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Is it true, that german people are too serious?

In addition to our school project: ,,humor around the globe“, I‘m going to present you some facts about the Germans and their sense of humor. The informations are from an interview from ,,FOCUS Online“, a german news website, with the expert Rainer Stollmann.

German people have the reputation, that they´re too serious and this is still the view of the world on Germany and why nobody tries German comedy. But where does this reputation come from? A lot of people think that stereotypes rely on the reality and when you look at the german culure, you can see that it´s more about romance and pain than about fun, which you can also see in the tales. Their culture is very important so that it still influences the people. Even the first cartoons, that were meant to be funny, have mainly serious aspects and are not meant for comedy. Moreover the literature is more likely to be romantic with a tragic end. But german people do know international comedy ,like Charlie Chaplin a famous comedian, even better than other nations.

Relying on the expert, Rainer Stollmann, germans should try to mix humor and seriousness to overcome the stereotypes and to have more fun in general. As a german I don´t think that we´re to serious but I agree that the german culture is taken very firmly and that we should be more humorous about it. I hope you liked my article and please review on the topic, wether you think germans are too serious or not.

Kristin

German Humour

For our school project on humour around the globe, I have decided to give some Information on German humour, being from Germany myself. I base this blog entry on an interview by FOCUS online with Rainer Stollmann an expert on the topic of humour.

To the question of whether Germans are humourless or not is easy to answer. Yes, they are. Stereotypes are often based in reality; Germans are not comedians they are romantics. That is the epoch that shaped Germany the most. To this day the most beloved classics in literature and music are serious and not humorous. Even though there are comedians from the 19th century such as Wilhelm Bush who is one the inventors of the cartoon most of his work is not funny but rather pedantic. Which can be seen in a lot of works from that time. While works from Shakespear often can be interpreted as a tragedy or comedy without disrupting the source material. German classics are either a comedy or a tragedy. To add to that there are only two classic works of classic literature in German history: “Minna von Barnhelm” by Lessing and “Der zerbrochene Krug” by Kleist. The first real comedies in Germany’s pop culture were fairy tales these were 500 years ago considered to be comedic. The most famous fairy tale writers: the Grimm brothers. They set themselves apart by giving their stories naive and innocent, romantic one could say. That is the typical “Grimm-Sound” but it also took away that comedic element that fairy tales were supposed to have. But that was 500 years ago today there are many comedians such as Otto Waalkes, Loriot, Helge Schneider and many more Satire papers. Because of the Stereotype of the unfunny German no one knows about the comedic potential that we have to offer. On the contrary German audiences are very familiar with international comedians. The likes of Charlie Chaplin, Mr Bean, and Monty Python are well-known all-around Germany.

So, does that mean that Germans are not that unfunny? Well, Loriot answered that question once he said that Germans draw a line between humour and seriousness. In other words, they are waiting for a signal to laugh. Loriot found that unfortunate and hoped that they would mix humour and their seriousness a bit more.

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Do Germans have any sense of humor ?

Today ´s topic is if Germans are humorous at all or not and what are the reasons for it. I, as a German student abroad at this school, find it really interesting to join the project “Humor around the globe” and to exchange ideas with you guys.

As far as I´m concerned it all starts with the history of Germany. But does this justify the stereotype of Germans and their seriousness? Somehow it really does. Around the end of the 18th century until into the 19th century was the aera of “ Romance” in Germany, which was mainly spread in europe countries. It decribes the values of longing and world pain in the past which affected several areas in the German culture like the music, the philosophy and the German literature. Overall everything in this aera was somehow connected with seriousness. An example for that are the tales written from brothers Grimm like “snow white” or “sleeping beauty”, which have a negative touch and are mostly without humor. If you don´t know those just let me give you an example for that. Do you expect toxic apples, bad stepmothers or a 100 years long sleep as a birthday present in a fairy tale for children? I guess you don´t, but it relates to the aera of romance.

But that´s not all. Some other experts comment on this question that Germans are very serious because they had a different development in comparison to other countries like France, which became a nation in a political way or England in an economical way. Germany instead sticks to its culture to form a nation and that´s probably one of the reasons why they are really serious when it comes to their culture.

Another point is that, because of the prejudices that Germans are humorless other nations don´t interest for the German comedy. In comparison to that the average audience in Germany knows apparently the most international comedians.

Just to sum up, it becomes clear that Germans are sometimes prejudices that they are not funny , what is related to their past. But in this question if Germans are humorous I agree with the statement from Loriot, who once said that Germans do like to laugh as much as other nation do, but they seperate humor and seriousness too much and wait for a signal if it´s appropriate to laugh. Instead Germans should learn to mix seriousness and humor. I think it is also a great advice for anyone. So how do you think about it, can you agree with it or do have another opinion ?