People From Germany

"The science of agriculture rests on experience; and nothing else should be required or expected from it but that which appertains to a practical science. The first principles arise from the perceptions of the senses; but if experience wholly and entirely flowed from these perceptions, the development would not be less the offspring of science and the work of the understanding."

"An agricultural enterprise requires: 1st, a suitable person; 2nd, capital; 3rd, an estate."

"Every person who seeks to practise agriculture with the full success which it admits—and that is the natural aim of every one who engages in it—must possess energy, activity, reflection, perseverance, and a knowledge of all the kindred and accessory sciences."

"By capital we understand everything that, from the special use by the individual, or from its being placed at the disposal of others, produces a revenue or rent. We do not inquire into its origin, or ask whether it has been acquired by inheritance or by labour."

"The word " economy" has latterly been used in various senses; the Germans give it a very indefinite signification. Judging from its etymology and original signification, the Greeks seem to have understood by it the establishment and direction of the menage, or domestic arrangements. Xenophon, in his work on economy, treats of domestic management, the reciprocal duties of the members of a family and of those who compose the household; and only incidentally mentions agriculture as having relation to domestic affairs. This word is never applied to agriculture by Xenophon, nor, indeed, by any Greek author; they distinguish it by the terms, georgic geoponic. The Romans give a very extensive and indefinite signification to the word "economy." They understand by it, the best method of attaining the aim and end of some particular thing; or the disposition, plan, and division of some particular work. Thus, Cicero speaks of oeconomia causae, oeconomia orationis; and by this he means the direction of a law process, the arrangement of an harangue. Several German authors use it in this sense when they speak of the oekonomie eines schauspiels, or eines gedichtes, the economy of a play or poem. Authors of other nations have adopted all the significations which the Romans have attached to this word, and understand by it the relation of the various parts of any particular thing to each other and to the whole—that which we are accustomed to term the organization. The word "economy" only acquires a real sense when applied to some particular subject: thus, we hear of "the economy of nature," "the animal economy," and " the economy of the state" spoken of. It is also applied to some particular branch of science or industry; but, in the latter case, the nature of the economy ought to be pointed out, if it is not indicated by the nature of the subject."

"In speaking of agricultural management, the French say, I'economie rurale, and the English, rural economy; and yet neither the one nor the other intend thereby to signify the absolute execution of agricultural operations, but only the division and circumstances or appurtenances of agriculture. In Germany, where a Latin or Greek name has lately been thought to give dignity to a science, and has, consequently, been introduced into the title of most of the scientific works, some authors have begun to term, not only the science of agriculture, but agriculture itself, the oekonomie; and the word is used exclusively in this sense by many persons. It is for this reason that those who are supposed to practise the art with the greatest skill and science, are termed oekonomen (economists); and that some of those who are employed in superintending the labourers, even though they frequently have not the least idea of the actual principles of agriculture, chose to be designated by this title."

"Agronomy; or a Treatise on the Constituent Parts and Physical Properties of the Soil, and the best Method of acquiring a Knowledge of the different Earths, and ascertaining their Value."

"It is the residue of animal and vegetable putrefaction, and is a black body; when dry it is pulverulent, and when wet has a soft, greasy feel... It is the produce of organic power—a compound of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, such as cannot be chemically composed."

"When humus remains constantly damp, without, however, being covered with water, it forms a very unpleasant smelling acid, which is more particularly, characterized by the property which it possesses of colouring blue litmus paper into red. This circumstance has long been known, and it is the reason that land and meadows which are not properly drained, and which exhibit these phenomena, are called sour. We have carefully examined these facts, and have endeavoured to discover the peculiar constitution of this acid. At first, we were inclined to regard it as being of a distinct nature, and having carbon for its base; but we have since become convinced that it is generally composed of acetic acid, and occasionally contains a portion of the phosphoric. This latter always adheres so firmly to the humus that it cannot be separated from it either by boiling or washing. The liquid in which the humus is boiled certainly acquires a slight acid flavour, but the greater part of the acid remains attached to the humus."

"In both the kinds of land we have been considering [i. e., classes of very fertile soil, rich in humus], we have supposed the humus to be mild, or exempt from acidity. J Sour or acid humus totally destroys the fertility of a soil; sometimes, however, the soil contains so very small a portion of acidity that its fertility is very slightly diminished, and only with regard to some few plants. Barley crops become more and more scanty in proportion as the acidity is increased; but oats do not appear to be at all affected by it. Rye grown on such land is peculiarly liable to rust, and is easily laid or lodged. The grains of all the oereals become larger, but contain less farina. Grass which grows on these spots is, both in species and taste, less agreeable, and less suitable for cattle, than any other, although it yields a very considerable produce in hay. In fact, in exact proportion with the increase of acidity, is the decrease of the value of the soil..."

"In the greater number of cases, peat is very much like acid or sour humus; indeed, it sometimes resembles it so strikingly that it is impossible to distinguish these substances apart."

"Thaer Principles of Agriculture, 2 vols. 4to. an excellent work. The author, though he never was in England, wrote on English husbandry so exactly that the board of agriculture in England sent him, by Mr. Sinclair, a patent as associate member of the Agricultural Society. He is a physician, but has now established a practical academy of husbandry near Berlin."

"ln Prussia, the king especially patronizes agriculture. and the academy at Frankfort, upon the estate called Moegelin, under the superintendence of M. Thaer, the most scientific agriculturist in the world, is well known."

"[Thaer's work offer] a great number of new ideas and useful directions, by connecting art with science, and introducing the theory of agriculture into the departments of natural history in general, and of chemistry in particular."

"Thaer's most well-known and systematic work, his four-volume Grundsatze der rationellen Landwirthschaft (Principles of Efficient Agriculture, 1809-1812), was reprinted throughout the nineteenth century and often translated, both in Europe and beyond. So formative were his research and publications that agrarian historians often refer to the early nineteenth century as the "Age of Thaer."

"The victors imposed upon the Germans all the long-sought ideals of the liberal nations of the West. They were relieved from the burden of compulsory military service and from the need of keeping up heavy armaments. The enormous American loans were presently pressed upon them, though they had no credit. A democratic constitution, in accordance with all the latest improvements, was established at Weimar. Emperors having been driven out, nonentities were elected. Beneath this flimsy fabric raged the passions of the mighty, defeated, but substantially uninjured German nation. The prejudice of the Americans against monarchy, which Mr. Lloyd George made no attempt to counteract, had made it clear to the beaten Empire that it would have better treatment from the Allies as a republic than as a monarchy. Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the person of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a council of regency. Instead, a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military and feudal, which might have rallied to a constitutional monarchy and for its sake respected and sustained the new democratic and parliamentary processes, were for the time being unhinged. The Weimar Republic, with all its liberal trappings and blessings, was regarded as an imposition of the enemy. It could not hold the loyalties or the imagination of the German people. For a spell they sought to cling as in desperation to the aged Marshal Hindenburg. Thereafter mighty forces were adrift; the void was open, and into that void after a pause there strode a maniac of ferocious genius, the repository and expression of the most virulent hatreds that have ever corroded the human breast – Corporal Hitler."

"We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval."

"[T]here is the notion of sonderweg, literally the "special path," down which the German people are fated to wander. ... [W]hether viewed from within or without, left or right, the Germans could be seen through such a lens to possess some collective essence — a specialness — capable of explaining everything. In this way, one could speak of a trajectory “from Luther to Hitler” and interpret history not as some chaotic jumble but as a crisp, linear process."

"I'm not German, I'm Austrian and Austrians have a wonderful sense of humour, Germans, not so much."

"It will be a long time before I hear whether I qualify for German citizenship. Nothing will replace an extended family I will never know, nothing will displace the dark spaces inside my complex father, but I am anxious to see what does change if I become a German citizen."

"Pfuel was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion- science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth. ... The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth- science- which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth."

"For many Germans, self-determination was both persecution and promise. About ten million speakers of the German language, former subjects of the Habsburg monarchy, remained beyond Germany’s borders. Some three million such people inhabited the northwestern rim of Czechoslovakia, right at the border of Czechoslovakia and Germany. There were more Germans in Czechoslovakia than there were Slovaks. Almost the entire population of Austria, resting between Czechoslovakia and Germany, were German speakers. Austria was nevertheless required by the Treaty of St. Germain to exist as a separate state, although much of its population would have preferred accession to Germany. Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party established in 1920, was an Austrian and an advocate of an Anschluss: a unification of Austria and Germany. Such goals of national unity, dramatic as they were, actually concealed the full measure of Hitler’s ambitions."

"Germans read the most fine literature in the world!"

"Many Germans feel guilty about the war. But they don't explain the real guilt we share; that we lost."

"Hindus and Germans are intensely subjective and mystical, and are moved by deep unconscious forces that are often in close connection with the highest mental powers. They are quite contemptuous of general patterns of thinking and uniformity in social behavior. They rely on intuition rather than straight logic, and both Sankara and Kant raised their magnificent philosophic systems on a precise delimitation of the powers of discursive logic and reason. Hindus and Germans both experience great difficulty in rising from the depths of their intuitive thinking and expressing their thoughts in clear language."

"Germans are the only decent people in Europe."

"Stan: Dude, what the fuck is wrong with German people?"

"As a people of the most phantastic mixture of races, perhaps even with a preponderance of the non-arian element, as the 'people of the Middle' in every sense of the word, the Germans are more unconceivable, vaster, more contradictory, less known, less reliable, more surprising, even more terrible than other peoples are to themselves; they escape any definition and for that reason alone they drive the French to desperation. . . . It is characteristic of the Germans that one is rarely entirely wrong about them. The German soul contains corridors and passages, caves, hideouts and dungeons; its chaos has the charm of the mysterious; the German is expert in finding secret paths to chaos. And as everything is attracted by its similar so the German loves the clouds and all that is vague, becoming, moist and veiled: the uncertain, the shapeless, the shifting, the growing, all this he senses as 'deep.'"

"In Germany, it's, let's say it's 5:59 and you're heading for the bakery or whatever and it's due to close at 6. The German will walk right up to that door and close it right in your face, they will lock it on the other side of that glass door with a shrug, like "sorry"."

"Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for ninety minutes and at the end, the Germans win."

"In regard to Germans and foreigners, I esteem foreigners no better than other people, nor any worse. They are all of the great family of men, and if there is one shackle upon any of them, it would be far better to lift the load from them than to pile additional loads upon them."

"These people were of all races, colors, and creeds. French were in the north and in the Carolinas. Dutch had built the town on Manhattan island, and their patroons' estates in the Hudson valley; now they were building their own cabins in the Mohawk Indian country that is now New York State. Germans had settled in the Jerseys and in the far west, beyond Philadelphia. Germans and Scotch-Irish were climbing the Carolina mountains; Swedes were in Delaware, English and French and Dutch and Irish were settled in Massachusetts, the New Hampshire Grants, Connecticut, and Virginia. Mingled with all these were Italians, Portuguese, Finns, Arabs, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, and Africans from a dozen very different African peoples and cultures. Black, brown, yellow and white, all these peoples were some of them free and some of them slaves. Also they were intermarried with the American Indians."

"In examining the German (or for that matter the Jewish) character we find that the German has specific traits in common with almost every other European nation; he is supposed to have the profundity and depth of the Russian, the cleanliness of the Scandinavian, the thoroughness of the French, the linguistic abilities of the Pole, the melancholy of the Magyar, the gravity of the Dutch, the engineering genius of the British, the metaphysical speculation of the Near Easterner, the loyalty of the Swiss, the brutality of the Serb and the pragmatism of the Czech. Many of these qualities stand in a certain contradiction to each other and it must be admitted that the German as well as the Jewish character are highly contradictory in themselves. [...]"

"I worked at a factory owned by Germans, at coal pits owned by Frenchmen, and at a chemical plant owned by Belgians. There I discovered something about capitalists. They are all alike, whatever the nationality. All they wanted from me was the most work for the least money that kept me alive. So I became a communist."

"Let us sterilize all Germans and wars of world domination will come to an end!"

"If the Providence has so willed that the German people cannot be spared this fight, then I can only be grateful that it entrusted me with the leadership in this historic struggle which, for the next 500 or 1,000 years, will be described as decisive, not only for the history of Germany, but for the whole of Europe and indeed the whole world. The German people and their soldiers are working and fighting today, not only for the present, but for the coming, nay the most distant, generations. A historical revision on a unique scale has been imposed on us by the Creator..."

"Austria's two achievements were to have persuaded the world that Hitler was German and that Beethoven was Viennese."

"Germans believe in the existence of a German nation, get excited at the sight of German national symbols, retell German national myths, and are willing to sacrifice money, time and limbs for the German nation, Germany will remain one of the strongest powers of the world."

"Germany is dear to my heart. I have often felt a bitter pain at the thought of the German people, which is so respectable in the individual and so miserable in the collective."

"He who thinks as a German must despise the Jew. The one determines the other."

"The German government and European rights organizations have been unwilling to change Berlin’s approach [to Germans in the Russian Federation], and so an initiative group led by Vyacheslav Bodrov, one of the so-called “Russian Germans,” is appealing to religious groups found among the Germans still in Russia, including the Mennonites who are headquartered in the US."

"Germans will be facing a decisive moment. If they do not assert themselves, their futures will be dictated by others and they will move from decadence to powerlessness. And with powerlessness would come a geopolitical spiral from which they would not recover."

"[W]hy should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind."

"To no class of our population are we more indebted for valuable qualities of head, heart, and hand, than to the German. Say what we will of their lager, their smoke, and their metaphysics, they have brought to us a fresh, vigorous and child-like nature; a boundless facility in the acquisition of knowledge; a subtle and far-reaching intellect, and a fearless love of truth. Though remarkable for patient and laborious thought, the true German is a joyous child of freedom, fond of manly sports, a lover of music, and a happy man generally."

"I thought that the essential factor we have to remember in deciding on our plans and policy for the future is that in the German character the unquestioned authority of the State is what counts for most. The average German is the instrument of the State to an extent which is incomprehensible to us. He belongs to the State, and the State does not belong to him. I see no signs of that in this country, and I believe that the authority we enjoy in the world to-day is precisely because we represent the complete antithesis of the German State conception. This acceptance of the State, since the days of the Prussians, has made Germans ready to aid any leader who wants to guide them into fields of aggression. With the German, the larger the State the more remote and the more majestic is the authority he is prepared to follow into battle or wherever he is led. Germans believe that it is the destiny of their race to be the dominating Power in Europe; that is far more important to them than either the freedom of the individual or the dignity of any particular man or woman. Unless we are seized of that we do not understand the foundation on which Nazi doctrine was so easily superimposed. It was acceptable to the average German because it expressed in aggressive forms the belief which the average German has had for 200 years or more."

"And now it's time for me to meet Europe's "cuddly teddybears"... the Germans. Germany as a country has only been in existence for just over a hundred years. But in that time they've started two world wars, they've had two military coups, they've been brought on the brink of starvation two times, and they've invaded almost all of their neighbours."

"For, after all, survey the remaining forces of civilisation; they are overwhelming. If only they were united in a common conception of right and duty, there would be no war. On the contrary, the German people, industrious, faithful, valiant, but alas! lacking in the proper spirit of civic independence, liberated from their present nightmare, would take their honoured place in the vanguard of human society. Alexander the Great remarked that the people of Asia were slaves because they had not learned to pronounce the word “No.” Let that not be the epitaph of the English-speaking peoples or of Parliamentary democracy, or of France, or of the many surviving liberal States of Europe."

"[W]hen people ask me are you, as a German, feel responsible for the Holocaust? No, because I'm born 1965 and it would be completely un-logical to say I'm responsible, but as a country we are responsible."

"We Germans have a far greater and more urgent duty towards civilization to perform than the Great Asiatic Power. We, like the Japanese, can only fulfil it by the sword."

"We [Germans] want to prove that we are good people. Even if no one wants to be reminded of this, the good that we do has to be seen in relation to the crimes that we initiated."