Hell, I like Germany’s conservatives. Now, don’t misinterpret me here. I like those guys, because they’re always good for a laugh. Well, I gotta admit, they kinda changed. As I pointed out in my article about “Gay Germany”, we’ve got a female chancellor now, and our foreign secretary is openly gay. Hussa! The only problem is, they are Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle.

Why do Germany’s conservatives figure in a blog dealing with community you say? Well, they recently discovered the topic of language, as in English being the most important foreign language. And language makes or breaks community. After conservatives complained for decades about “anglicisms”, i.e. words imported from English to German, Guenther Oettinger, former premier of German federal province Baden-Wuerttemberg, now EU-superintendent for Energy in Brussels, likes to point out, that English is THE language. In the vid that follows, he concludes that “English is the language of the workplace of the future, whether you work in an office, or in a factory.” He doesn’t say it, but it’s clear that he likes to imply: “You lot better all improve your English. Or you’ll be job-hunting soon.” Contrast it for yourself with Oettinger’s English, as he gives an official speech in his newly acquired function as a high-ranking EU-official.

Is it just me, or does he simply not get half of what he’s obviously just reading out from his script? Like the old Die Krupps-Song: “I open my mouth, words come out – that make no sense to a stranger’s ear…”

Whereever I go on the planet, I’m met with the expectation that Germans usually do well in English. It seems to be something almost like a trait that sticks to us. And I guess everyone in Germany now is proficient in English to some degree. At least in West-Germany, since we were lucky enough to have been occupied mainly by the US and the British after the war. (I guess I don’t need to explain here that the so called “German Democratic Republic” in the East was just a Soviet satellite state, essentially a dictatorship as bad as the Third Reich, with the only differences being a) they didn’t start a world war and b) they didn’t gas millions of dissidents – the body count up to 1989 is still in the hundreds, though – mainly because of all those East Germans trying to make a run for the West that were shot at the border).

But, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, we’re good at English. All but our new, neo-liberal turbo-capitalistic foreign secretary Guido Westerwelle. Look how well he did when talking to a BBC-reporter:

I could’ve handled this from anyone assigned to the new cabinet… After all, we’re in Germany, fair enough. But for crying out loud, this guy was ALREADY APPOINTED OR NEW FOREIGN SECRETARY…! So you see, these guys are fun. So much fun, they inspired the German Green Party to this witty reply, a message to our friends from the BBC:

So… we Germans are inclined towards English, yes, and it’s had a great influence on our collective, cultural space in the 65 years that have passed since the unconditional surrender of the last Reich aka Nazi Germany in 1945. However, I don’t see either how our own language would be endangered by this fact (enriched being the right term, I guess) or how English would become the “exclusive language” of working environments in Germany in the future (a ridiculous idea from Oettinger, unless you’re a top-manager). Yet most of all, I don’t see how we’re going to manage with a foreign secretary who refuses to speak any English. What do other Gumbooteers make of this? Is it cool for a Minister of Foreign Affairs / Foreign Secretary to refuse to speak the lingua franca of the world? Or is it just a pile of horse-hockey to be upset about this?