German landlords & discrimination of foreigners

your both wrong! (well sort of) The Allgäu is neither in Swabia (Bayerisch-Schwaben) nor is it in Oberbayern. The Allgäu is a separate administrative region to both. IIRC, Augsburg is the capital of Bayerisch-Schwaben, Memmingen is the capital of the Allgäu, Munich is the capital of Oberbayern (as well as being the Landeshauptstadt). ER is right that Kempten is in Bavaria. so is Bayerisch-Schwaben.

Actually, Allgäu, you spelling Nazi!( ) is part of the Alemannic group and is thus part of the same Germanic grouping as the Swabians and Swiss Germans.

Getting back to the topic. When I see the problems with Germans in Germany, I balk at how difficult such Germans would have it in Paris or London. Germans know how to talk the talk, but I'm not sure they all know how to walk the walk.

@Silva

Apologies if you find me insulting.

I love Bavaria. best place on earth. Man, after I moved into my place I was standing outside minding my own business as you do when a little old lady walks up to me. She proceeds to introduce herself to me and tells me how she's glad I don't smell, though to be honest I can't remember if I had actually bathed that day. Anyhoo, as it turns out my landlady had gone door to door to let them know she had rented to an auslander and there was a lot of concern about it, especially whether or not I would smell up the place with auslander cooking. But seeings as I was not smelly and looked friendly I shouldn't be any bother to anyone and she felt much better. She also advised me to just smile and be nice and continue trying to learn German. She was cute, bless her. Anyhoo, I didn't interact much with the neighbors as am hardly ever there even but about a year later I noticed that some of the older people had actually moved out - I like to think its because the stairs are a bitch but who knows...they've been replaced with younger, hipper folk who tend to mind their own business.

Bottom line, as hard as it is in your case, let it go. Some people in (insert any location) don't like other people from (insert any location), that doesn't make them a Nazi, which is one of the worst labels to attach to a person, particularly in these parts. Man, thats like saying if someone is prejudiced in america then they must be part of the klan. There's a big difference between having deep set prejudices (for whatever reason) and belonging to an organisation that seeks to terrorize and destroy those people. If they are prejudiced against whatever kind of auslanders than big deal, there are plenty of other people that will be happy to have your GF's euros.

well, we didnt have much choice in the matter, we looked elsewhere, and ended up renting a place from a Romanian who has lived here for 20 years. (it doesnt hurt that he is from near where my GF is from)

Certainly one does always have xenophobes in any country. I will certainly endeavour to refrain from colloqualism when referring to right leaning xenophobes on TT.

Although I'm being holier-than-thou on this topic, I do quite like the term "spelling Nazi"

When I first moved here, my company paid for a relocation service to look for apartments for me.

I actually took the 2nd apartment I saw, met the landlord and didn't speak a word of German while his English was about the same level as my German. However, he had absolutely no problem renting the apartment out to me and has been a fantastic landlord who has never once been a problem.

I wonder whether it has to do with the company that you are working for and your contract status as well. I would think a lot of landlords would be more sceptical renting to a person on a 6 month rolling contract with an unknown firm as opposed to say someone on a permenant contract with a larger firm such as Allianz, BMW or Siemens.

It may have nothing to do with nationality or colour (although I am sure there are some cases where this holds true) but simply a preconceived idea of a person based on their job and the probability that they will remain in Germany for more than a short period of time.

actually, i was thinking of Regierungsbezirke not ethnic groupings but i was completely wrong in any case. The Allgäu is indeed part of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben (one of 7 Regierungsbezirke in Bayern and known as Bayerisch-Schwaben to differentiate itself from the Schwaben in B-W). And Kempten is the capital of it.

and fyi Ulysses, ER was born in Munich, not Kempten, which would make her Oberbayerisch, not Schwäbisch.

@KM: Actually thats a fine line innit - nazi in jest is common enough, i.e. spelling nazi, or toronto = hair nazi, but its only if the accusation is lobbed seriously that it becomes an issue.

@Wibble: probably true - I doubt I wouldv'e gotten my place actually if the company wasn't involved and if I didn't have a real german along mit for extra good measure. They dropped a few bayerische words to each other and the place was mine.

When that is the case Wibble, then certainly the landlords have all right to protect their financial interests. The particular problem that I had is that the landlord refused to talk in the first place. We were going to ask him if he would be satisified with a full year as a bond (that is going over the top, but we really liked the place) however he refused to even meet us or speak to us.

and when dealing with administrators or agencies, some of them were concerned about our 'financial' situation which is their right of course, but most were willing to negotiate on the bond when it came time to get a place. Sure it is not always the best option, as one must have the cash for the bond in the first place, but it is much better than sleeping outside.

We had a relocation agent employed by a large international company. she showed us three places and we could have taken any one of them no problem.

In this situation they only show you places where the landlord agrees to give you first refusal because they've been offered a good deal if you do - the assurance of the German agent that you are respectable and have a good job and I suspect in most cases, to smooth the wheels even further the rent has been negotiated to be slightly higher than it would be otherwise.

When we went looking for a place on our own it was hard - we were studiously ignored by several agents and landlords who wouldn't consider renting to foreigners. We took it as par for the course and kept going until we found someone who realised money is money and we got a good place.

I second jml - Werombi, you have to let it go, and should have done well before now.

This is a very U.S.-Centric view of the difference between race and ethnicity. And also perpetuates the belief that anyone with a bit of black blood in his family tree is black.

Just as many Americans may claim mixed ethnicity, it is quite common for people in the UK who have, say, a black and a white parent to claim mixed race. Similarly in many spanish speaking countries in America where there is a mix of castillian, african and native indian "races". And the people in Germany (i.e. first generation immigrants) who may claim Irish or Polish ethnicity can not claim a second ethnicity as well.

I think this quote (from the same site) is more reflective of reality

I get the impression that "race" is used in the U.S. more to describe the amount of discrimination or disadvantage that a person may experience, rather than any meaningful scientific measure

The fact of the matter is that there is no scientific way to define what "race" any particular individual belongs to. In the US it seems to be done based on skin colour. Anyone with dark skin and some african blood in his family tree is considered "black". Anyone with oriental looks is considered "Asian" and people who speak spanish are called "hispanic" though many of them would actually also be caucasian. And how would you clasify a Turk or an Iranian or an Indian. I gather they're not considered "Asian" as they don't have oriental features. Please don't say they're "brown" as there is so much difference between them.

As mentioned previoulsy, the Nazis also had ways of defining race, based on popular beliefs in Europe at the time. According to these, Jews and Slavs belonged to a different "race" to Germans - not a different "ethnicity".

When discusing racism in a European context, I don't think the North American view of what constitutes a "race" is really valid.

Don't take that local patriotism too seriously. We do say "mir san mir" and we do make fun of the "Saupreußen". But the stress is on fun. How can we be against non-Bavarian people when three quarters of Munich are populated by them?
Besides, this is also a matter of history. Bavaria used to be a monarchy on its own, and that's not sooo long ago. But don't worry, I don't want the king back!

P.S. Maybe I got something wrong but I once met a guy from Tasmania who always stressed that he was not Australian. If that's not localism! :-)

I'm of the opinion that the terminology you use is of little importance. The meaning and assumptions behind the statements are what is worrying regardless of whether you want to call it racist or ethnicist or whatever. It is a prejudice plain and simple.

I'm pretty sure prejudice means the same thing in North America as in Europe.

That is one of the reasons why I don't like the word "race". Comes from a European err German err Austrian view of the thing.

The topic starter is Australian, according to his profile. What context would you like to use? I don't think that it's a very relevant point. I know that many people in the US, especially those who you have termed "mixed race" don't like to say that about themselves - they prefer to say mixed/multiple ethnicities, if anything all. Actually, that brings me to another great article - although she chooses to use the term mixed-race. Again, IMHO you can call yourself whatever you want. I personally don't like the use of the word "race" in this context.

Black & White and Read all Over

It wasn't so much xenophobia as antisemitism that was the central part of the Nazi regime, paired with Aryan supremism. They started on the German Jews and went on from there. And some foreign ethnic groups were ok although they were not Aryan - look at how friendly Nazi Germany was with Japan.
Basically, you will find xenophobes and raving idiots everywhere. Move on.

Ok, now I have a bit o'time.

When I was first looking for an apartment in Munich, it was horrible. Anything good was snapped up in a matter of hours if not minutes. We went to the place that prints all the "local" papers around town and made appointment after appointment. We found two places in the same building and made appointments with both people to coincide within thirty minutes of each other. When we got there, we found out that it was an agent (not publicized as such) and she was showing both apartments. Not only that, there were about 5 other people there to see the apartments. Oh whoopee me. While we were looking at the apartments, one of the others asked if there were many foreigners in the buidling and preceeded to bitch about how they smell and the food stinks. The agent said that no there were not any foreigners living here. My wife spoke up and said that her husband was a foreigner. They all got glazed looks and went quiet. The agent asked where from. My wife said the US and the agent said "Oh that is different" and smiled and winked.
We were the last people to leave this mass inspection of two apartments and as we were going, the agent noticed that there was dogshit smeared on the floor. She was not happy and bitching about someone tracking the shit in and now she had to clean it up. My wife and I looked at our feet and said it wasn't us. We said goodbye and on the way out my wife commented that the apartments sucked, the agent was a bitch and she was glad that someone tracked the dogshit in. When we got outside, I showed her my shoe and the dogshit that was on it. We laughed at how it was the foreigner of the group that stunk the place up.

well done!

Well, after reading this thread it's now clear to me that we now have a long way to go with our house hunting trip cause though my hubby is a german i officially fall under black (am proud to be one).
The only house we really liked from all the viewings was given to someone else and the reason we were given was that the other couple were an old acquintance of the Landlord.This could be true or maybe not !!:(

All in all it is really not fair to be discriminated cause of skin colour as at the end of the day the blood color for all is red .