OC HIGH / Student News and Views : More Walls Tumble in Germany

Last summer I had the opportunity to stay in Germany for four weeks as an exchange student. I went with high hopes, planning to improve my language skills, meet people from different countries and broaden my horizons.

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However, I went to Germany with many fears as well.

I was worried that I might not be able to communicate with the people I met--that my four years of high school German might prove insufficient. Though at first I had difficulty speaking only that language, I was elated to discover that I had indeed learned enough to communicate well.

I also feared that I might not like my host family. But my home stay with the Braun family of Nuremberg turned out splendidly--they were friendly, open, funny, understanding and always interesting.

Perhaps my most dire worry, though, was fear of neo-Nazis.

A friend who had stayed in Germany for a year told me that an American had been beaten by neo-Nazis a few months before I went. I also recalled television images of neo-Nazis attacking immigrants. This fear haunted me in Germany, and I walked the city streets with caution. With time, however, this fear faded, and by the end of my stay I realized that this, like my other concerns, had been unwarranted.

I had feared neo-Nazis because of the prevalence of the stereotype in the United States, the stereotype of Germans as Nazis. Whenever my high school friends learned that I was studying German, they would jokingly refer to it as the Nazi language. I remember hearing a radio personality say during a Veterans Day weekend that we should be grateful to our veterans or we might all be speaking German--which I consider an inappropriate and degrading remark.

Labeling the German people or the German language as Nazi is unjust. The Germans are not all Nazis. When traveling in Germany, I saw anti-Nazi bulletins everywhere. Public service announcements on television cried “Save Germany!” and broadcast images of a Germany ravaged by World War II, reminding viewers what national socialism had done to the country. Myriad museums and monuments attest to a German commitment not to repeat mistakes.

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Though there are neo-Nazis in Germany, they do not represent the German people as a whole. Their violent attacks have earned condemnation and legal countermeasures from the German government. Most Germans do not agree with the sentiments of the neo-Nazis. My host brother, Axel Braun, was kind, compassionate and open-minded. I felt awkward when he found it necessary, after watching one of those television announcements, to remark (in perfect English), “I am not a Nazi.”

In our nation, which constantly attacks stereotype and discrimination, albeit with varying degrees of success, the image of Germans as Nazis is remarkably enduring.

The stereotype often goes unchallenged, but it does hurt, as a German American friend recently reminded me.

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In this era, we have tried--with notable successes--to be more critical of stereotypes and discrimination. Surely some Germans will turn to violence and prejudice, but they do not and should not be taken to represent the German people as a whole.

More representative, I think, are those such as the Braun family, who are open and generous enough to share their homes and lives with others. For many, to see the German people for who they are means a difficult but worthwhile struggle to discard negative stereotypes.

After one month in Germany, I was able to communicate in German, and my language skills improved significantly.

In addition, the Germans I met, particularly the Brauns, were delightful, far more friendly, understanding and interesting than any stereotype.