Germany: Citywide charm offensive
By A.J. Goldman | Correspondent 05.01.09
• A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
BERLIN – Berliners have a reputation for being surly, sarcastic, and downright rude. It’s known here as the “Berliner Schnauze”; for Germans, it is as potent a symbol of the capital city as the Brandenburg Gate or Checkpoint Charlie.
As this city readies itself for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Berlin Senate has sponsored a nearly €200,000 campaign aimed at making residents less in-your-face. The new Freundlichkeitsoffensive (friendliness initiative) called “Big Hearts & Big Mouths,” was announced in late 2008 and began officially in March, according to René Gurke, CEO of Berlin Partner GMBH, the agency designing the campaign.
Asking Berliners to be polite sounds a lot like asking Parisians to curb their dogs, or asking New Yorkers not to jaywalk. But Berlin hopes to influence people’s attitudes by appointing “good mood ambassadors” to provide helpful information with a smile. The volunteer ambassadors will be drawn from members of the service sector, including 1,000 police, 2,000 transit workers, and 500 garbage collectors, according to an article in the Berlin daily Die Tageszeitung.
In addition, postcards that poke fun at typically cheeky Berlin back talk, often rendered in the city’s harsh urban dialect, will be distributed in restaurants around town. “These cards are fantastic, they show we don’t always take ourselves too seriously and that we can laugh at ourselves, too,” Senate spokesman Richard Meng told news agency Agence France-Presse.
Berlin has never been modest about itself, especially now as it continues to reinvent itself as the new cultural capital of Europe. Friendliness initiative or no, Berlin might learn to be a little more courteous, but the attitude will surely stay.
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2. Gunter Scherrer | 05.01.09
I agree with Donald Mintz and find the idea of “sanitizing” the Berliner Schnauze ridiculous!
3. Emma Kopke | 05.02.09
Berliners have a LOT of humor: It is their Cabarets that helped us tolerate the war, occupation, rebuilding, etc.
Radio Rias used to have fun radio shows and talks, as well.
I think my countrymen/women need to relax and quit looking over their shoulders to make others happy rather than live their lives well. Perhaps your author could look up the humorist Busch (Katzenjammer kids!), Erich Kaestner’s children books, one of which has been immitated endlessly in movies here (Das doppelte Lottchen or twins exchanging roles at a camp) etc, etc.
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1. Donald Mintz | 05.01.09
Oh please. I spend one of the best years of my life in Berlin as a Fulbright student. It was 1955-56, after the division of the city but before the wall. The attitude behind behind that marvelous Berliner Schnauze is one of the things that got the city through blockade, hard winters with inadequate fuel, and above all a sort of total uncertainty about what the next 24 hours might bring. Long may it remain solid and surly. Freundlichkeitsoffensive? Now, THAT’s offensive.