Many people think we Germans are punctual, organised, only live to work, are all nudists and most important totally lack any sense of humour. Of course that’s an unjustified prejudice and it is time to explain ourselves.


OK, we do tend to be in time. There is no excuse for that and we do apologise every single day to our manager, boss or supervisor when once again we have failed to be late for work. It is a terrible habit and especially Germans working abroad struggle with this attitude. I currently work in Dublin in an evil American company. They are not very happy about the German team and that's mainly because we are always in time. It disturbs the whole production process and is extremely expensive. Just think about the electricity bill. Because of us they have to switch on the lights at 7 in the morning and all the computer thingis as well. It must cost them a fortune, especially bearing in mind that we don't actually make things. We are just there to sort out the mess other people have produced by distributing an untested and half-baked product! Personally I thought as a marketing strategy it is rather bizarre and counterproductive, but then - what the heck do I know? At least it is not against the law. It can't be. Otherwise it would illegal to sell Microsoft Windows and apparently it isn't.


As we are true German democrats and kinda nice we are thinking of actually doing something about our terrible habit of being punctual. We want to organise something that best describes the German word "Selbsthilfegruppe" – a support group for employees that are notoriously punctual in the morning. We already invited a consultant from a language group that is known to be late all the time. Unfortunately the colleague from the *** market so far did not show up which only adds to our belief that we picked the right person. We promise, we will try hard as hard as we can but there is no guarantee.


As for being organised: That’s not fair! The only reason why Germans are organised is that they are lazy. If you can avoid unnecessary work why not doing it? This really shouldn’t be used against us. And the claim that we only live to work is so not true. How would you know? It’s not that we tell anybody when we sneak into the building on weekends!

All Germans are nudist! And again: NOT TRUE, seriously. We actually dislike nudity and strongly disapprove when other nationalities do it. The reason you see so many Germans on nudist beaches is poverty. Germany no longer is a rich country and the average German quite frankly cannot afford trunks. When you have 6 weeks off every year and you spend so much money on flights to all these beautiful places, you really don’t want to spend another 20 squid (funny is it?) on top. It is a question of poverty and really has nothing to do with being obsessed.

Look what I found on German eBay. It is wallpaper in case you can't tell from the pictures. Sold for 10 Euro. Does this look like as if Germans were obsessed? No way. It is poverty. We are so poor that we can't just go to the shop and buy things. We have to do everything ourselves as in creating, making things. Many Germans actually try to earn a living by handcrafting funny little things. We then sell them to rich foreigners who come to Germany on Safari or because the girls are so pretty. No joking. German girls are famous. And they tend to easily fall for rich foreigners to escape the poverty at home and the danger of being sold as slaves to the boob design wallpaper factory. Life in Germany is tough, I'm telling you!

Germans totally lack any sense of humour

You must be joking! Germans are the funniest people in the world. Their jokes are so lethal that they are no longer allowed to be published. It is too dangerous. I’ll give you an example:

An evil piggy walks through the forest. Suddenly a fairy appears and says: I’ll grant you two wishes. The evil piggy looks at her and answers: Fine. Drive a nail into the tree, in a way no one can ever remove it. The fairy looks puzzled but complies. So what is your second wish she then asked the evil piggy. Remove the nail!

As I said, lethal, pure quality!

I always recommend to simply browse German eBay. It does say a lot about the country. It is like a cultural guide through Germany and I swear to Buddha you can get fucking everything there. Interested in buying a Russian fighter jet – the auction is no longer online but you find a screenshot here: Buy a MIG23.

Or another example of handicraft and German humour. Careful on this one it is vicious. Imagine this, you spend a romantic evening with a hot bird and suddenly realise you don't have a condom; at least none that works. Buy a new one? Too expensive! Just do it blank? Far too risky and it could turn out to be really and I mean really, really expensive. No, as a German you simply fix the broken condom. You don't believe it? Check this out Flicko - Flick a condom. It could come in handy one day could it?

May be you like it a bit more spicy. Check this out and tell me again you are too old to play with Barbie’s. Latex SM Studio One of my favourites because it is so incredibly German aka funny.

And another one I quite like. It was advertised as a laptop with integrated printer - wickedly funny, only a German could come up with an idea like this. I'm sitting here laughing out loud. There is tears in my eyes. Germans! Jesus Christ they are so funny, you just want to shoot them.


I’d say at this stage we all agree, the German sense of humour is one-of-a-kind. And do you see how it says in the headline "10 things to know about Germany"? Did you realise it’s actually only five. Hilarious! I think we can stop here. Quod erat demonstrandum as they say – I rest my case.

Test your knowledge of German culture:
http://www1.spiegel.de/active/survivalbible/fcgi/survivalbible.fcgi