A Shrinking Deutschland?

Even as scientists find that the carrying capacity of planet earth, managed sustainably and renewably, is many billions more than the world’s current inhabitants, a different sort of population problem is emerging in developed or ‘first-world’ countries.

Germany is a clear example of a nation suffering from underpopulation. The birthrate is perilously low, and the society is measurably shrinking.

Because this is happening to other countries, and because these communities are custodians of important cultures and civilizations, this trend is not a national problem: it is a global problem.

The causes of this phenomenon are complex and mysterious. One hypothesis is that these traditions exhausted themselves in the carnage of the two world wars, as Patrick Buchanan writes:

For ten years, 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, Britons and Germans fought. By 1945, Germany was finished as a military power and Britain was finished as a world power. Now the Germans have begun to disappear. “Since 1972, Germany has not seen a single year where the number of newborns exceeded the number of deaths,” writes Reiner Klingholz, of Berlin’s Institute for Population and Development.

Sociologists have speculated about a number of possible causes. Why would people choose to have fewer children? A birthrate of between 2.3 and 2.5 children per couple is sufficient to hold a population even.

Historically, children were a financial benefit, when societies were largely agricultural. Children helped to do farmwork, and provided care when aging parents eventually became unable to economically sustain themselves.

This pattern continued during the early years of the Industrial Revolution.

As economies shifted to the later phases of the Industrial Revolution, and then into more technology- and information-oriented patterns, children became less of a financial advantage, and in some cases could even be viewed as burden.

Reiner Klingholz earned his Ph.D. in molecular biology, but his career has taken him into the field of population statistics. Noting that the population problem was disguised by immigration, he writes:

Since 1972, Germany has not seen a single year where the number of newborns exceeded the number of deaths. The creeping population-shrinking process was only masked by high immigration figures that could camouflage the natural losses — at least until 2003. Since then, the overall population of Germany has declined; the Federal Statistical Office expects that the nation will have around eight million fewer inhabitants by mid-century — a loss that is the equivalent of losing the populations of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, and Frankfurt combined. Germany, along with Ukraine and Romania, presently lead the league of European countries with populations set to contract.

What does this situation mean for the world as a whole? Because some other countries are experiencing similar underpopulation problems, concerns arise that some aspects of civilization may be at risk.

These nations have been the caretakers of a set of worldviews, including notions that human life is valuable, that every human being has dignity and should be respected, that women have certain fundamental legal and social equalities with men, that war is better than peace, that rational dialogue is salutary, that human life should not be capriciously taken, etc.

Ironically, the psychology causing this depopulation may be triggered in part by those instances in which this civilization violated its own principles.

If these populations shrink, will they be able to sustain these cultural heritages and share them with the world? Will these social notions continue to have an impact on the globe?

A shrinking population means not only fewer people in some regions of the planet, but a poorer legacy for the world’s civilization.

Adenauer Emerges

1933 was a grim year in the history of central Europe. In January, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party found a way to circumvent constitutional procedures and seize power, even though they never had a majority in a free election.

As soon as they had power, the Nazis took steps to silence any opposition. They murdered most vocal and influential political opponents of Hitler. Lesser opponents were silenced in other ways.

Over the next several months, the Nazis implemented their Gleichschaltung, their plan to ensure that every aspect of public and private life was controlled by the government. The ordinary citizen would have no more private life.

The Nazis believed that the government should know everything and supervise everything - that’s the meaning of the word ‘Nazi’ - it’s short for “national socialism.”

When the government “nationalizes,” it takes over businesses, schools, hospitals, and anything else it can get its hands on. It owns them and controls them. It uses them to influence what people do and how people think.

When the government “socializes,” it taxes and regulates, taking away a person’s freedom to do what she or he wants with his or her own property.

The name ‘Nazi’ refers to a government which nationalized industries and businesses, and a government which socialized the basic functions of life: education, healthcare, transportation, etc.

In the midst of this horrifying takeover of society, there were brave people who resisted. The children of the Scholl family founded a resistance group among the university students in München (Munich). People like Oskar Schindler and Dietrich Bonhoeffer smuggled Jews out of Germany to freedom, and organized assassination attempts on Hitler.

The number of those who resisted was large; some of them may never be identified as anti-Hitler subversives, because they worked in secret, and perhaps died in secret.

One such man was Konrad Adenauer.

Adenauer had been the mayor of Köln (the German city Cologne) for a number of years prior to Hitler’s seizure of power. As soon as the Nazis had a hold on the national government, they began to pressure Adenauer to leave office.

Adenauer was known as someone who’d clearly opposed the plans of the Nazis. When Adenauer refused to leave, he was forced out of office, as historian Horst Osterheld recounts:

Efforts were made to force him to resign, to entice him with pension offers, but Adenauer stayed. He held out until the local government elections which took place a week later, on 12 March. On the very eve of the elections the Chief of Police had given him his word and that of his officers “to defend him to the last man.” When Adenauer asked barely twenty-four hours later for protection, because he had reason to believe that there was a plan to imprison him in his office next morning or even to push him out of the window, he was told - the request was made in Berlin - that “unfortunately nothing could be done.” On Monday, 13 March, Adenauer stole out of his house in the early morning, past the sleeping SA guard, and went to Berlin. He first tried to take the bull by the horns by going to see Hermann Göring a few days after his arrival to protest against his dismissal and expulsion, which had already been pronounced. He asked in vain.

No longer mayor, Adenauer would spend the Nazi years as a private citizen, working behind the scenes to undermine Hitler’s government. The Nazis arrested him several times, and at one point arranged for him to be deported to the East - which would have meant either his death in a concentration camp or his death on the eastern front.

When order was given to ship Adenauer eastward, an old acquaintance, Eugen Zander, who’d work for the Cologne city government years earlier, rescued Adenauer by having him sent to the hospital.

At war’s end, Adenauer quickly emerged as an individual who’d not only resisted Hitler’s Nazis, but who also had political skills and experience in government.

Although it might seem inevitable that Adenauer would be the leader of Germany’s first free government in fifteen years, it was only by a thin margin that he became chancellor in 1949.

Life Without School Buses?

The ubiquitous big yellow school bus has come to be a symbol for education in North America, so thoroughly is it linked with the daily trip to school.

For this reason, many Americans are surprised to learn that in much of Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and other parts of central Europe, there are no school buses!

In other parts of that region, to be sure, there are some school buses, but far fewer than one finds in America. Many children take, instead of a school bus, the public bus.

By contrast, many cities in the United States spend millions of dollars in needless duplication, as school buses and public buses follow each other along nearly identical routes.

This redundancy is not the result of any educational, transportational, or economic policy. Instead, it is the result of social views about childhood.

American parents are, in this respect at least, more protective of their children. They tend to think that a school-age child would not be safe or comfortable on a bus filled with adult commuters on their way to work.

By contrast, the children of central Europe are raised to function more independently, so a second-grade student is accustomed to boarding a public bus and sitting, perhaps, between an accountant and an engineer on their way to work.

The fact that the American busing pattern is needlessly expensive, or environmentally unfriendly, is not the main concern. More to the point is an overly protective attitude on the part of American parents.

Instead of worrying about the impact of adult commuters on students, it is worth considering the impact of the students and their presence on the adults.

In many American cities, school buses are known as the home to bullying, drug deals, fistfights, and other undesirable behavior. To unleash the company of schoolchildren onto unsuspecting adult commuters would place the adults at risk, not the students.

By contrast, children in central Europe learn appropriate public behavior at an early age, and thus are able confidently and safely to use public transportation to and from school.

Is it time for America to abandon the big yellow school buses and teach children deportment?

Sport in Deutschland

There are both similarities and differences between the ways in which sports in the United States and in Germany are organized.

Like young people in the United States, many young Germans are involved in athletics. The same sports are offered in both countries, but the levels of popularity vary.

For example, many people enjoy Handball in Germany, but few people in the United States. American-style football, baseball, and basketball are known throughout Germany, but are less popular there than in the United States.

One big difference is that schools have almost nothing to do with sports in Germany. Schools offer physical education (or ‘gym’) classes, but do not organize teams.

Instead, students go to sports clubs after school. These clubs are privately organized and have nothing to do with the educational system. They offer scholarships so that anyone can have a chance to play.

Even the smallest German towns will have several athletic clubs. The Deutscher Sportbund coordinates and oversees the clubs.

In addition to team and individual sports, there are Wandervereine (hiking clubs) and Turnvereine (gymnastics clubs). If you want something more aggressive than Wandern, you can go in for Klettern (rock climbing) or Bergsteigen (mountain climbing).

In addition to Wanderwege (hiking paths), there are Trimm-Dich-Pfade (fitness paths), on which there are periodic stations to stop and do exercises before running or walking further.

Athletic clubs usually have the words Verein, Klub, or Gemeinde in their names. You’ll find many organizations with names like Turn- und Sportgemeinde or Turn- und Sportverein, indicating that they offer a wide range of sports and gymnastics.

Clubs which specialize in only one activity will often feature that in the club’s name: a Schützenverein is a shooting club for rifles and pistols. Jagen and Angeln (hunting and fishing) tend to be hobbies of the wealthy in Germany, while in the United States, people from all income levels enjoy those activities.

Naturally, Fußball is the major sport in Germany, and there are Fußballklubs and Fußballvereine for children, teenagers, and adults. They are coordinated by the Deutscher Fußball-Bund.

The highest level of soccer play is found in the three tiers of the Bundesliga. At the end of the year, one team emerges as the Deutscher Fußballmeister.

Of course, there are many other kinds of sports. People enjoy Tennis, Tischtennis, Segeln, Windsurfen, Segelfliegen, Ballonfahren, Eishockey, and Drachenfliegen.

Golf is not as common in Germany as it is in the United States.

Skilaufen or Skilanglauf is Nordic cross-country skiing, while Skifahren or Abfahrtsski is Alpine downhill skiing.

Bodensee: Lake Constance

The largest lake in Germany is the Bodensee. Located in the southwestern part of the country, it’s therefore also at a Dreiländereck: a place where the borders of three different nations meet.

The Bodensee borders on Deutschland, die Schweiz, and Österreich. On some English maps, it’s also known as ‘Lake Constance.’

On the north side of the lake, there’s Deutschland. At the east end of the lake is Österreich. Along the south is die Schweiz.

Several major towns are located on the shores of the Bodensee: On the German side, there are Überlingen, Meersburg, Lindau, Konstanz, and Friedrichshafen. On the Austrian side, there’s Bregenz. On the Swiss side, there are smaller towns like Romanshorn and Kreuzlingen.

Many famous people have lived here over the centuries. The famous inventor, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, lived and worked in Konstanz from 1838 to 1917. He is also known as Graf, meaning ‘count.’ Graf Zeppelin developed the famous type of lighter-than-air ship.

The famous author Annette von Droste-Hülshoff was born in northern Germany in 1797 and spent part of her life there. But she moved to Meersburg later in life and remained there until her death in 1848. Mountains in the area inspired some of her poems.

The lake is good for segeln, schwimmen, and windsurfen. There are three main islands in the lake: Mainau, Lindau, and Reichenau.

Mainau is also known as the Blumeninsel, and the entire island is essentially one big park, with lots of flowers and other plants.

The three islands, as well as the cities around the shores of the lake, have the usual Burgen and Schlösser and other historic buildings which tourists love to see.

Oktoberfest - What It Really Is

People who’ve never been to Germany, and never taken a German class in high school, have still probably heard about the Oktoberfest. This annual event, in the city of München, attracts attention and tourists from around the world. But what, exactly, is it?

The Oktoberfest takes place every year, regardless of the weather, and it’s mostly outdoors, so if it seems rainy, people simply bring umbrellas. Food is one aspect of the celebration. People enjoy roasted Hühner and different types of Wurst. There are also Kartoffelsalat and Brezeln.

The Fest takes place on a large festival grounds called the Theresienwiese, which locals call simply the Wies’n. The fairgrounds were named after a princess whose wedding was celebrated by a horse race held there.

The wedding of Princess Therese and Crown Prince Ludwig took place in 1810. The horse race attracted over 40,000 spectators and turned into a big party. It was so successful that they decided to do it again the next year, and every year, and to name the fairgrounds after the princess.

At the beginning of the Oktoberfest, there’s a big parade, including a Trachtenfest: people wearing the old-fashioned traditional clothing of the region. The parade winds through the streets of downtown München and out of town to the Theresienwiese.

During the Fest, many people wear Trachten, the typical traditional clothing of the region. Because the Fest takes place in Bayern, many signs are written in local dialect, and people speak in a Bavarian accent.

The Fest is now sixteen days long, begins in September, and ends on the first Sonntag im Oktober. Millions of tourists from around the world attend, but lots of Germans are there, too.

There are games and rides, similar to a carnival atmosphere, and souvenirs of all types are sold. Naturally, there’s lots of Bier and Wein. Hundreds, even thousands, of picnic tables are set up in long rows, and people often start a conversation with someone they’ve never met before. It’s a friendly and relaxed atmosphere, called Gemütlichkeit.

The Fest has lots of Musik: sometimes Blasmusik from a wind ensemble, sometimes a Ziehharmonika (accordion), and sometimes modern music from a DJ. Naturally, there’s lots of Tanz as well!

The various tents, with food and drink, and the large groups of tables, are sponsored by various Brauereien, the major breweries of München. They see this as an opportunity to advertise their brand and get people to try it.

Freizeit! Fun Stuff in Central Europe

If you’re walking around a large city in central Europe - like Wien or Genf - there’s lots of entertainment. Billboards (Reklametafeln) are regularly updated with posters advertising concerts, plays, movies, and festivals. Those same posters are hung on columns or pillars (Litfaßsäulen) which are placed in parks or near sidewalks for that purpose.

In local newspapers (Zeitungen), magazines (Zeitschriften), and brochures (Broschüren), schedules for these events might be published several months ahead.

If you’re going into a movie theater (Kino), you’ll find small printed symbols on the posters which tell you about the Jugendschutzgesetz - the youth protection law. If the movie’s poster says frei ab 14 Jahren, then you’ve got to be at least 14 years old to get into that movie.

Even smaller town will have Theater, Opern, Museen, and Konzertsäle: theaters, operas, museums, and concert halls. It’s best to buy your Theaterkarten (theater tickets) in advance, in case the performance is sold out (ausverkauft) on the day of the performance.

If you live there, you might buy an Abonnement (a subscription to season tickets). If you get to the theater at the last minute and still don’t have tickets, check at the Abendkasse counter to see if there are any still available.

At a concert or play, the seating is described as Parkett if it’s near the orchestra, Loge if it’s a box seat, 1. Rang if it’s the first balcony, Balkon if it’s the center of the first balcony, and Gallerie if it’s the gallery. If your ticket says Reihe 7, Platz 10, then your exact seat is row 7, seat 10.

At nicer concerts, you’ll leave your hat, coat, and bag at the Garderobe: the checkroom. During the summer, many people enjoy a more casual experience at a Freilichttheater.

Large cities have a Zoo, also called a Tiergarten.

At different times of the year, large and small towns have a Musikfest, a Filmfest, a Kunstfest, and just about any other kind of Fest you can imagine. Just add the word Fest to your favorite form of entertainment: Tanzfest, Sportfest, and so forth.

A town will have a yearly Stadtfest, and a village will have an annual Dorffest. A group of students from the same school can organize a Schulfest.

Several times a week, there will be a Markt, which is like an ordinary farmer’s market with fruits and vegetables. But once a year, there’s a Jahrmarkt, also called Volksfest, which is like a carnival. A Zirkus will come to town from time to time.

Some celebrations are regional: München is of course known for its Oktoberfest. Around the city of Köln, the Mardi Gras celebration is known as Karneval, but in southern Germany, it’s called Fasching.

At a Dorffest, the streets in the center of the village may be closed to car traffic, and tables will be set up outdoors. There will be Musik and Tanz, Bier and Wein, and lots of fun conversation. This friendly, relaxed, and congenial atmosphere is called Gemütlichkeit and is some of the best fun you’ll ever have!