J_Correa

We went to Germany a year ago and by and large people were pretty nice. We ran into a few grumpy folks, but I figured they were just grumpy.

gforaker

Provence - That is just so against all of my many experiences in Germany including this summer, that I have to feel it was just that you misread the people.

Logos - Stop being a Twit.

Gary_Mc

Germans are individuals. Many are helpful and some see themselves unwilling to "suffer fools gladly". Most just go about their business without regard to tourists. Same here in America.

I lived in Germany for 6 years and can count the bad experiences on one hand.

Regards, Gary

logos999

gforaker - stop talking trash. Fortunately my "horizon is a bit wider" than that of some other poster here. Mabye learing that individual differences in people a far bigger than what prejudiced people attribute to this or that nationality, comes with travelling. Just do a lot more travelling, people! And maybe you'll notice that. Amen... ;-)

Girlspytravel

Don't EVEN get me started about Germans jumping lines....they INVARIABLY do it... but I don't want to talk about it, because it gets my blood pressure rising.

And Quokka hon, I'm sorry, but I thought your post was purely ridiculous, but if YOU believe that, why, knock yourself out, with that silliness!

And Logos, hon, you ain't doing you or your country proud by talking trash like that....none whatsoever.

logos999

Brilliant, I'm not doing proud to my country or anybody, nor would I want to. Why are people so short sighted and uneducated about the world, that they honestly believe in those supposedly existing national differences? I wish I could educated some of them, but I feel they're resistant to any deeper insight. Sigh...

hausfrau

I hesitated to get involved in this thread (I think my screen name will show my bias immediately!), but I have to say that as an American living in Stuttgart for the past 2+ years, I can say with absolute honesty that I have NEVER been treated badly here because I am an American.

It may be true that some Germans are more reserved and less likely to be openly friendly to strangers, but when I look at my experiences as a whole, I have found Germans to be warm, helpful, and, when they find out I am American, not only friendly but genuinely interested in talking to me. Even here in Swabia where the people are traditionally a bit more reserved, I find that more often than not, people smile and say hello when you pass on the street. And one of the things I love about Germany is that when you walk into a restaurant, especially the small neighborhood variety, it is still customary to greet the customers who are already seated!

I am always skeptical when I hear someone make a blanket statement about an entire population...one really must wonder what instigated the "looks" and unfriendliness. The only "looks" I've ever gotten are from Germans who hear me speaking English with my husband or friends and are curious - they probably want to listen in and practice their English!

As for jumping in line, well, I think I might have witnessed that maybe two or three times in two years. (About the same frequency I've witnessed similar behavior by Americans, or any other group for that matter.)

I also wouldn't consider Oktoberfest to be an appropriate venue for judging the character of the German people as a whole. Most Germans I know strictly avoid Oktoberfest because it has become such an insane tourist scene.

logos, your comment about eating children had me cracking up because my husband had a conversation with a German colleague recently about why Germany seems to be underrated as a vacation destination by some Americans, and one of the things his colleague said was, "Don't they know we don't eat children anymore?" ;-)

mike1728

Me and my wife just returned Saturday from 7 days in the Mosel Valley and 3 days in St. Goar (Rhine). The Germans could not have been any friendlier. We had no problems...we practiced our limited German, and they tried their limited English..most were embarrased at their limited English (and its their country!)....I have travelled most of Europe and have found the German people to be amongst the friendliest.

robjame

provence97 - As this was your third trip to Germany, I would have thought you had a pretty good handle on the region and its people?? or did you note a significant change?
john44 - you do seem to have your problems with travelling abroad what with unfriendly Germans, smokers abounding in ALL the restaurants and bad meat... kind of takes the fun out of travelling to Europe for you.
Now me... I haven't found any of those things. But I must say I wasn't looking for them.

tomassocroccante

I want to recommend a recent (2oo2) French film: L'auberge Espagnole.

A group of exhange students from all over Europe share an apartment in Barcelona. All tolerate one another in that student-roommate way. (and their best common language does turn out to be English, though it's a genuine apartment of Babel ...)

When the British student's younger brother comes to visit, we see that not all in Europe have accepted international multiculturalism. He clashes with one and all - and with the German lad it's "Your side of the room is so neat and clean, so German - like Hitler made the trains and buses run, right?" From a clean room to totalitarianism in about 12 words!

MKE

I traveled all over Germany last October and never felt any sort of rudeness or funny looks. Of course, I wear clothes that blend in. I found the Germans to be friendly but reserved (as am I).

I do recall a situation many years ago when two elderly German men were mocking American speech by describing it as someone trying to speak with a hot potato in their mouth.

L84SKY

We just got back from Germany last Friday. With the exception of a couple of eye rolling from a teenagers I didn't notice any "looks".
I had some interesting conversations with a couple of people and believe me, it wasn't because my German language skills have improved so much or that I did much about hiding my “everlasting big American smile”. I do try to speak the language and most people even forgive me for it.

I find many German people to be refreshingly frank. Like when it became clear to the guy at the car rental agency that I, not DH would be driving, he seemed baffled and then said,, “in Germany, most men do not let the women drive!“ In the U.S that guy would have censored that comment for fear of being called on the carpet for it. I don’t think he was being unfriendly, just opinionated.


The bottom line is that that if people (anywhere) aren’t being friendly to you; you aren’t being friendly to them. (Try to refrain from giggling at the language, that must get annoying. )

My hometown is San Diego and I like the, “Welcome to California, now go home”, bumper sticker.

So logos, is that what you guys put in the bratwurst? Delicious!

jodeenyc

I'm so tired of this subject and I've only been on this board for what I consider a short time.

Instead of taking everything personally as Americans, why can't we adjust to the fact that maybe someone is having a bad day, maybe this is one person not a generalization of the entire nation, maybe people aren't 100% consumed with us 100% of the time and quite frankly, due to our policies and actions as a country justly, accept the fact that some people just don't like us?

Why is this so hard to comprehend?

Get over it.

logos999

>So logos, is that what you guys put in the bratwurst? Delicious!

Das Herz einer Frau,
der Magen einer Sau,
der Inhalt einer Wurst,
bleiben ewig unerfurscht.
"Unerfurscht" is only in there to make it rhyme. ;-)

waring

"I do recall a situation many years ago when two elderly German men were mocking American speech by describing it as someone trying to speak with a hot potato in their mouth."

That is taught to French students of English. English is spoken with a very open mouth and throat in comparison to many other languages, which are a lot more "tense" if you like.

We (English speakers) do speak as if we had a hot potato in our mouths.

tomassocroccante

Or, as the individual case may be, a mouthful of french fries or tater tots. Some even go the mashed potatoes route. Frequently that person is making important announcements.

audere_est_facere

We (English speakers) do speak as if we had a hot potato in our mouths.
>>>>>>

Or in some cases a plum. innit.

Cowboy1968

As a German I am somewhat bewildered that some of my compatriots seem to consider it to be almost automatically the visitors' fault if they encounter inappropriate or unfriendly behaviour.

But I would doubt that rude, unfriendly, or incompetent Germans act that way because they harbor xenophobic feelings. They usually dish out their version of "service" on a non-discriminatory basis.

For decades, it has been and it still is a common rant in Germany to complain about people who work in service-oriented industries, e.g. restaurants, stores, railway stations, etc, and who have not yet understood that their company needs the customer but that most customers have the choice to choose a competitor.

And, from my very personal point of view: 'blending in', wearing the right shoes, mastering the language like a pro, and so on, should not be a prerequisite to receive acceptable service.
rant off ;-)

provence97

What a response!
To give you more background information... I speak german fluently and have been to Germany several times. The Germans were very friendly and cordial to me as soon as I opened my mouth and spoke german.

I am not talking badly about the Germans. I wanted to get some insights from other people's experiences in Germany because I had not experienced this before.

gabriele

Germans are as varied as any other nationality, with some being obnoxious and most being nice. Not sure why you got the "looks," but it could well have been tourist-fatigue as suggested by another poster. To those of you who have never had a bad experience in Germany, that's unbelievable! I still remember vividly, on my first trip at age 7, being elbowed and pushed out of the way by old ladies trying to get on a bus ahead of me. And, on my first solo trip at age 20, being yelled at at length by a woman in Bavaria for driving on a restricted road that I mistakenly ended up on (and her rant included something about Americans, which is interesting since I was sitting behind closed windows and hadn't spoken to her!). A few years ago, my mother was at Paestum when she was approached and instructed in English by a private German tour guide to move away from the area since her group was now coming to view this site. My mother told the tour guide in German that she was not yet ready to move, among other things. Unfortunately, I did not get to witness that exchange. However, my mother, a German native who travels back to Germany regularly, has said more than once that she finds Germans are becoming ruder on the whole. My favorite story, though, is when my father (who left Germany for Canada at age 35 and to this day cannot be mistaken for anything but German) asked a Munich shopkeeper for directions, to which the man responded, "Do I look like the tourist information office?" -- and walked away. Most of my family is still in Germany, and while they are all very nice and I love them, there is an undercurrent concerning Americans and politics. It's a subject we have learned not to discuss. In public, however, most people (especially the younger generation) are very positive about the US and most younger people I have spoken with would like to visit, if not live in the US. So, the answer to the OP's question, in my opinion, is not an automatic no. It could be someone having a bad day, or it could have been something else.