I recently stumbled across an article in the Irish Times that described in detail how to protect your money in the (not entirely improbable) case of a breakup of the Eurozone. Simply lend your Euros to the Federal Republic of Germany, so the thinking goes, a safer place should be hard to find. Of course your bank or broker can buy German bonds (or “bunds”) for you and you’re set, but there’s also the DIY-approach. And this is where the long, concatenated German words come into play.

We’ll start with this cute green guy named Günther Schild:

Günther is a tortoise or turtle, whichever you prefer. The German word for turtle is a good example for our antipathy towards creating new words when you can simply combine existing ones to achieve the same result (albeit by using more letters, conceded). With a little bit of imagination a turtle looks like a toad with a shield, so we simply combine the “Kröte” (toad) with “Schild” (shield) and voilà (pardon my French) the “Schildkröte” is born. Rhinoceros too complicated? Well, that’s a beast with a horn on the nose (“Nase”), “Nashorn” is much easier to spell for firstgraders (and the like;-). Hippo? A river-horse (“Flusspferd”). Warthog? A pig with warts (“Warzenschwein”). And so forth…

Now Günther’s surname makes some sense, doesn’t it? Günther is the mascot of an instituion thate manages the sale of German Government securities, the “Bundesfinanzagentur”. Let’s try to disassemble that word into its components:

Bundes – Federal
Finanz – Finance
Agentur – Agency

Hey, simple, it’s the Federal Finance Agency. Now that is the place people turn to if they want to lend the German Government some money without any kind of intermediary (like a broker) in between. The article mentioned above describes the process in detail, only the link the author provides seems to be broken, use this one to access the English language pages of the Finanzagentur.

A side note:
The TV ads with the likeable Dr. Günther Schild were so successful that the commercial banks protested, because they lost quite some business when people took money out of their bank accounts to buy the Governments then new Day-Bond (“Tagesanleihe”, made up of “Tag”/day and “Anleihe”/bond). So poor Günther is  less visible now that he was a few years ago, but I still like him and the message he delivers.

Heinrich’s collection of useless knowledge:
Could not resist to share with you that the Bundesfinanzagentur was formerly know as Bundeswertpapierverwaltung, another nice example of how words come into being. The “Bundes” part you already know, “Wertpapier” itself consists of “Wert” (value) and “Papier” (paper) literally a “paper of value” which normally refers to stocks or bonds. “Verwaltung” simply means administration. The federal bond administration – easy as pie if you know the rules.

More examples? Try Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänskajütentür or Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. Both valid German words… Enjoy!

Although 30 years have gone by since a teenage Heinrich had his radio tuned to the Britisch Forces Broadcasting Service, I can still remember some of their jingles. Growing up in Lower Saxony, BFBS Germany was our gateway to the world of cool pop music, always a little ahead of NDR2, then the only radio station available that did not cater exclusively to the needs of grown-ups (which means lots of Schlager and Volksmusik).

Inevitably BFBS helped improve my English, ultimately even leading to me posting blog entries in this language. And I got rare insights into British ways of looking at things, often strange, but always enlightening. Thanks, BFBS, you did a good job, and while I was not your target audience, me listening to you did not cost the British taxpayer one shilling. My conscience is clear, at least on this topic

With the advent of private radio station in the late eighties things for us listeners definitely changed for the better, Radio Schleswig-Holstein started in 1986 with 24 hours of rock and pop. BFBS now is one in at least 30 FM stations showing on my radio dial, and only occasionally will I tune into it. My guess is, when the last British soldier leaves Germany in a few years, BFBS will be gone for good, like my youth, come to think of it. Ok, must be the foggy November weather…

Heinrich sometimes feels more than a little embarrassed when watching German soldiers parading in full dress, be it in moving ceremonies for fallen comrades or at parades like a Zapfenstreich, or as in the picture above, at a joint promotion ceremony.

These grey coats always remind me of a perverts attire, walking through a park in search of young girls he can terrify by flapping open his mantle and showing his naked wiener.  Heinrich, being classified as “mostly harmles”, never served in any armed forces, but if he had, would that be a uniform he would wear proudly? Rather not.

A short excursion into the dark times of German history seems necessary at this point. After the horrors of World War II the mere concept of a German army was highly unpopular, within Germany as well as with our neighboring countries. So when the cold war approached and new armed forces (named Bundeswehr) where founded, they had to be as low key as possible. The soldiers profession, that for centuries had been highly respected, was now considered as a necessary evil, at best. For nearly 50 years not much had changed, when after reunification our allies grew more and more impatient and demanded some kind of burden sharing in international conflicts. Heinrich still remembered the strange feeling he had when he watched German IFOR tanks crossing the border into former Yugoslavia in the mid 1990s. For a cold war kid this seemed nearly uncomprehensible. The Bundeswehr (and the German people) had to learn again what it meant to have a real, fighting army, and they had to learn it fast. More than 50 soldiers did not come home alive from Afghanistan, so, yes, the soldier’s profession has changed profoundly since 1990, when you basically only needed to avoid death of boredom when you joined the Bundeswehr.

Now some young officers no longer want to feel ashamed standing next to french, american or british soldiers in their gala uniforms, and, yes, even pacifistic Heinrich can relate to that. They even created a prototype which does look absolutely unsuspicious to me, it is inspired by uniforms worn by the Lützow Free Corps at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, ca. 1813.

Of course the official Bundeswehr is not happy with this proposal and I am pretty sure it will get buried with one of the usual excuses (“more urgent things on our mind now”, “no money for gimmicks” and so on). But times have changed and since the end of the draft new means of attracting young people are necessary, and it’s not always only about the money, honey.

If in 10 years time (after having bailed out half of Europe) we still can afford to have a standing army, it will probably have proper gala uniforms. Mark my words.

From North to South:
Tschüss!
When Heinrich was still a little Heini (yes, that’s really the diminutive of Heinrich) it was considered highly impolite to say “Tschüss” when leaving a shop in Bavaria or seeing off a visitor when south of the Weißwurstäquator

Moin!
Slowly following Tschüss, we’re working on it

From South to North:
Weizenbier.
Hard to get by 30 years ago, only very few shops in Hamburg would sell it, serving the Bavarian expats, lured into the north by love or work or both. Nowadays available in every supermarket large or small.

Leberkäse.
Also known as Fleischkäse, both names are kind of misleading, because there’s no cheese in it whatsoever. Crept into northern parts of Germany, although still not on sale everyday and everyware. Heinrichs trusted local Metzger for example normally makes fresh Leberkäs every Thursday, unless specially ordered. Unthinkable in Bavaria, Metzger would be expelled immediately.

More to come…

The German Michel (Michel is for Germany what “John Bull” is for England) would be well advised not to lament too loudly about the lazy, self-righteous, profligate and ingrate Greeks. The implemantation of austerity measures like those the Greeks have to endure would lead to desperate Michels venting their anger by shooting their beloved garden gnomes. Or worse.

Greece is by no means the only country in the world where politicians spend borrowed money that has to be repaid by following generations. Let’s for example have a look at Germany’s public finances. By the end of 2011 the national debt will have surpassed 2000000000000 Euros. That’s about 1.8 trillion pounds or 2.9 trillion US Dollars. That is a lot of money, especially considering the fact that no one has the faintest idea how a shrinking and aging population should ever by able to pay it back. What a legacy we leave behind for our children.

Well, every country gets the government it deserves, so we as voters have no chance of shirking the responsibility for this mess. Our only hope: When the shit hits the fan, we’ll all be dead and gone after a long and rather comfortable life, not on borrowed time but on borrowed money.

So here’s my message: If we (the Germans/Britons/French/Americans/… of our time) were honourable and responsible people, we’d tackle the deficits and implement austerity measures at least as strict as those our friends in Ireland, Portugal or Greece have to endure.

Sustainability is not only about waste separation, it is about enabling future generations to live without the burden of our selfishness.

This is a translation of this article. Work is still in progress, bear with me.

Nowadays things are a little more complicated, so Heinrich, dirty old man that he is, feels the need to set a few things straight.

A funny yet potentially embarressing misunderstanding when planning Anglo-German intercourse (“Geschlechtsverkehr”, literally translated “sex traffic” ) involves preservatives. Well, normally you would not expect that food chemistry would be a favorable topic in the bedroom – unless you’re dating a chemist maybe. But the German word for condom happens to be “Präservativ” while preservative translates to “Konservierungsstoff”.

To make things more complicated, a multitude of other names are frequently used for condoms, normally depending on the company your in:

“Kondom” – you would not have guessed, would you?
“Pariser” (Parisian) – yes, the French have a certain reputation in these matters
“Gummi” (rubber)
“Verhüterli” – contraceptorlet (this highly innovative term is (c) Heinrich IX)
“Lümmeltüte” – (bugger bag)
“Präser” – short for “Präservativ”

So, next time you’re in a very intimate mood and someone asks you “Hast Du nen Gummi dabei?” you are well prepared and will know that he or she is not referring to something made by Haribo…

By the way: maybe someone can one day enlighten me as to how “condominiums” got their strange name…

Ok, this is going to be a bit complicated, so lets assume that conversation between two people is always like a duel.

Duelling with someone in the tongue of my fathers (in my case, surprise, surprise, in German) means I have a vast choice of weapons for every occasion. Pistols, rifles, swords, sabers, rapiers, epees, daggers, guns of all calibers imaginable, poison, toothpicks, in short, everything you need for a civilized exchange of words, because you can be sure that your opponent knows the rules. His or her armory might or might not be better stacked than my own but we are more or less on even ground.

Now, all of a sudden there is someone else to deal with. My German language armory which has so well served me over the years will suddenly not help me in the least, because my counterpart normally will know little or nothing about my duelling culture. But, conversation necesse est, so I need to play by foreign rules. I roam my English armory, lots of cobwebs and a club. Nothing very useful for a formidable and eloquent dialog, but it will have to do.

The bitter consequence: My opponent hears me using his language like some stoneage Fred Flintstone, rough, raw and untrained, just barely enough to get the message across. He will see me as uncivilized, blunt, direct, rude…and why? Just because I was polite enough to duel him on his terms, just because he didn’t even bother to put as much as a nail file into his German word armory.

So folks, of course you still have every right to call me rude, but first let me see your skills with the verbal Schwert, Säbel, Degen, Florett oder Pistole…it’s your choice of weapons.