[Skybird]

https://translate.google.de/translat...er_deutschland

The question „What does history tell us about the character and behavior of the Germans and have they changed in the last forty years?" Asked Margaret Thatcher in March 1990, after several rejections of the reunification of Germany, American and British experts in Germany. Four historians (including the above-cited Gordon A. Craig) and two journalists invited them to their county seat to discuss these and other issues informally. The summary of the „Seminar on Germany“ published the British National Archives 2016. It can be read here . (2) As participants of the meeting emphasized in retrospect, the document by the private secretary Thatchers, CD Powell, partly pointed and written with a certain irony. Thus, the summary immediately begins with the description of the national attributes of the Germans that have been shown in the past: „Their lack of empathy (especially in their behavior regarding the Polish border), their obsession with themselves, a strong inclination to self-pity, and the desire to be liked.
Some even less flattering qualities were named as a consistent part of the German character: in alphabetical order, fear, aggression, certainty, harassment, selfishness, inferiority complex, sentimentality. "(3) The document goes on:" Two more features of the German character were in the Looking to the future as reasons for concern. First, an ability to excess, to exaggerate things, to overestimated. Secondly, a tendency to overestimate one’s own powers and abilities.
An example of this which greatly influenced subsequent German history was the conviction that the victory over France in 1870 was the result of a deep moral and cultural superiority, instead of - as indeed - a modest advance in military technology. " Gordon Craig ) The historian Gordon Craig said in a statement in 1991 to have said this in analogy, but distanced himself - as all participating historians - from the concept of national character in the mouth.

^ Or as I often say: the Germans are hysterical romanticists, always driven by galloping emotions, wallowing in collective, shallow sentiments. Only at first glance this seems to be a contradiction to the clichée of the sober, cold-blooded intellectual German (that, if he ever has lived, by now certainly is more or less dead).


https://c59574e9047e61130f13-3f71d0f...C160B4B529.pdf


https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/111048