(0/05/09) German Campaign Gets Much-Needed Dose of Humor (Spiegel online)

[Steffi]

Germany's election campaign is being livened up by satirical pledges to rebuild the Berlin Wall, send pensioners to the east, provide free cosmetic surgery for everyone and install a rabbit as the national symbol. Humor is urgently needed at this time of political torpor, comedians say.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,640663,00.html

[foxyladi]

rebuild the wall.they just tore down...

[NativeSun]

Sometimes Titanic can be funny, like the cover that had the question: What did they do with that Rote Faktion member's brain (Meinhoff?) and then had it being implanted in GWB's head. And other times they are not. Like after 9/11 when they had on the cover cut-outs of airplanes that you could put on your windows (so that other planes wouldn't fly into them like birds do). This one I find in between. And as a self-appointed "Ossi" I don't find it funny to make fun of them or Die DDRs "backwardness". It gets very personal for me.

[Steffi]

I'm a wessi. ;)

Hape Kerkeling is our most famous comedian and sorry but I really like him. I saw him in person when he read out of his book and it was funny as hell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoQfiXLinvU

[NativeSun]

I'm a wessi. ;)

Hape Kerkeling is our most famous comedian and sorry but I really like him. I saw him in person when he read out of his book and it was funny as hell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoQfiXLinvU

I saw one of his TV shows where he dressed up in costume with very thick glasses and was in Los Angeles interviewing Pamela Anderson. It was very funny. Much better than Sasha Baron Cohen's antics. Aber Ossi Schertzen sind verboten[-X.

[Steffi]

I saw one of his TV shows where he dressed up in costume with very thick glasses and was in Los Angeles interviewing Pamela Anderson. It was very funny. Much better than Sasha Baron Cohen's antics. Aber Ossi Schertzen sind verboten[-X.

LOL, but you can also do a "Wessi Scherz". I would be ok with it. :D

[NativeSun]

LOL, but you can also do a "Wessi Scherz". I would be ok with it. :D

I don't do those either. I think there's a difference if an Ossi jokes about Die DDR and its people, than when Wessis do it. And the same holds true in reverse (Wessis and the BRD). I do have friends who are Wessis, and what disturbs me is that sometimes they have a condescending attitude towards those from Die DDR, and many of them don't visit there (except for Berlin). In fact, I think that I've been to more former DDR cities than they have. I'm actually in Dresden right now. The problem I have is that the only difference between the two is fate, and where one's family was at during the end of the war. Mitteldeutschland before the war's end was very much on par with its western German counterparts. Had the Soviets occupied the entire German territory, then the Wessis would be Ossis as well.

[Suzan]

And one of the country's best-known comedians, Hape Kerkeling, has formed his own mock party that's "conservative, liberal, left-wing and a bit ecological" and pledges to provide free cosmetic surgery for everyone.

Bunny to Replace German Eagle

Its catchphrase, possibly based on a misunderstanding of Barack Obama's famous slogan, is "Yes, Weekend." And it wants to abolish the eagle as the national symbol and replace it with the "Federal Rabbit."

Yes, Weekend? That's hilarious.

So, is Kerleling's new party! He'd get my vote. Free nips and tucks? Hee.

[foxyladi]

yes weekend:rotfl::rotfl:

[Steffi]

Politics are such a boring and serious thing here that that was needed. ;)