The Xenophobe's Guide to the Germans

The Germans pride themselves on their efficiency, organisation, discipline, cleanliness and punctuality. These are all manifestations of "Ordung" which doesn't just mean tidiness, but correctness, properness, appropriateness and a host of other good things. No phrase warms the heart of a German like "alles in Ordnung", meaning everything is all right, everything is as it should be. The categorical imperative which no German escapes is "Ordnung muss sein", Order Must Be.

Germans like things that work. This is fundamental. A car or a washing machine which breaks down six months after purchase is not a nuisance, it's a breach of the social contract. They are mystified when they go abroad and see grimy buildings, littered streets, unwashed cars. On the platforms of the London underground they while away the hours between trains puzzling about why the crazy English put up with it and don't organize things properly. Even their language is unreliable and full of tricks, with people called "Fanshaw" who spell their names Featherstonehaugh, and towns called Slough - which unaccountably rhymes with "plough" and not with "through" (which would make it Sloo) or "enough" (Sluff). In Germany, they manage these things better. Words may be long and guttural, but there are no tricks to ponunciation - what you see is what you get. The streets are clean, the houses painted, the litter in the bins. Ordnung.

In Germany, they manage these things better.

The Germans take their humour very seriously. It is not a joking matter.

Harsh, astringent and satirical is their style. The cabarets of pre-war Berlin are famous. Their bite was ferocious: the nearest modern equivalent is the British Spitting Image, but this is playful by comparison. Classic German satire put the boot in and twisted the knife.

Humour is used by the Germans to come to terms with life's reverses and hardships. Most of them know that the best laid plans will probably collapse into ruin. This is all quite natural for, if a German maps out his morning or a weekend trip away and it all goes wrong, he will meet the disappointment with fortitude, a wry joke and the quiet satisfaction that he knows how this wicked old world works.

The Germans don't view Sod's Law as the occasional irritant in the way the British do. Rather, it is seen as an Iron Fact of Life to which all must yield. If more than three things go right consecutively in a German's day it will occasion incredulous stares, astonished disbelief and fearful speculations about uncanny forces at work in the world.

The Germans' humour does not translate very well. Most German jokes when translated into English are no funnier than the average till receipt. Learn a bit of German, and you'll soon come to realize that there is a rich seam of humour running through German life. But their humour is largely a matter of context. There is a time and a place for being funny and for laughing. Ordnung decrees that humour is not the oil that makes the days run smoothly. You do not tell jokes to your boss (although levity with other colleagues may be all right at times), nor do you lard your sales pitch or lecture with witticisms. Irony is not a strong German suit and may easily be misunderstood as sarcasm and mockery.

German humour tends to have a target. After all, you don't throw a custard pie into your own face. While they are happy to laugh at others, and especially the misfortunes of others (other Germans, that is), their faltering self-confidence doesn't allow for self-ridicule. They do not joke about foreigners; jokes about East Germans only began after reunification. The butt end of German humour centres on regional characteristics: the stiffness of the Prussians, the brash, easy-going nature of the Bavarians; the bovine East Friesians, the quickness of Berliners, the slyness of the Saxons.

The Bavarians see jokes as a convenient way of taking revenge on their old archenemies, the Prussians. The Swabians don't mind jokes about their thriftiness, but prefer to be economical with them. Hence:

A Prussian, a Bavarian and a Swabian are sitting together drinking a beer. A fly falls into each one's mug. The Prussian pours away his beer with the fly and orders a new beer. The Bavarian picks the fly out of his mug with his fingers and continues drinking. The Swabian picks out the fly and then forces it to spit out the beer it has drunk.

To help you get a joke, Germans will gladly explain it to you. If they are of an academic bent - or from Stuttgart - the finer points of the explanation will be repeated so you cannot fail to appreciate it. For some Germans, humour is like a great painting, it must be planned, prepared for and built up in layers over a long period of time. For others, it is like the battered body of the Six Million Dollar Man; they have the technology and they will rebuild it so that it is better than nature made it. Either way, a joke or a shaggy dog story will be polished and honed, refined, revised, improved, re-worked and bettered in every possible way - until it is absolutely perfect and quite incapable of raising a titter.

Part of the problem is that most Germans apply the rule that more equals better. If a passing quip makes you smile, then surely by making it longer the pleasure will be drawn out and increased. As a rule, if you are cornered by someone keen to give you a laugh, you must expect to miss lunch and most of that afternoon's appointments. If you're lucky you may get home in time for Nachbarn (Neighbours).

Humour in Germany is also subject to an official timetable. A good example is the custom of the Karneval celebration which is particularly popular in the Rhineland. It starts officially at 11 minutes past 11 o'clock on November 11th (no insult to Remembrance Day is intended, it just happens that 11.11 is a very orderly numerical combination to the Germans, and order is also pivotal to emotional enjoyment).

Pageants, parties and performances continue for some months, all with the official obligation to be funny. To avoid disorder, strict rules have been set up to organise the merriment as efficiently as possible. During congregational speeches, which are endless concoction of jokes, every joke is marked by an orchestral signal so that nobody will laugh at the wrong moment. Disorderly humour is not only nothing to laugh about, it is often not even recognized.