Perhaps WWII was no fluke. Perhaps it was the not the inevitable result of circumstance set
in historical motion. Perhaps, what we've come to expect all along is true: Germans are cruel.
in historical motion. Perhaps, what we've come to expect all along is true: Germans are cruel.A slapstick childhood?
“Berlin leaves me baffled,” Joanna Robertson, a mother of two, writes for BBC. “True to the spirit of the Brothers Grimm, childhood here is filled with wonders, but is unexpectedly grim. There are toy shops by the hundreds. And puppet theatres. Sweetshops. Playgrounds with terrific slides. Ice creams scattered with gummi-bear jelly sweets. Sledging in winter, cycling in summer, tree-climbing and swimming in lakes. But should
a little child fall off her bike, passersby will laugh out loud. … Take my elder daughter Lilli’s junior school. The reward for keeping quiet in class? The teacher gives out a balloon filled with freezing water to burst upon the head of a fellow pupil of one’s choice.”
“Berlin leaves me baffled,” Joanna Robertson, a mother of two, writes for BBC. “True to the spirit of the Brothers Grimm, childhood here is filled with wonders, but is unexpectedly grim. There are toy shops by the hundreds. And puppet theatres. Sweetshops. Playgrounds with terrific slides. Ice creams scattered with gummi-bear jelly sweets. Sledging in winter, cycling in summer, tree-climbing and swimming in lakes. But should
a little child fall off her bike, passersby will laugh out loud. … Take my elder daughter Lilli’s junior school. The reward for keeping quiet in class? The teacher gives out a balloon filled with freezing water to burst upon the head of a fellow pupil of one’s choice.”There it is; that curious mix of cold misanthropism and socially-minded humanism defining the Fatherland. And, What's up with the frigid sense of existential angst, staring off into the middle distance? Are they never not serious? And, if they are sometimes not - how does one tell?
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