples or states of Germany. And rather, consider them merely things easy to observe in Germany at this particular time. Use Germany as a spotlight to learn how to recognize how it looks and feels when they work, and more importantly: how to spot signs of them failing to work, then apply it globally. Und es mag am deutschen Wesen einmal noch die Welt genesen! Which is easier without bundling it up with customs that.. well.. would better remain localized to free state of thuringia.
What I got most out of the this article is the difference in trust between his home and host countries. What conditions make a high-trust community? What a fascinating topic.
The German history is a very complex one. Some habits in society and in families are going back still to the 30 year war, which was an extremely cruel one. Germany inhibited psychological pain over centuries from wars, battles, restrictions and cruel upbringing practices. Keep in mind, Germany didn't exists as a country before 1871 (!). It were "smaller" states like, Schleswig, Pommern, Preussen, Bayern, Franken and many more, all loosely scattered around, having big nations like France, the Nordics, Russia, etc. as neighbors, that regularly invaded some of the German states. That seeded a constant type of fear historically and resulted in a psychological overreaction over the recent centuries, certainly starting with the "Kaiserreich" from 1871 on, which encouraged strong but willing people that obey. The first World War is a complex and cruel situation in its own, but with roots in the European situation of this time, leading to the second World War where Germany played a very cruel role, but psychological determinable. In the 50s, 60s, the "Wirstschaftwunder" draws a typical compensation pattern of a wounded narcissistic personality from a psychological perspective. Parents buried a lot of pain from the past wars inside them, inheriting this pain to it's children, by being distached or "cold". Until today !, younger Germans suffer from this inherited "pain", they cannot explain, because not many looking at Germany's history and can connected all the pieces together. On the other hand it is fantastic what German overcame and became now. Overall Germans did a good job in the recent history, but I think they still can do better and should be more friendly to themselves. Accepting that the cruel German history starts waaay earlier then WW2.
I have a question for you, or any other immigrants.
A common complaint I have heard from rule-followers immigrating to Germany is something like "You have to have an appointment in person for minor thing X at the city hall, and there are 7 slots for a date and time 5 months from now" (some exaggeration).
How prevalent was this in your experience, or anyone else you know? Any particular cities that are worse in this regard?
"Rules also make normal days easier. Something simple like waiting at a red light even when there are no cars takes away the work of deciding whether to cross. "
Ah, he really became german. (It seems I ain't anymore by that standard - when there are no cars, of course I go.)
Hey Mert, welcome! It really was a cool time at the company at the time. And the L‘Osteria across always was a nice retreat! Hope you’re doing well!
I think, the main issue with German rules is that we haven't embraced digital technology 100%.
All these rules would be way less cumbersome if they didn't come with a bunch of literal paperwork.
What an energizing read!
> I believe in social democracy, and this is a country that calls itself one and mostly behaves like it.
Meanwhile in Turkey itself, Erdogan abolished the secular separation and transitioned into a de-facto dictatorship, where religion plays a much stronger role than before. This presents a huge problem because such a Turkey simply does not fit into Europe. It fits a lot more to arabic and persian culture, though Turkey is also a bit different to that; it seems Turkey does have a very strange role, overall. It fits in part to everything but also to nothing else. Erdogan was voted in, though, by a conservative majority, so they wanted to have such a structure for the most part.
> people say Germans prefer Germans when it comes to promotions
That is not really that correct either; Germans are not all Germans. For instance, Bavarians are very different to northern Germans and here the dialect plays a huge role. If you can speak bavarian, even without being from Bavaria, you'll find it is much easier to interact in southern Germany, irrelevant over as to whether you were born here or not. I noticed this when people with a black skin speak perfect/fluent Bavarian. They look different of course but there is no language barrier. So really the advice to be given is to learn german, ideally the dialect if you can (some dialects are horrible, saxon specifically).
> Cem Özdemir, whose parents came from Turkey, has been the prime minister of Baden-Württemberg since May
He speaks perfect german though, so I don't think this can be taken as a comparison. He was also born in Germany (in Urach). You can find many other examples too if you want to; some turkish-germans who support the AKP or grey wolves and what not radical groups. It simply is not a homogeneous mass.
> in a city like Hamburg
It depends a lot on the city too. Hamburg is pretty solid overall. You may find it harder in Berlin; and although I think Bavaria rocks, Munich can be a rather difficult setting. Hamburg is quite nice though, much prettier than Berlin, even though significantly smaller (but still a fairly large city; almost two million people, in fact, second biggest city in Germany).
Also from what he writes, it seems to be as if he has solid social skills. This is not always the case.
> The language is part of that
Indeed. It's IMO the number #1 thing to tackle. The language barrier. English works usually but there will be a huge difference to understanding german natively or near natively.
> So the German came from the decision to stay.
The more important question though is: why isn't Turkey like that? Great that people want to go into Germany, but you only need to look at the recent problems with Ceuta. Spain is not Germany, of course, but something really does not work well here. Wealth and opportunities should be much better spread and distributed than it is right now.
> For me the logical thing has always been to aim for 15 minutes before the agreed time, so if something happens on the way I'm still fine.
He already has german work ethics there. ;)
For me I also try to arrive earlier, but mostly because upon waking up my head needs time to clear up and I am slow, so I try to have a time buffer usually. It's no problem past 10:00 o'clock (I use the 24 hours clock; AM and PM never made any sense to me).
> and I didn't hesitate to complain (with Lärmprotokoll) to my landlord.
Alright I had to stop here, because when someone from outside Germany knows the word Lärmprotokoll, he is now more german than the germans. :P
(I also had noise by neighbours but I never complained, yet alone with a protocol to snitch. Though my neighbours are not causing any problems usually, young kids may sometimes cause noise but I also felt that if I were to complain when kids make noise that does not seem to be super-nice to a kid that may not understand that noise causes issues. And complaining to the parents made no sense either since that would just delegate the problem when it would be a non-problem. I'd be scared to live around something writing "Protokolle" about me. He should tone down his super-german drive really - not everything is great about german discipline. I mean we could have a look at two world wars, how that got started ...)
Welcome to my home country, glad it worked well for you. Regarding the far rights and how they are againts immigrants, this is 100% not against immigrants like you who integrate and are a valuable member of the german community. There are still a lot of illegal immigrants who have no intention of working here, just want to take benefit of the social system and send the money home or just come to germany to be criminal, sadly that is still a real problem.
Have anyone seen similar articles about other countries?
Keep in mind that OP is a trained professional with a good education and dealing with Germans in a professional environment. I guess all people with an academic background or comparable. It changes a lot when going outside of this „bubble“ for both sides. Working class blue collared ppl are less open and also a lot of untrained immigrants that hoped to chase a dream now working as Uber drivers or food couriers.
Great post and congrats on your Einbürgerung =)
Germany will be the first country to accept LLM-based humanoid robot citizens.
Grep RULES.md, if not in the rules, `return 0`.
> People seem to think a German passport is handed out easily now. It isn't. You have to prove you paid into the social system for at least five years. You have to pass the citizenship test. You need German at B1 level. You need a sustainable livelihood while your application is running. And most importantly, you have to accept the democratic values of this country.
That is still relatively easy. 5 years is not a long time – various other European countries are longer.
The citizenship test is multiple-choice and has a pass rate of 52%. B1 should be easily achievable after 5 years in Germany. And B1 is lower-middle (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2), and is not fluency.
I'm not sure why paying taxes and having a job is highlighted as making it "not easy" - that should be the bare minimum.
And then he goes onto describe how painless the application process was. All digital. No bureaucratic games trying to trip him up. Seemed very easy
edit: Oh and ~700-800 EUR in total for all the fees? [0] Bargain!
[0] https://reddit.com/r/GermanCitizenship/comments/1q5ij2w/what...
> I noticed the same thing in the rich districts of Hamburg. You can walk into one and not feel like you don't belong, and the prices in the shops are not that different from anywhere else in the city. Sometimes they are exactly the same. The more I saw of that, the more I wanted to stay. I believe in social democracy, and this is a country that calls itself one and mostly behaves like it.
Try the Kö in Düsseldorf! Of course this is a jab at the fact that nearly every nice store there is one where you walk in, get profiled, and then are given champagne and asked to sit down before you can even look at clothes. We have this ridiculous shit, it's just localized to a couple places known for being so posh! :)
Mom, Dad, I'm German...
> Something simple like waiting at a red light even when there are no cars takes away the work of deciding whether to cross.
Someone gets it. It reduces mental load tremendously which is kinda important when you are a pedestrian surrounded by motor traffic. But of course you think there is no car coming because you didn't see one, right? So why not jaywalk this time? But what if your perception played a trick on you and your conclusion turns out to be false? When you are fatigued by the constant state of vigilance, doubt and self-assurance, in the end you are more likely to overlook the car that is coming round the corner. Jaywalking is for short term gains, but might have bad consequences in the long run. Your attention and vigilance is a scarce and valuable resource.
And what's the rush anyway?
I'm glad that you left Turkiye.
This was such a great read.
What a bizarre thing that today people are so confused about fundamental classifications of things, the foundation of human advancement, mind you, being able to distinguish and differentiate between things; that they say things like a Turk can, let alone is more “German” than a German.
It’s a form of odd kind of inverted or stolen identity, in fact actually a form of mental disorder in a literal sense, disorder of the mind.
I find it rather odd that such things are even entertained here, a community that is very heavily dominated by computer and technology topics and concepts. What happens if you get sloppy about variables or classes or types?? You cause chaos in the system and of the mind. Why would it be any different when a Turk claims he is not only German, but more German than a German, is a German that moves to Thailand ever able to be Thai, let alone be more Thai than a Thai? What does it even mean anymore if that were the case, “Thai” would simply cease to exist anymore in any rational sense if Swiss, Nigerians, Mexicans, Algerians, etc are all all the sudden also Thai.
What people don’t seem to understand in this “we are all the same” and “borders are just human constructs” mentality is that they are just perpetuating the same vile abuses of the ruling class, just by different means… genocide by manipulation and deception rather than like what the British or Spanish Empire did through brutal force and physical destruction…. Same level of evil though, only it’s packaged in a pleasant wrapping, as psychopathic narcissists are wont to.
No, my friend, a Turk will never be a German any more than a German will ever be a Turk. Can we get some strict topping here and some variable discipline, people. We can’t keep this thing together too much longer if you don’t unless you want to live in someone dystopian future where no one has an identity other than bio-matter that the AI robots of the inhabitants of Elysium harvest for fertilizer.
If you lose your identity you lose your value and worth, and those who want to steal or distort your identity are your enemy, not your friend.
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...What I knew about Germans.. ..who speak a language that sounds too harsh.. ..And of course, someone always brings up the Nazis
I guess we all need someone worse than us to cope.
A very nice read and pretty much my experience. I have been here for a quarter of my life now, I do not think I can live anywhere else now. People may not like me being here because of my skin color or whatever but I do not mind. I keep to myself and follow all the "rules" I can. In fact, I like most of the rules, rules are good because they ensure order, fairness and equality.
Will a little bit of empathy be nicer, sure, but I cannot complain. Speaking of which, a lot of German natives complain and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year), but honestly I have visited / lived in nine countries, and people have no idea how good they have it here. I came here with a bag, twenty euros in my pocket and a job offer, a dozen years later I have pretty much all basic comforts and stability one can dream of, my kids have a bright future waiting for them, all this is not possible in many countries.