Dickinson students were mentioned in a booklet honoring the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Carl Schurz German-American Club (CSDAC). The picture shows the exchange students of 2003/2004 participating in the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner CSDAC organizes every year. We are thankful and honored to be part of this annual dinner where Germans and Americans come together celebrating America’s long-lasting tradition and we are looking forward to this year’s event!
by Douglas Murray ’12
This past Thursday, the 18th of November, our “Dickinson” (German 340) class here in Bremen went to the Deutsches Auswandererhaus Bremerhaven or the German Emigration Center in Bremerhaven, Germany. Along with Professor Ludwig and a few other German students, we traveled by train from Bremen to Bremen’s port, Bremerhaven. In 1827 the city of Bremen purchased the land that is today Bremerhaven because the Weser River in Bremen was too shallow for large trade ships. Therefore, Bremerhaven has since been an integral part of both Bremen’s trade-oriented economy and emigration.
Upon arrival at the museum in Bremerhaven, we waited a few minutes before starting the tour. The tour assigns each person an actual emigrant from the past who left Germany or Central Europe for the New World. It was very interesting to follow this person’s progression through Bremerhaven’s port and eventually their arrival in the New World. Once the tour started, I was impressed to find that it wasn’t a stereotypical museum. This museum was based upon interaction and had numerous stations and displays set up throughout the 
exhibitions. Each different room featured a scene that actually emigrants experienced years ago. Whether it was the harbor with a life-size transport ship anchored waiting for you to board or the internal compartments of the ship that showed where the emigrants lived during the journey across the Atlantic, this museum really set up a realistic experience.
My favorite part of the tour was the room we entered immediately before boarding the model transport ship. This room was fashioned after an old library or a room used to hold various files and records. Decorated with various maps and diagrams depicting the 18th and 19th centuries, you really felt like you were several centuries back in time. Many of the drawers on the walls slid open and revealed interesting facts about the emigrants. The most interesting immigrant to the US that I found was Levi Strauss who left Bremerhaven a few years before 1850 for better economic opportunities in the states. The fact that you could actually relate well-known historical figures like Strauss to the some 7 million emigrants who left Bremerhaven, really fascinated me.
At the end of the tour our group was guided to a bright room filled with computers and other displays. Here you could search through various databases to find ancestors who left Europe for the New World. Since various nationalities traveled through Bremerhaven for the New World, one did not need German ancestry to find distant relatives. However, I was not able to find any of my family’s ancestors in the databases because I did not bring the proper information.
Overall I would say visiting the museum was a really good experience. Being an American, one always hears about all of the immigration and diversity that makes our country what it is today. This museum really highlighted the sheer number of emigrants who left Europe for the New World, mainly the United States, and put into perspective how difficult their struggle was.
…photo by Ethan
by Samantha Claussen ’12
Whenever I talk to people back home about what it’s like in Bremen, I always find myself talking about the big, general impressions. They’re easy to talk about: the University, my classes, the old city and the landmarks there, the various markets and celebrations they have, how dark and cold it’s starting to become… These are all important things to get a general picture of Bremen, but they’re not the reason I find myself growing more and more attached to this city. No, it’s the little things that I’ve noticed that really make me adore the city and its uniqueness, the ones that I forget to tell my friends and
family about when I’m Skyping and chatting, because the little things don’t pop out at me unless they’re right in front of me. So I guess this entry is a list of tiny things in Bremen, things that you might not pick up on just by going to the big tourist attractions. And this isn’t even all of them, because like I said, these things don’t occur to me unless they’re right there.
There are strange quirks that the city has, like the odd sculpture of monkeys in front of the central train station, or the disquieting statues of three bikers and two joggers on the main walkway at the University. There’s the Bleikeller, the Lead Cellar, tucked away in the basement of the Cathedral, with an eerie display of bodies that were naturally mummified. And I’ve seen a few statues in a number of places that remind me of variations of the Cow Parade, the statues of cows that are painted with different themes. The Bremen take on this, however, is done with a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster, after the Bremen Musicians.
And then there are the tiny details that you don’t pick up on unless you’re paying close attention. The sewer covers have tiny keys stamped into them, the symbol of Bremen, and bottles of Beck’s also share the key as a symbol. There is a mouse in the Cathedral, though I can’t tell you the story about that one—you have to be a true Bremer to be privy to that information. 😉 There’s the reason the Roland faces the Cathedral—he was built as a symbolic balance of the power of the city and personal rights versus the power of the Church. The whole city is steeped in history, and it seems like around every corner there’s a story hidden, waiting to be discovered. The details snowball together until all of a sudden you have a picture of the city that could never be imagined just by reading up on the landmarks and snapping pictures on a tour.
You can fit right into Bremen by doing something small, like wearing a Werder Bremen scarf. I went out into the city yesterday, a game day, wearing one, even though I didn’t go to watch the game myself—I had other things to take care of. But I heard the results of the game on the radio as I stopped at a kiosk for a snack (0-0, unfortunately), and watched streams of people wearing green and white returning from the stadium. Because I ended up walking back in the same direction as the people who were at the game and had identified myself as a Werder fan, I got stopped several times by people who wanted to know what the score was. I was even stopped by a couple women who asked for directions to the central station.
When it comes down to it, however, it’s people that really bring everything together. While chatting with a classmate as we waited for the bus, an old woman picked up on the fact that I was from the US, as we were comparing Uni Bremen and Dickinson. She told me in English, with a perfect British accent, that she had studied in the US in 1951 and later returned on a Fulbright scholarship, and that she understood that it was hard to go to a new country and learn in a completely different language. She told me, with a very warm smile, that she was confident that I would overcome challenges presented to me and succeed at the University of Bremen, and then serenely bid me farewell as her tram arrived. A brief, five-minute conversation like that would never have happened if I were just a tourist. I’m happy to be here, and I love all the little details that make up my Bremen experience.
by Julie King ’12
Saturday October 23rd we had our first Dickinson excursion outside of Bremen. With our semester tickets we can take regional trains to a good number of cities within Niedersachsen, the state surrounding Bremen, and we can go to Hamburg, which, like Bremen, is one of the three city-states in Germany, the third being Berlin.
We left our apartment at 7:10am to meet at the central station at 8:00am. As awesome as German public transportation is, the street trams don’t start at our stop until 8:00am on the weekends, so we had to walk part of the way at what we college students consider an ungodly hour – especially considering that here at 54 degrees North, the sun doesn’t rise until close to 8:00.
We pulled into the Hamburg central station around 9:30am for what was actually my second visit to Hamburg. Earlier in the month Insa, Bill, Doug and I went to Hamburg for an evening. My first visit we walked around Speicherstadt, which is a canal-filled warehouse district built in the late 1800′s. It’s a beautiful district, and later I was surprised to learn that Hamburg actually has more bridges than Venice. Later in the evening we got a taste of the Redlight District along the famous Reeperbahn (street) before catching heading home at a reasonable 11:00pm. (In reference to the title, I must say that Hamburg’s Redlight area is a District, whereas in Bremen it is only a short street).
Our official Dickinson visit to Bremen was a more wholesomely educational trip.
Hamburg Rathaus
It started out with a tour of the city hall, which in my opinion was a little excessive. (I prefer the older, smaller, more approachable Bremer Rathaus). The current Hamburg Rathaus is actually the “new” city hall, built between 1886 to 1897 ; the original burned down in the great fire of 1848. The new city hall has hundreds of rooms, each of which are lavishly decorated, to house the Hamburg senate and parliament, as well as two mayors. Some of the rooms have leather covered walls bedazzled with Hanseatic or Hamburg related designs.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and the Dickinsonians
The most massive hall even had chandeliers so large that they weigh 1.5 tons each. My favorite fact from the tour, is that on New Year’s day city hall is open to the public so that you can personally wish the mayor “Happy New Year,” just be prepared to wait a long time in line. After the Rathaus tour we took a slight detour to have a group photo in front of Lessing, one of Germany’s most famous writers. The only ones I can think of are the ones I have read, “Emilia Galotti”, Nathan der Weise, and a fable “Der Rabe und der Fuchs” (the raven and the fox).
Our next activity was a boat tour of the Hamburg harbor.
Hamburg Habor
Germany’s biggest port and the second biggest/busiest port in Europe after Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Despite the cold and the wind, we (or at least I) enjoyed more than an hour of sightseeing and information from our humorous tour guide who used to be sailor on one of the massive container ships. Also hidden in port amongst all of the commercial ships was the world’s largest and most expensive personal yacht, owned by Roman Abramovich (the 4th richest man in Russia who also owns FC Chelsea). Overall, my favorite part of the boat tour was just seeing the Hamburg shoreline because of the variety of the ages and styles of all the different buildings.
By time we were done with our boat tour, we were all quite hungry and ready for lunch at Joh. Albrecht Brauhaus, right along one of the canals. We each got a delicious house draught beer. I had a delicious bowl of pumpkin soup for an appetizer and a vegetable “Flammkuchen,” which is sort of like a flatbread pizza.
After our leisurely lunch we took the subway to the St. Michaelis church. Supposedly it is one of the more famous churches in Germany, which it must be considering Loki Schmidt’s funeral was held there earlier this week. (She’s the German equivalent of Nancy Reagan). To work off our generous lunch, we climbed 400 steps to the top of the tower for a beautiful view of Hamburg.
The weather worsened and just as we arrived in Sternschanze, the artsy, liberal, young area of Hamburg, which is…surprise… a bigger, dirtier version of Bremen’s Viertel. The rain was a good excuse to pop into to a coffee shop where we enjoyed a hot beverage and lively discourse. After that we decided it was time to head home, and had an uneventful, sleepy ride back to Bremen.
Crests of Hamburg (left) and Bremen (right)
Overall, I really like Hamburg, and I’m pretty sure I’ll go back, especially considering it’s free with our semester ticket. It’s even been recommended a few times that we go to Hamburg to go to the clubs and then stay out so late that we go to fish market when it opens and take the first train back to Bremen. I’m not sure I’m up to European party stamina yet, but perhaps before the end of the year I will try it. But for those of you who don’t know, Hamburg is called the “das Tor zur Welt” the gate to the world because of its port and its crest, but the joke in Bremen is: Hamburg may be the gate to the world, but Bremen has the key (because the Bremen crest is a key).
by Nicole Couturiaux ’12
Two weeks ago our program celebrated our arrival in Bremen with a welcome dinner in the “Ratskeller,” the UNESCO world heritage wine cellar and restaurant below the city hall building. It’s tradition for the new group to gather here in October, after our individual language courses across the country, to enjoy each other’s company and start the year off with a traditional north-German meal. The 6 of us were presented with our long-awaited visas, making us official citizens of Bremen.
Poets Michael Augustin and Sujata Bhatt also joined us for dinner. The couple has a strong connection to our program – both are former Dickinson Writers-in-Residence and they remain active contributors to Dickinson’s literary programs. As a first-year student, I listened in on their readings at our annual international poetry festival Semana Poética and even journaled about Michael’s poems as an assignment for my German class at the time. Two years later I was surprised and thrilled to reminisce about Dickinson traditions and compare favorite Carlisle restaurants with them. The night concluded with a photo of our well-fed, very talkative, and quite jubilant group in front of the famous Bremer Stadtmusikanten.
Dr. Janine Ludwig
“Change” is possibly the best word to describe our last year here in Bremen, and so much has happened that we are unable to put it into one paragraph. First, Dr. Janine Ludwig took over as as new Academic Director of the program; the former director for one year, Carl Wege, took the chance to lead a research project in Bielefeld. After Dr. Ludwig, accompanied and assisted by Jens Schröder, a Bremen student and Program Coordinator since 2008, made an introductory visit to Dickinson at the end of September, during which we had many meetings and talks with different departments and people, we came back with a basket full of contacts, plans, ideas, requests and wishes. So we slowly started to restructure the program in order to meet these new challenges, to establish closer ties with the University of Bremen, and to improve the overall quality of our students’ stays.
We started small by first improving the Dickinson Room, which acts as our office and is also the place where our students can work and spend time between classes. We are now able to show movies, to invite people or parents over, and to hold video conferences and meetings there. Additionally, we created a media presence around our program, most visibly through our collective blog, where students also have the chance to upload pictures and videos. Of course, we are on Facebook as well ;-).
Dr. Ludwig designed an immensely rich and deep course for our Dickinson and Uni Bremen students that spans 300 years of transatlantic history: “Comparative Cultures – USA/Germany” that is part of the German major and listed as German 340 (please see: http://blogs.dickinson.edu/bremen/2018/01/20/german-340-comparative-cultures-usa-germany/).
Students with Dr. Carsten Sieling
Furthermore, Dr. Ludwig enhanced and enriched our excursions with stronger academic and historical content, matching students’ general academic interests. Whereas our first excursion to Vienna more generally presented the history of Germany, Austria and Europe, the next field trips where specifically designed according to student interests and majors: in Berlin, for example, we met with the German parliament representative from Bremen, Dr. Carsten Sieling, for a talk about the financial situation in Bremen and the economic crisis.
We also met with Hans-Ulrich Klose, a high-ranking politician and former major of Hamburg, who now serves as the federally appointed Transatlantic Coordinator for German-American partnership. Both visits gave the students unique insight into German politics. On our last excursion, to Brussels, we met with Dr. Helga Trüpel, a Member of the European Parliament who talked about Bremen’s relation to and role within the EU parliament. We visited the EU parliament, the embassy of Bremen and – of course – the Atomium. In each city we also tried to create a balanced program for the students, including time to pursue their own interests and to get to know life in the city itself.
At home, we intensified our ties with the University of Bremen. Very helpful in this process is the new head of the International Office here at the University, Dr. Annette Lang. Our closer cooperation led for example to an invitation for our Dickinson students to attend a private discussion with Auma Obama, half-sister of President Barack Obama. Dr. Ludwig contacted and continues to meet with many people at Uni Bremen, making our program – which formerly had been best known to students from Cultural Studies – more widely known and present on campus and in various departments. Last but not least: Our own cooperation agreement was also renewed this July. President Bill Durden and Rector Wilfired Müller signed the improved agreement which also served as a “birthday” present for our program – this year we celebrate the 25th anniversary of our partnership.
From left to right: Elke Durden, Sarah McGaughey, Janine Ludwig, Bill Durden
A telling sign of the strong relationship between Bremen and Dickinson followed in early July: the first presentation of an honorary degree in Dickinson’s history outside the United States! German writer and poet Günter Kunert was
Poet Günter Kunert (right)
conferred with the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters here at the University, led by President Durden and attended by Rector Müller, Professor McGaughey (of the Dickinson German Department), students, friends of Dickinson College and members of the university.
But we cannot forget our core responsibility of the program – our students. Among other things, Dr. Ludwig helped our student Kelsey Power to secure an internship at the Psychology Department here in Bremen. For a semester she was involved with the daily routine of the clinic and part of a team that performed diagnostic and therapy sessions as well as statistical tests to generate IQ scores. A valuable insight for a psychology major! (http://blogs.dickinson.edu/bremen/2010/04/26/internship/)
Besides their studies, the students followed their different interests. Andrew Shuman joined a local soccer club where he could continue practicing, as did Braeden Eastman and Thomas Vari with ultimate frisbee; other students went to festivals and travelled across Europe. Brent Te Velde, a program student from Trinity University, was able to enter the music conservatory here in Bremen and continued playing the organ in several nearby churches. And, of course, all students became huge fans of Werder Bremen, the professional local soccer club. They went to matches and training, bought jerseys, and collected autographs. This experience was only topped by the World Cup, where they celebrated every victory Paul the Octopus predicted in the streets with thousands of other Germans, doing so – most importantly – in German and with the German friends they made!
September 3
Homesickness, sleeplessness, thankfulness, untrammeledness. At the spatial separation from the familiar; from the temporal separation from the familiar; for a safe, timely, and uneventful arrival; at the novelty of experience. Then two more days in Freiburg. Language course started. Hunger and thirst, but not yet for that.
September 4
Day-trip to Alsace, in contrast to prior Freiburg. Went to Hochkönigsburg, Riquewihr, and Kaysersberg. Spoke in English, thoughtlessly, conversing with Americans, Australians, English, and Irish. In French, tentatively, ordering a snack at Hochkönigsburg and lunch at Riquewihr. In German, thoughtfully, communicating with non-Americans, non-Australians, non-English, and non-Irish. In Spanish, livelily, chatting with a Spaniard. Pleasant remembrance of bicycling up to Hochkönigsburg four years ago on the tandem with Wolfgang; vivid perception of the Riquewihr alleys, architecture, and colors, plus that perfect slice of peach pie; underwhelming impression of Kaysersberg. Worth it.
September 5
Went for a run on my first appointmentless morning around a nearby lake with a perimeter of, at a jog, about eight minutes. Afternoon sojourn to the Schlossberg; lots of steps; nice views of Freiburg before returning. Took away a filling yet inexpensive Turkish döner to eat beside the cathedral. Finally both well-nourished and well-hydrated.
September 6-10
Feeling occasionally with respect to the German language like an adolescent Andre Agassi with respect to tennis, but sharing none of this attitude for the sport itself.
September 11
Day-trip to the Black Forest, near St. Peter’s. Left the freshness of the first time unmatched, but at least being there amidst the trees was a nice sensation to revisit.
September 12
Rapturous. Woke up at 5:30 to leave the Freiburg train station 70 minutes later. Arrived to a sea of fog in Titisee. Some glorious false starts finding the path to the top of the mountain Hochfirst. Eventually got there with directions from a Frenchman, his dog, and a couple of German joggers, to enjoy a view that was as calming as a remoteness dotted only occasionally with Nordic walkers. Descended back into town with plans to return to Freiburg prior to finding a €16,95 lunch buffet; felt sufficiently hungry to make my discovery worthwhile. Made my way inside and was greeted successively by the head waiter, noodles, rice, and vegetables of the season. Opting for an outside table with my plate, received notice from said waiter, who, realizing
either that this rustic tourist, in not having selected any of the extravagant French appetizers, was somewhat incongruous, or merely that this ravished alpine hiker was just as famished, inquired whether to consider the entire buffet in the price, or that plate only, in which case he would make a special offer. Cheerfully accepted this and the iced tea with fruit from the forest that he complied to bring, which accompanied my favorite meal of the trip to that point. Some almond pastries from the Titisee train station complied to accompany me back to Freiburg. Pensive remembrance of descending the road cutting visibly through the trees to Titisee then.
September 13-18
Still deepening in esotericism, familiarity, restlessness in Freiburg.
September 19
Revisited the schedule of that seven days hence to visit, for the first time, the Schluchsee. The additional half hour riding the train to Aha turned out not to detract from a land-and-seascape that was still more impressive than its predecessor. Departed from the train to an immediate dawn. Jogged, lingered, walked from Aha along the Schluchsee to the town of the same name. Let us call it the best day so far.
September 20-23
I was worried that everyday communication in German would, if only marginally, lessen my adeptness in English, as was unequivocally true after a month here two years ago. Contrary to this expectation, but understandably so, as I did next to nothing with English during that visit, and during this one had still been primarily reading in it, not speaking English now had refined it to reflect the input it receives, rather than deteriorated it to a lesser degree than previously (a refinement more noticeable at the time, as I was still reading Proust; at least this is written a month later). And in terms of written comprehension, as the bald eagle goes highest and fastest, the flight of the black eagle still skids, so to speak, and although it outstrips almost all others, the closest behind being the rooster and the wolf, eyeing each other carefully, the secondbest eagle cannot keep pace with the nonchalant stride of the bull.
by Andrew Shuman ’11
As with many Americans, indeed, many more than Europeans may expect, I’ve played soccer nearly my entire life – since I was five, to be exact. As such, I’ve been a fan of the game for a very long time, starting with 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, when I got up in the wee hours of the morning to watch the final, where the Germans and their immortal keeper, Oliver Kahn, previously next to unbeatable in the tournament, lost to Brazil and Ronaldo. Arguably, those two players, Ronaldo and Kahn, are the best striker and goalkeeper of all time, respectively. That epic matchup, which ended 2-0 for Brazil, one of the goals coming following Kahn’s only error of the tournament, got me hooked on the international game. From the Champions League, in which Europe’s top club teams compete, to the 2006 World Cup and the 2008 European Championships, I don’t think I’ve missed a televised game if I could help it.
Being here in Germany for the 2010 World Cup and having just seen the die Mannschaft (literally, ‘the team’) crush archrivals England at a public viewing yesterday, though, has given me a real appreciation for the meaning of international football here in Europe. The World Cup and the Euro are far more than simple spectacles of sport; the national teams embody the histories and identities of entire nations.
Soccer is an inextricable part of Germany’s past, and, unlike the World Cup history of the United States, Germany’s history of participation in the tournament is riddled with momentous victories and defeats that came at defining moments in the history of the nation itself. Those moments have been indelibly etched upon the national conscience of the German people and that history gives added meaning to classic matchups like Germany vs. England. It’s obvious to everyone, of course, that two world wars fought between the two nations, as much as it is politically correct not to acknowledge it, play a role. However, the fact that England’s only World Cup victory in 1966 came against West Germany in the final at Wembley Stadium in London and the fact that the English have caved under pressure and lost to the Germans in two penalty shootouts on the international stage in the 90’s provide just as much of a backdrop. The looming quarterfinal matchup with Argentina, for instance, is far more than a game between, arguably, the two best teams in the tournament so far; it’s a rematch of the quarterfinal of the 06 World Cup, where Jens Lehmann saved 2 Argentine penalty kicks to put the Germans through, a rematch of the 1990 World Cup Final, where an Andreas Brehme penalty give the Germans their 3rd World Cup victory against the Argentineans, and a rematch of the 1986 final, where the greats of the German game, names like Lothar Matthäus, Karl Heinz Rummenigge, and Rudi Völler lost out to Diego Maradona and Argentina. Almost every matchup has that historical dimension and undertone, and, if I had to pick one thing only, I’d say that’s the biggest missing element from the World Cup experience from an American viewpoint. Hopefully, one day we can develop a storied World Cup history, to the point where a USA v. England matchup isn’t just presented as a ‘second American Revolution’, but as round two, or even three, of a matchup that has already delivered truly classic World Cup games.
Moreover, football has, at times, taken on a far greater role than that of a mere sport in German history. The German’s first World Cup victory in 1954, during the depression and disillusionment of the post WWII years, inspired and helped to heal a downtrodden nation, creating, to some extent, a new, positive national identity free from the ghosts of the Nazis. In German, the 1954 victory is known as “Das Wunder von Bern”- The Miracle of Bern, since the underdog German team beat the Hungarians in the final, a team considered nearly immortal and unbeatable. Germany’s third World Cup victory in 1990 came just as West and East Germany, so long divided, were coming together at long last as a reunified Germany, and die Mannschaft’s win over Argentina crowned that triumphant moment in German history.
This World Cup, regardless of whether the Germans can win the 4th star or not, I think the very makeup and playing style of the German team speaks volumes about German society and it’s development over the last few decades. A cursory glance at the German roster reveals that many of the players don’t exactly have names that seem ‘typically Germany’, and it is indeed true that the team is made up of many players from a diverse immigrant background. Lukas Podolski and Miro Klose, for instance, are of Polish heritage, as their names betray. Sami Khedira is of Tunisian extraction. Mesut Ozil is of Turkish lineage, Cacau is a nationalized Brazilian, and Jerome Boateng is half German, half Ghanaian. Ignorantly, I think, many people jibe that this German team isn’t really German at all. Sure it is. The jingoist assumption that to be ‘German’ means having blonde hair and blue eyes and having a last name like Schweinsteiger or Mertesacker no longer has a place in modern German society, and, for their part, I think the Germans are rightfully proud of the diversity and tolerance the national team reflects in their society. What’s wrong with a new German national identity, one that stresses the nation’s willingness to accept immigrants and people from all sorts of different backgrounds and consider them just as much a part of Germany as any others? Nothing. The new, ethnically diverse identity of the national team has, it seems, coincided with a radical change in the teams of style of play. Gone are the days of the stereotypically dour, efficient, and stout playing style of the German teams of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. The team we’re seeing in the 2010 World Cup is young, vibrant, fast, aggressive, and they combine and move the ball around the field at the speed of light, often times catching opponents flat footed for a counter-attack goal (England, Australia). Thirty years ago, such a free flowing style of play would have been unthinkable from a German side. As the Germans say, these guys have Spielfreude.
The World Cup doesn’t have to, and indeed should not have, the jingoistic undertone of ‘pure’ races of men from different nations having at each other on a grass field to see which race is the best at putting a ball between two posts. The players on the national team represent the people back home- their friends, families, fans, and supporters- as well as the youth football system that made them into the players they are. In that sense, then, if Podolski, Klose, Ozil, Khedira, and Boateng were all born and raised in Germany, how do their ancestries or last names make them any less worthy of representing Germany in the World Cup than Bastian Schweinsteiger or Holger Badstuber? As Americans who live in a society that is defined by its diversity, we should, I think, appreciate how open German society has become.