Quote Originally Posted by 120mm View Post
I find your post "spot-on" in its entirety.

It roughly mirrors my experience living in Deutschland.

I also find the simultaneous beating of Germany for being militaristic and aggressive, in the past, and the beatings for not being militaristic and aggressive enough in the present/future as being cryptic.

I can see where the typical German would be confused about what America wants out of them....
Which is also colored by the 'typical' German view of America which (when I was there in the early 1980s) was formed almost entirely by "Dallas," "Dynasty," and "Rambo." I suspect these days it's a mish-mash of "The Real World" and one gangsta video/film too many.

I remember the Turkish 'guest worker' situation being a bit of a high-temp subject back in the early '80s, though not the hotbed of bomb-throwing radicalism that many seem to think it might be (that distinction was reserved for students from the Free University in Berlin). The change mentioned by Fuchs was evident even then. Of course, reunification has changed the social makeup of Germany considerably since then. I think many in the US (and elsewhere) underestimate the impact that had on Germany in many ways (social, economic, political).