The North-South German Divide

[Sigurd]

Worse than the East-West divide between Germans is the North-South divide. The Austrians often don't even know or wish to accept that they are Germans too, whilst the North Germans envy Austrians, Bavarians, Swabians and Swiss for having kept much of their traditional lifestyle, or at least more than they have.

[velvet]

Sigurd, that's BS, sorry. Bavarians are quite arrogant to the rest of the nation due to them being the 'richest' federal state. But it's not they would have acclomplished that by themself, but the Bavarian richness is paid by the Northrhine Westphalian poorness. Although NRW has the most inhabitans and got fed up for decades with all the immigrants that the Bavarian CSU freak Kohl took in, WE still paid more in the federal states financial exchange than we got back. Beside that Bavaria loves to ride around on their Freistaat status. The Weisswurscht-Äquator is Bavarian made, so please stop whining about it

[Thusnelda]

Sigurd, that's BS, sorry. Bavarians are quite arrogant to the rest of the nation due to them being the 'richest' federal state.

What you call Bavarian "arrogance" is nothing else than a good sense of self-esteem/self-confidence and realism. As good as all other Bundesländer have a severe guilt complex and suffer on a lack of guts to show any pride for the own Bundesland or Germany as a whole. How many people wave the flag of NRW in their garden? How many of Hessen, Niedersachsen or Brandenburg? In contrast, the waving Bavarian flag is a common sight in Bavaria, especially in the more rural and sub-urban regions.

No harm intended, but some other Bundesländer should learn something from Bavaria. Because we haven´t lost the pride in our cultural, traditional and linguistical roots, at least outside of Nuremberg an Munich. Northern Germans often look down at us Bavarians for being "stubborn", "ambitious", "conservative" and "unprogessive", but I see it as a strength.

Berlin is the complete counterdraft of Bavaria: Liberal, Urban, Progessive, Multicultural, Cosmopolitical...and poor. Henry Nietzche, the now independent member of German parliament, once said "Berlin is governed by multicultural fags (Multikulti-Schwuchteln)". Well, Bavaria is proud to be different.

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/art771,2278969

We Bavarians love our regionalism and aren´t that vulnerable for hostile thoughts and anti-patriotism/antifa/etc. Even our Bavarian police is famous for their more "Hard hand/Law&Order"-approach in contrast to the police in other Bundesländer.

Otto von Bismarck once stated regarding Bavaria:

"Bayern ist vielleicht das einzige deutsche Land, dem es durch seine materielle Bedeutung, durch die bestimmt ausgeprägte Stammeseigentümlichkeit und die Begabung seiner Herrscher gelungen ist, ein wirkliches und in sich selbst befriedigtes Nationalgefühl auszubilden."

And "yes", he was right.

An other issue is the Länderfinanzausgleich. Sorry to disappoint you, but in the meanwhile Bavaria repayed more money into the fund as it has taken before! And to be honest, if the people of NRW made their state a socialdemocratic paragon state for decades by democratic elections...then it´s not the fault of Bavaria which remained conservative during all the decades.

Here you can find a statistic:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Länderfinanzausgleich

You´ll see that Bavaria has repayed the multiple sum in the pot. In fact, Bavaria has taken 3.390 Million EUR from 1950 to 1986 and payed 27.824 Million EUR back into the fond from 1989 till 2008. That´s nearly the 10x of the money taken!

[velvet]

And until 89 we got all 'guest workers' into the Bergbau, left to the social systems (that were a federal thing) since end 70s due to the dying of the mining companies. Great, and that was the time when our farmers were subsidised to end their farms and all the subsidies for farming went to Bavaria.
For some reason Bavaria was always privileged, Bavaria didnt want the guest workers that (also Bavarian) politicians took in and they got their will, while we didnt have the choice. Nono, so easy as you make it with the naked numbers it isnt.

In 89 NRW was already so messed up that the changing after that didnt played a roll anymore. And you know, the most Ossies fleeing the east to get work, guess where they came to? Right, to NRW, a federal state full of cities with an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent (Dortmund, Essen,...).

Beside that, while Bavaria paid finally too instead of taking, NRW paid also to the other states, so the argument doesnt really work out.

I congrat the Bavarians to maintain their culture and all (honestly), but I really hate the stance Bavaria takes to the other states, because much of their richness and all the exrawürste went at all other's expense.

[Thusnelda]

And until 89 we got all 'guest workers' into the Bergbau, left to the social systems (that were a federal thing) since end 70s due to the dying of the mining companies. Great, and that was the time when our farmers were subsidised to end their farms and all the subsidies for farming went to Bavaria.

That´s a very single-sided view, velvet. Other states had to cope with guest workers, too - also Bavaria. The foreigner rate of Nuremberg or Munich is at least at the same level as in NRW cities like Köln or Bochum. Furthermore, Bavaria had to change its whole economical structure from an agrar state to a highly developed technological state. And you shouldn´t forget that Bavaria had to integrate millions of Sudetendeutsche who were expelled from their land and home after WW2. It´s a true masterpiece how we integrated our German brethren into our society - and most of them became proud Bavarians.

For some reason Bavaria was always privileged, Bavaria didnt want the guest workers that (also Bavarian) politicians took in and they got their will, while we didnt have the choice. Nono, so easy as you make it with the naked numbers it isnt.

Bavaria was never very privileged because all other German states see and saw us as something..."different". But I agree to some extent: We were privileged with some good politicians after WW2. Politicians like Franz Josef Strauß were very strong personalities and gave Bavarian needs and necessities an unmistakable voice in Bonn. They represented Bavarian interests rigorously and were able to keep our nose out of some stupid developments.

It´s the primary duty of Bavarian politicians to achieve the best for the Bavarian state and the Bavarian people. That´s the reason why they were voted for and that´s why Germany has a federal system. It´s not the job of Bavarian politics to accept negative decisions for the own people only because ministers of other German states are too weak or support several traiterous positions.
It´s the duty of NRW politicians to achieve the best for NRW. Yet it seems that NRW wasn´t gifted with any capable politicians in the past, that´s why the situation in your state is quite worse. But the population of NRW is not without guilt because they tend to elect weak and traiterous personalities in general (http://forums.skadi.net/showthread.p...wpost&t=125101) - it´s a shame! But when all states jump out of the window, why should Bavaria follow?

I can see that some people consider the typical Bavarian view on politics as some kind of arrogance, as well as the Bavarian "extrawurst" with the now woeful CSU, but the development of Bavaria, our alive and kicking cultural and traditional customs, our regional patriotism and our wealth give us right.

(I know that people like Franz Josef Strauß or the early Edmund Stoiber were far away of being perfect characters and I don´t share all of their views, but in contrast to most of our current politicians in Germany they were very competent and brought the state ahead)

[velvet]

That´s a very single-sided view, velvet. Other states had to cope with guest workers, too - also Bavaria. The foreigner rate of Nuremberg or Munich is at least at the same level as in NRW cities like Köln or Bochum.

Today maybe. When I went to school 20 years ago in NRW it was normal already to have about 5 pupils/class with immigrants background, while in Bavaria the virtually only immigrant-background guy was Roberto Blanco.
When I visited my english teacher a few years after I left school we were the first federal state having classes with zero German pupils... I dont think that Bavaria has a single class of that structure, not even today.

And to the single sided view. When you present the good for Bavaria stances and decisions by Strauß and others, you should really realise that they opposed similar attempts by other federal states strongly.
There is a rule that says "Bundesrecht bricht Landesrecht", and Bavarian politicians under Kohl and the 16 years of CDU dictatorship made it very clear to the other federal states that only Bavaria had the 'right' to break that law due to them being a Freistaat (although it is said that it doesnt has legal consequencies anymore). The privileges derived from that never applied to Sachsen f.e.. Northrhine Westphalia had some Freistaat areas itself, they were eradicated after WWII.

While our oh so left-wing liberal federal government and the trade unions opposed the guest workers strongly, they were allowed by oh-so conservative CDU/CSU politicians who made up the government and the chancelors from 1949-1966 exclusively.
So much to the single sided view. No offence meant by this, but it is just true that Bavaria often took privileges for itself on the expense of all other federal states.

I agree with you that NRW and mainly all other federal states didnt have much good politicians...

[Nachtengel]

The North-South 'divide' exists in the minds of obsessed regionalists for whom their regions represent like a different country and the rest of Germany is seen as a foreign space.

[Aptrgangr]

The North-South 'divide' exists in the minds of obsessed regionalists

It is obvious you never have been to a German region south of the river Main.
Germany traditionally never was a centralized empire, that´s why regional differences still exist.

for whom their regions represent like a different country and the rest of Germany is seen as a foreign space.

Many if not most Swabians, for example, preserved a... let´s say "special relationship" towards their own "Ländle", this does not mean they are secessionists. National-conservative Swabians are proud their Swabia got the title "columna et fundamentum imperii" - column and fundament of the empire (HRE) because of their loyality.

[þeudiskaz]

Northern Germans often look down at us Bavarians for being "stubborn", "ambitious", "conservative" and "unprogessive"

Is this not what comprises the German? Not specifically being "unprogressive" so much as cautiously progressive. These traits have kept the German tradition somewhat intact for thousands of years. After all, even though Rome had an empire when they first met the noble German tribes, and even though Europe built itself up around the idea of empire, there was no true, cohesive German empire until 1871, almost 2000 years after it's initial exposure.

Germans have strong ties to the way things were, which is not bad, the Germanic "barbarians" that clashed with Rome needed to authoritarianism to hold them together, and they surpassed in cultural enlightenment even the USA past even the 1920's.

Germans are strong, so the need to rush towards progress is unnecessary at best, and catastrophic at worst. Would anyone like to see something like the French Revolution to happen to the Germans? That would truly be a terrible day!

It is obvious you never have been to a German region south of the river Main.
Germany traditionally never was a centralized empire, that´s why regional differences still exist.

Even a study of German history exposes this facet of Germanism. I am by no means an expert, and I live in the USA, and yet I understand the importance of locality to the true German. Which is why Germans resisted the idea of a true empire for so long, and they were right, Germans are strong enough in their clans to not require an empire. Germany should find it's strength in it's differences.

[Jäger]

Germany traditionally never was a centralized empire, that´s why regional differences still exist.

Regional differences also exist in centralized "empires", e.g. France, how do you explain this?