A Provocative Observation

[egbert]

German resentments still active in Ypres-museum?

The WW1 museums in Flanders try hard to bring over their legitimate message of peace by remembering various facets/aspects of the Great War. Visitors come from all over the continents –it certainly is a battlefield tourist business today.

Here comes the question/observation:

The museum language in In Flanders Fields (IFF) museum is limited to Netherlands, French and English besides local Flemish language –why do they boycott German language? (A little bit provocative: where would that battlefield business be without the evil Huns?).

The Zonnebeke museum in contrast guides the visitors in English, French and German language through the exhibits and thus also draws the German visitors into their fine exhibits.

Are there still resentments hidden at IFF museum management or do they simply ignore the German visitor?

[bob lembke]

Hello egbert;

It may be a pragmatic decision.

The local Flemish language would be a given.

Let me climb out on a limb here, but here is an opinion based on considerable information. I would bet Euros to donuts that the vast majority of Germans, certainly Germans that travel or go to museums, would be be quite able to read displays in one or several of these languages if English, Dutch/Flemish (another question; are not these two languages, in written form, the same? Or at least very close?), and French were available? Most Germans study and use English, many French, and can probably read Flemish/Dutch after a fashion. My German is fairly good now, and I can half-read Dutch although I have tried to do it only a few times.

When my father went into France as a 18 year old private, he had studied Latin, Classical Greek, German, French, and English, and in addition he had picked up some Russian during pre-1914 trips, as a boy, into Russia. My then-13 year old cousin Karen, knowing that I did not read German at that time, used to write me in French. Many narratives by western allied WW I soldiers expressed surprise at how many German soldiers then spoke French and English. And Germans are much more internationalist now.

It is a terrible generalization, but many of the French and English do not seem to be leading linguists. (Sorry to many friends.) I think that that statement is fair.

Additionally, I would imagine that most Germans are not very chauvanistic about such things.

I appologize for these generalizations, but I think that they are largely true.

So I for one would not automatically suspect anti-German bias.

Bob Lembke

PS: I am blessed with a wife who reads 11 languages well, and many more badly. What a helpmate with my research! I can only work well in three, and fairly poorly in a fourth. And she is largely English and Irish, with a pinch of German and American Indian thrown in.

[Chris_Baker]

I haven't been into IFF for a long time, egbert, so find it difficult to recall the languages used. An omission of German would be surprising. Are you sure about this?

[frie]

British visitors only speak English, most of the French only speak French, Germans speak German but also English, and perhaps French.

[Guest orivetto]

I personally was unaware of any anti-German feeling during my visit to the IFF.

Perhaps that was due to the amazement I felt at being directed by IFF staff to an "Australian" section, complete with on line link to the Australian War Memorial.

All I said was G'day, and then well! Bob's your Uncle.

Don't get pertubed Egbert, at least the General Population know that the Germans were over there in the nineteen teens. Same doesn't generally apply to all participants.

Woof

[Jacky Platteeuw]

Egbert wrote:

Are there still resentments hidden at IFF museum management or do they simply ignore the German visitor?

How about the Rudolf Lange exhibition of this year ?. Certainly if there were any resentments the IFF wouldn't have chosen for a Prussian officer.

Jacky

[Aurel Sercu]

(another question; are not these two languages, in written form, the same? Or at least very close?),

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bob,

There is no such thing as a Flemish language, though many Forum members continue using that name, and even here in Flanders. All one can say is that there is a bunch of (spoken) Flemish dialects.

Our standard language here, in written form, or what you hear on radio and TV, is exactly the same as in the Netherlands : Dutch.

And if there are differences between the spoken form of standard Dutch in Flanders and standard Dutch in the Netherlands, then they are comparable to the differences between American English and British English.

Sorry there is nothing I can say about the essence of this topic. I must confess that I did not even know that German is ignored in the IFFM. I'll find out if it is.

All I can say is that a year or so ago I made many texts for a cd-rom in IFFM (in Dutch), and I know that my texts were translated afterwards in English, French and ... German. Which can be seen in the Museum. If elsewhere in the Museum German is ignored ? No idea. Sorry.

For the rest I can also say that I think that Jacky's argument (the Rudolf Lange exhibition) is a solid one.

Aurel

[bob lembke]

Bob,

There is no such thing as a Flemish language, though many Forum members continue using that name, and even here in Flanders. All one can say is that there is a bunch of (spoken) Flemish dialects.

Our standard language here, in written form, or what you hear on radio and TV, is exactly the same as in the Netherlands : Dutch.

And if there are differences between the spoken form of standard Dutch in Flanders and standard Dutch in the Netherlands, then they are comparable to the differences between American English and British English.

Aurel

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Aurel;

That is what I thought, based on my memory of an e-conversation with Jan V., talking about a book of his that I had obtained; he described it as being written in "Dutch". I was puzzled by egbert's mention of signs in "Dutch" and the "local Flemish". Perhaps he pointed to a sign in Dutch and a solid Flemish nationalist told him that it was "Flemish", which in a sense it is, as well as "Dutch".

egbert;

I myself am sensitized to overt anti-German bias, based on life experiences, but again this could simply be a pragmatic decision. Let me quantify this, based only on my experiences, predjudices, etc., no hard sources at all.

Let's guess that 70% of Germans travel abroad with freqency, and of that sub-set 90% speak English more or less and 60% can read it to some extent. Of the travelers sub-set let's say 35% can speak and read French. Only 5% specifically read Dutch, but of the 60% that sort of read English most of them can puzzle out a lot of the Dutch, it would be harder for a German without English as a second language. If I glance at Dutch, which I have only done a few times, it is apparent what about 50% of the words mean "right off the bat". I have English and a recently acquired ability to read German, but without any formal education in the latter language.

So based on this totally unsourced and very shaky analysis, about 75% or more of German visitors can read the captions after a fashion, and, if my statistics are correct, if there are two visitors together, there may be only a 6% possibility that both of them can't read some of the captions. (This is based on a multitude of dubious assumptions operating on flawed and unsourced data, sorry.)

I would not attempt to quantify, but I think that a much higher percentage of French and English visitors would be clueless without captions in their language. Again, based on a totally statistically meaningless sample size of two; I remember a delightful visit in a shop in Alsace where I spent about 45 minutes chatting with the two wonderful, friendly salespeople and drinking a fair bit of their free wine; the woman was about 45 and from Paris, and only spoke French; the young man was perhaps 26, was Alsacian (which means a good dose of German, probably named Pierre Stottelmayer), and he spoke French, German, English, and excellent Danish (He had lived there, and my wife says it is one of the simplest languages in the world). Totally worthless observation, statistically, but the traveler will have experienced this sort of thing.

However, it seems that many more French and English now venture beyond their borders and pick up other languages. I did most of my traveling between 1967 and 1985.

Bob Lembke

PS: I invite PMs from grizzled veterans if I go on excessively. This seems like a "light-weight" thread that might not suffer from my chatter.

[egbert]

Bob my provocative observation is not about 5, 15, 75%es. It is a matter of principle: there must be a solid reason why Zonnebeke museum in contrast to IFF uses German language as well (please check both of their websites); certainly all their efforts are not based on pure courtesy- they want the German visitor UNDERSTAND the issues and do not want them to best guessing of English/French/Dutch subtitles!!

Your observation about Germans are correct; we are called the world champions in traveling. But that does not mean that the average German (I mean not us Bachelor or Master degree guys) speaks fluently French and English. Yes they can communicate, buy a coffee (café au lait in France and a tea in GB of course) and ask for direction in English when traveling in foreign countries and they are not afraid to do so. They, the average German, not necessarily understand our Great War expert language. When I stepped in the great War language years ago, I have/had problems by myself understanding Great War English like exhibition headers "church parade". What the heck is that? Do you think the average German has any clue what the English word "trench foot" is about, a "mess canteen", 'dugout' or "breastworks” is about? The answer is NO, they don't know! They/I can read the captions, but do not understand the sense at all. What else is more important for a reputable museum to bring over their message? If they do not want to target the average German "Joe Doe"-visitor =fine no translation necessary. If they care of the German speaking Austrian or German visitor = yes they do the best effort to make their exhibit understandable.

I would not attempt to quantify, but I think that a much higher percentage of French and English visitors would be clueless without captions in their language.

Do you really want to express that only English and French people are stupid in their language skills? Hell NO, the Germans are as stupid as them. So please offer the average "Joe Doe" German something he understands - Zonnebeke job well done!

[truthergw]

I have never been to this museum, so I will of course, take your word that they do not use German. However, it seems so strange that I think there must be a reason. Have you asked the people who run the museum why they do not include German ?

[The Plummed Goose]

Do have a look at the website and indeed it is only in three languages.

(www.inflandersfields.be)

eric

PS : Thanks Aurel for explaning the Flemish/Dutch issue ... Was gonna do that till I saw your message.

[bob lembke]

egbert;

I would bet that we are both right. I would not be surprised if there was some anti-German bias behind someone or some people deciding against signage in German; and then my arguments being used as rationalization of not putting up German signage. German is one of the three (most) important major languages in western Europe, and really should be put up. I also would think that a lot of their visitors are German.

I set the bar pretty high when it comes to bias; in 1943 my mother and I almost ended up in a camp, she had been in the US legally 16 years, I was three and a US citizen, and my father, a US citizen, was doing valuable work for the US Navy in a war zone. (A naval captain my father worked for faced down Naval Intelligence with a counter threat and pervented it.) When I was five and six I was beaten before my class by my teacher for being a Nazi, although we were in the US for 20 years by then.

So I personally would not get my underwear in a knot over signage. But you are correct, on a higher plane. It would improve the displays and be a courtesy to their visitors.

I still think that Germans typically speak or read more languages than, in particular, the French and English, as the former tended to be more insular, for example, they rarely emigrated, except to North America centuries ago, and to Prussia when the Hugonots were chased out. The Brits got about a lot but most of them (Sir Richard Burton among the exceptions) seemed to avoid the local lingo. (That probably is a horrible generalization.)

When we moved to Puerto Rico during WW II when my father was working building naval bases my father picked up Spanish in a flash; it is easy and he already had Latin and French. Hardy any "main-landers" spoke a word. I could curse in Spanish in a shocking fashion when I was 2 1/2; telling a very respectable and educated neighbor that: "You are an old whore!"

You are right, they should have German signage.

Bob Lembke

[egbert]

I have never been to this museum, so I will of course, take your word that they do not use German. However, it seems so strange that I think there must be a reason. Have you asked the people who run the museum why they do not include German ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd hoped seeing a reaction here from one of the IFF staff members. I think I remember that we have a pal patrick@iff or so. He works for the curator P.Ch. and might explain better here.....

I also would like to encourage bkristof; maybe he knows why Zonnebeke opted for German language as well....

[paul guthrie]

As a generalization, Germans language skills are far above US and above UK but you are completey correct that many Gremans with enough interest to visit will not follow captions well w/o knowledge of some terms not used in daily speech. It's dumb too , Germany is large and Germans have a lot of money to spend.

[Frank_East]

Interesting to note that when the UN was formed the official languages adopted were:

Chinese.

English

French

Russian

Spanish

Not as though this is the reason why German is not offered at Zonnebeke.

Prior to the Great War,the diplomatic languages were English,French and German in that order but until the 18th Century most governments corresponded in Latin.Apparently the government of the young US corresponded in Latin to their former colonial masters.I would imagine the decline in the use of German as a diplomatic language occurred post Great War as Germany lost her colonial territories.

Regarding German language skills,it came as a shock to the Germans and the ethnic Germans who were deported to Germany after 1945.The majority of the ethnic Germans could not speak their former mother tongue and at best were not fluent in German,their family line having been away from Germany for some considerable time .

Personally I do not think it is a problem for the Germans visiting the Museum at Zonnebeke, it is easy to follow information.

I think there would be a problem for Westerners visiting say the Stalingrad battlefield and having to read Russian captions unless one was a service linguist or a member of the Diplomatic Corps or suchlike.

Regards

Frank East

[egbert]

Frank, sorry you did not get it: Zonnebeke is German language friendly whereas IFF seems to be not!

In general again: the museum languages are not a matter of declining diplomatic languages; it is a matter of principle: how can I best target average German "Joe Doe" (Otto Normalverbraucher) and bring the Great War subject over in an understandable manner. If I don't like and if I do not care of Otto Normalverbraucher's presence -fine than exclude German language.

As I said: there seem to be distinct differences on how to approach certain national visitors in the 2 mentioned Flemish museums.

[Vincent Petty]

Me? you can prolly say that I am an uneducated American cause well... I only speak English. However, I do work in a museum and do speak with thousands of folks daily and I can share a few observations...

When it comes to the French (or Qubecers), they will only speak French, and will give you the nastiest look when you say hello to them in English with a harsh "I dont speak English"

So far, nearly every German visitor I have talked to speaks English and very good at that. Only a few times have I met anyone that only spoke English and they had family that translated.

The English... well yall talk funny...

The Welsh... dont ask them what part of England they are from

Take it for what its worth

[Plan]

When it comes to the French (or Qubecers), they will only speak French, and will give you the nastiest look when you say hello to them in English with a harsh "I dont speak English"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You might be surprised to find (french) Quebecers that will speak English, read and write it, in the strangest places. Even on forums...

Pascal

[Paul Hederer]

Perhaps in a way the Germans are a victim of their own education level when it comes to language. If you are involved in any larger firm in Germany, you are expected to know English.

My wife works in a German firm, in Germany, and all of their internal written communications are in English, as they interface internationally.

We went to a Jazz festival a few weeks ago on the Rhine, in Germany, and the language of the MC's was English. This caused some anger from the German crown initially, but most of the bands were from other countries, and I'm sure a decision was made by the organizers at some point to use English.

To cut to the chase I would ask--did you contact the museum directly? It makes interesting reading, but I'm not sure speculating that the museum perhaps does not like or want German visitors on a public forum and hoping to get a response from one of the staff of the museum here seems a very, very indicrect way of getting an answer as to why they do not have German captions.

Paul

[bkristof]

Hi,

I contacted the MMP17 museum at Zonnebeke.

There are several reasons why they do have German on their exhibition panels:

1 Belgium has 3 official languages: French, Dutch AND German

2 The museum wants to show the German aspect of war too and wants to stimulate Germans to visit WW1 musea and think about it. This is certainly one of the policies the museum wants to follow.

3 As a service for German tourists, a small group, but growing.

I hope this helps a bit to find your answers.

I can tell that even the promotional flyers for the museum are also in German (the ones for the museumweekend of april were only in 2 languages: Dutch + English).

[bkristof]

Personally I think that the IFF didn't presented German explanations because when they build it there was almost no interest from Germany in WW1 and like that they could spare room and money and efforts.

But as I understand they DID do the efforts to translate. Strange...

I hope someone can explain further.

[Aurel Sercu]

Gentlemen,

Is this the end of this Topic ? Actually, and hopefully it should be ...

This morning me and Jacky (Platteeuw) were at the In Flanders Fields Museum Documentation Centre (100 m from the Museum) and of course we inquired about this so-called lack of German in the IFFM.

Mr. Jan Dewilde, conservator of all Ypres Museums, including IFFM, ensured us that German is not at all ignored in the Museum. And equal attention is given to the foreign languages French, English and German. (That is indeed what I have always known, but the Topic made me hesitate, as it seemed to say that it was very certain that German was ignored in the Museum. And as I sometimes have reason to mistrust my failing memory...)

Also, when foreign visitors arrive at the Museum, they receive a booklet. For German visitors this is : "Zeugen des Ersten Weltkriegs - Führer durch die Zitate". It has 39 (thirty-nine) pages, and has exactly the same contents as the versions in other languages.

It is true that there is no German guide available to guide visitors personally through the museum, but then, there is no French or English guide either. So : no discrimination on that level either.

So the lack of German in the IFFM appears to be based on misinformation, which of course is regrettable. Also because it is not clear where this misinformation comes from.

Normally this message should make things clear, but as we all know : once a false rumour starts, it is impossible to stop it. So in future the wrong information "that there is no German language in the Ypres Museum, contrary to Zonnebeke" probably will continue and lead a life of its won. Except for those who are at the Museum themselves and see with their own eyes that the so-called lack of German in the Museum is just gossip.

Aurel

[bkristof]

Glad this is solved.

That is what I thought:

To be recognised as regional museum you have to heve the 3 official Belgian languages, German is one of them, so...

And as far as I know IFF is an recognised museum.

[Aurel Sercu]

German resentments still active in Ypres-museum?

1. The museum language in In Flanders Fields (IFF) museum is limited to Netherlands, French and English besides local Flemish language –why do they boycott German language? (A little bit provocative: where would that battlefield business be without the evil Huns?).

2. The Zonnebeke museum in contrast guides the visitors in English, French and German language through the exhibits and thus also draws the German visitors into their fine exhibits.

3. Are there still resentments hidden at IFF museum management or do they simply ignore the German visitor?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

(Sorry I am breaking my wish that (my) preceding posting "hopefully will end this Topic"...

Something I forgot in my preceding message of a few minutes ago, but of which I am reminded after rereading the opening post of this thread.

1. I do not know where this information comes from, but if the languages in the Museum is "limited to "Netherlands, French and English besides local Flemish language", then it is clear where the charge that there is no German language in the museum comes from :

The person seeing the German translations interpreted them as ... "local Flemish" !!! German considered as "local Flemish" ??? This is truly hilarious.

(But at the same time tragic, knowing that this misinterpretation German vs. Flemish resulted into thinking that there are "still (sic) resentments hidden at IFF Museum management.")

Being Flemish myself I can also add that I would not really find it amusing that German is considered "local Flemish". And please, there are no anti-German resentments in this, only pride in my own language, Dutch.)

2. When reading about the "Zonnebeke Museum guiding foreign visitors in English, French and German language" I promptly made the wrong (?) assumption that at Zonnebeke the foreign visitors are 'personally' guided through the exhibits by a guide. Whether they are I do not know, but probably they are not. But I'm sure Kristof can explain. If I 'm wrong, my apologies.

3. Replying to this item 3 is no longer necessary, I suppose.

Aurel

[bkristof]

There are German speaking guides in the MMP17 museum at Zonnebeke Aurel. But only a few. Also only a few French speaking ones.

Most guides guide in Dutch or in English.