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What prompted this particular rant? Ah, there's elections in Germany this month, and while I'm not a political blogger or anything, I try to keep up with candidate interviews and stuff. Needless to say, there's a lot of bullshitting involved on all sides. But this particular piece of bullshit involves one of my personal interests/hobbies: German poetry.

German poetry is, well, German - so, a politician of a German right-wing party has to approve of it in principle, right? Anyway, it came as no surprise to anyone when Tino Chrupalla, AfD candidate (with, thankfully, no real chance of being actually elected), in an interview with a child reporter (is it a specifically German thing to have candidates interviewed by children? anyway, it's a popular format) demanded to teach more German culture in schools, and, in particular, more German poems.

Without going into any (entirely unnecessary) further detail about my opinions regarding that guy: this is probably the only point I could ever agree on with Mr. Chrupalla.

The thing is: I love German poetry! In a fanwork exchange I just signed up for, three of my seven requested fandoms involve German poetry! Reading this stuff at school would have made German class much more fun.

Unfortunately, this is also much more controversial than you'd think. Because of the typical neo-nazi obsession with "German-ness", surprisingly many people have concluded the (logically wrong) inverse: people who display a deeper-going interest in German culture (including, yes, German poetry) simply have to be neo-nazis. Yes, I have run into that one - even one of my teachers accused me of neo-nazism, based purely on my reading habits...

Back to Chrupalla and his educational suggestions. As an avid reader of German poetry, I don't believe in calling someone a neo-nazi just because he wants people to read more German poetry. The remarkable thing - that distinguishes Tino Chrupalla from an innocent poetry fan - only came up in the seemingly innocuous next question. The interviewer was a 13-year-old kid, and when faced with Chrupalla's statement, he asked the obvious follow-up: So, Mr. Chrupalla, what's your favorite German poem? And, also entirely unsurprisingly, Chrupalla couldn't come up with one. (The kid interviewer was surprised, but I'm chalking that up to lack of life experience.)

Yeah.

This would almost be funny: what a wonderful accidental way to unmask right-wing obsession with being "German"! (It's un-funny only because it discredits literature fans - and indirectly makes sure German poetry will continue to be kept away from German schoolchildren.)

So, here's a suggestion, not only to Chrupalla and his fans: read more German poetry! Here are some recommendations.



( Cut for length and nerdery )