To give you a more exact answer though, jokes like that can be appropriate. They are definitely not taboo, though usually they'd be less at the expense of Germany, I suppose. The one I made for example wouldn't work in Germany at all, as it's basis is the stereotype that Germans still are connected to Hitler in a "positive", that works because it's something that is a staple (at least in humor) in many foreign countries, to Germans that concept is foreign though, so it wouldn't necessarily be inappropriate, but it wouldn't really be funny. Similar with the supposed fetish for German fecal porn, that's not something that would work cause Germans themselves don't have that stereotype (or even know about it).
Which is to say, Hitler jokes aren't necessarily taboo, talking about Hitler isn't taboo, Germany has been doing very active coming to terms work and "atonement" if you will. But some jokes would work others wouldn't because of different expectations.
In certain circles however it is better not to talk about Hitler at all, as it can be a touchy or inappropriate subject, though I suppose in that it is not different to other countries.
I suppose it's different for my generation, we've been born far later, our parents usually weren't alive at the time either, so I at least never felt a specific connection or "responsibility" for World War 2, but the older people of course still had a lot to do with it, they grew up in a world where almost everyone had something to do with the War in one way or another, but of course there's been immense progress since then. Our old chancellor Helmut Kohl coined the term "The mercy of a late birth", which I guess makes sense.
Lol, well I'm rambling, it's a huge topic though, hard to summarize on top of ones head in a small post.
I suppose its like the "maple syrup" steryotype for canadians, really only works on an international stage
but that makes sense. I was just curious really, as you said, Hitler has become a staple of humor in western society, and I just wondered how that played out in Germany. You are right though, a country that still had a strong racist/nazi movement might be a better place to look for weird social taboos about hitler.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
The news is in!NASA didn't find an alien life form in space. They found one on Earth, sort of. There is a form of bacteria in California that uses arsenic as one of its top six biological components, specifically it replaces most uses of phosphorus.
Why is that exciting? Ever heard of a thing called DNA? Code of life and all that jazz. Well it's based around phosphate groups in every for of life known to man except this one.
Not quite "we found an alien", but pretty cool nonetheless.
Originally posted by Bardock42
That's just to set up the stage...in a couple of weeks they'll be like "Oh yeah, btw...that Alien we got in Roswell....HE'S ALSO MADE OF ARSENIC!!! DA DA DA DAAA!"
Originally posted by Omega Vision
That's something of a game changer, isn't it?
yes, something of one
what I want to know is if this simply is an adaptation by some extremophile bacteria, or whether we will find an anscestorial history of arsenic DNA based organisms, which have the same roots as phosphorus based life forms...
the NASA article seems to imply the former, but man, thinking that life could have had a number of different compositions, depending on the environment it came from, so cool. Very relevant for what me and Ush were discussing
Originally posted by inimalist
yes, something of onewhat I want to know is if this simply is an adaptation by some extremophile bacteria, or whether we will find an anscestorial history of arsenic DNA based organisms, which have the same roots as phosphorus based life forms...
the NASA article seems to imply the former, but man, thinking that life could have had a number of different compositions, depending on the environment it came from, so cool. Very relevant for what me and Ush were discussing