Final: Part B

I really liked this class and I am glad I took it because I learned a lot about Germany’s history that we did not learn about in high school as well as how Germany is today. I learned a lot about the history of the German states and how Germany got to where it is now. I learned how Germany is made up of 16 states that each have their own unique background as well. I learn very interesting things of the Hanseatic League, the Deutsche Hanse, and how people traded during the middle ages. Then I really like the book “All Quiet on the Western Front” because instead of just talking about how the war was, it brought us into the war. It showed us how it was like for the people in the war and helped us understand the “Lost Generation.” Then I learned about Anthroposophy, the start of gymnastics, and the food in Germany. The movie “Berlin Calling” showed me into the life of dubstep and we also talked about other music in Germany in class. I learned about important people and events that went on in Germany in the 18^th through 21^st centuries which was very cool. The last thing we learned about was the Baader Meinhof Complex. This was a very interesting movie because I never knew about any of this terrorist group or even heard of them. I do not think this class needs to change at all because it was different from any other class I had had. The way this class was set up with blog posts was fun and made us learn more on the information we learned in class by researching it outside of class. You taught us very well and you know so much about Germany it is crazy. I really enjoyed your class and I am glad I took it.

Final: Part A

1. Paste the url of the reviewed blog first.

2. Why did the blog draw your interest as you started reviewing it, why not?

3. How much care did the blog author show for her or his blog? How can you tell?

4. How would you rate the overall informative quality on a scale of 1-5 (five is high)

5. How would you rate the readability of the blog on a scale of 1-5 (five is high)l

6. Compared to your own blog, is the reviewed blog better, the same, or worse?

1.       Bingen, Katherine

2.       As I was browsing over this blog my attention drew to all the information that was written in each blog post.

3.       As to the blog page itself, it looks like the author just went with the template that was given because it is just plain blue. Although, the posts on the blog looks like the author took the time on each one.

4.       The information on the blog I would scale a 5/5. The author seemed to have researched what she wrote about before writing the posts.

5.       I will give the readability of this blog a 5/5. As I read the blog it flowed smoothly within each blog and was well written.

6.       I think the review blog is a little better than mine only because in this blog the author used much more bolded titles so it was easier to find what I was reading about. 

1.       Dos Santos Pereira, Mariani

2.       Right off the bat I really liked the page layout. The background made the text pop out at me more than just having a plain layout.

3.       I think the author of this blog put quite of time on this blog by setting up a cool layout and writing a good amount of information in each post.

4.       Reading the blog posts the information seems accurate but at the same time the author has no sources to back it up so I have no idea where it came from. Therefore, I would rate it overall as a 3.

5.       This blog was very reader friendly so I would give this blog a 5. It had some different styles between posts such as paragraphs as well as bullet points.

6.       This blog had all of the blog posts that were required, as does mine. I would not say that this blog is worse than mine, but the only thing lacking in this blog that I have in mine is the amount of pictures. I think this author could have imported more pictures to the later posts because there was only pictures in the earlier ones.

1.       Pedretti, Andrew

2.       This blog caught my eye as I was looking at it because it was different from most of the other blogs I looked at. It was much darker and there were pictures with most of the posts.

3.       I would have to say that this author did not put that much work into the blog itself because it was just a plain black template. The author did put more effort into the posts, which shows that the author cared about them with the information and pictures that were used.

4.       I will rate the quality of this blog a 4/5. I did this because it almost looks like in some of the blogs the author used more pictures than words. Therefore, it makes it hard for what the author was trying to say. Although, the author did use a good amount of sources.

5.       I would rate the readability of this blog a 4/5. In the blogs that were in paragraph form flowed smoothly and made sense as I read through it. The blogs that had pictures had bullet point which is nice but not all the pictures were written about or explained enough.

6.       I would have to say this blog is a little worse than mine because I feel like I had more information than this author had. This author did put the time in the blog but I feel like this author made the blog more from presenting it instead of informing the readers on the information.

The Baader Meinhof Complex

The Baader Meinhof Complex is a book from 1985 that was made into a film in 2008. These two are of the Red Army Fraction movement.

Overview:

This started in 1967 when Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, visits West Berlin to attend a performance at the Deutsche Oper. Many young Germans are angry with how Pahlavi is governing Iran so they protest at his appearance at the opera. One of the protesters was killed without provocation by a German police officer who was trying to control the protesters. This made many Germans very angry. A left wing journalist Ulrike Meinhof, who had earlier written articles critical of the Shah was one of these angry Germans and also inspired many others with her writings. After some of her fans were caught carrying out firebombing she meets with them and becomes friends. As time goes on more and more people are starting to get together with Meinhof and her friends, they are soon wanted by the law and have to flee Germany. The group comes back to Germans now naming themselves the Red Army Fraction (RAF). They are a terrorist group who do many harmful and illegal things. They soon get caught and thrown in jail where they start falling apart emotionally. As times goes on many members kill themselves, but the group stays alive as they continue to murder many people who are against them.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baader_Meinhof_Complex, 12/10/14.

20th Century Relationship between Germany and France

The harmony collapsed between Germany and France in 1905 when Germany took an aggressively hostile position to French claims to Morocco. This brought very much anger from the French for the next 50 years.

After WWI France was the leading supporter of harsh peace terms against Germany at the Paris Peace Conference.

Germany failed to pay damages under the Treaty of Versailles in 1923 (Germany being accused of not having delivered telephone poles on time), so France responded with the occupation of the Rhineland and the industrial area of Germany, the center of German coal and steel production, until 1925.

French Army troops gathering before their departure from Rhineland, occupied Mainz, 1930.

The French dominated the International Olympic Committee which banned Germany from the Olympic Games of 1920 and 1924. This illustrated the French’s desire to isolate Germany.

The French did not want another war on their soil so they prepared for war when Hitler took power. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 it pushed France and Britain to declare war on Germany.

When the Germans launched their blitzkrieg invasion of France in 1940, the French Army crumbled within weeks, and with Britain retreating, an atmosphere of humiliation and defeat swept France. But by the end of war, the French army occupied south-west Germany and a part of Austria.

With France wanting to integrate Europe it led to the signing of the treaty of the European Defense Community (EDC) in 1952 which would bring the French and Germans closer together.

The post-war Franco-German cooperation is based on the Élysée Treaty, which was signed on January 22, 1963. The treaty contained a number of agreements for joint assistance in foreign policy, economic, military integration, and exchange of student education.

Ever sense Germany and France’s relationship has continued to grow.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France%E2%80%93Germany_relations; 12/2/14

To Brandi's blog: http://ge110brandivi.blogspot.com/

Calvin's: http://ge110calvinsm.blogspot.com/

Slade's: http://ge110sladesi.blogspot.com/

German Inventions of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Reis Telephone

-Johann Philipp Reis created the Reis Telephone in October 1861.


-He constructed it by winding a coil of wire around an iron knitting needle and connecting that to a series of electrical boxes.
-It required very high current and produced weak sound that was a clicking.
-The receiver was very insensitive and was a current-sensitive device rather than a voltage-sensitive device.


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reis_telephone, 11/18/2014.

Link to the rest: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15k5j28d-Q3xIaj4UA4DxlPoO4jWYY10G6Dz0xvkpIRo/edit#slide=id.g4c3bb3d42_10

Berlin Calling (First Half)

1. What do drugs mean to Ickarus?

-Drugs to Ickarus is a way for him to be free from all the struggle and frustration he has from making a new album and preforming all the time. It is his way just to forget it all and relax. But he is just starting to realize that he is using them too much.

2. Why, when, and how are his fans taking drugs, and which drugs do they take?

- Ickarus fans take drugs during his concerts because it makes them hallucinate and feel more into the music. They are taking pills by mouth that are seeming to be a strong ecstasy, or molly.

3. While we can see that his drug habits get him ill and into a psychosis, and while we witness his relapse and inability to work successfully, why does the subculture Ickarus belongs to focus on drugs?

-I believe that the subculture Ickarus is surrounded by is taking drugs because it has became the norm to everyone in it. I am sure at first when people started to take the drug many people thought it was scary. Throughout time as more and more people started to do it, others started too as well. They saw as it appeared to them that the people taking the drugs were having fun and were relaxed so most people started to tag along in the fun.

4. Compare the standards you know from your home society with the people you see depicted in this movie. Which are the stark differences and contrasts?

-Obviously as we have been taking about in class throughout the weeks is sexuality. The German culture is much more open about the naked body and sexual behaviors than we are here in the States. For example the sense where Ickarus’ girlfriend see a couple having sex in the public bathroom it does not disturb her as much as it would with someone in America. Same when she kisses her friend more straight girls who are sober at least in the U.S.A. do not just kiss their friends like that as she did.

5. Germany is considered a strong industrial nation the world over. Do you think that the youth culture as depicted here could change that? How about work ethics of Ickarus and of Alice, the label director who fires and then re-signs him?

-I could not exactly say that the youth culture could change German out of an industrial nation because we are only looking at a small group of youth in the movie. As well as in Germany there are also kids on America and around the world who act the same as the young adults are in the movie. That den’t mean that everyone I on that same path of drugs. Now for the work ethics of Ickarus and of Alice, there are always people who are like them who know how to work but also want to take their time with it and have fun.

6. Which similar "cult movies" of US origin have you seen, if any?

-I am sorry to say but I do not recall watching or remembering watching another “cult movie” before this one.

Reaction

I am finding this film very interesting as we watch it. I have never seen a movie like this one and am intrigued by it. I am liking how real it is by showing how life as Ickarus really is. I do not go to many concerts so seeing how the life style of the fans and artist of dubstep live is very cool. Although I have had friends who have gone to concert like this in America and this is what they described them as. As saying that I cannot compare to the same type of culture are in the movie I can say what I think about what differs from living here and there in the same way. In America I would believe, as I said before, that the openness of nudity and sexuality is much different. Also, the drugs I would assume are different.  Know that people do drugs all around the world but comparing to where I live and Germany I think drugs are more open to them than they are here. In the movie people are just handing out drugs now really caring who sees, In the States I know that people are more secretive about drugs. Yes they use them but they don’t go around having them in them in their hand and selling them to whoever like they do in the movie.

German and Swedish Gymnastics

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was know as "father of gymnastics," Turnvater Jahn. After he joined the prussian army he devoted his life to restoring the spirits of his fellow countrymen by their development of their physical and moral powers through the practice of gymnastics.He started this movement and gyms opened and clubs started all around Germany and became a major past time. Source: Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, 10/22/14.

German gymnastics was started Johann Guts Muth and Turbvater Jahn. It was physical conditioning that used large fixed apparatus, vaulting, and marching. The two men thought that the "militaristic" view of fitness was essential for a strong nation.Jahn preached this movement called the "Turnverein" to mold the youth of Germany into strong citizens. This movement was brought to the United States by Charles Beck, a German immigrant. In the United States the movement has the same basic ideas but wasn't as nationalistic as it was in Germany. Source: Battle of the Systems, 10/22/14.

Pehr Henrik Ling pioneered the teaching of physical education in Sweden. After restoring his health by being a fencing master he decided to apply his knowledge to benefit others.He took his ideas and expanded them while studying about anatomy, physiology, and through training of a doctor. He then elaborated a system of gymnastics, exercises and meneuvers divided into four branches: pedagogical, medical, military, and aesthetic. Source: Pehr Henrik Ling, 10/22/14.

Swedish gymnastics also refereed as "Swedish Movement Cure" was founded by Pehr Henrik Ling. This was a more health-oriented approach and recognized for inherent medical values.The Swedish "light gymnastics" consisted if calisthenics and exercises. The system was introduced in the States by Hartvig Nissen and Nils Posse the the 1880s. Source: Battle of the Systems, 10/22/14.