Tell Our Story (It's about Battlefield 1 and depicting the losers of war) - General

[video=youtube;23hUzelYUVA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23hUzelYUVA[/video] Found this in my recommended videos and I'm glad I did. His other videos look like garbage but this one is incredible.

Anyone who releases videos this fucking quiet is a bad guy regardless of how nice their accent is. [t]https://www.helifreak.club/image/20170116043959015.png[/t]

Imagine a game where you switch sides and play from your enemy's perspective after every battle. The narrative possibilities are endless

very good video, a couple issues with a few statements he made - but overall it's very minor stuff and is still a fantastic video

[QUOTE=bdd458;51678483]very good video, a couple issues with a few statements he made - but overall it's very minor stuff and is still a fantastic video[/QUOTE] Interested in those minor issues, I couldn't really see any myself.

There's so many gold material here that DICE could've worked with but most of the campaigns in the game are so tame and lame compared to the potential laid out in the video. I seriously wonder how the hell any of the writers at DICE dismissed any of this in their research and went with what we had

Nobody wants a sob story from the view point of the enemy sorry. Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive. You can beat around the bush and say "ohh but Germany was just aiding their ally!!!" but, considering just forty years prior Germany had pestered France into a war and took "German" land, and just shortly before even that, attacked Denmark and took "German" land, it doesn't take a genius to realise that maybe they weren't just innocently and begrudgingly helping their ally with no ulterior motives. [editline]16th January 2017[/editline] Also, just to clear it up, I enjoyed the video, he is a good orator and the story is interesting, but I completely disagree with him.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51678713]Nobody wants a sob story from the view point of the enemy sorry. Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive. You can beat around the bush and say "ohh but Germany was just aiding their ally!!!" but, considering just forty years prior Germany had pestered France into a war and took "German" land, and just shortly before even that, attacked Denmark and took "German" land, it doesn't take a genius to realise that maybe they weren't just innocently and begrudgingly helping their ally with no ulterior motives. [editline]16th January 2017[/editline] Also, just to clear it up, I enjoyed the video, he is a good orator and the story is interesting, but I completely disagree with him.[/QUOTE] Hey I'd fucking love a story like that, it's rarely done and is a really interesting take on an otherwise done to death subject in all forms of media.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51678713]Nobody wants a sob story from the view point of the enemy sorry. Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive. You can beat around the bush and say "ohh but Germany was just aiding their ally!!!" but, considering just forty years prior Germany had pestered France into a war and took "German" land, and just shortly before even that, attacked Denmark and took "German" land, it doesn't take a genius to realise that maybe they weren't just innocently and begrudgingly helping their ally with no ulterior motives. [editline]16th January 2017[/editline] Also, just to clear it up, I enjoyed the video, he is a good orator and the story is interesting, but I completely disagree with him.[/QUOTE] how small minded can you be "there's no point in trying to realize that enemy combatants are people" lol

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51678713]Nobody wants a sob story from the view point of the enemy sorry. Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive. You can beat around the bush and say "ohh but Germany was just aiding their ally!!!" but, considering just forty years prior Germany had pestered France into a war and took "German" land, and just shortly before even that, attacked Denmark and took "German" land, it doesn't take a genius to realise that maybe they weren't just innocently and begrudgingly helping their ally with no ulterior motives. [editline]16th January 2017[/editline] Also, just to clear it up, I enjoyed the video, he is a good orator and the story is interesting, but I completely disagree with him.[/QUOTE] You act as if Germany was completely isolated in its territorial expansion and aggression. Prussia had constantly been a target by a large majority of its neighbors, and with the Confederation Germany was a young country that was threatening to upset the balance. Austria was a retarded warmonger though, that's right. Hell even in the war proper the Entente severally violated Greece's neutrality, forcing their troops into the country without asking and bullying the Greeks into submission. WW1 had no clear "enemy" except the Austrians. Any maybe the Ottomans.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51678713]Nobody wants a sob story from the view point of the enemy sorry. Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive. You can beat around the bush and say "ohh but Germany was just aiding their ally!!!" but, considering just forty years prior Germany had pestered France into a war and took "German" land, and just shortly before even that, attacked Denmark and took "German" land, it doesn't take a genius to realise that maybe they weren't just innocently and begrudgingly helping their ally with no ulterior motives. [editline]16th January 2017[/editline] Also, just to clear it up, I enjoyed the video, he is a good orator and the story is interesting, but I completely disagree with him.[/QUOTE] Germany and Austria weren't lolevil in World War I. No one was, really, besides what was mentioned above; a lot of the conflict was fueled by showmanship and attempting to strong arm one another for territory so they themselves don't get torn apart while sending tons of troops to their deaths for meaningless reasons. Yes, they were being dicks about it and to eachother, but then horrific death followed due to the advances of technology versus traditional oldstay tactics, and no one was exactly positive. Plus not only did almost every side have some sort of horror story or atrocity on their end despite no one truly hating one another, we and the allies are more than responsible for extreme reparations post-conflict that would result in the Nazi regime to boot. A lot of people criticized Battlefield 1 considering the whole 'at the end of every barrel is a human being' sympathetic angle at the start, only to have you running around killing Germans by the hundreds like it doesn't even care anyway. A [b]lot[/b] of people wanted to see a German side to the story, or maybe Austrian or what have you, but no, apparently it's not a good thing to have people play as 'bad guys'.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51678713]Nobody wants a sob story from the view point of the enemy sorry. Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive. You can beat around the bush and say "ohh but Germany was just aiding their ally!!!" but, considering just forty years prior Germany had pestered France into a war and took "German" land, and just shortly before even that, attacked Denmark and took "German" land, it doesn't take a genius to realise that maybe they weren't just innocently and begrudgingly helping their ally with no ulterior motives. [editline]16th January 2017[/editline] Also, just to clear it up, I enjoyed the video, he is a good orator and the story is interesting, but I completely disagree with him.[/QUOTE] The brainwashing is so successful people even think that germans in WW1 were evil proto-nazis. If you want a Good v.s. Evil scale I'd say that the British for all of their colonial expansion and subjugation crimes are at a much higher evil level than the Germans but no one gives a fuck because right-o lads lets give them krauts a good kickin.

Feels like the perception of WW1 is tainted by WW2, like Germans are treated as nazies even when nazism hasn't even existed yet. And then there's Austria-Hungary which is barely acknowledged.

It's always an interesting thing to hear the perspective of the people you once formerly considered "the enemy", since it often gets glossed over due to various circumstances. Good video

Reminds me of the part in Band Of Brothers when some of the veterans talks about the Germans, saying that under different circumstances, they might have been good friends.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51678713]Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive.[/QUOTE] This boggles my mind.

[QUOTE=Destroyox;51678513]Interested in those minor issues, I couldn't really see any myself.[/QUOTE] When he's talking about Gallipoli, not all of the landings meant instant death - primarily S and Y beaches (though they did face some resistance, but not nearly the same amount as say V or W beach). Although granted, he probably was just referring to V and W beaches. The other one is about Remarque. I love All Quiet on the Western Front, one of my favorite novels, however - it comes with the baggage of about a decade of the Wiemar Republic and reflects his attitude in 1929 better than it does that of soldiers in the German army in 1918. And while it's true he suffered a very bad shrapnel wound - he also never fought in the trenches from what I've read - though he was close enough to be wounded by some sort of shrapnel so its not as if he wasn't involved in the war at all. Supposedly, according to the historian Richard Holmes in his book "Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front 1914-1918", he was censured after the war for posing as an officer. From the bit of research I've done on that, he posed as a highly decorated Lieutenant alongside is dog. I wouldn't call it an "neutral" perspective because it is an anti-war novel, and Remarque was an outspoken pacifist (though, going by that logic can anything be truly neutral?). Not everyone came out of the war like that, indeed if you want to know what people actually thought during the war it's best to read unedited diaries and letters from the war, there you get their actual feelings unmired by decades of literature, myth, and other events clouding their memory and feelings. Again though, All Quiet is still an excellent read, one of my favorite novels - and in the grand scheme of things this really isn't major to any of his points - nor was it a focus so it's a really, really minor thing.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51678713]Nobody wants a sob story from the view point of the enemy sorry. Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive. You can beat around the bush and say "ohh but Germany was just aiding their ally!!!" but, considering just forty years prior Germany had pestered France into a war and took "German" land, and just shortly before even that, attacked Denmark and took "German" land, it doesn't take a genius to realise that maybe they weren't just innocently and begrudgingly helping their ally with no ulterior motives. [editline]16th January 2017[/editline] Also, just to clear it up, I enjoyed the video, he is a good orator and the story is interesting, but I completely disagree with him.[/QUOTE] Yeah, Germany totally just decided to rape Denmark for no reason at all, it's not like it was a really touchy situation where Denmark kinda instigated that particular fight. The Franco-Prussian war was also purely caused by the fact that the Germans were the bad guys in WWII. European history is littered with countries fighting other countries for more or less legitimate reasons, Germany doesn't really stand out in that sense (and if you wanna talk "40 years prior", check out this guy called "Napoleon"). I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you have a hard time disconnecting Germany from the Nazis, and that's colouring your impression of earlier events. Simply framing the Germans as the "bad guys" in WWI is overly simplistic and biased.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51678713]Nobody wants a sob story from the view point of the enemy sorry. Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive.[/QUOTE] Did you happen to fail all of your history and social studies classes because that's all I gather from such a braindead post

germany and austria-hungary were hardly ultimate bad guy genocidal nazis but they were the ones who escalated what could have remained as balkan wars episode 3 [t]https://u.nya.is/ebtczg.png[/t] also german and austro-hungarian treatment of civilians in belgium and the balkans are notorious [QUOTE=GoDong-DK;51679671]European history is littered with countries fighting other countries for more or less legitimate reasons, Germany doesn't really stand out in that sense (and if you wanna talk "40 years prior", check out this guy called "Napoleon")[/QUOTE] napoleon was the aggressor only in the peninsular war and the attack on russia (funny enough his biggest failures), rest of the wars were defensive in nature as the monarchies of europe tried to stomp down the new republic

The problem is that you're forgetting to take into account the alliances between the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians, which forced Germany into the war. None of the countries involved in the war are blameless but none of them can take the majority or most of the blame.

I highly recommend "The Origins of the First World War" by James Joll, he does a very good job outlining the various factors that went into starting the war - from the various arms races between European nations, increased militarism in all nations (Not long before the war for example, France approved an increase in the length of military service), the various alliances and how they changed the face of European politics, influences of domestic politics on international policy, and many more factors. Immediately, yeah Austria-Hungary is the clear aggressor - but long term the pieces were set up by all nations; in some cases purposefully, in others the consequences were not foreseen. [QUOTE=Zezibesh;51679761] also german and austro-hungarian treatment of civilians in belgium and the balkans are notorious[/QUOTE] British and French treatment of colonial troops and laborers (such as the chinese labor force) were horrendous as well. No one's hands were clean in WWI. It's not really a pissing match of who was worse, all sides did extremely terrible things during the war.

Battlefield 1 tried really hard to highlight the futility and tragic waste of world war 1. Its confusing then that they make no effort to portray anything from the German point of view as that would fit right into that narrative.

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;51679671]Yeah, Germany totally just decided to rape Denmark for no reason at all, it's not like it was a really touchy situation where Denmark kinda instigated that particular fight. The Franco-Prussian war was also purely caused by the fact that the Germans were the bad guys in WWII. European history is littered with countries fighting other countries for more or less legitimate reasons, Germany doesn't really stand out in that sense (and if you wanna talk "40 years prior", check out this guy called "Napoleon"). I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you have a hard time disconnecting Germany from the Nazis, and that's colouring your impression of earlier events. Simply framing the Germans as the "bad guys" in WWI is overly simplistic and biased.[/QUOTE] You call Denmark rightfully incorporating land they had held for centuries into its own country "instigation"? AS for the The Franco-Prussian war, that was Bismark's war. He knew the only way to get all the german nations to come together in unification was through a war against a foreign power that threatened their existence, so through scheming and various other methods, he coaxed France into the war(see the EMS Telegram). As a result of that telegram, if Napoleon III hadn't gone to war against Prussia, he would have likely had his entire government overthrown due to seeming "weak". Here is a literal quote from Bismark himself if you honestly believe the Franco-Prussian war was entirely a war of Agression of France's part. [QUOTE=Otto Von Bismark]"I did not doubt that a Franco-German war must take place before the construction of a United Germany could be realised".[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Zillamaster55;51679702]Did you happen to fail all of your history and social studies classes because that's all I gather from such a braindead post[/QUOTE] The war itself was a war of Austrian aggression against Serbia, Serbia had no obligation to release Gavrilo Princep, a Serbian citizen, to a foreign nation. Austria was also asking ridiculous terms in their "July Ultimatum" that would see to Serbia essentially being puppeted by Austria. Obviously Serbia didn't accept all the terms, and Austria immediately attacked. Here are the terms of the July Ultimatum, why don't you tell me if they seem reasonable? The bolded point is the only one they rejected, and Austria still went to war without renegotiating. Sounds pretty evil to me. [QUOTE]1. Suppress all publications which "incite hatred and contempt of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy" and are "directed against its territorial integrity". 2. Dissolve the Serbian nationalist organisation Narodna Odbrana ("The People's Defense") and all other such societies in Serbia. 3. Eliminate without delay from schoolbooks and public documents all "propaganda against Austria-Hungary". 4. Remove from the Serbian military and civil administration all officers and functionaries whose names the Austro-Hungarian Government will provide. 5. Accept in Serbia "representatives of the Austro-Hungarian Government" for the "suppression of subversive movements". [B]6. Bring to trial all accessories to the Archduke's assassination and allow "Austro-Hungarian delegates" (law enforcement officers) to take part in the investigations.[/B] 7. Arrest Major Vojislav Tankosić and civil servant Milan Ciganović who were named as participants in the assassination plot. 8. Cease the cooperation of the Serbian authorities in the "traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier"; dismiss and punish the officials of Šabac and Loznica frontier service, "guilty of having assisted the perpetrators of the Sarajevo crime". 9. Provide "explanations" to the Austro-Hungarian Government regarding "Serbian officials" who have expressed themselves in interviews "in terms of hostility to the Austro-Hungarian Government". 10. Notify the Austro-Hungarian Government "without delay" of the execution of the measures comprised in the ultimatum.[/QUOTE] [B]Unfortunately many young citizens were forced to fight this stupid war, but showing the soldiers to be innocents has the exact same effect as making the nations themselves out to be innocents whether you like it or not.[/B] Why do you think modern Neo-Nazis make it such a priority to show the German soldiers of WW2 to be completely innocent? Further, [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surdulica_massacre"]not all soldiers[/URL] were [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Belgium"]innocents[/URL] in reality as well during WW1.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51680927]The war itself was a war of Austrian aggression against Serbia, Serbia had no obligation to release Gavrilo Princep, a Serbian citizen, to a foreign nation. Austria was also asking ridiculous terms in their "July Ultimatum" that would see to Serbia essentially being puppeted by Austria. Obviously Serbia didn't accept all the terms, and Austria immediately attacked. Here are the terms of the July Ultimatum, why don't you tell me if they seem reasonable? The bolded point is the only one they rejected, and Austria still went to war without renegotiating. [b]Sounds pretty evil to me.[/b][/QUOTE] I'm not one that extensively knows WW1 knowledge enough to counterpoint or call things out specifically. But people admitted above that Austria were powermongering dicks. However, simply summarizing German and Austrian forces as evil is just childish and recklessly painting a wide image of everyone involved.

Under your logic, the Allied forces shouldn't be represented fairly as well, since they were pretty much just as bad.

Since I have pretty much no knowledge of the Franco-Prussian war (my interest lies wholly in the first world war and its build up of about 20 years), I'll only be responding to what I can. [QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51680927]The war itself was a war of Austrian aggression against Serbia, Serbia had no obligation to release Gavrilo Princep, a Serbian citizen, to a foreign nation. Austria was also asking ridiculous terms in their "July Ultimatum" that would see to Serbia essentially being puppeted by Austria. [B]Obviously[/B] Serbia didn't accept all the terms [/quote] Not quite. The situation in Serbia at the time was a bit precarious, and their government was in a bit of an upheaval (general elections were soon) and hadn't yet recovered from either Balkan war. There's a lot of controversy surrounding why Serbian Government took the action it did. Some argue that Nikola Pašić was worried that the Austro-Hungarian government would find out how complicit the Serbian government was in the assassination, while others argue that they only decided to refute the one point after the Russian government pledged its support. I find myself in agreement with Sergey Sazonov (Russian Foreign minister) when he stated "Vous mettez le feu a l'Europe", or "You set fire to Europe", to the Austrian ambassador. It's fairly clear that Conrad von Hotzendorf and Count Berchtold were searching for a war. [QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51680927]and Austria immediately attacked[/quote] If by immediate, you mean the Austrian government declared war on July 28th, 2 days after they asked for a response from Serbia - then sure. But I do reitarte however, that I am fully in the belief that Austro-Hungarian officials were looking for war. They found their excuse, and they ran with it. [QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51680927]Here are the terms of the July Ultimatum, why don't you tell me if they seem reasonable? The bolded point is the only one they rejected, and Austria still went to war without renegotiating. Sounds pretty evil to me.[/QUOTE] To be fair, the declaration of war was made because of both the rejected ultimatum AND a report that Serbia had attacked an Austro-Hungarian detachment on the Bosnian border. This report was later shown to be false, but I don't think we'll ever know if the Austrian government realized that at the time (at least those who were in charge of declaring war). But to answer your question, they're not all that reasonable to us. In the context of 1914, there were some who felt that they were (Wilhelm II famously stated that when he saw the Ultimatum, all pretext for war vanished) and others who felt it was unjust (Sazonov for example). Personally, I think it's a mixed bag. Austria did just have a head of state assassinated, and many were justifiably angry and wanted those responsible brought to justice. Looking at the Ultimatum always gives me chills, because it reveals one of the deeper causes of the war: Imperialism and Imperial might. Notice how much they brought up "anti-Austrian" propaganda in that thing? Anti-X propaganda was popular all throughout Europe, whether it's Anti-German propaganda in France, anti-English and Russian propaganda in Germany, anti-German propaganda in Russia, this was a common issue that helped lead to the war, by fostering an atmosphere of hostility and animosity for "The other". [QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51680927]Unfortunately many young citizens were forced to fight this stupid war, but showing the soldiers to be innocents has the exact same effect as making the nations themselves out to be innocents whether you like it or not.[/quote] Actually, it doesn't. It shows that armies are made up of a wide variety of people, with a wide variety of beliefs, creeds, and backgrounds. Many of the soldiers grew up in a time of increased militarism and antagonism between rival Imperial powers, where going to war for your country was your duty and you should be proud of it. Not everyone subscribed to those beliefs, just like not every soldier from WWI felt it was hopeless, just like how not every soldier killed civilians, just like how not every soldier didn't risk their own tail to not follow orders. Morality and ethics in war is a very tricky thing, and it only gets trickier when you go back to a conflict that was a century ago - where the leaders and those that fought it were born and raised during a completely different time with a different ethical and moral framework.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51680927]Further, [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surdulica_massacre"]not all soldiers[/URL] were [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Belgium"]innocents[/URL] in reality as well during WW1.[/QUOTE] You can't just give random examples of atrocities from that period. I [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Ottoman_Muslims#Caucasus_Campaign"]can do[/URL] the [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany"]absolute same thing[/URL]. We can keep doing this until the end of times, but it won't get us anywhere because in reality neither side was any better than the other, both commited war crimes for one reason or another. I understand you think one is worse, fair enough, everyone supports a nation or group of nations over the other due to various reasons, but to dismiss the Central Powers, or at the very least the German and Austrian armies, as a "force of evil" is just plain ignorant.

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51678713]Nobody wants a sob story from the view point of the enemy sorry. Even if men such as his grandfather were innocent pawns of the figureheads of their given countries, the fact of the matter is that portraying the German and Austrian armies as as anything but an evil force is counterproductive. You can beat around the bush and say "ohh but Germany was just aiding their ally!!!" but, considering just forty years prior Germany had pestered France into a war and took "German" land, and just shortly before even that, attacked Denmark and took "German" land, it doesn't take a genius to realise that maybe they weren't just innocently and begrudgingly helping their ally with no ulterior motives. [editline]16th January 2017[/editline] Also, just to clear it up, I enjoyed the video, he is a good orator and the story is interesting, but I completely disagree with him.[/QUOTE] thats very ignorant to say shit, we have a bunch of fucking games about vietnam, did the US win? fuck no edit: changed to america for the sake of not getting into a long discussion about canada's involvement in vietnam

[QUOTE=Wafflemonstr;51680927]You call Denmark rightfully incorporating land they had held for centuries into its own country "instigation"? [/quote] Denmark had agreed to not incorporate Schleswig-Holstein into the Danish state just 12 years before the war of 1864 - they were duchies held by the king (and as such also part of the former Holy Roman Empire), not part of Denmark as such. I was being careful by saying "that particular fight" because it was really an unresolved situation, and it didn't get properly resolved until 1920 (as a consequence of WWI) when a referendum was held to decide which parts would become part of Denmark and which would go to Germany. Either way, Denmark deliberately broke the deal that we had signed 12 years earlier, and basically we counted on help from other major powers to win the ensuing war - they never came, so we lost. [quote]AS for the The Franco-Prussian war, that was Bismark's war. He knew the only way to get all the german nations to come together in unification was through a war against a foreign power that threatened their existence, so through scheming and various other methods, he coaxed France into the war(see the EMS Telegram). As a result of that telegram, if Napoleon III hadn't gone to war against Prussia, he would have likely had his entire government overthrown due to seeming "weak". Here is a literal quote from Bismark himself if you honestly believe the Franco-Prussian war was entirely a war of Agression of France's part. [/QUOTE] I never said it was "entirely a war of aggression of France's part", I merely hinted at that it may be more nuanced than "The Franco-Prussian war was also purely caused by the fact that the Germans were the bad guys in WWII." which is what I actually wrote. France didn't want a unified Germany, Napoleon may have had to take action because of internal politics, and Bismarck saw a war against as an external force as a unifying force for Germany. Being "coaxed" into declaring war because you would otherwise look weak sounds like an even worse excuse than "Denmark explicitly broke an agreement and claimed disputed territory" to me, but I guess it depends on the way you frame it. I'm not well-versed in the Franco-Prussian war at all, but it's clear that there's more to it than "Germans are evil, guys", which is what you put up - I'm not saying that Germany is any cleaner than any other country, but that's exactly my point; most countries aren't any cleaner than others, and there's no reason Germany in particular should be called out.