Are Germans Rude? How to Say Love Thy Neighbor in German?

Rude Germans: such a stereotype. Are they really impolite or simply direct? If you type this question into Google, you`ll get over 8,5 million results. The topic obviously intrigues many ex-pats and tourists in Germany.

My personal experience tells me Germans are beyond blunt and are good at insulting other people. Before going further, I must say that I have met many lovely and friendly individuals in Germany and a lot of reserved but polite people.

I just noticed that someone has offended me almost every day ever since we moved to Germany. It seems that there is always a random stranger scolding me about something or being unnecessarily rude to me. There have been significantly more unpleasant situations than anywhere else in the world. (I have lived in 6 countries and have traveled to over 40.)

Strangers scolding strangers

The other day I was yelled at TEDI. 

TEDI is the German version of a dollar store. I was looking around in a Christmas section when a lady said something in German. She whispered behind her mask, and my German is Kindergarten level, so of course, I did not understand her. I assumed she might have made a remark about the merchandise, so I just nodded in acknowledgment. 

At the checkout, the same lady started screaming at me to step further away from her, ˝MA`AM! I TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM ME!˝

I gazed at her dumbly, ˝Entschuldigung, uhm, I didn`t understand you.˝

She is starting to explode. ˝YOU ARE NOT STANDING ON YOUR LINE!˝

Keep to the Rules, Keep Distance

During the coronavirus pandemic, stores were required to stick tape on the floor every 1,5 meters to mark the obligatory distance between customers (Abstand halten)

Apparently, I was not keeping the necessary 1,5 meters, which is why she was shouting. I also realized that previously she hadn`t made a friendly remark. She had warned me to eff off.

I looked down at the floor and realized that she wasn`t standing precisely on her line, either. ˝Before you start yelling at random strangers at the store, maybe you should stand on your own line.˝

˝WELL, I AM STANDING ON ZHE LINE!˝ she barked at me, stepping on the tape. ˝I DON`T WANT TO GET SICK, AND YOU ARE APPROACHING ME! YOU ARE HERE WIZH YOUR CHILD, AND YOU SHOULD TAKE CARE OF HIM.˝

My son was indeed sitting in the stroller, his 2-year-old self being entirely oblivious to what was going on. 

When in Germany, Yell as the Germans Yell

Now, it was my turn to explode. ˝YOU KNOW WHAT IS WORSE THAN GETTING SICK AND DYING OF COVID? BEING LECTURED BY AN OLD, MEAN WOMAN, WHICH IS WHAT YOU ARE. I’M TRYING TO MIND MY OWN BUSINESS WHEN A RANDOM STRANGER STARTS COMPLAINING THAT I DON`T OBSERVE A RULE WHICH SHE ALSO DOESN`T.˝

I looked into her shopping cart, which carried Christmas decorations, wrapping papers, and other holiday stuff. 

˝DO YOU REALLY THINK IT IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL TO BUY A CHINESE PLASTIC PUTTO IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC? WELL, I`LL TELL YOU SOMETHING: THE WHOLE WORLD IS LOCKED DOWN TO PROTECT YOUR GENERATION FROM GETTING SICK. MILLIONS OF PEOPLE LOST THEIR JOBS, AND YOU ARE WANDERING ABOUT IN THE DOLLAR STORE AS IF THERE IS NO TOMORROW?! SHAME ON YOU!!˝

To be honest, I did not say any of this. I mumbled some defensive, disgruntled comments about rude Germans. I had stairwell syndrome: I was wise after the event, and I only imagined what I should have said after I had left the store.

This lady might have had just a bad day, but then, a lot of people have bad days in Germany because there is always someone who is a tad bit coarse.

The gold medallist of rude Germans

Unfortunately, this medal goes to our next-door neighbor. She and her husband live in the other half of our duplex. 

When we moved into our house, our relationship was amicable and neighborly. 

Later, something happened, and our relationship became hostile. I have no idea what we have committed against our neighbor, but suddenly she became antagonistic. 

Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side?

The front yards of our houses looked like hell when we moved in, and we decided together that we were going to develop matching front gardens. At that point in the building of our house, we weren’t interested in landscaping at all. I was just too tired to make such decisions because I had spent the previous year plastering, painting, drilling, and whatnot. 

Therefore, I let our neighbors choose the gravel and the plants. They picked some nice white pebbles, which they then showed us in a catalog. A week later, I found the same rocks in a different DIY store for one-third of the original price.. So, I popped over to them, thrilled, showing them the catalog of the other store, offering them to order the rocks and pay the shipping for both of us. I just wanted to get it over with.

At this point, they refused to talk to me, ˝Nah, we want to look around a bit more, find some different rocks.˝ And I was dumbfounded, ˝WTF, you chose these, to begin with, and I am ready to pull the trigger, do the job instead of you, and now, you back out.˝ Of course, just like in the store, I didn’t confront them, just mumbled: ˝OK then, I will buy the rocks for myself only.˝

Then we went ahead with the landscaping, and this is how our respective front yards looked after that. 

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors? Naaah…

Something similar happened to the backyard, too. The rude Germans said they wanted a hedge, not a fence. They also said they didn’t care what kind of plants it was made up of. So when our local store had bushes on sale, I bought all the thuja plants they had. I stopped by my neighbor again, showing her the plants, and telling her I would plant them. Yet again, I covered the costs and offered to do the job instead of her. And yet again, she refused to talk to me. She had the nerve to tell me to call her husband and ask his opinion about the bushes.

All this was too much. I thought I wasn’t a messenger between her and her husband, so I just went ahead and planted the thujas in our yard.

You must follow the rules!

A couple of days later, her husband stopped me on the street. He warned me that German law states that plants should be 75 centimeters into the land from the boundary of the two properties. He told me that he had measured, and the plants are only 35 centimeters into our yard, so I should replant them.

So I pulled out the trees and replanted them 40 centimeters closer.

A couple of months passed by, and our neighbors started their landscaping. They, who initially said that they didn’t want a fence, built this. 

It is precisely 2 meters tall. Of course, German law says that fences should be maximum of 2 meters. It is lawful but higher than any other barrier in the neighborhood, and it doesn’t fit with anything else. It is the new Berlin wall. It is a big FUCK YOU.

Next to the wall, you can see the thujas. Only these three survived the planting and replanting. They are sardonic reminders of the relationship between our neighbors and us. They initially complained about THOSE plants and then put up THAT wall. 

How to Love thy German Neighbor?

To return to the question in the title, the term “Love thy neighbor” translates to German as “Du sollst deinen Nächsten lieben wie dich selbst” (Mat. 22:34-39). Interestingly, I couldn’t find a translation with contains the word Nachbar, which means neighbor. 

I decided not to learn this phrase because it didn’t sound like a suggestion some Germans live by, anyway.  

Petty Revenge on the Rude Germans

I learned another useful expression from my son. (Not the one depicted earlier in this post, but my 4-year-old.) He knows this whole story with our neighbors. He also knows fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel. The evil witch in these stories is called the ˝böse Hexe˝ in German.

His 4-year-old mind put all of it together and started calling our neighbor böse Hexe behind her back. Of course, you know how discreet toddlers can be. When he sees our neighbor approaching, he starts screaming: ˝The böse Hexe is coming!˝ It sounds almost the same in German.

I am sure that by now, she is aware of her nickname, and I find it the most satisfying revenge ever.

(Fades away with an evil laugh…)