Chari

It shows that (now former) Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was a lazy and dishonest scholar who was probably not entitled to his degree. He may or may not have been a perfectly adequate Defense Minister.

I don't think it says anything generally about Germans, other than that Germans are subject to commit the same follies, foibles, indiscretions and out right wrongs as the citizens of every other nation. I hope that we all knew this already. There is no group of people which is immune from being human.

I worked with 2 German civil engineering firms for about 10 years.

The Consortium we worked for included a Russian company.   The Russians celebrated the anniversay of the end of WWII with 3 days of celebrations.  Which means their offices were closed..............................

The Germans went crazy.   Everything suddenly urgently needed to be signed, nothing that the Russians were responsible for was working, etc. etc.  

I was amazed.   I had previously had a couple of conversations with the younger Germans who assured me that they didn't think of WWII and the Nazis.  It all happened before they were born.

I admired and respected the Germans I worked with, but the above behaviour suggested that they still felt rage about their defeat.

My sister visited Germany last year on holiday.  I forget which cities she visited but when she returned she told me that she never intends to visit that country again.   She felt a coldness that she has never encountered in any of the other European countries she has visited.

My two bits.

Alex