Germany

Pollux

Active member
OK...
I'll continue the series :lol: .....
Is there anything you want to know about Germany or the germans?
Feel free to ask anything...
 
Please excuse the lack of any real importance of this question, but two of my buddies just went to Oktoberfest last year, and they swore up and down there was a peanut butter flavored beer. Any truth to that that you know of (they've been known to "exagerate" a bit)? :lol:

On a serious note, though, are former East and West Germanies fully integrated again, or are there regional rivalries based off of the old Berlin Wall line? Sorry, all my current, first person information about Germany comes from a few men I know who served in Germany during the Cold War, so I don't really know much about present day Germany.
 
lol
never heard of that....
you know, Im bavarian, and if somebody in bavaria would brew such a beer i think he would be lynched....
I tried banana flavoured beer once, but i never heard of peanut butter beer...
and if it would exist i dont think it would be served at the oktoberfest....

I think we left the stadium of rivalries behind us....but there are some problems, for example at the moment all east german people who work work for the government earn 10% less money then their western colleages...
also in some east german countries we got lots of unemployed people, and this problem causes many other. Im sure you heard about the increasing "neonazi" problem in eastern germany, that are mostly young people who cant get a job and search for someone who is responsible for that and they found the foreigners...
but generally you can say that germany has finally been reunited also in our minds
 
Banana, huh, Sir? How'd that taste? We've got a strawberry flavored one here, just tastes kind of funny, not bad, but strange. :lol:



I have heard about the increase in neonazism, and it is very unfortunate, hopefully they'll grow out of it right quick.
So why do government employees in the east get less pay? Is the cost of living less in that area, or is there another reason for it? Is the higher unemployment a result of the recovery from communism, or is that pretty well finished by now?
 
@alex
yes it is....yet......
every german man has to join the army for 9month..at the moment...
But actually our military is going trough its biggest changes since its foundation, so i would suggest you asking that question once a week, because it could be changed anytime
 
here is a Q

Do you guys still have Soviet made hardware in you military...?I remember there use to be some from the East Germans, so dose the united military still have it?
 
it tasted interseting..somehow....
that decision was made when the cost of living was lower than in the west..
As some kind of equalisation(?) the west german employees have to pay a special tax for the rebuilding of east germany.
Actually east germany has the best infrastructure in germany, because everything was made new. The have optic fibre communication, and everything is state of the art, and for that the goverment decided to lower its cost for those things. Or if you look at Berlin..10 years ago the half of berin was a building site an now its one of the most modern cities in europe...
i think those things were quite expensive...

What are the causes of the unemployment..??hmmm
A german employee is quite expensive for a company so most of them dislocated their productions into ceaper countries...
Most western schools are still better than most eastern schools...
also those eastern people who were flexible enough moved to the west...
and those who were not flexible and had no higher education were easily caught by those neonazi organisations.....
our BKA (its our FBI) and our intelligence services are persecuting those organisations, but you know if you destroy one, two another come up...
and the most professional ones have their headquarters in countries like denmark, belgium and sweden, were the neonazi laws are not as strict as here...
And as i have to say our goverment at the moment with Schröder as chancellor is not as effective as they promised before his election
 
yeah we had some soviet hardware, but meanwhile wrecked most of them..
Our airforce still uses some MiG-29, but they are going to replaced by the EF2000 Eurofighters..as well as the Phantoms and the Tornados....
Actually the first one was delivered yesterday.

Our Military is going to be changed from its base up....
The german Bundeswehr was founded as a defensive Army..actually we still have the biggest ground forces in europe and until last year we had more tanks than all the other EU members together. Even now within a few weeks we could enlarge our Army up to 5 mio soldiers, by calling our reservists back on duty...
But such a army is not needed anymore...
At the moment we have 8000 soldiers in foreign countries and we are are running on 110%. So we need more long range logistic capacities and a much more flexible army. The big tank battle in our northern plains against the warshaw pact forces will not happen anymore....
so we are getting a new structure
35000 Soldiers as a quick response force that can can sent within feew week to any country in the world and stay there for two years in a hot mission..(something like the Us do in iraq)
70000 Soldiers as a stabilisation force for missions like in Afganhistan that can stay in those countries if the response forces are not needed any longer
135000 Soldiers to hold the rest of the military running, training the drafties, running the logistics and supporting everywhere they are needed.
so you see our military is going to be cut down to 240000 men and designed to go abroad
 
Pollux said:
so you see our military is going to be cut down to 240000 men and designed to go abroad

That seems to be the trend in the world's modern militaries, doing more with less and all.
 
yes that is one of our main tasks
another one is the to fight in heavy environment, like cities and forests.
Cleaning hostile postions and ambushes.
The Panzergrenadiers were founded when guderian demanded highly agile armored infantry units that could follow the tank units to defend them against enemy infantry and light armored vehicles and take enemy cities quickly.
We train our units to be able to change the way of fighting very quick from mounted to dismounted.
 
I know this topic is a bit out of dait but still ... :

How do the Germans feel towards the EU and especialy the new members?

We joined the EU in this round, and we all recived sweet words from the politicians (Romano Prodi was in Slovenia for the celebrations), but I never buy those guys. So I'd like to know the feelings first-hand. :D
 
I think its a good step. But in my opinion i was made to early, and too many countries joined at once. The EU has lots of finacial problems t the moment. Especially the "main members" France and Germany. But how i said generally i like the idea, but i think we shuld have waited 1 or 2 years.
but however. Welcome in the EU
 
Do they give out Beers in Happy Meals? Is NFL Europe popular over there, I know Berlin, Rhine, and Frankfurt all have teams. Do yall got hot girls?
 
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