The Difference Between American Patriotism and an Upbringing in Germany

Things I did and did not learn in school

“The feeling of loving your country more than any others and being proud of it.” — Definition of “patriotism” in the Cambridge Dictionary

The word “patriotism” doesn’t exist in the modern German world. I haven’t learned its meaning in school. And I haven’t learned what it means to be proud of your country. I don’t even know what the colors on the German flag stand for.

What I do know is that we’ve f***ed up. I’ve learned literally everything about the 2nd world war that is out there. And I haven’t learned it in a way as you learn part of history. They taught us this stuff in school as if it was us killing people. They made us feel depressed, ashamed and embarrassed about being German.

Don’t get me wrong, it was horrible what the Germans did back then. But so did the French, the British, and almost every other nation on earth at some point in their history. The difference between them and us is that they stood up again and left all the bad behind.

We didn’t.

History lessons in school

And part of it is the way we teach history in school. We don’t teach it as part of the past. We teach it as something that you must be carrying with you every single day. And activities as cruel as those in WW2 aren’t easy burdens to carry. Let alone be it a child.

Now, what do you expect? Of course, we come out of school being scared to say anywhere “I’m German” because we think we are going to receive another verbal hiding from it.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is over it. Long over it. Most of the world doesn’t think of WW2 when I respond to their question about my home country.

Most of the countries and people from around the world do look up to our nation. Just we can’t. We can’t be proud of ourselves. We can’t be proud of the strong economy we have. And we can’t be proud of being the core of the European Union.

Why?

Because we’re feared of being called a Nazi as soon as we say anything regarding being proud of being German.

Showing colors as a German

Literally, the only time it is okay to show “patriotism” in Germany is during the soccer world cup. That will also be the only time you will see an excessive amount of flags throughout the country. But as soon as the world cup is over or as soon as the Germans are out of the cup these flags will disappear out of your sight.

You won’t see flags hanging in German front yards. Or on the wall of a living room. Hell no. If you’ll walk past a garden plot area you’ll see above some wooden garden shed a Turkish, Greek, or Spanish flag. But rarely ever a German one. More often the Germans will share a flag of their favorite soccer team rather than one of their country.

There is a German party in the ruling government that wants to eliminate the word “Germany”. This is for real. I guess the new name would be “land of the immigrants”. But who am I daring to say something like that? I’ll be called a Nazi in no time for this.

I guess this sums up the best that patriotism in Germany is basically non-existing.

What I did not learn in school

Our national colors

While I mentioned before that I didn’t learn what our national colors on the flag do stand for I also do not remember ever listening to the German anthem in one of the schools I went to. Never.

I did learn the German anthem watching the soccer world cups or Olympics.

Germany had colonies

While I learned everything about the second world war forwards, backward, sideways, from the French side, the British, the allied forces, the Japanese, and any other side existing, I did not learn much, or anything at all about Germany having colonies.

Sometime, in our past.

This is why many Germans coming to Namibia are surprised to hear people speaking perfectly fluent German and not understanding why. I was the same.

When I came to Namibia the first time I did not know it used to be a German colony back in the day. I did not know what “Deutsch-Südwestafrika” used to be.

This proves once again, travel teaches you what school doesn’t. But hey, this surely would have been something covered in history lessons in other nations. I’m sure the British do learn about every single colony they once had, so do the French.

We didn’t.

How to speak either British or American English

Another thing about the German school system is the way they teach us languages. German schools put languages high on the list of things to learn and it is not uncommon to learn three different languages during the teenage years.

But, and there’s a big but in it, the way they teach languages could and maybe should be reconsidered.

For now, I’ll focus on the English language since I’ve got the most experience with it compared to other languages I’ve learned to speak.

While other countries either follow in school the Cambridge system teaching them British English or American English, we got both. But not in a way that would be profiting us.

When we learned vocabulary we’d always learn both expressions for a word. The American and the British name for it. And guess what a child does with it? It’ll pick one and remember the easiest one of the two.

The result of it is rather obvious. We’d speak and write a bad mixture of both. We were allowed to use in exams any words we’d pick. In the final exams called the German “Abitur”, we were told it is recommended to use one of the two versions but they didn’t deduct any points if you mix British and American English.

I mean seriously? What bulls*** is that? As soon as we’d get out of Germany people wouldn’t just look at us talking English because of our horrible accent but also because we’d constantly swap from British English to American English and back again.

While I moved over to American English in my writings once I began to write on Medium, I still use some British words. Unknowingly. Unless someone points it out, I won’t know. I’ll just know it’s an English word I use.

If Grammarly doesn’t tell me it’s a “non-American” expression I won’t pick it up. Thanks to the horrible mixture of vocabulary I learned during my school years.

So, I would love to see if this would change in the future so that children learn how to speak either British or American English but not a mixture of both.

Final words

I guess there are surely more points and topics we didn’t learn in school but these were the things standing out to me. Moments that stuck out from the rest of my school years.

This wasn’t entirely meant as a rant thread. It was also meant as an explanation about why I (or we) act the way I (we) do. That you understand why I can’t say “I’m German” with keeping a straight face and being proud of it.

It is an explanation for foreigners to understand why we are the way we are. And why we talk such mixed and weird English. We simply didn’t learn it any different.

But this also might be a challenge for the German schooling system to rethink some of their ways of teaching and topics they do cover. No education system in the world is perfect (except for the Scandinavian ones maybe) and the most important part of it is to keep the system evolving.

I’d like to see following generations growing up with some pride in their home country. I’d like them to say “I’m German” with a smile on their face. I’d also like them to travel the world to learn all that our schools don’t teach us.

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