48 year old German here. My grandparents were born in the 1920s. Here’s what they told me about Hitler’s regime.

In the 1920s, life in Germany was pleasant, so the Nazis didn’t get all the support they needed because their fearmongering didn’t work very well.

Then, the Black Friday crisis hit Germany hard. Harder than any other European nation. Huge unemployment, a lot of discontent and desperate people. The Nazis used that to their full advantage - many people fell for them, but still not the majority of Germans.

So my grandparents still didn’t take them that seriously. Even those Germans who knew what the Nazis had planned couldn’t believe they would really do it. Try imagining living in 1932. If someone told you about WWII and 6 million dead in concentration camps, would you really have been able to take that seriously?

Then, suddenly, Hitler came to power. Still, not the majority of people supported him - but it took mere weeks to take away all their civic rights, their right to protest, their right not to be detained without due process, their right not to be surveilled, their right to live in a home the police can’t raid without reason. It all happened too quickly.

So they all became afraid - VERY afraid. And too many of them minded their own business, after all, if they were law abiding citizens, what did they have to fear, they thought.

The famous quote by Martin Niemöller illustrates it:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

The bottom line is this - at no time during the entire Nazi regime were there enough people in Germany who could and would put up the resistance necessary to stop the Nazis. But there were always lots of people opposed to them, but intimidated into being silent.

Lee Harvey Oswald was pretty much American’s most hated man when they found out he shot Kennedy. I’m absolutely not saying anyone should try to shoot Trump, but I guess if someone were to do it, they would likely gain Mangione-type fame.

Nothing. But that kid used it inside a coworking space.

I’m an old fuck and I started to code in the late 80s. Fast forward 30 years, I once had to work at a WeWork. One day, directly outside of my small office space, I swear to god, a fucking hipster kid with a Macbook under his arm practiced skateboard moves. That was the exact moment I started hating working in IT. It’s also what I think every Javascript coder looks and acts like.

Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

As much as it pains me to admit you’re right, you appear to have hit the nail on the head.

I believe there’s a much broader spectrum as straight, gay, bi. I was never sure where I belong on this scala.

Like, I thought I was straight during my entire teens. Sometime in the early 2000s, I discovered the joys of online porn, and then found that the guys in porn sometimes seemed more interesting to me than they should. But having sex with a guy? No way. I thought.

So I spent my life, a below average looking guy, starved for sex for a long time, except the occasional awkward and underwhelming experience with humans of the female persuasion. Smoking a lot of weed to fill the internal void. One day, met a fellow weed smoker online. Lived nearby, gamer. Knew where to get good weed. After a couple of weeks we met. He told me he was gay. I was like, alright, sure. We played NHL Hockey and smoked a lot of weed. He asked me if he could suck my dick. Stoned as fuck, I said yes. Best blowjob I’ve ever had. But then, I ghosted him. Why? No idea. Couldn’t face the fact that I might be bi? Not sure to this day.

In my late 30s, I got married. And turns out once we were married, my wife turned asexual. So now I’m stuck in a straight life with no joy and no sex, getting closer to 50 every day. Even had to quit smoking weed. Boy, do I regret ghosting that guy.

So to this day, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t turn down a gay guy if an opportunity arose, even though I lean more towards women. I’m just a guy leading a sad existence in the closet and this comment turned out to be a much gloomier confession than I intended it to be when I started typing. Sorry.

In Germany, we have pickled herring too, but this German is happy to admit that Hollandse Nieuwe reigns supreme.

If there’s one Islay malt that I’d not be as reluctant to put in a cocktail, it’s that Laphroaig, but somehow the thought still feels wrong.

Fun fact: As a kid, I crossed the inner-German border in Berlin frequently before the Wall came down. At the Friedrichstraße subway station, they used to use a floor cleaner with a very dictinct phenolic smell to it. So whenever I have an Islay whisky, I cannot help but remember these days before 1989.

I would probably buy a really nice Pechauer pool cue. Or another premium brand as quality equipment is pretty important for pool players.

IT'S SHOWTIME
  I NEED YOUR CLOTHES YOUR BOOTS AND YOUR MOTORCYCLE a
  GET TO THE CHOPPER a
    HERE IS MY INVITATION "ArnoldC is the best."
  ENOUGH TALK
  TALK TO THE HAND a
YOU HAVE BEEN TERMINATED

It’s all computers!

We politely but firmly reject any association with this disgusting little poisonous dwarf. Sincerely, the Germans.

As a European brought up free from any kind faith or religion, it can sometimes be tough to decide which level of religious extremism is worst, that in the US, Israel or the Iran.

NIEDLICHEN

Not only condiment. You can make great dishes using it. Decades ago when I was a poor student, I made a kind of bolognese with it cause I didn’t have anything else in my fridge, and it turned out so great that I still sometimes make that to this day.

I constantly tell people the remedy of the dangers of dual booting, using a separate drive for Linux. They sometimes listen and then have a dual boot system that doesn’t break.

I’ve started working in IT over 20 years ago. In my humble opinion, one of the keys is being specialized on something that not everyone else can do. Become proficient in a certain area - devops, quality assurance, security, whatever.

On top of that, try and acquire a niche skill that makes you the type of employee that’s hard to find and replace. For example, banks are really desperate to find Cobol experts because most of those are pensioners now.

I know it’s tough, and I wish you had it as easy as I did back in the days, but it’s all I can tell you, unfortunately.

Absolut, und der Kreis des Irrsinns schließt sich dann, wenn für die kirchlichen Missbrauchsopfer gebetet wird.

Muss toll sein, wenn man Christ ist. Man kann alle möglichen Sünden begehen, weil wir ja ohnehin alle Sünder sind, am Ende muss man nur bereuen und einem wird alles vergeben. Gutes tut man sowieso nicht aus sich selbst heraus, sondern aus Angst vor göttlicher Ungnade, von der man weiß - siehe oben - dass sie ebenfalls nur temporär ist. Und dann kann man obendrein behaupten, dass Menschen ohne die Religion keine Moral hätten.