ACHTUNG!!!

I just realized the other day how many of my influences, as well as things I like come from Germany, Germans, or people with German heritage. While I've never felt an attraction or urge to travel to Germany, (I don't even think I know any Germans personally) I was amazed when I began noting exactly how many of the people or things that have influenced me or that I've really liked that have a German background.

Most of my favourite thinkers and philosophers were German, including

• Friedrich Nietzsche (author of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, etc, said "God is dead" and "That which does not kill us makes us stronger.")
• Georg W. Hegel (author of Phenomenology of Spirit, Philosophy of Right, the master/slave dialectic, the thought that unity occurs through contradiction and negation)
  
• Karl Marx (dialectical materialism, theory of alienation, author of "Das Kapital" and others)
  
• Friedrich Engels (co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx)
  
• Martin Heidigger (author of Being and Time, influenced by Eastern philosophies)
  
• Immanuel Kant (Idealist, author of Critique of Practical Reason, Metaphysics of Morals, etc., believed reason is limited)
  
• Erich Fromm (author of Escape From Freedom, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, etc)
  

I've enjoyed authors and/or poets such as

• Herman Hesse (author of The Glass Bead Game, Demian, Siddartha, etc.)
• Johann Wolfgang Goethe (poet, scientist, painter, author of Faust, Wilhelm Meister, etc.)
• The Brothers Grimm (collectors of fairy tales and legends)
  
• Rainer Maria Rilke (poet)
  
• Charles Bukowski (poet and author)
• Henry Miller (author of The Tropic of Cancer, The Tropic Of Capricorn, Black Springs, etc,)
  
• Sylvia Plath (poet)
  

Many of the best classical composers came from Germany, such as

• Richard Wagner (a friend of Nietzsche's)
• Ludwig van Beethoven
• Robert Schumann
• Johannes Sebastian Bach
• Johannes Brahms
• Charles Mendelssohn
• Georg Handel
• Carl Orff
  

Some of the greatest scientists and physicists were German.

• Albert Einstein (theories of relativity, E=MC2 which led to the atomic bomb)
  
• Johannes Kepler (his laws of planetary motion helped Newton formulate his "Universal Gravitation" theory)
  
• Max Planck (the founder of quantum physics)

Other people I think are cool that are from Germany or are of German heritage:

• Max Ernst (one of my favourite Surrealist painters)
  
• Johann Gutenberg (invented the early printing press in 1400's)
  
• Henry Heimlich (established the "Heimlich Maneuvre")
  
• Adolf Fiek (created the first contact lenses)
• Hans Lippershey (made the first refracting telescope in 1608)
• William Von Roentgen (discovered x-rays)
  
• Wilhelm Froebel (opened the first kindergarten)
• Hans Wilhelm Geiger (invented the geiger counter which detects radiation)
• Daniel Farenheit (founder of the farenheit temperature scale)
• Bruce Willis
• Oscar Schindler
• Michael and Sandra Cretu of Enigma
  
• bands such as Rammstein, KMFDM, Wumpscut and The Scorpions

The German language has also given us important words such as

• bagel
• pretzel
• strudel
• doppleganger
• gesundheit
• poltergeist
• ubermensch
• wanderlust
• zeitgeist
• quartz
• blitzkrieg
• kriegspiel
• angst
• gestalt

Even my favourite wine (Black Tower) is German.

Oh...and let's not forget that it's Germany that has the Autobahn, the only highway in the world that has no top-speed limit, which I think is pretty fascinating.

This post is therefore dedicated to all things German.