Forget The Ploughshares

June 19, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, History, Home Cooking Tags: Bundeswehr, Cold War, Crimea, German, Germans, Germany, Iron Curtain, Military Bases, NATO, Pacifism, Putin, Ukraine 3 Comments

We’re going to turn our old Cold War military bases into wildlife preserves.

The German government has announced plans to convert 62 disused military bases just west of the Iron Curtain into nature reserves for eagles, woodpeckers, bats, and beetles (personally, I wouldn’t trust a woodpecker as far as I could throw one).

Jeepers. It’s not like Germany has a need for a military presence anymore or anything.

“We are fortunate that we can now give these places back to nature,” says German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks. Whatever that is. Nature, I mean.

Practice Your German Tonight

June 17, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: BRD, Cold War, East Germany, GDR, German, Germany, Language, NATO, Nuclear Arms, Putin, TV, West Germany Leave a comment

And your Cold War attitudes from the 80s, while you’re at it. Looks like we might be needing them again.

“Deutschland 83” premieres 11 p.m. Wednesday on SundanceTV.

SundanceTV’s “Deutschland 83” is the first German-language series ever broadcast on a U.S. network. The eight-part fictional spy thriller is set in 1983, when the then-split Germany was the hot spot for escalating nuclear tensions between NATO and the Soviet Union.

Vladimir Putin: “More than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles able to overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems will be added to the make-up of the nuclear arsenal this year.”

Paternoster Suddenly Too Dangerous For Human Use

June 1, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria Tags: Elevators, German, Germans, Germany, Government Control, Paternoster, Regulation, Social Democrats 2 Comments

Says the SPD. Even though they’ve been in use for decades here.

More nanny state nonsense from Nanny Nahles.

“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

German Film May Have Foreshadowed Hitler…

May 27, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: Books, Caligari, Film, German, Germans, Germany, Hitler, Ice Cream, India, Marketing, Movies 1 Comment

As claimed in the book “From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film.” But no force in the universe could possibly have foreshadowed, much less foreseen this latest greatest new and refreshing delicious taste treat snack: Hitler Ice Cream.

From India. I guess you had to have been there. To get it, I mean.

Hitler Ice Cream. Mad, I mean made like no other. This gives “you scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream” a whole new meaning.

The ice cream packaging has a photo of Hitler along with a Swastika-shaped top hat, which is somewhat at odds with his furious expression and full military paraphernalia.

Cologne 1945

May 6, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, History, Hurt Feelings Tags: 1945, Cologne, Film, Germany, WWII Leave a comment

An optical illusion?

It’s more like “delusion.”

German Of The Day: Krawalltourismus

May 1, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Anarchism, Berlin, Demonstrations, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Riots, Violence, Workers Leave a comment

That means “violent demonstration tourism,” more or less. And May Day (or International Workers’ Day) is booked out completely for this every year in Berlin.

These international workers are off that day, you see. And it’s a bewitching event that these folks just can’t afford to miss. You know, tradition and all that?

Weder mystisch noch romantisch. Für die Berliner Polizei steht run um die Maifeiertage viel Arbeit an.

German Border Guards To Keep Wolves Out

April 28, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, History, Humor, Hysteria Tags: Animals, Borders, Conservationists, Fairy Tales, Germany, Motorcycle Gangs, Night Wolves, Putin, Ukraine, Wolves Leave a comment

About 150 years have passed since German hunters eradicated wolves from the nation’s woodlands. But the animal’s threatening aura has persisted through folk tales, including those by German writers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

So when wolf packs began reappearing in Germany late in the 20th century, thanks to the efforts of conservationists, the animals faced a public-relations challenge.

Meanwhile… Even though members of the “Night Wolves” may already have visas for Germany, they will be revoked at the border if members of the group, blacklisted in the United States for their participation in Russia’s annexation of Crimea, try to enter.

Barbarian Hordes From The Steppes Threatening Berlin Again

April 23, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Hideology, High Art, History, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Bikers, German, Germans, Germany, Hells Angels, Marlon Brando, Night Wolves, Putin, Red Army, Russia, Soviet Union, Ukraine, World War II 1 Comment

Only this time they’re coming on motorcycles. And they don’t even belong to the Hells Angels. Like, how indecorous is that?

Politicians and activists in the European Union’s ex-communist east are outraged over a plan by the Night Wolves to commemorate the Soviet victory in World War II by tracing the Red Army’s path to Berlin.

At least 20 riders will cruise from Moscow through Belarus, according to the Night Wolves’ website. From Poland, they’ll pass through the capitals of Slovakia to Austria before continuing to Prague and ending in Berlin on May 9, the 70th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s capitulation to the Soviet Union.

Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?

Grass Bites Grass

April 13, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hideology, History, Home Cooking, Humility, Hypocrisy Tags: Günter Grass, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Literature, Nobel Prize, Waffen-SS 4 Comments

And I bet he’s greener on the other side now, too.

No, but seriously folks… He was very outspoken. And he spoke out a lot. And he was a humble social critic.

Too bad he couldn’t just stick to what he was really good at. Writing The Tin Drum, for instance.

During the rise of Nazi Germany and the Second World War, Grass was in the Jungvolk (Hitler Youth) before, aged 17, being drafted into the Waffen-SS, the elite armed wing of the Nazi Party. He only revealed this fact about himself in 2006.

This Just In: Germany Suddenly Owes Greece $305 Billion For World War II

April 7, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: Debt, EU, Euro Zone, Germany, Greece, Humor, Reparations, Satire, WWII 1 Comment

Or at least that’s what the Greek parliament just figured out.

However, Italy also suddenly owes Greece $216 billion for its invasion in 1940, too, they said.

After that you’ve got the Ottoman Empire owing the Greeks $197 billion for, well, for being Turks.

Then the Roman Empire will also still need to shell out an additional $116 billion for those nasty Macedonian wars.

And then, of course, Iran will have to step up and pay Greece $97 billion for the ugly Persian Invasion back in 484 BC.

This will still leave Greece with a humungous debt, of course, the parliamentarians noted, but nothing that another little loan from their friends in the European Union won’t fix.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: History