Kultur 6 Connor Laporte

I read the article on “Bild Zeitung” and I was amazed at the fact that it was a conservatively inclined paper. For me as an American the terms “soft porn” and “conservative” are considered completely opposite but I see this is not the case in Germany. Maybe it is just America’s Christian inclination that makes the idea of a newspaper with a naked woman on the front as one of the top newspapers utterly shocking. I doubt a store in America would have sold me this paper 3 months ago when I was under 18 and yet this paper is immensely popular in Germany. I thought that its outrage over the photo of a naked Angela Merkel is quite hilarious and I am surprised (and I imagine she is a little hurt) that she didn’t make page one with that shot. If this was not odd enough the paper on door etiquette was equally strange and alarming. I first of all don’t like the idea of someone knocking just once than entering without being answered or the idea that I have to do this to almost every door I want to enter. This seems invasive for the person inside the room and exceedingly uncomfortable for the person entering but I imagine the Germans are not fazed by this, just as they phased by nudes on the front page.  To top all of these oddities off, the paper on confusing elements of German society really left me with little hope for the German people. I mean, in a world with nudes on the front page of one of the top newspapers, and awkward door related encounters, can’t a guy just throw something away in peace? Apparently not and he also can’t have his phone company install his phone hardware. Maybe this makes the Germans smarter but I imagine it also explains the staring, never smiling, German demeanor.