Dialog International

A school teacher in Berlin speaks out about pervasive anti-Semitism

Hannah Kushnir teaches high school in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf section of Berlin. She writes in Der Tagesspiegel about her experience as a Jew in Germany today. Her observations are instructive and rather depressing.

As a student Frau Kushnir tended to keep quiet about the fact that she was a Jew:

Von selbst habe ich mein Jüdischsein schon seit dem Gymnasium nicht mehr thematisiert. Zu lehrreich war mir der Geschichtsunterricht bei Herrn S., dessen Teil der Abiturvorbereitung darin bestand, uns einzutrichtern, Israel sei unrechtmäßig errichtet worden. Zu lehrreich auch die Kommentare: „Ach, du bist Jüdin? Das sieht man ja gar nicht so“ oder, genau entgegengesetzt: „Du bist Jüdin? Stimmt, das sieht man aber!“

("I never wanted to make a big deal about the fact that I was Jewish. The history lessons taught by Herr S. as preparation for the Abitur were instructive when he kept hammering home that the founding of Israel was unjust. The commentary of my classmates was also instructive: "What. you're Jewish? You don't look it at all." or "You're Jewish? Oh yes, I can tell!")

Now she is teaching in a school where a large proportion of the students come from immigrant families, or families with low educational attainment.  It is not good to recognized as a Jew.  Frau Kushnir relates what happened when another Jewish teacher made a mistake at school one day:

Meine Kollegin vergaß eines Tages, dass sie noch ihren Davidsstern um den Hals trug. Fataler Fehler. Seither fallen permanent antijüdische und antiisraelische Sprüche im Unterricht. Auf der Straße wird ihr „Du Jude, verrecke“ hinterhergerufen.

Thema Israel oder Judentum im Ethik- oder Geschichtsunterricht? Besser nicht, da startet gleich eine kleine Intifada im Klassenraum. Da ist einer Christ? „Du Hund!“ Beliebtestes Schimpfwort auf dem Schulhof und im Unterricht? „Du Jude!“ Das ist ja inzwischen an vielen anderen Schulen auch so.

("One day my colleague forgot that she was wearing a Star of David necklace. Fatal mistake. Since then one hears anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli comments in the classroom. On the street they shout at her "Die, Jew". Better not bring up the topic of Jews or Israel when teaching ethics or history or else you'll start an Intifada in the classroom.  He's a Christian! "You dog1." But the most popular insult on the playground or in class?  "You Jew!" And that is not uncommon at many schools in the meantime." )

But what really disturbs Frau Kushnir is the indifference to this behavior.on the part of the other teachers and the school administration:

Ich frage mich: Hören nur meine Kollegin und ich das? Wo ist das Empfinden der „Anständigen“ (Zitat Angela Merkel), der anderen Lehrer, die auf die Verfassung der Bundesrepublik geschworen haben, wo das Empfinden der deutschen Schüler? Und was sagte die Schulleitung, der von diesen Vorgängen berichtet wurde? Sie sagte tatsächlich: „Nun seien Sie mal nicht so empfindlich!“

("I ask myself, "Is it just me and my colleague that are hearing these things? Where is the sensibility of the "decent ones" (quoting Angela Merkel), of the other teachers, who have sworn to uphold the constitution of the Federal Republic?  What about the sensibility of the other students?  And what did the principal say when informed about these incidents?  These were her exact words: "Just don't be so sensitive!".)

Well, to me it's a big deal when you hear shouts of "Du Jude, verrecke!" on the streets of Berlin today.

Harmful Impact of Consipiracy Web Sites on German Youth

I just returned from spending a week in South Florida, where the predominant languages one hears are English, Spanish and German.  Spanish, because of all the immigrants from Mexico and Latin America who come to the United States to build a better life for their families. German, due to the thousands of German tourists who love the sun, beaches and hospitality of Florida. 

These tourists from Germany evidently haven't read Wolfgang Bittner's recent book Die Eroberung Europas durch die USA ("The Conquest of Europe by the US") where he describes the United States as a "horror scene":

Spätestens nach dem 11. September 2001 ist eine Schranke der Rechtsstaatlichkeit gefallen. Die US-amerikanische Gesellschaft ist zerrüttet, ihre Regierung schon lange nicht mehr in der Lage, Wohlstand für die Mehrheit zu schaffen und Gerechtigkeit für alle möglich zu machen.Unfassbar hohe Mordzahlen, ein gigantisches Drogenproblem, ein marodes, völlig überteuertes Gesundheitssystem, eine kaputte Infrastruktur, Schulen, die den Namen nicht verdienen, offener Rassismus, unkontrollierte Polizeigewalt, ganze Bevölkerungsschichten, die außerhalb der Armee kaum noch eine Perspektive haben – dies alles vor dem Hintergrund einer Staatsverschuldung, die niemals abgetragen werden kann. Ein Horrorszenario.

(Ever since September 11, 2001 the United States is no longer a nation under the rule of law. American society is dysfunctional, its government is no longer capable of providing prosperity for the majority and justice for all.  Incredibly high murder rate, a huge drug crisis, an ailing, expensive healthcare system, a broken infrastructure, schools not worthy of the name, open racism, uncontrolled police violence, broad spectrum of the population without any future outside of the military - all of this with the backdrop of a national debt that can never be repaid.  A horror scene.)

Nor are these tourists readers of the anti-American conspiracy site NachDenkSeiten, where the editor-in-chief Albrecht Müller sees the United States as the source of all misery in the world ("Der Tod kommt aus Amerika.").

But what about the regular readers of the dozens of German conspiracy sites such as NachDenkseiten, Hintergrund, Kopp Verlag, Junge Welt, etc.?  Sometimes there can be tragic consequences.

The journalist Jana Simon has a fascinating piece in Zeit Magazin about a young man from Saxony who left his typical German middle-class family to join the Islamic State Jihad ISIS in Syria (Jana Simon, Der Junge, der in den Krieg ging ("The Boy Who Went to War").  Simon, the granddaughter of Christa Wolf, spent hours interviewing "Samuel" - the young man -, his parents and friends in an effort to understand what would motivate a teenager to join a terrorist group with a murderous ideology such as ISIS.  

One interesting passage from Simon's long piece describes how Samuel and his best friend Max (who later perished in Syria) would carefully read the conspiracy Web sites:

Mit Max redet Samuel auch über den 11. September, ob die offizielle Version des Anschlags so stimmen könne, über chemtrails, Kondensstreifen der Flugzeuge und deren Chemikalien, die die Menschheit angeblich vergiften. Sie lesen Websites wie "Orwell-Staat", die "Nachdenkseiten" und Compact, das Magazin von Jürgen Elsässer, dem Polit-Aktivisten, der stets Verschwörung wittert. In der Welt dieser Seiten werden Politiker ausschließlich von Konzernen gesteuert und von Lobbyisten getrieben. Die Massenmedien lügen und sind Marionetten der Mächtigen, hetzen gegen Russland und Putin, die Palästinenser und den Islam. Das Königreich des Bösen aber sind die USA. Wer längere Zeit auf diesen Seiten verbringt, fühlt sich danach angeschlagen. Es gibt tatsächlich vieles, was man kritisieren kann an Medien, Politik und den USA. Es gibt Heuchelei, Lügen, und es gibt Interessen. Aber in der Welt dieser Seiten gibt es kein Grau. Jeder Zwischenton ist durch eine Meinung ersetzt. Zufälle existieren nicht, stets wird ein Komplott vermutet. Samuel verliert sich in diesen Theorien.

("Samuel would talk with Max about Sept. 11, whether the official version of the attack was true, about Chemtrails - patrols of aircraft spraying chemicals to poison people. They read Web sites like "Orwell-Staat", NachDenkSeiten and Compact, the magazine of Jürgen Elsässer, the activist whose always uncovering new conspiracies.  In the world as described in these sites, all politicians are controlled by corporations and lobbyists.  The mainstream media reports nothing but lies and are marionettes of powerful people, they attack Russia and Putin, Palestinians and Islam. But the United States is the Kingdom of Evil. Whoever spends much time with these sites will soon feel under attack.  To be sure, there is much to criticize about the media, the political situation and the US.  There is hypocrisy, lies and interests. But the world in these pages has no gray area. Every nuance is replaced by an opinion. Chance doesn't exist - everything is a conspiracy.  Samuel loses himself in these theories.")

Congratulations to Albrecht Müller, Udo Ulfkotte, Jürgen Elsässer, Wolfgang Bittner, Knut Mellenthin and all the other conspiracy theorists with popular Web sites.  Your words seem to be having an effect on impressionable young people.

Die neue Armut / The New Poverty

In his important new book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, Robert Putnam, the Harvard professor and sociologist, returns to his home town of Port Clinton, Ohio - a working class community on the shores of Lake Erie. He seeks out his former classmates who graduated high school in the 1950s and 1960s to see how they fared in life.  For the most part, this cohort did quite well - surpassing their parents in terms of affluence, education and career success. Putnam attributes this to good schools, good parenting, community support structures, and plentiful jobs.  Even those who did not go on to higher education could find decent work at the local factory, earning enough to support a family in relative comfort.  There was a definite path a secure middle class life - The American Dream.

But those who came later, who graduated (or at least attended) high school in the 1980s and 1990s, are not doing so well.  The factory shut down in 1979.  Those jobs remaining in Port Clinton pay minimum wage.  Putnam findsfragmented families, dashed dreams, and - all too often - substance abuse which often led to conflict with local law enforcement.  Oh, for a lucky few who inherited or accumulated wealth life is wonderful with private schools, gated communities, golf outings, etc.  But the chasm separating those lucky few families and the rest appears unbridgeable.  For most, the path to the secure middle class existence Putnam remembers from is youth is blocked.

What happened?  Many things have brought us to this point: globalization has wrecked manufacturing in the US, depriving lower-skilled workers of decent paying jobs; trade unions have for the most part been beaten back, economic policy - starting with the Reagan administration - transferred wealth from the working class to the super-rich, public schools - which provided Putnam and his classmates with good academic skills - have been starved of resources. The family unit, a source of stability and security when Putnam was growing up in Port Clinton, has been torn apart for many poor Americans - irrespective of race.

Susanne Gaschke mentions Putnam's book while pointing out the importance of family cohesion in dealing with poverty in Germany in her piece in Die Welt:  Die neue Armut in Deutschland:

Der amerikanische Politikwissenschaftler und Soziologe Robert Putnam setzt sich in seinem neuen Buch "Our Kids" mit der dramatischen Bedeutung auseinander, die Klassenzugehörigkeit in den USA für die Bildungsbiografien von Kindern erlangt – während ihr ethnischer Hintergrund immer unwichtiger wird. Dabei spielen geradezu reaktionär anmutende Kriterien eine Rolle: Kinder von verheirateten Eltern haben wesentlich bessere Chancen, einen College-Abschluss zu machen, als die Kinder von Nichtverheirateten oder Alleinerziehenden. Schwarze Angehörige der Mittelschicht heiraten. Weiße Angehörige der Unterschicht tun es nicht mehr.

Auch in Deutschland sind nicht Kinder das Armutsrisiko, sondern auseinanderbrechende Elternpaare, mit all den materiellen und immateriellen Folgen der Trennung: weniger Einkommen, weil nicht beide Partner voll arbeiten können; doppelte Haushaltsführung; fehlende männliche Vorbilder; Erschöpfung, weil sich zwei Erwachsene besser als einer gegen den Kinderstress feien können. Einsamkeit.

Germany (still) has a stronger social safety net than the United States, so through public education and apprentice programs there are still opportunities for kids from poor families to achieve a middle class life.  But, as Susanne Gaschke points out, there are signs that the gap between the poor and affluent is growing wider:

Deutschland ist nicht Amerika, aber amerikanische Trends erreichen uns in der Regel früher oder später.

(Germany is not America, but American trends tend to reach us sooner or later.)

Germany is not Pegida

Germany has been getting a lot of bad press recently thanks to the Pegida and "Pegada" marches.  International observers have been wringing their hands, worried that the country is sliding back into a permanent xenophobia.  This is unfair.  The Pegida "movement" is just a German variation of the American Tea Party, complete with its own Sara Palin - but without the eyebrows (Kathrin Oertel).  Like the Tea Party, Pegida is comprised primarily of frustrated middle-aged white men who feel marginalized in a globalized world they no longer recognize.  Unfortunately, this group is easily manipulated by right-wing, even neo-Nazi, elements (especially pronounced in the Leipzig "Legida" copycat marches).  For the most part, the Pegida (and Legida) protesters have been vastly outnumbered by "anti-Pegida" demonstrators - although this is not often reported in the international press:

The other day, Anna Sauerbrey, editor of the Tagesspiegel, had a nice op/ed piece in the New York Times -  Germany Isn't Turning Backwards:

"There are two ways to look at the situation. The optimistic take is to note that, for all the attention Pegida gets inside of Germany and abroad, Germany has never been as liberal, culturally diverse and open toward minorities as it is today.

Last year a biennial poll conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a foundation associated with the left-wing Social Democrats (and thus unlikely to underestimate the problem), found that anti-foreigner attitudes were at a historic low. While its 2012 poll found that about a quarter of Germans reported hostile views toward foreigners, only 7.5 percent did in 2014. And anti-Semitism, which is on the rise elsewhere in Europe, has dropped significantly, to 4.1 percent from 8.6.

Apart from the polls, there is quite a bit of evidence for a new openness. On Jan. 12, 100,000 people went to the streets nationwide in counterdemonstrations against Pegida, showing their solidarity with German Muslims. In Leipzig, 4,800 pro-Pegida protesters were met by 30,000 counterprotesters."

I expect that the Pegida movement will play itself out in the near future - just like the Tea Party in the US.  Already there are signs that it is self-destructing.  Hate requires quite a bit of energy and is unsustainable over the long run.  Think of Brecht's poem Maske des Bösen:

An meiner Wand hängt eine japanische Holzmaske
Maske eines bösen Dämons, bemalt mit Goldlack
Mitfühlend sehe ich die geschwollenen Stirnadern, andeutend
wie anstrengend es ist, böse zu sein.

 

NachDenkSeiten: Persecution of Gays in Russia Totally Understandable

Albrecht Müller, editor-in-chief of the influential left-wing blog NachDenkSeiten is upset that people in Germany or the United States would criticize Russia for passing laws that expressly discriminate against gays and lesbians.  In fact he finds it downright hypocritical: 

Etwas mehr Zurückhaltung und Bescheidenheit wäre für uns angebracht, wenn wir Länder kritisieren, die aus welchen Gründen auch immer die von uns eingeschlagene Richtung langsamer oder gar nicht mittragen können oder wollen.

("We need to show more restraint and modesty before we start criticizing other countries who, for whatever reason, decide to go more slowly - or not at all - down the path we have chosen.")

To illustrate the utter hypocrisy of those of us who criticize Russia he relates the case of a German dentist who was forced out of his profession because he was gay.

The incident happened in 1966.

Meanwhile in Moscow.....

Everyday Anti-Semitism

Today's New York Times has a front-page article on the re-emergence of anti-Semitism in Europe (Europe's Anti-Semitism Comes Out of the Shadows).  Of course the article mentions the high=profile violent incidents, like the murder of four visitors to a Jewish museum in Brussels and the firebombing of a synagogue in Wuppertal.  But much more sinister is the casual acceptance of anti-Semitism across broad swaths of European society:

"But there is also concern about what some see as an insidious “softer” anti-Jewish bias, which they fear is creeping into the European mainstream and undermining the postwar consensus to root out anti-Semitism. Now the question is whether a subtle societal shift is occurring that has made anti-Jewish remarks or behavior more acceptable.

“The fear is that now things are blatantly being said openly, and no one is batting an eyelid,” said Jessica Frommer, 36, a secular Jew who works for a nonprofit organization in Brussels. “Modern Europe is based on stopping what happened in the Second World War. And now 70 years later, people standing near the European Parliament are shouting, ‘Death to Jews!’ ”

The Tageszeitung reports that a woman working in the Israeli embassy in Berlin has to spend the weekend deleting hate messages that pour onto the embassy's Facebook page and YouTube site. Typical comments are "Hamas should use Zyklon B","The world would be so much better without Jews."  "Hitler, where are youuuu?"  "You filthy Jews need to be gassed!."

Ein weiterer Typus der Hassschreiben: Die Empfänger werden nicht nur mit Nazis gleichgesetzt, ihnen wird zudem das gleiche Schicksal wie den Naziopfern angedroht. Ein Jochen lässt wissen: „Bis jetzt fand ich das nie gut was die Nazis gemacht haben aber jetzt glaube ich sie haben noch zu viele von Euch am Leben gelassen! Ich habe Hoffnung, dass der Iran euch irgendwann auslöscht!“

(Another category of hate mail:  the recipients are not simply compared to Nazis, they are threaten to share the same fate as the victims of Nazi violence.  A commenter named "Jochen" writes: "Up to now I didn't like what the Nazis had done, but now I see that they left too many of you alive! I just hope that Iran can wipe you all out some day!")

But what really discourages me is this report coming from a "West German trade school." Apparently teenagers regularly use the term "Dirty Jew" as a casual insult among themselves.

"Jude“ ist ein gebräuchliches Schimpfwort an der Berufsschule in Westdeutschland. Ein 19-Jähriger erklärt mir, Juden seien Wucherer. Sie trieben Menschen in den Ruin.

Ich staune, wie offen im Unterricht Bemerkungen fallen wie „Schufa, alles Juden“. Als einmal ein Schüler ruft: „Aldi gehört den Juden“, reagiert der Lehrer: „Dazu könnte ich jetzt etwas sagen. Aber?“ Er lässt es.

("Jew" is a customary insult in the West German trade school   19 year-old explains that Jews are usuers and extortionists, they drive people to ruin. I'm astonished by how often in class I hear remarks like "Shufa - they're all Jews". ("Schufa is the German credit bureau).  When a student shouts out "the Jews control Aldi"  the teacher responds "I could say something. But?"  He lets it go.")

When the class discusses the history of National Socialism in Germany, a student comes up with a response that is all too common:

Ein Schüler verteidigt die Wehrmacht gegen den Vorwurf, sie habe einen verbrecherischen Krieg geführt. Sein Großvater habe ihm erzählt, wie es wirklich war. In dieser familiären Geschichte sind offenbar die Deutschen die Leidtragenden. Und Juden keine richtigen Deutschen.

(A student defends the Wehrmacht against the accusation that they waged a criminal war. His grandfather told him what really happened. For this family's history the Germans were the ones that suffered in the war. Besides, the Jews weren't real Germans.)

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana (1904)

 

Shoot to Kill

Boston - "Die starke Stadt"

Sebastian Fischer has a nice piece in Der Spiegel marking the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing:

"Boston Strong" war das Motto dieser Tage. Statt den Ort der Tragödie zu verlassen, blieben viele der Marathonläufer in der Stadt, demonstrierten ihren Widerstandsgeist, spendeten Blut für die Verletzten; Tausende hielten Mahnwache für Martin Richard, den Jungen mit dem Peace-Plakat; Tausende säumten die Straßen, als US-Präsident Barack Obama zum Gedenkgottesdienst kam; Zehntausende besuchten das nächste Heimspiel der Baseball-Mannschaft Red Sox. "Die guten Menschen von Boston", sagte Obama damals (Sehen Sie hier ein Video aus der Zeit).

(Boston Strong was the motto for these days. Instead of leaving the place where the tragedy happened, many marathon runnvers remained in the city, demsontrated their spirit of resistance and donated blood for the injured.  Thousands held a candellight vigil for Martin Richard, the boy with the peace poster; thousands ringed the streets when Presiden Barack Obama came to the memorial service; tens of thousands attended the next home game of the Boston Red Sox. "The good people of Boston," Obama said then.)

Just as the bombs exploded at the Marathon finish line, my wife and I were on a train pulling into North Station (my wife was to attend a conference in Boston).  We arrived at scene of panic and chaos, since there were false reports of bombs going off across the city.  Many were streaming into the station, anxious to leave Boston, and we also thought about turning around and getting on the next train out of town. But we decided to stay, and thus experienced the next traumatic days as the people of Boston coped with the tragedy.  At our hotel we encountered marathon runners from Italy, Ireland and Australia, dazed and amazed by what they had just experienced.  The next couple of days everyone went about their business - there was a sense of fear everywhere, especially in the subway, since we knew the bombers were among us and may strike again.  Tensions continued to mount over the next few days as the news media - led by CNN - came out with mistaken reports that the terrorists had been captured.  FInally, things came to a climax four days after the bombing with the bloody shootout and capture of of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

What has happened in Boston over the past twelve months has been truly amazing.  The city came together to embrace the doqens of victims and help them heal from the terrible wounds - both physical and emotional. 

We are getting close to the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Sebastian Fischer makes a good point about the citizens of Boston: 

Gut vier Monate wird der Zarnajew-Prozess dauern, bis zu hundert Zeugen sollen gehört werden. Die insgesamt 30 Anklagepunkte umfassen unter anderem den Vorwurf des vierfachen Mordes und des Einsatzes von Massenvernichtungswaffen. Dennoch scheint eine lebenslange Haftstrafe für Zarnajew wahrscheinlicher als die Todesstrafe: Denn das Urteil müssen am Ende Geschworene fällen. Und wenn die Mehrheitsmeinung der Bevölkerung von Massachusetts ein Anhaltspunkt sein kann, dann dürfte der Angeklagte mit dem Leben davonkommen.

(The Tsarnaev trial is expected to last at least four months, up to one hundred witnesses will testify. The 30 criminal charges include among other thing four counts of murder and the use of weapons of mass destruction.  Even so, life imprisonment is a more likely sentence than the death penalty:  for the verdict must be reached by a jury, and if the majority opinion of the people of Massachusetts is any indication, then the accused's life will be spared.)

Boston, city of great universities and enlightenment, the center of the abolitionist movement, last put a citizen to death in 1947.  The last thing Boston wants to do is respond to this tragedy with another killing.

The reslience of optimism.

Historical Revisionism Today: "Things weren't so bad in the GDR."

Nearly 25 years after the collapse of the "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" some high-school history teachers are telling their students ""Es war nicht alles schlecht in der DDR". Dictatorships, they teach, are not so bad - as long as you "play by the rules".

Sound incredible?  That is the experience of the writer Roman Grafe, who has been visiting high schools around Germany and telling students about the total repression of freedom in the former East Germany.  Often, these talks elicit hostile reactions from the faculty.  At the Comenius-Schule in Stendal a "history teacher" lashed out at Grafe:

"Ich habe mich wohlgefühlt in der DDR", .... Und Sie haben heute die DDR schlechtgemacht. Wenn man sich in Diktaturen an die Regeln hält, passiert einem nichts. Ich frage mich, warum Sie wieder hergekommen sind, wenn Sie Stendal nur schlechtmachen."

("Life was good in the GDR... And you come here today to denigrate the GDR. Nothing can happen to you in a dictatorship if you play by the rules.  I really wonder why you came if you just want to say bad things about Stendal.")

At another school he was told by a "history teacher":

 "Ich habe eine andere Meinung über die DDR als Sie. Ich habe direkt am Grenzzaun gewohnt, mich hat der Zaun nicht gestört. Wir konnten nach Ungarn und Bulgarien reisen, das hat uns genügt."

("I have different opinion than you about the GDR. I lived next to the border fence- it never once bothered me. We could travel to Hungary or Bulgaria- that was plenty for us.")

Comments like this are made openly to a vistor to the schools. But what are teachers telling their students when no outsiders are around?  What are students learning about recent history?  And could this Ostalgie (nostalgia for the old East Germany) result in hostility or plain indifference to democratic principles?

German reporter praises America. Heads explode.

Frank Schmiechen, of the Hamburg daily Die Welt, spent four months living in California.  We was so smitten by the "das Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten" that he published a love letter to the United States: 

Du hast mich mit offenen Armen empfangen. Du bist offen und neugierig auf mich zugekommen. Du hast mich vier Monate bei dir aufgenommen. Obwohl du gar nicht wusstest, wer ich bin, was ich kann und was ich will. Das war dir egal. Du hast all meine Fragen beantwortet, meine merkwürdige Aussprache und mein sehr mittelmäßiges Englisch höflich überhört.

(You received me with open arms. You approached me with openness and curiosity. You took me in for four months. Even though you had no idea who I am, what I can do, what I want. That didn't matter. You answered all my questions, and politely ignored my strange accent and mediocre English.)

Many in Europe scoff at how friendly people are in the US - a sign of superficiality.  For Schmiechen it was a breath of fresh air:

Deine Freundlichkeit wird dir ja oft als Oberflächlichkeit ausgelegt. Vor allem von uns Deutschen. Ich wünsche mir mehr von dieser Freundlichkeit in meiner Heimat. Ich mag freundliche Oberflächen. Vielleicht handelt es sich bei deiner Freundlichkeit einfach nur um gute Erziehung. Und hinter all den Floskeln und Ritualen verbergen sich oft sehr schlaue Köpfe.

(Your friendliness is often seen as superficial. Most of all by us Germans.  I wish we had more of this in my homeland.  I like friendly surfaces.  Maybe your friendliness is just a sign of good upbringing. And behind all the friendly banter there is often an intelligent mind.)

Schmiechen is not blind to the social inequality, the struggles of many just to keep from falling deeper into poverty.  But he admires the risk-taking, the pragmatism and can-do attitude of Americans.  Not to mention the celebration of success here - in contrast to the deep suspicion of success in Germany. 

In the end, it's the fact that America is constantly re-inventing itself that he most admires:

Und so wie es aussieht, bist du in der Lage, dich immer wieder zu verändern, zu wachsen und zu verbessern. Das mag ich an dir. Und lass dich bitte nicht von uns ewigen Besserwissern aus dem alten Europa durcheinanderbringen. Am Ende musst du uns wahrscheinlich wieder aus irgendeiner Patsche helfen.

(It seems that you're always able to keep changing, to grow, to improve. That's what I like about you. And please don't get out of sorts by those in old Europe who always know better.  In the end you'll probably once again have to help out out  of a mess.)

To be sure, four months is not a great amount of time to get to know another country.  And California is not representative for all of the vast US.  Would Schmiechen have been so enthusiastic if he had spent a winter in Utica, New York?

Still, it is illuminating to read through the many comments to this piece.  Those who have traveled to the US or lived here for some time for the most part share Schmiechen's positive view.  More common, however were comments like this from a  "Serpentine":

Wie schade eigentlich, dass Herr Schmiechen ausschließlich die tollen Seiten des Lebens in Amerika thematisiert hat. Kein einziges Wort über die fast 50 Millionen Amerikaner, die mithilfe von Lebensmittelmarken "überleben" können, kein einziges Wort über die fast genau so vielen Amerikaner, die immer noch nicht krankenversichert sind, kein einziges Wort über die marode, einem Drittweltland ähnliche Infrastruktur. Die Liste ließe sich beliebig fortsetzen, aber hey, im Land der Blinden sind die Einäugige immer noch Könige.

(Too bad that Herr Schmiechen chose to highlight only the good side of life in America. Not one word about the 50 million Americans who survive only because of food stamps.  Not one word about the same number of Americans without health insurance.  Not one word on the crumbling infrastructure like in a Third World country. The list goes on and on, but, hey, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.)

Given the current sentiment in Germany, publishing this glowing tribute to America in a major news outlet is truly an act of courage.