sometimes. you then have three possible reactions to choose from:
declare yourself austrian, not german.
do your best hitler impersonation and hope to get laughs.
explain that the war is over.
What culturally defines the Austrian people as a separate people from the Germans? Do austrians define themselves primarily by their differences from the Germans (like the Canadians with the US)?
what defines austrians as seperate people first and foremost is the language.
austrian dialects are nearly incomprehensible for a north german (though most are quite similar to bavarian dialects) and vice versa.
(except for vorarlbergian, which is closely related to swiss german and thus incromprehensible to almost everyone.)
now you might ask why dont you see yourself as part of bavaria then, well, bavaria itself is very keen on seeing itself as an independent entity withing the german federation, vividly highlighting their borders in common conscience at every opportunity.
furthermore, it's simply calling ourselves austrians, not ethnically german.
speaking of ethnic germans is reserved for neo-nazis and their political extensions.
then theres hatred of the germans out if an inferiority complex. comes in handy.
never. though people from western europe who have never been this far east might be impressed how close to this mythical eastern europe they have ended up.
i just got up so only one. it was drinking out of the toilet when i wanted to do my morning piss. ended up in an epic boxing fight nobody was able to decisively win. we deferred the fight out of mutual respect and i let it out through the door.
i dont know, i just had me some eastern european eucalyptus salad which was unregulatedly full of pesticides and radioactive material, so i'm a bit dizzy now.
there are insignificant attempts to give them the right to be elected back.
otto and his son are particularly annoying and i wish they had just gone romanov on them in 1919.
al lot of ancent civilizations, fall of rome, on to charlemagne, some crusading, quickly on to the renaissance and columbus, colonization while lucky austria marries an empire, napoleon kills andreas hofer, industrial revolution, vienna congress, 1848 fails spectacularly, maria theresia rules!, someone kills princip and inexplicably the first world war begins, people die, but not hitler, bam, end of the monarchies, some revolution in russia led by stalin or something, golden 20s, crashing down in 29, austrofascism?, quickly on to anschluss and world war 2, battle, battle, battle, battle, kz, kz, kz, kz, alllies win, cold war, time is up, sorry.
i dont know, i just had me some eastern european eucalyptus salad which was unregulatedly full of pesticides and radioactive material, so i'm a bit dizzy now.
when austiran neo-nazis picked up the issue and started to blow up stuff during the seventies it became kind of a taboo topic for mainstream politics.
i think they themselves are happy with their special status within the italian republic and so be it.
You obviously think of yourself as an Austrian. Do you think of yourself as being German, in any way? I'm obviously not talking about the nationality here.. but rather.. a broader sense of German-ness?
What about other Austrians? When I lived in Germany I seem to remember this sentiment in the culture that Germanness as a concept was something that was important to the German people.. and by Germanness I mean all the cultures that speak German or have ties to Germany.. you know.. mostly Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, but also all the other German speakers around the world.
Stalin abolished Austrian German-ness and reinvented "Germany" as an arbitrary territory more conducive to Soviet security. Austrians are not Germans and any Austrian who says otherwise is a Nazi-sympathizer (so it goes).
Moderator Action: Let's not spam up this thread please.
It's been almost 100 years since the Hapsburgs were ousted after over 500 years. Do young Austrians (16 to 40) think much about that heritage or do they relate to Austria as the "modern neutral" it has been since 1945?
Are holocaust denial and Nazi symbols illegal in Austria like in Germany? I know it's obnoxious but I have to ask, what do Austrians think of The Sound of Music? Do they think it's really stupid? What about Arnold Schwarzeneggar (sp?)
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