Do Germans even stand a chance?

Poking around on Steam, today's deal is on Wolfenstein.  I was playing Castle Wolfenstein by the time I was 10 years old, on the Commodore 64.

Nazis were scary (and to many, by association Germans were too) before we even learned the history of WWII in school.  (Although I did know a bit about it from a Dutch teacher who grew up in the Netherlands during WWII.  And he never called them Nazis, just Germans.)

And Nazi games in general have lived on over the years.  So that kids who don't even know about the Berlin Wall vilify the Nazis, think of the German accent as scary and evil.

From vacations outside of North America, I've learned that Germans are the bad tourists, stereotyped as the European version of American tourists.  They're known as rude, abrupt, and with no sense of humour.  By people whose parents don't remember WWII (born during or after).  It horrifies me that too much of the world at least unofficially allows an entire nation to be defined by feelings associated with a leader born in the 1800s and his people.  Even then, I can see it more for Europeans, whose countries were ravaged by the war (which wasn't just Germany, by the way, even if a major player).  Well, the older ones, who were actually affected by it in some way.

I don't know if it speaks well of my parents (who were born during the war in Allied European countries), or if they didn't notice, but I delighted in learning German in high school, especially with never really connecting with French or the Romantic languages, even with 10 years of study.  I adored my teacher, we just called her Frau.  She was hilarious and loving.  I then applied for an exchange to Germany, where a German girl would live with me for several months and go to school here, and then later in the year, I'd go there and live with her family, go to school, live life.  I could have used a bit more growing up before going, but it was fantastic.  The people were like people anywhere.  A joy for life, sometimes the best sense of humour, intelligent, fun.  Not everyone was someone I could get along with, but a hell of a lot of them were.  Until I die, I will treasure that time.

And sometimes I'm left entirely speechless when I'm told that every single German lacks a sense of humour.  Relatives who live in Europe even tell me that.  One of my cousins came really freaking close to calling me a liar when I said that many Germans have a sense of humour, a lot of them are friendly, will help you however they can.  That they can smile and be happy.  That some will go out of their way to help you.  Hell, the class I was in there in West Berlin, they'd giggle talking about the prank the previous graduating class pulled, where they disassembled a teacher's car and reassembled it on the roof of the school.

I remember smiles, I remember love, I remember happiness.

And then think back to everything kids, teens, adults get about the evilness of the Nazis (which I'm not disputing - at least of the leaders and those who really believed in the cause and knew what was going on), and how Germans aren't much better (which I am disputing).  I don't see signs of it slowing down much.  I don't care for the pope (for other reasons), but understand that he didn't have much of a choice about being in the Hitler-Jugend.  Yet he has to defend against that.  Needs it backed up how unenthusiastic a member he was, and how it was law to join.

I (think and hope) that a lot of people now realise that Russia isn't Stalin.  Do people realise that Germany isn't Hitler?  And really believe that in their heart of hearts?  I wish I were confident of that.


(And for the record, to me German sounds much sexier than French or Italian or any of the Romantic languages ever will.  It is not a universal fact that it sounds harsh or ugly.)