Blog final part 2

I learned a couple new things from taking this class. I learned more about German food and the culture like how people support being nudist. I learned more about the horrors of world war one by reading All Quiet on the Western Front. I also learned more about Prussia. I thought the class was ok for a once a week class. There wasnt too much work that made it ridiculous for a once a week class. The class discussions and research was fun, but watching presentations for two and a half hours was very annoying. We also hardly touched into the subject of German culture all we did was scrape the frosting off of the cake we never dove into the whole cake. I was fine with posting blog posts once a week that fulfilled a certain requirement it was the requirement itself I had a problem with because all the requirements were to write a minimum amount of words and have a relevant topic everything else was our decision to make. I don’t mind having the freedom to write, but I need a little more than a topic and a minimum written amount of words because for the written assignments I wasn’t sure if we could go off and ramble with the info we pulled up or we had to stick with the info that we found and keep it professional and I’m over 200 words so in summary the requirements for the blog assignments were a little vague and needed a little more info on the requirements and the presentations were boring and we hardly touched into German culture and could’ve gone deeper other than that the class was awesome. 

Blog final part 1

Blog Reviews

Blog 1: http://ge110alexmc.blogspot.com/

Blog 2: http://ge110jonpo.blogspot.com/

Blog 3: http://ge110sladesi.blogspot.com/

All blogs were chosen through random chance by rolling two ten sided dice.

Blog 1:

It’s a little hard to tell how much care he seems to have kept up with all of his blog posts, but the blog itself lacks any color background so I’d say he cared so-so for his blog. I would give the overall informative quality a 4/5 the quality of info was good, but it was minimal. I would give the readability a 4/5 there was some typos and one of the blog posts had a font that was hard to read. I’d say the blog is a little better than mine mostly because I got a little off course and rambled a bit on some of my posts.

Blog 2:

The author showed great care for the blog it has a very nice background format and nice pictures on the blog posts. The quality of the blog was very informative 5/5. Everything in the blog is easy to read and pretty free flowing 5/5. This blog is way better than mine mostly because of how detailed it is.

Blog 3:

The author showed great care for his blog as it is very colorful in both background and posts. The quality is 5/5, very detailed and thorough. The blog gets 5/5 for the readability as it was clear and concise. The Blog is way better than mine as I said before I got into rambling in mine as well as details that may have been unnecessary.

RAF

                                 
The Red Army Faction was one of Germany’s most violent left wing groups after World War 2. The group described themselves as a “communists and anti-imperialist urban guerilla group engaged in armed resistance” against the state which they deemed as fascist at the time. The RAF was founded by Andreas Baader, Gudrun Enisslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof in 1970.

The RAF existed from 1970-1998 and committed numerous operations throughout that period. In 1977 an operation they committed lead to a national crisis known a “German Autumn”. RAF was held responsible for thirty-four deaths including many secondary targets and many injuries in its almost thirty years of activity.    

On 30 July 1977, Hanns Martin Schleyer, a former officer of the SS and NSDAP, was abducted in a violent kidnapping, soon after a letter was delivered to the Federal Government, demanding the release of eleven detainees from Stammheim. A crisis committee was formed and employed delay tactics to allow police time to discover Schleyer’s location. The crisis dragged on for more than a month, but on October 18, 1977 Hanns-Martin Schleyer was shot to death by his captors and the next day his kidnappers announced that he had been executed and revealed his locations his body was discovered later that day and the French newspaper his body was discovered later that day and the French newspaper Liberation received a letter stating “After 43 days we have ended Hanns-Martin Schleyer's pitiful and corrupt existence... His death is meaningless to our pain and our rage... The struggle has only begun. Freedom through armed, anti-imperialist struggle”. The events that happened on the autumn of 1977 are reffered to as Der Deutsche Herbst ("German Autumn").

Sources:

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Red_Army_Faction.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction#German_Autumn

Blog presentation

For my blog presentation I chose the topic Rulers, governments, and politics  but my two previous blog posts are different because they are what I chose in the beginning of the sign up and will make adjustments for the final presentation.

Germany relations with it's neighbors

Brian Madsen

There was no Germany in the 18^th century there was a country that occupied the area where Germany would now be and that country was known as Prussia. Over the course of its history Prussia did not have many conflicts as the country was more of “an army with a state rather than a state with an army”.  Prussia did have a little involvement in the Great Northern War, but mostly to have some control over the Baltic as Sweden was dominating all the power before the war.

In 1740 Prussian troops invaded Silesia which was the richest province in Austria and that started the Silesian wars which lasted from 1740-1763 and ended with Prussia as the victor. Afterwards Prussia did take some lead parts in the French Revolution, but then remained quiet for around a decade because of the Peace of Basil in 1795. Tensions begin to rise against France as certain negotiations failed and Prussia soon suffered a devastating defeat against Napoleon in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. Afterwards Prussia had to pay some large dues and give up one-third of their land and allow French troops to be garrisoned throughout the land which made the kingdom a French satellite.

After Napoleon lost to Russia Prussia jumped on the British band wagon to fight against Napoleon and was rewarded with the return of its lost land and some extra land for their help at the Battle of Waterloo.  Prussia soon withdrew from Poland to allow the creation of Congress Poland under Russian Sovereignty. Soon after Prussia joined the German confederation and Germany became a patchwork of independent, monarchical states with Prussia and Austria competing for influence. There was much conflict between the three countries as they all tried to gain influence, but eventually war broke out leading into the Schleswig war in which Prussia was trying to stop Denmark from spreading their influence, the Austro-Prussian war  which was a struggle of supremacy between Austria and Prussia for Germany, and the Franco-Prussian war which was France being a douche bag because they thought the German states were going to go into a civil war and tried to take advantage of the situation. After the wars of unification parts of Prussia slowly melded into the German republic until it was all gone.

The formal unification of Germany occurred on January, 18 1871 at the Versailles palace in France. Germany then took the remnants of Nobles from Prussia and other various people and assigned important duties as the new nobles of Germany. Germany afterward had very few tensions with its neighbors as the defeat of Napoleon left Europe with the desire for peace and was left that way until The Great started up in the twentieth century.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Germany

The role of German Military in the 20th and 21st century

Brian Madsen

At the start of the twentieth century the role of the German military was fighting in World War one. Once Germany was pulled into the war they initiated the Schrieffer plan to deal with the French and the Russians who had formed an alliance known as the Franco-Russian alliance. When the war started Germany attacked France by going through their Belgium border to avoid the French defenses at the German border. The Germans were beaten back at the First battle of the Marne with three years of stalemated trench wars that resulted in millions of casualties. New tactics were developed in 1918 opened up the war, but a series of failed German offensives in 1918 and freshly trained American troops caused Germany to go on the defensive. With their military defeated, no allies to turn to, and exhausted on the home front, Germany sign the Treaty of Versailles.

After the Treaty was signed Germany’s military was severely limited and with the great depression in America it lead the people of Germany into even more despair, but when the Nazi’s came to power in 1933 and began remilitarization, the heavy spending revived the ravaged economy of Germany and made Hitler popular. The Nazi’s encouraged the army to experiment with tanks and motorized infantry. The Nazi’s then rebuilt the navy and started a new air force division. After that Germany turned into a military police state where the military was in control of everything until the Germans were defeated by the Allies in 1945. Afterward Germany was split into several factions to prevent them from gaining power, eventually some of the factions joined together to the point where only two were left East and West Germany. Once Germany was formed into East and West Germany the role of military declined greatly due to the fact half of it belonged to the Allies against the Soviet Union and the other half belonged to the Soviet Union.

On October 3^rd 1990 East and West Germany united as one to become Germany once more after 45 years. In 1990 with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, Germany agreed to reduce the strength of its armed forces.  Since then Germany has participated little in military matters and have focused most of its attention toward economic industries and work ethic to make the world a better place through capitalistic economic prosperity.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Germany#First_World_War_.281914-1918.29

Reaction to Berlin Calling

1.       Drugs are Ickarus’s way of relaxing and his way of trying to escape the world so he can focus more on his work.

2.       The fans are taking the drugs to enhance their experience, they are taking them during and after the concerts, they are taking them orally, and taking everything, but heroin.

3.       The subculture focuses on drugs most likely it enhances the experience of the music to the point of an extreme and the wild ride people experience from that gets them addicted to the drugs and they continue to do it.

4.       People in this society wallow in darkness and take drugs and fornicate each other like it’s nothing.

5.       I don’t think so because this is just one subculture of a massively huge infrastructure within the German economy. Also even though Ickarus was in the ward he still wanted to work when he wasn’t trying to get better he even put his work before his health that shows the dedication the Germans have toward their work ethic.

My reaction to this film would be that it was an okay film. For being a cult following movie the quality of the video itself was not bad and the story is the classic story of a man who goes through great tribulations and becomes stronger by the end of it. Cultural differences in the movie well for one when Ickarus’s Girlfriend is trying to find him in the bathroom stalls and we see those two people fornicating was quite unexpected. Showing the inside of the toilet in Ickarus’s house was also another unexpected event. The fact that this is an X-rated movie is quite a shock because no one in the USA would dare do something like this because one organization or another would bitch about it and whine to the government like the statists they are. All in all the story of Ickarus and his development in the story is a good one I just wish they would explain his schizophrenia was he born with it or was the cause of it the drugs they briefly mentioned it in the movie and I ,as a viewer, would have liked to know more about it. Overall the movie besides the X-rated material was alright.

Richard Wagner

                         

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist and conductor. Wagner is mostly known for his operas and musical dramas and unlike most opera composers he wrote both the Libretto (lyrics) and the music for each of his operas. Wagner started out as a composer and came to revolutionize opera through his concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), by which he sought to combine the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama, and was announced in a series of essays from 1849 and 1859.

The compositions made during the later years in his life are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration. He advanced the musical language by creating extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, these advances greatly influenced the development of classical music. His most recognizable work would have to be Ride of the Valkyries.  

Richard Wagner’s reforms to opera made it so there was no clear separation between recitative and aria, and ensembles are completely avoided. The orchestra is treated symphonicially, with themes that are combined and developed endlessly during the course of the action.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner

http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/rom/wagner.html

Here is Ride of the Valkyries

Character self revelation

I am Stanislaus Katczinsky or Kat for short. I am the unofficial leader of the company and have a distinctive sixth sense for identifying trouble and food and am very resourceful. I believe in duty and even though I do not embrace the ideals that drew me to The Great war I will still fight my heart out. My dream is to see an end to the war by having everybody receiving the same food and pay, and then go back to my family and being a cobbler.

Group project

I am sitting in a garden contemplating my life while on leave. Kat, Tjaden, Albert, Westhus, and Mueller are dead with me, Paul being the only one alive. I am thinking about the rumor of the Armistice and am conflicted on how to feel because on one end the war will be over and I will be able to go home to my family and live in peace, but on the other hand I am unable to free myself from the soldier inside me who only knows war and can do nothing else. I feel that if I return home I will come home with a broken will and be hopeless to accomplish anything. Paul is developing greatly in this chapter because he has come to realize that the only ones who understand him will be his generation because they are the ones that fought in the war. The older generations will just act like they know what he is going through or say he needs to man up while the younger generation will just be beguiled to the devastations of war.

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive conglomeration of merchant guilds and towns they occupied that ruled the trade areas of the coasts of northern Europe from around the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. It was created to protect the economies and diplomats in the areas that the merchants visited. The cities created their own legal system and maintained an army for protection and aid. Despite this, the League was neither a city-state nor a confederation of city-states only a small percentage of the cities enjoyed independence compared to those of an independent imperial city.

Around the 16^th century the League’s position in the world was getting weaker. With the rising Swedish Empire taking control over the Baltic and Denmark taking control over its’ trade league the League was losing influence. The individual cities which made up the started to set their self-interest before their common Hanseatic interests. Finally the influence of the German Princes was growing and they wanted to constrain people’s independence of free action which the Hanseatic League was included in.

By late 16^th century the League could not deal with its’ own internal politics and with the changes following the Protestant Reformation, the rise of English and Dutch merchants, and with incursions from the Ottoman Empire on trade routes the Hanseatic League was finished and shortly collapsed afterwards.

Sources:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League

project

Question #1 (Mike)
Berlin

-Capital of Germany
-1237 Was eventually taken as the year of founding of Berlin
-"Excavations from 2008 suggest that the city may be even older than was previously assumed: state archaeologists have discovered an oak beam that probably dates back to 1183."(Source)
- The 12th and 13th Centuries were the initial beginning and buildup of the city
-1307 Berlin and Cölln form a union together. They ran as independent cities under a united front.  The advantages of this were that they looked larger to the outside community.
-By the early 1400's the combined population of Berlin and Cölln are around 8,000 people
-In 1576 nearly 4,000 people died of Bubonic Plague.
-Roughly around 1600 there was a combined population of only 12,000 people.
-1618-1648 Thirty Years War, This war was a major conflict in Central Europe(mainly current day Germany) that involved most of the European Countries.  It started as a religious war, then shifted to a political power grab, between a few of the countries.  When all was said and done, Berlin had lost a third of their houses and close to half of their entire population.
-In 1701 Elector Frederick III crowned himself King of Prussia and announced he had deemed Berlin the capital.

Question #2 (Mohammed)

As you know we are comparing between Berlin and Brandenburg.

I will talk about the populations and the biggest cities on these two states:-

First, let me introduce Berlinto you. “Berlin is the capital city of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.5 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city.” Also. Berlin is one of the most multiculturalcities where that carrying foreign passports are more than 470,000 people of the3.4 million people citizenship. There are long periods of time since the residentsof more than 184 countries. In additions, Berlin is located to the east ofGermany in central Europe. However, it is the second biggest city in Europe after Landen city.

Second state is Brandenburg, “It lies in the east of the country and is one of the federal states that was re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. Brandenburg surrounds but does not include the national capital and city-state Berlin”. However, the captil of the state is Potsdam with a population of 2.45 million.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg

comparing between Berlin and Brandenburg

Question#3 (Fayez)

Berlin-               Berlin is the capital and the biggest city of Germany. The region is both the capital and city-state of Germany that hosts the German executive office.

-               Political affiliation in Berlin lies between two parties: coalition of the Social Democratic party and the Christian Democratic Union, as well as the Pirate Party. These two parties are responsible for all political activities practiced in the city (Habermas 66).
-              Berlin has many religious groups; however, 60% of locals are not affiliated to any religious group, thereby being described as atheists. With the few believers, majority is comprised of Protestants, followed by Roman Catholics, and Muslims.
-              In terms of culture, the world recognizes Berlin in terms of cultural and creative industries (Habermas 78). Berlin has major cultural institutions with developing music, art scene, and dance in the 21^st century.  Currently, the city is considered one of the entertainment centres of Europe.

Brandenburg-               Brandenburg an der Havel, or simply Brandenburg, is a city in the Brandenburg state. Political affiliations of the region consist in three major parties: the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Left Party, and the Christian Democratic Union. The three parties are responsible for all political activities happening in the region (Nations Online Project).
-               Most of the citizens of Brandenburg are non-religious, amounting to 79.8% of the locals. However, few are affiliated to Evangelical Church, Roman Catholic, and a small proportion being Muslims.
-               Brandenburg is also considered as a cultural centre. The city has various architectural buildings associated with Prussian royalty. In addition, the city hosts many musical festivals. The diversity in cultural activities within the region helps in building the image of Brandenburg as one of the cultural centres in Germany(Nations Online Project).Works CitedHabermas, Jürgen. A Berlin Republic: Writings on Germany. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Print.Nations Online Project. Brandenburg. n.d. 4 September 2014 <http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/Germany/brandenburg.htm>.

Question#4 (Alex)

Question#5 (Brian)

Most of Berlin's economy runs on the service sector with maybe 80% of all companies offering some sort of service. Some important major industries in Berlin include Life Sciences, transportation, information and communication technologies, media and music, advertising and design, biotechnology, environmental services, construction, e-commerce, retail, hotel business, and medical engineering. Creative arts and entertainment are also major keystone industries in Berlin as it generates "18.6 billion Euros in total revenue." Overall Berlin has a growing economy that will continue to push boundaries and set new standards.

During the industrial revolution Berlin became Germany's main rail hub and a center of locomotive manufacturing. The city was a leader in manufacturing machinery and eventually developed an important Chemical industry. As the end of the 19th century drew near Berlin became a world leader in in the electrical equipment industry. Around the 1930's the city's main industry became weapon production while under the rule of the Nazi's.

Brandenburg has quite a varied industrial base in Germany with industries like engineering, steelmaking, metalworking, paper production, food processing, petroleum refining, mining, and energy production from Liginite which is a form of coal. Due to Brandenburg completely surrounding Berlin and its rural geography it is also a major transportation hub in central Europe with connections to Eastern and Western Europe. Renewable energies and power equipment are starting to take root as well in Brandenburg.

As of this moment there are no past industries worth noting in Brandenburg's history. This is due to lack of information on the internet, possibly because of destroyed documents during the soviet reign over the region and the recovering economy after the reunification. Overall the information could not be found and is likely nonexistent.

links:
http://www.berlin.de/berlin-im-ueberblick/wirtschaft/berliner_wirtschaft.en.html


http://www.berlin.de/wirtschaft/wirtschaftsstandort/index.en.php


http://www.businesslocationcenter.de/industry-sector?closed=1


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Berlin


http://www.brandenburg.de/cms/detail.php/bb2.c.413681.de


http://www.ccpitbj.org/web/static/articles/catalog_ff8080813909ead701397543fbec0662/article_2c90948a39281916013928191b19000a/ff8080813909ead701398ec0cf5f08dc.pdf
Question#6 (Thomas)

The Golden Twenties Of Berlin

Berlin in the 1920’s was a vibrant city with sophisticated and innovative culture in and around Berlin.  Berlin had a verity of literature, film, music, and painting. These people below were some of the trailblazers in literature, film, and music.

-Literature: Bruno Alfred Döblin (August 10, 1878 – June 26, 1957) Bruno Alfred Döblin was a novelist and a doctor that is best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz. Döblin is one of Germanys most important figures in literary modernism.

-Film: Fritz Lang: (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) Fritz Lang was a filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. Fritz is best known for his groundbreaking film Metropolis. He also helped change Hollywood from what it was to what it is now.

-Music: Kurt Weill. (March 2, 1900- April 3, 1950) Kurt Weill was a composer that worked with the likes of Bertolt Brecht. Weill and Brecht were best known for

The Threepenny Opera.

All the names above contributed to what Berlin culture and some of the culture that we know in the United States. These names above are the most important names that came out of Berlin in the 1920’s.

Famous Landmarks in Brandenburg

Brandenburg has a lot of famous landmarks that make the sate what it is.  Theses landmarks give the state a dynamic look and separate’s it from the other state.

-Hunters Gate was built in in 1773 in Potsdam. The gate was a part of the city wall and was used to prevent the smuggling of contraband from entering the city. In 1869 the city wall brought down but the gate remained standing till this day.

-Great Refractor was built in 1899 and is the fourth largest refracting telescope. Albert Einstein said that the Great refractor “ One of the most striking features of science park.”

- Schloss Cecilienhof is the last palace built by the Hohenzllern family, the family ruled Prussia and Germany. This beautiful palace was location of the Potsdam conference in 1945. The conference was a conference that brought Soviet Union, United Kingdom and the United States leaders.

These are some of the famous landmarks that Brandenburg has. These landmarks separate Brandenburg fro the other states in Germany. The Hunters Gate, Great Refractor and Schloss Cecilienhof all are remarkable landmarks that other parts of Germany does not have, this givesBrandenburg a historical feel.

Question #7 (Tatiana)

  

 BERLIN

• IMPACT OF TURKISH CULTURE 

•  FOOD

Due to the fact that it is the capital, there is a diversity of dishes found in Berlin. A sample of this diversity is Mexican food, Turkish food, as well as Brazilian food.

Wiener schnitzel (Viennese veal escalope): This is a dish made of a thin piece of meat, commonly veal but other meats such as beef, chicken, pork can be used. The meat is dipped into beaten eggs and breadcrumbs, then lightly fried.

Picture at http://honest-food.net/2012/12/21/wiener-schnitzel-recipe/

• MUSIC

BRANDENBURG

• IMPACT OF TURKISH CULTURE 

• FOOD

• MUSIC

Expectations

My expectations of my introduction to German culture class is that it will be a hard working class that will be fun

Testing

Testing