Germans, Being Germans.

The topic is serious, but perhaps one of the best illustrations of the mentality I'm going to discuss is nonetheless funny. As has been observed, Eurpoeans are very, very nice. Until they, very suddenly, are very not. The video below is a gag, where the husband of a typical german couple, in a typical german house, with their typical garden, decides to do something about cars that have been driving through the neighborhood too fast.

Note their appearance and behavior - mildly neurotic. Slightly OCD. Pleasant. He's positively excited about finding a solution. And though said solution is played over the top for laughs, and the housewife is horrified, I can tell you that the Germans - mostly engineers - I know tend to fit this profile. Very pleasant Will avoid rocking the boat. If they have a nice car will park it around the back or in the garage because showing off even moderate wealth is considered tacky. And if they decide to do something about a problem, once it has awakened their ire, they will very matter-of-factly, very totally, make it go away. When they commit to something, they can be a bit... extreme.

In the same vein, this recent article at Gates of Vienna - "When a German is Aggravated Enough, a German Strikes” (with translation below):

The following video was made by a German YouTube satirist named Hagen Grell. Despite the humor in it, his entertaining rant has an edge — it expresses a fundamental truth about the hidden undercurrents of German culture, using satirical means.