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shenanigan87 — Beautiful
Published: 2009-08-20 20:47:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 495; Favourites: 16; Downloads: 0
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You know what I've realized, while shooting two clean and shiny S-Bahn trains on a beautifully maintained right of way on this beautifully cloudless sunny day?Germany rocks!
Sure, there are glitches here and there, but when I compare it to my "real" home (I'm still a Hungarian citizen), I just have to say that it really can't stand up to what Germany has to offer. When I think about what opportunities my university gives me, what awesome friends I've met here, a dense Autobahn and train network (the latter being the third most dense in the world), great cars, with "made in Germany" still being synonymous for good quality products.
What I don't like is how you're immediately seen as right wing if you're ever so slightly patriotic, and how the Holocaust has to be remembered in every concieveable way, while the atrocities of the former dictatorship in the East are often sugarcoated, which of course goes for the entire history of the Eastern Block. When a German documentary talks about how the Soviets "liberated" Hungary, I'd just love to smack them. It makes me quite sad to see what happened to one of the most culturally and technologically advanced countries in the world... There are so many inventions that were thought up by Hungarians, but nobody really knows those people. Just fourty years of socialsm have dumbed the people down to a degree I still can't fully comprehend.
Ah well, such is life, glad to be here and not there!
Shot in Leverkusen-Rheindorf, class 143s + x-type carriages.
IRONY: The 143 was built in a socialist dictatorship.
But it's still quite awesome.
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Comments: 25
In my opinion World War II would be called "successful" if Hitler and Stalin were BOTH conqured... You're right, in my opinion, without socialism Europe would be a better place - both Your homeland and mine, and Germany, too.
And something completely different: "Push - pull" trains idea is very interesting. I hope it'll become popular on polish tracks.
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I have to agree with you, though I'd have preferred WW2 to never have happened in the first place. Just imagine how everything could have developed, especially for those in the East...
Doesn't Poland have such configurations as well? I'd think that this principle is used everywhere around the world, but I might be wrong.
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You've got more optimistic vision of PKP than polish passengers 
Not a long time ago I've ride by DB regional train to Berlin and I was shocked by high quality and comfort...
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Ah yes, the Bombardier double deckers, we've got them too here!
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Double deckers rulez!
About the second photo, it would be typical polish - buying old, retired vehicles, just like tramways.
Duewag trams, for example, are cool, but little old, too...
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German Tram and Railway fans love it, as it remains in use.
The thread in a German railroad forum about the TW 6000 trams from Hannover that are being used in Budapest for years now was highly popular.
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The dumbing down of the population takes place in capitalist countries too. Just look at the morons getting duped into hating health care reform by the liars at Fox News. America is filled with idiots. So, to say the least, I'm glad to be a German resident.
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While that is of course true, I've never experienced it too much here, and didn't want to insult anyone by criticizing a country I haven't spent more than a few weeks in. But, when thinking about it, you're quite right, America did prove such things in the past, from McCarthyism with commies everywhere to post 9/11 paranoia with terrorists everywhere. Especially upon seeing stuff like this [link] I'm really glad to be here. I was never ever asked what I was doing on DB property, even when railfanning for hours in Cologne, where two islamic idiots placed bombs on regional trains. Not to mention getting a photography permit minutes after I sent an e-mail.
Yes, it's a great place to live.
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Would the FAZ stand for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung? Stateside, we'd have to take all Fox News watchers and give them two newspapers: New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Between the two, they ought to get a fair and balanced view of the world.
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Yes, exactly!
Also, good choice of papers there, I often read the New York Times online, and there were selected articles from it, in English of course, included in the Süddeutsche Zeitung last week. I got a two week free subscription of the SZ, just like the one I once got of the FAZ one or two years ago. Heh, maybe we should send some copies to Sarah Palin (^_^)
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I don't think she can read.
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Hmm... That could indeed make things difficult...
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Tolles Foto!
Die Bildgestaltung kann sich absolut sehen lassen.
Zustimmung für Deine Anführungen zu Deutschland im Vergleich zu einem ehemalige Ostblock-Land (als bulgarischer Bürger erlebe ich das ähnlich).
Merkwürdig ist aber, dass viele ältere Bulgaren noch vom Sozialismus schwärmen. Damals hatten sie mehr als genug zu Essen und heute nicht mehr, was in manchen Fällen wirklich stimmt. Es war eine der positiven Seiten davon. Doch dann die Unterdrückung der Menschen mit so einer scheinheiligen Ideologie... Tja. Da schüttele ich den Kopf.
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Danke!
Ja, das erlebe ich auch oft. Vor Allem der Satz "Damals hatten Alle Arbeit." geht mir sehr auf den Keks, zeugt es doch von der finanziellen Katastrophe, die von der Planwirtschaft erzeugt wurden, mal ganz davon abgesehen, dass es manchmal an einfachsten Sachen (Klopapier) mangelte. Ohne die riesen Kredite aus dem Westen wäre die DDR wahrscheinlich eher zugrunde gegangen...
Vor Allem finde ich es sehr problematisch, dass die Leute denen es damals gut ging zu denen gehörten, die von der Unterdrückung profitierten. Es war ja eine Vetternwirtschaft ohnegleichen, wenn du Sohn von einem hohen Parteimitglied warst, kannst du noch so ein Versager sein, du wirst Karriere machen, während ein tatsächlich begabter vielleicht einfach verschwindet, weil er was gegen die Partei gesagt hat. Oder weil jemand sagte, er hätte was gegen dier Partei gesagt, es wurden ja unglaublich viele unschuldige verhaftet... Meine Großmutter könnte Stundenlang erzählen, was damals passiert ist, und sie hat absolut recht wenn sie sagt, dass wir, die heutige Generation, uns das gar nicht mehr vorstellen können. Zwar denke ich spontan immer "Quatsch, natürlich kann ich das.", aber sobald ich mich in ihre Lage versetzen will, merke ich, wie viel Schlechtes damals passiert ist.
Eben darum finde ich es doch beschämend, wie wenig in dieser Richtung aufgearbeitet wird. Während im Westen Freiheit und Wirtschaftswunder das Geschehen prägten, ging im Osten eine neue Diktatur los, mit genauso plump anmutender Propaganda und Parolen, nur nicht in Braun sondern Rot.
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Jo, Du hast Recht.
Aber es wird doch aufgearbeitet. Man bezeichnet die DDR nun als "Unrechtsstaat". Vielleicht hast Du die ganze Diskussion mitbekommen, vielleicht nicht. Jedenfalls bemühm man sich sehr um Aufarbeitung.
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Das stimmt zwar, aber ich finde oft, dass dies nicht mit dem selben Eifer geschieht wie die Aufarbeitung des Dritten Reiches. Wenn man Letzteres verharmlost, wie es ein paar Politiker aus Versehen oder mit Absicht getan haben, werden die von allen Seiten angegriffen, und das ist auch gut so. Aber wenn einer die DDR mit den üblichen Kommentaren verharmlost, habe ich oft das Gefühl, mit meiner Wut über das Nichtstun der Anderen alleine zu sein. Während dann mit sehr viel Medienrummel irgendwelche 80 oder 90 Jahre alten Knacker hier angekarrt werden, wie der Rotarmist der in die SS gezwungen wurde und KZ Aufseher war, werden nur ganz zufällig Stasi Akten gefunden. Es scheinen geine großen Wogen durchs Land gegangen zu sein, als sich sogar einer von Angela Merkels Personenschützern als ehemaliges MFS Mitglied entpuppte...
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Achso, ja, die Geschichte mit dem Personalschützer habe ich gehört, doch richtig aufgeklärt wurde das Volk darüber nicht.
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Hmm, I'd have to agree with you that the Soviets get off easy sometimes. It seems to me that Stalin was just as bad as Hitler, yet people seem to overlook him more often. Perhaps the scar is too recent--while I was in Russia, I noticed that most people seemed to be reluctant to discuss Soviet times.
Anyway, about the photograph: Nice contrast between new and old engines. The new one seems a little unimpressive. Perhaps it's the scale difference, but I see why you like to photograph the old ones.
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I'd throw them all in one bag, but as you've said, what happened in Eastern Europe is hardly discussed. Stalin let more people starve to death before WW2 than the Nazis killed Jews, but you're not allowed to say that, because that is considered as relativizing of the Holocaust. Now I'm not trying to dismiss the Holocaust as not-so-bad, it is one of the starkest signs of humanity's shortcomings. But it really gets to me that people have no idea about what happened elsewhere, that after the Nazi's camps were liberated, the ones in the Soviet Union kept working. Not to mention a general lack of knowledge about what happened on the other side of the iron curtain, I'd really like to see such issues clarified and shown the same contempt as the Third Reich receives. They hunt down some 80 year old former death camp guard who is on the verge of dying, but the fact that even one of Angela Merkel's bodyguards was a member of the Stasi is only discovered by accident...
It just hurts me to see that nobody seems to care about what happened to us in the East.
The engines on the pic are both the same, I think you were referring to the cab car on the right as the new one. These trains operate in push-pull mode, they are both running engine forward in this case, with the one on the right train facing away from us.
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I agree that people should be more widely educated about what happened behind the Iron Curtain. Both are horrible tragidies in human history
And yeah, I realized that I had mistaken the car for an engine as soon as I posted. Oops.
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Indeed they are. I find it strange to think about how I was still born in socialist Hungary, this historical period ended just twenty years ago, and people already forget...
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Oh wait, is that car on the right an engine or the back of an S-bahn train headed in the opposite direction? Oops. Nevermind.
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Ah, sorry, I wrote such a long reply that I posted it after you posted your correction!
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