Germanic Depressives
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The Teutonic reputation for brutality is well founded. Their operas last three or four days, and they have no word for "fluffy".
—Captain Blackadder, Blackadder Goes Forth
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Ve Germans are not all smiles und sunshine.
—Horst, The Simpsons
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Germans in fiction are often stereotyped in one of two ways: Nazis, or as being dour, serious and frustrated to the point of ridicule. This is a mild Truth in Television: While Germans do, indeed, have a sense of humour, they also strictly divide work time and leisure time (see Oktoberfest). And since chances are you'll encounter German people in business situations, this means they will be perceived by others as downright serious during the former. This has also contributed to the additional stereotype of Germans being portrayed as ruthlessly efficient. May be known as German Gründlichkeit in other nations.
Also, Germans, like several other European countries, tend to be just a tad more reserved than more laid-back, open Americans are accustomed to. Unfortunately, this reserved-ness is often mistaken for coldness. This trope exists even inside Germany, as North Germans are often perceived that way by the rest of Germany.
Not so much Truth in Television: TV Germans also seem to get angry quite easily, often yelling and having fits that make them sound like, well... you know. (Of course, everything sounds angrier in German.)
Another variant of the "serious German" trope is to have a German character attempt to tell a joke, and fail miserably, thus providing us with the quote page's horrible joke. Really, we apologize. Although German Humor does include a lot of untranslatable puns itself...
See also Germanic Efficiency.
And as to the current quote at the top of this page: it's "flauschig" or "fluffig".
Examples of Germanic Depressives include:
Anime/Manga
- Axis Powers Hetalia. Germany, of course. The thing is, this trope originates with Prussia's disciplined military culture that dominates perceptions of Germans, but Prussia himself represents this by being a fiercely Hot-Blooded warrior, so not depressive at all, even though he's the origin of the trope.
- The comic also acknowledges that south Germans are supposed to nice and jolly (they gave us Oktoberfest), but Austria is even stricter than Germany, if more refined and aristocratic.
- Signum of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, while not an actual German, comes from an alien culture that uses a lot of Gratuitous German. She's the very image of a true soldier, which is why her new partner Agito finds her to be an utter drag. The Fourth Wall Mail Slot had Fate advising her to "relax" when she asked for tips on how to be "buddy-like" with her partner. A bit of a problem since Signum hates to be relaxed.
- In the first A's Sound Stage, Hayate, after noticing Signum initially decline her invitation to go to the public baths with her, Shamal and Vita, asks Signum if she still isn't used to the idea of spending time with her mistress. Hayate ultimately gets Signum to come along by essentially saying that it should be okay for her if her mistress says it is.
- The FORCE manga is giving her good reasons to be serious and depressive.
- Klaus von dem Eberbach - to the tenth degree. Hates disorder, doesn't know how to relax (literally), uptight, conservative, and always clad in a suit - Klaus can send the stress levels of a room soaring just by walking in. Interestingly though, he's the only German to conform to his national stereotype in a series rife with them: his German underlings include a sweet natured transvestite somewhat prone to hysterics, a beleaguered second in command, a goofy third in command and an earnest rookie.
- In Cyborg 009, the German Cyborg Albert Heinrich/004 is given one of the most tragic backstories as an East Germany escapé who loses his fiancée and has his body half-torn in their escape, is reconstructed as a heavily armored Cyborg by Black Ghost, and then is put into a coma for many years. Though he (thankfully) doesn't reach Wangst levels, he often remarks on how everything has changed for him and shows deep worry about how much of a human he truly is due to all his implants.
- Victor Hillshire from Gunslinger Girl gave of this vibe in the earlier parts of the manga, to the point where Jose pointed it out when the former was asking the latter for advice in fratello relationships. We see later that he just doesn't socialze with children well, Triela in particular because he rescued her from a Snuff Film death back from when he was in Europol in a bungled raid that got his partner killed, kidnapped her from custody from the Dutch police and brought her to Italy for treatment before he found out the true nature of the Social Welfare Agency. It was awkward at first, until her decision to let Mario Bossi go see his daughter rather than stay and be protected by the Agency helps him see her as a partner rather than a child or a cyborg killer, as he had difficulty knowing how to interact with the latter two. Now, ironically, they're the closest fratello group other than Sandro and Petra, who actually took it a step further.
- Hoover Kippenburg in the Area 88 manga was stricken with guilt over a training accident back in Europe that killed several pilots.
Comic Books
- Kurt Wagner was intended to be an aversion of this and the Darker and Edgier Nineties Anti-Hero, a light-hearted Errol Flynn type. He was introduced as devout as any other lay Catholic simply to demonstrate his demonism was only skin-deep and to heighten the injustice of the religious superstition against him. However, through The Dark Age of Comic Books he became more of a Sad Clown, then as Wangsty as any X-Man. Recently he was killed outright and apparently replaced with a Darker and Edgier Alternate Universe version of himself. Yay.
Film
- Contrast the German art-house film, Wings of Desire, with its American quasi-remake, City of Angels, and note how the commoners behave in both films. The former very much lives up to this trope.
Literature
- Inverted in the 1632 series, where the "downtime" Germans consider the Americans to be the uptight, stuffy, and unnecessarily organized ones. (So does just about everybody else.)
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Rebecca's own brows were furrowed. "Alles in ordnung?" What is he talking about? Germans are the most unruly and undisciplined people in Europe. |
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- There's a historical argument that the trauma caused by the supposed disorder of Germans at this time directly led to their supposed thoroughness and lust for order afterwards.
- In one of the Father Brown stories, an Italian actress storms off in a temper and locks herself in her room. The rest of the troupe debate whether to break the door down to prevent her committing suicide. Father Brown (half-jokingly?) says that as she's Italian there's no need, but had she been a German "gone away to think about Weltschmerz" he would be all for knocking the door down.
Live Action TV
- Monty Python's Flying Circus: This was the secondary idea to the 'World's Funniest Joke' sketch. It was so funny, anyone who heard it died laughing, so of course the British employed it as a weapon of war. German attempts to develop a counter weapon were...unsuccessful. A particularly well-trained SS officer was capable of resisting the joke for a few seconds, though.
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Hitler: Mein Hund hat keine Nase! |
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- For those interested in a translation: it's "My dog has no nose." You know the punchline.
- Blackadder once escaped from a prison with Melchett's help by observing the German guards' routines (which they were kind enough to shout out loud) and then punching them in the cobblers while they were making insulting pelvic thrusts.
- He (or rather, a descendant) was also responsible for the observation that forms the page quote.
- Recurring characters The Nihilists from The Ronnie Johns Half Hour fit this trope to a T, always dressed in black, with stoic faces and never smiling. The more Unfunny they were, the funnier the sketch. One sketch had them leading an aerobics class at a gym, and, when asked to start the warm-ups, one of them replied, "My body is always cold." Other sketches have included them hosting a children's television show and a Seinfield parody of sorts.
- The Dana Carvey Show had two characters called "the Germans who say nice things." They stood side by side at attention, shouting things like "EET VOS A PLEASURE BABYSITTING KEVIN" and "MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS IS THE FEEL-GOOD MOVIE OF THE YEEEEEAR!"
- An example from Germany itself: Bernd das Brot (Bernd the Bread), a (slightly) anthropomorphic loaf-of-bread puppet; supposedly only working in television due to a lack of other employment opportunities, always at the butt-end of practical jokes and stunts set up by the producers and his well-meaning colleagues (a sheep and a bush), instead of just being left alone to memorise the pattern of his wallpaper and expand his collection of the most boring railway track videos. Interestingly, this world-weary sufferer originated on a children's channel, with the nightly repeat of the sketches greatly expanding his adult fanbase. Following this he even became a topic for high-brow newspaper columns, with commentators linking his popularity to the over-the-top, Played for Laughs portrayal of his depression resonating with the German psyche.
- One interpretation is that Bernd's popularity stems from his claiming the right to be unhappy in the hyper-happy media-dominated world of today. A bit like a box-shaped Savage.
- Stephen Colbert demonstrated this with a bit about Germans and cupcakes (Starts at 3:40-ish).
- The same guy later makes another appearance with a sock puppet that he insist it not alive and convinces Stephen that Kermit the Frog is actually a being of pure selfishness.
- Ich bin jetzt sicher daß Herr Beinholtz eine zeitweilige aber regelmäßige Rolle geworden ist.
- Anna Schmidt of Mind Your Language fits the trope, since all the characters embody caricatures of the stereotypes about their home country.
- Mike Myers' Dieter character from the recurring Saturday Night Live skit "Sprockets" certainly had a grim façade, although he also seemed to take pleasure in his weirdness.
- The Australian comedy clip show "The Ronnie Johns Half Hour" had a group of three psuedointellectuals with German accents who fit this trope to a tee.
- One challenge on Top Gear required the presenters to go to "the world's least amusing city"... which of course turned out to be Berlin.
Tabletop Games
- The inhabitants of 7th Sea's Eisen (which is Germany with a minimal rename) are practically required to be like this. Of course, their entire country was dashed to pieces by a holy war, so they have an excuse.
Video Games
- Sasha Nein from Psychonauts.
- While Ace Attorney's Miles Edgeworth isn't German by birth, he has a German mentor (also an example of this trope) and spent much of his youth in Germany, so he qualifies. Franziska von Karma is also an example.
- Johann Strauss from Quake IV.
- Team Fortress 2's The Medic swaps constantly between 'cross and dour' to 'just plain crazy.'
- He seems fairly cheerful throughout "Meet the Medic", and a few of his voice clips are puns, but even more of them are complaining about his own team.
Web Comics
- Germany in Scandinavia and The World is basically the poster child of this trope, due to him being the personification of the country and also having a lot of guilt issues.
Western Animation
- In the Invader Zim episode "The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot", Membrane introduces Dib to the world leaders he's having a conference with. Seeing that he's watching a report about the titular Chickenfoot, they all start laughing at him, except for the German guy. (According to the DVD commentary, you can tell he's German because he has a monocle).
Real Life
- The fact that the founder of philosophical pessimism was German probably doesn't help this trope much.
- For some strange reason, the founder of philosophical optimism (mentioned in Candide) was German too.
- The Marx Brothers' parents were both Germans.[1] Groucho originally played a Germanic accented character which he dropped just about WWI.
- Disproved in Spike Milligan's war diaries with the anecdote that at a reunion many years later a German friend of one of the people came along and Spike discovered that they had been on opposite sides of the same hill in Italy in one engagement. The German quickly passed Spike a note which read "Sorry to have missed you during the war"...
- The world's largest Goth convention, Wave Gotik Treffen takes place in Leipzig, Germany.
- ↑ Technically their father was an Alsatian--no, not that kind--a Germanic culture now in French territory