I think it only would be fair if someone would start.

Im from germany. It's difficult to talk about my country without being critical.

I think the rating that germans are disciplined is right. Not in all cases but in most of them.

I think they are closed, tidily and helpful.

Ähm... for that matter: David Hasselhoff isn't a star in germany.

God, this man is annoying.

He thinks he's the reason why the wall fell.

When you ask me: He is megalomaniac.

The problem in germany is that nearly no one is proud of his country. Since the third reich it seems that everyone is scared to be proud. It's clear that no one should forget what happened in the 2nd world war. But in my opinion we should look forward without forgetting the past but living the now.

For all who don't know about the third reich (especially Muslimah ), the short form:

http://www.flholocaustmuseum.org/history_wing/thirdreich/index.cfm

I think it really good describes how it all came together. At the beginning Hitler was the hope for many germans that they could live a better life. Many of them were jobless and without hope. And Hitler created a picture of an enemy. In his opinion the only reason why there was so much chaos, were jews and foreign people. The people believed him. He wanted the perfect "aryan" and to succeed he wanted to kill everyone who was not an "aryan" to prevent mixed marriage. He saw in german people the aryans he wanted.

The stupid thing in his believing is that he was from austria. He wasn't even a german. But wanted to kill everyone who wasn't an aryan.

He was everything but an aryan. His picture of the perfect human was a blond muscular bright man. And he was not a thing of it. I think he had some complexes.

In the end Hitler had the might.

He was the police. He was germany. He was power-obsessed. When there were people who didn't shared his opinion they were killed in one of the conzentration camps (extermination camps). And that is also what happened to the jews an foreigners in germany.

The people in the camps were split when they arrived. When they weren't in the state to work they had to go in the gas chambers.

These camps were build to kill people. Sooner or later. There were gas chambers which looked like showers. The people had to walk in this room with the "showers" and became gassed. http://www.tacheles-reden.de/media/article000195/mauth-69-klein.jpg

The corpes were burnt in a big chimney. (Before the allies rescued the captives, the *** tried to cover their tracks and burnt them alive.) I have seen pictures of it when I was, I think 7 years old. Believe me you won't forget such pictures in your whole life.

In the end (before the allies arrived) there were to much corpses. The camps were overfilled. The stink of dead people was everywhere. The people who could walk had to bury the dead people. There were more dead than alive. http://www.volksbund.de/images/presse/fotos/bild_auf2/Massengrab150.jpg

http://www.celan-projekt.de/bilder/massengrab-bergen-belsen.gif

It was cruel. I could cry when I see this pictures. How can anyone be so cruel?

In this extermination camps 6 Million innocent people were killed.

I think it's clear that this experience is very dramatic in the development of germany. Even when you can't change it. you are  ashamed that nobody has done something against it.

I just know that my great grandfather was a captive in russia. My great grandmother is also dead so i can not ask her about it.

Nobody can change it but it's important to remember.

And it's also important for other countries to realize to what racism can lead.

I've taught English in Germany for a number of years and have enjoyed the country and the people enormously. Germans can be dour and pessimistic sometimes but every nationality has some traits which we might find difficult to understand or to cope with but which usually have a genesis easily understood by studying history. Overall, my experience of Germany and with Germans is quite positive and, were it not for the horrid economy, I'd enjoy living in Germany more than any other place in the world.

Once you make German friends, you've got them for life. Germans are very loyal and deep thinkers with deep feelings, who tend to intelligently weigh all sides of a question. This can bog down forward progress in business or political change but, in the main, it's a good sign of taking responsibility for the consequences of decisions seriously, imo.

Germany has been undergoing some serious challenges which few other countries have had to face and they are doing a remarkable job despite the fact that those changes are wreaking economic havoc. Absorbing and refurbishing the former DDR has been an enormous drain on resources and has caused considerable stress all round. Germany is also unique in that its history dictates how they feel they must cope with the swarms of immigrants. Germany believes that to deny entry to any immigrant would be tantamount to inviting unpleasant comparisons to the Third Reich period. Consequently, they've been fairly inundated with immigrants which the government (taxes) are forced to support. When the country is in the midst of of an unemployment crisis (5.5 million unemployed and counting), more immigrants simply continue to exacerbate the drain on resources and add to people's pessimistic view of future possibility.

Germany really gets the stick on the events of WWII and I'm amazed that no one stops to consider that what happened there could have and has happened elsewhere. The events of WWII are a failure of humanity, not a failure of the German people specifically and solely. When we focus on one country's period of horrific history, we tend to ignore that it has happened elsewhere (think Stalin and estimates of 20-40 million murdered) and continues to happen elsewhere (Uganda, Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda and many, many more). In my view, humanity should concern itself with preventing what's happening around the globe now and stop looking back to find fault with the German people about events for which most of our contemporaries have no responsibility at all.

Since the end of WWII, the Germans have done a 180 degree turn and can arguably be considered the gold standard for how other countries live in the world. The German people are amongst those most conscious of social responsibility for others and amongst the most fair and concerned regarding general human rights. Other countries could learn a few lessons in humanity from Germany.

Germany and Germans have an enormous and wide-ranging body of positive contribution to the world, over the course of their history, and they have every reason to be quite proud of being German.