Berlin (AFP) - On a sunny Sunday in April, 20 people were enjoying a barbecue in the city of Schwerin in northern Germany.
The police promptly intervened, slapping them with a fine for breaking new social distancing rules to limit the spread of COVID-19.
They were alerted to the festivities by a neighbour, "outraged by such behaviour", who also proceeded to boast about her efforts on social media, opening up a heated debate about the return of denunciation to Germany and whether it is acceptable in the current crisis.
Telling on your neighbours is a highly sensitive subject in a country still haunted by memories of Nazism and the former communist dictatorship in East Germany, two regimes under which informing on others was practically a national policy.
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The culture that gave rise to Nazism is not so easily changed.
ReplyDeleteIts nasty to turn in your neighbors-dangerous too!
ReplyDeleteWell, they keep re-electing a former Stasi agent as their prime minister, so they must feel comfortable with the snitch culture.
ReplyDeleteBut the snitches in this country, now - that's something that needs to be made unacceptable in society right now, and they are coming out of the woodwork.
Snitches get stitches.
It isn't just Germany. In the UK the police have set up special snitch phone lines and have no shortage of people using them.
ReplyDeleteWell here in the good old USA we now have this new thing called Next Door where neighbors can share information about goods and services and community events and the Karens can rat out their neighbors for transgressions real and imagined. Google it up and prepare to be pissed.
DeleteH
Proving once again that Germans have the Reich Stuff
ReplyDelete