{{Infobox Ethnic group |group = Germans Deutsche |image = 1^st row: Martin Luther • Otto von Bismarck • Ludwig van Beethoven • Immanuel Kant • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 2^nd row: Johannes Gutenberg • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart • Johann Sebastian Bach • Richard Wagner • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 3^rd row: Friedrich Schiller • Karl Marx • Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm • Konrad Adenauer • Albrecht Dürer 4^th row: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz • Karl Benz • Konrad Zuse • Marlene Dietrich • Max Planck 5^th row: Angela Merkel • Albert Einstein • Johannes Kepler • Friedrich Nietzsche • Rudolf Diesel |population = ~160 000 000 |regions = 80 000 000 |region1 = |pop1 = 50 000 000 (German ancestry) |ref1 = |region2 = |pop2 = ~10 000 000 (German ancestry) |ref2 = |region3 = |pop3 = 3 200 000 (German ancestry) |ref3 = |region4 = |pop4 = ~650,000 (Including Volga Germans, and other German ancestries) |ref4 = |region5 = |pop5 = 400,000(German ancestry) |region6 = The (mainly and ) |pop6 = ca. 1 000 000 ethnic German (declining due to emigration) |ref6 = |region7 = (predominant ethnic group of Alsace and Moselle) |pop7 = ~1 000 000 (970,000 with German dialects as mother tongue) |ref7 = |region8 = |pop8 = 812 000 (German ancestry, incl. 106,524 German-born) |ref8 = |region9 = |pop9 = ~600 000 (German ancestry) |ref9 = |region10 = (in Bolzano-Bozen/South Tyrol) |pop10 = ~500 000 |ref10 = |region11 = |pop11 = 386 000 (German-born) |ref11 = |region12 = |pop12 = 266 000 (German-born, many by British military based in Germany. German national number 89 000) |ref12 = |region13 = |pop13 = 255 000 (German immigrants) |ref13 = |region14 = |pop14 = 250 000 (German national) |ref14 = |region15 = |pop15 = 160 000 (ethnic German) |ref15 = |region16 = |pop16 = 153 000 (ethnic German) |ref16 = |region17 = |pop17 = 120 344 (ethnic German) |ref17 = |region18 = |pop18 = 119 807 (German national) |ref18 = |region19 = |pop19 = 80 000 (German ancestry) |ref19 = |region20 = |pop20 = 70 000 (German citizen) |ref20 = |region21 = |pop21 = 60 000 (ethnic German) |ref21 = |region22 = |pop22 = 46 000 (German ancestry, incl. 6000 German nationals) |ref22 = |region23 = |pop23 = 40 000 (ethnic German) |ref23 = |region24 = |pop24 = ~40 000 (German speaking Mennonites) |ref24 = |region25 = |pop25 = 38 366 (excludes German-speaking ethnic Belgians) |ref25 = |region26 = |pop26 = 37 000 (German immigrant and ancestry) |ref26 = |region27 = |pop27 = 33 000 (German ancestry) |ref27 = |region28 = |pop28 = 30 000 |ref28 = |region29 = |pop29 = 25 000 (German ancestry) |ref29 = |region30 = |pop30 = 15 000–20 000 |ref30 = |region31 = |pop31 = 15 498 |ref31 = |region32 = |pop32 = 11 797 |ref32 = |region33 = |pop33 = 5000–10 000 |ref33 = |region34 = |pop34 = 2700 |ref34 =

Thus, the total number of Germans worldwide lies between 66 and 160 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.). In the U.S., 43 million, or 15.2% of the population, identified as German American in the census of 2000. Although the percentage has declined, it is still more than any other ethnic group. According to the U.S. Census Bureau – 2006 American Community Survey, approximately 51 million citizens identify themselves as having German ancestry.

Today, peoples from countries with a German-speaking majority or significant German-speaking population groups other than Germany, such as Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg, have developed their own national consciousness and usually do not refer to themselves as Germans in a modern context.

Ethnic Germans

The term Ethnic Germans may be used in several ways. It may serve to distinguish Germans from those who have citizenship in the German state but are not Germans; or it may indicate Germans living as minorities in other nations. In English usage, but less often in German, Ethnic Germans may be used for assimilated descendants of German emigrants.

Ethnic Germans form an important minority group in several countries in central and eastern Europe—(Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia) as well as in Namibia (German Namibian), Brazil (German-Brazilian) (approx. 3% of the population), Argentina (German-Argentine) (approx. 7,5% of the population) and Chile (German-Chilean) (approx. 4% of the population).

Some groups may be classified as Ethnic Germans despite no longer having German as their mother tongue or belonging to a distinct German culture. Until the 1990s, two million Ethnic Germans lived throughout the former Soviet Union, particularly in Russia and Kazakhstan.

In the United States 1990 census, 57 million people were fully or partly of German ancestry, forming the largest single ethnic group in the country. States with the highest percentage of Americans of German descent are in the northern Midwest (especially Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan) and the Mid-Atlantic state, Pennsylvania. But Germanic immigrant enclaves existed in many other states (e.g., the German Texans and the Denver, Colorado area) and to a lesser extent, the Pacific Northwest (i.e. Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington state).

Notable Ethnic German minorities also exist in other Anglosphere countries such as Canada (approx. 10% of the population) and Australia (approx. 4% of the population). As in the United States, most people of German descent in Canada and Australia have almost completely assimilated, culturally and linguistically, into the English-speaking mainstream.

History

The Germans are a Germanic people, which as an ethnicity emerged during the Middle Ages. From the multi-ethnic Holy Roman Empire, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) left a core territory that was to become Germany.

Origins

The area of modern-day Germany in the European Iron Age was divided into the (Celtic) La Tène horizon in Southern Germany and the (Germanic) Jastorf culture in Northern Germany. The predominant Y-chromosome haplogroup in Germans is R1b, followed by I and R1a; the predominant mitochondrial haplogroup is H, followed by U and T.

The Germanic peoples during the Migrations Period came into contact with other peoples; in the case of the populations settling in the territory of modern Germany, they encountered Celts to the south, and Balts and Slavs towards the east.

The Limes Germanicus was breached in AD 260. Migrating Germanic tribes commingled with the local Gallo-Roman populations in what is now Swabia and Bavaria. around AD 1000. The sphere of German influence (Regnum Teutonicorum) is marked in blue.]] The migration-period peoples who would coalesce into a "German" ethnicity were the Saxons, Anglii, Franci, Thuringii, Alamanni and Bavarii. By the 800s, the territory of modern Germany had been united under the rule of Charlemagne. Much of what is now Eastern Germany remained Slavonic-speaking (Sorbs and Veleti).

Medieval history

A German ethnicity emerged in the course of the Middle Ages, under the influence of the unity of Eastern Francia (later Kingdom of Germany) from the 9th century. The process was gradual and lacked any clear definition.

After Christianization, the Roman Catholic Church and local rulers led German expansion and settlement in areas inhabited by Slavs and Balts (Ostsiedlung). Massive German settlement led to their assimilation of Baltic (Old Prussians) and Slavic (Wends) populations, who were exhausted by previous warfare.

At the same time, naval innovations led to a German domination of trade in the Baltic Sea and parts of Eastern Europe through the Hanseatic League. Along the trade routes, Hanseatic trade stations became centers of German culture. German town law (Stadtrecht) was promoted by the presence of large, relatively wealthy German populations and their influence on political power. after the Peace of Westphalia, 1648]] Thus people who would be considered "Germans", with a common culture, language, and worldview different from that of the surrounding rural peoples, colonized trading towns as far north of present-day Germany as Bergen (in Norway), Stockholm (in Sweden), and Vyborg (now in Russia). The Hanseatic League was not exclusively German in any ethnic sense: many towns who joined the league were outside the Holy Roman Empire and a number of them may only loosely be characterized as German. The Empire was not entirely German either.

Early Modern period

It was only in the late fifteenth century that the Holy Roman Empire came to be called the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. It was not exclusively German, and notably included a sizeable Slavic minority. The Thirty Years' War, a series of conflicts fought mainly in the territory of modern Germany, confirmed the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The Napoleonic Wars gave it its coup de grâce.

Since the Peace of Westphalia, Germany had been "one nation split in many countries" (Kleinstaaterei). The Austrian–Prussian split, confirmed in 1871 when Austria remained outside of the Imperial Germany, was only the most prominent example.

In the nineteenth century, after the Napoleonic Wars and the fall of the Holy Roman Empire (of the German nation), Austria and Prussia emerged as two competitors. Austria, trying to remain the dominant power in Central Europe, led the way in the terms of the Congress of Vienna. The Congress of Vienna was essentially conservative, assuring that little would change in Europe and preventing Germany from uniting. by Philipp Veit (March 1848)]] The terms of the Congress of Vienna came to a sudden halt following the Revolutions of 1848 and the Crimean War in 1856. This paved the way for German unification in the 1860s.

In 1870, after France attacked Prussia, Prussia and its new allies in Southern Germany (among them Bavaria) were victorious in the Franco-Prussian War. It created the German Empire as a German nation-state, effectively excluding the multi-ethnic Austrian Habsburg monarchy and Liechtenstein. Integrating the German speaking Austrians nevertheless remained a desire for many Germans and Austrians, especially among the liberals, the social democrats and also the Catholics who were a minority in Germany.

During the 19th century in the German territories, rapid population growth due to lower death rates, combined with poverty, spurred millions of Germans to emigrate, chiefly to the United States. Today, roughly 17% of the United States' population (23% of the white population) is of mainly German ancestry.

Twentieth century

The dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire after World War I led to a strong desire of the population of the new Republic of German Austria to be integrated into Germany or Switzerland. This was, however, prevented by the Treaty of Versailles.

The Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, attempted to unite all Germans (Volksdeutsche) into one realm, including ethnic Germans in eastern Europe, many of whom had emigrated more than one hundred fifty years before and developed separate cultures in their new lands. This idea was initially welcomed by many ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, Danzig and western Lithuania. The Swiss resisted the idea. They had viewed themselves as a distinctly separate nation since the Peace of Westphalia of 1648.

After World War II, eastern European nations, including areas annexed by the Soviet Union and Poland, expelled ethnic Germans from their territories, including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia. Most of the 12 million ethnic German refugees fled to western Germany and Europe, the United States, and South America.

After WWII, Austrians increasingly saw themselves as a nation distinct from other German-speaking areas of Europe. Recent polls show that no more than 6% of the German-speaking Austrians consider themselves as "Germans". Austrian identity was emphasized along with the "first-victim of Nazism" theory. Today over 80 percent of the Austrians see themselves as an independent nation.

1945 to present

Between 1950 and 1987, about 1.4 million ethnic Germans and their dependants, mostly from Poland and Romania, arrived in Germany under special provisions of right of return. With the collapse of the Iron Curtain since 1987, 3 million "Aussiedler" - ethnic Germans, mainly from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union - took advantage of Germany's law of return to leave the "land of their birth" for germany. Approximately 2 million, just from the territories of the former Soviet Union, have resettled in Germany since the late 1980s. On the other hand, significant numbers of ethnic Germans have moved from Germany to other European countries, especially Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain, and Spain.

Subgroups

and Emmelkamp in Low German]] The Germans are divided into sub-nationalities, some of which form dialectal unities with groups outside Germany that are not considered "Germans". The southern Upper German groups retain a pronounced identity. In the case of the Swabians, there was even a limited movement for Alemannic separatism. The Low German Platt speakers also retain a certain ethnic identity, while the Central German majority has largely abandoned individual nationalisms.

Upper German

*the Bavarians (ca. 10 million) form the Austro-Bavarian linguistic group, together with those Austrians who speak German and do not live in Vorarlberg and the western Tyrol district of Reutte.

*the Swabians (ca. 10 million) form the Alemannic group, together with the Alemannic Swiss, Liechtensteiners, Alsatians and Vorarlbergians.

Central German dialect group (ca. 45 million)

*Central Franconian, forms a dialectal unity with Luxembourgish

*Rhine Franconian (Ripuarian, Kölsch)

*Thuringian

*Hessian

*Upper Saxon

*High Prussian

*German Silesian

Low German (ca. 3–10 million), forms a dialectal unity with Dutch Low Saxon

*Low Saxon

*East Low German

Yiddish dialects of Ashkenazi Jews in Germany and eastern Europe

Nationalism

As in other European countries, nationalism came to Germany during the 18th and especially 19th century. German nationalism is traditionally based on language and culture, due to the lack of a centralized state. The aim of German nationalism in the 19th century was to unify the various smaller states into a German nation-state.

French suppression and Napoleonic wars are considered a main cause of nationalism in the German states. While the early national democratic movement, ca. 1830, had a strong internationalist face ("Young Germany" as a part of "Young Europe"), during the March Revolution of 1848/1849 the problem of ethnically mixed territories in central Europe became an important issue. Nonetheless, the (never realized) German liberal constitution of 1849 granted a free cultural development also to the "non German speaking parts of the people".

In the 19th century, German nationalism was closely associated with liberalism (see national liberalism) and calls for democracy. It was opposed by the rulers of the many monarchies in today's Germany and by reactionary forces. After the Vienna Congress, Prince Metternich was a staunch opponent of German nationalism, liberal values and calls for democracy. Black-red-gold, the colors of the modern German flag, that goes back to the 1848 revolutions and the calls for Germany unity, are traditionally seen as representing liberal, nationalist and republican values, as opposed to the Emperor's Black-white-red, that are traditionally seen as representing conservatism and monarchist values.

in 1932, with the imperials colours abolished 14 years before and reintroduced one year later.]] In 1871, a German nation-state was eventually founded, but without Austria.

German nationalism was later alloyed at the end of the nineteenth century with the high standing and worldwide influence of German science and culture, to some degree enhanced by Bismarck's military successes (1864–1871). During the following years a substantial part of Germans assumed a cultural and ethnic supremacy, particularly compared to their neighbors, the Slavs. But even in imperial Germany, nationalist forces were opposed by large internationalist movements, e.g. social democracy with more than 1 million members. Nationalists despised not only social democrats as Reichsfeinde (enemies of the Reich), but also Catholics, left liberals and Jews. -->

Nationalism increased during World War I. After the war and the disappointing peace terms, internationalism and moderate liberalism became unpopular in Germany and other countries. Realistic politicians, who tried to make Germany great again through conciliation with the Western powers, such as Gustav Stresemann, encountered strong opposition from conservative and ultranationalist forces on the political right. Among these a new sort of nationalism emerged, one that emphasized on biologicist concepts of nation; it culminated in Adolf Hitler's national socialism.

.]]

Possessing a German flag (and displaying it) is relatively uncommon in Germany, although that changed to a certain degree during the 2006 soccer world cup. The documentary film Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen, which follows the German team from boot camp through the 2006 World Cup, shows the optimism by Germans during the journey.

The German flag is hated by some persons, who view themselves as belonging to the political left. Youssef Bassal, is a immigrant to Germany and also the owner of Berlin's biggest Germany flag. He said that leftists had criticized him for displaying that flag and that it has been stolen by hooded persons dressed in black once and once was burned. During the 2010 soccer world cup leftist groups destroyed German flags. Many immigrants displayed German flags in order to show their commitment to Germany and several told the press that leftists tried had tried to destroy or destroyed theirs.

Politicians (of the right and the moderate left) emphasize the need to distinguish between patriotism as the love of own's country and nationalism as hate against other countries, according to former President Johannes Rau.

As a tree the Quercus robur (or "German Oak" as it is called in Germany) symbolizes Germany. "German Oak" is also a popular name for inns, sport clubs, ships and so on. In German culture the oak is believed to be a symbol of steadfastness and perservance. A common German saying is "The German oak does not mind" (Was stört's die deutsche Eiche"). The oak in German culture also is a symbol for peace. "Friedenseiche" (="oak of peace") is also the name of many inns, sportclubs and the like.

Religion

is a holiday very important for many German Christians, often celebrated by presenting coloured eggs to friends and family, lighting bonfires or preparing so-called Osterräder, one of which can be seen in this picture]] Today, German Christians include both Protestants and Catholics, with each group about equally represented in Germany. Historically, Protestants formed the majority in the northern two-thirds of the country. With the loss of traditionally Protestant regions after World War II and many Protestants' turning to agnosticism and atheism, especially in the former East Germany, the two groups are about equally represented. Today, non-Christians constitute a majority in certain regions of Germany, both in urban as well as in rural (eastern) regions. Other large groups of immigrants were or are mostly Catholics (e.g., Poles, Italians and Croats).

The Protestant Reformation started in the German cultural sphere, when in 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses to the door of the Schlosskirche ("castle church") in Wittenberg. Among Protestant denominations, the Lutherans are well represented among Germans, while Calvinists are historically to be found primarily near the Dutch border and in a few cities like Worms and Speyer.

The late nineteenth century saw a strong movement among the Jews in Germany and Austria to assimilate and define themselves as Germans, i.e., as Jewish Germans (a similar movement occurred in Hungary). In conservative circles, their acculturation was not always embraced. Beginning with social tensions in the 1920s, the rise of Nazis in the 1930s meant an increase in anti-Semitism, as they used the Jewish population as scapegoats for national problems. The Nazis conceived and carried out extreme discrimination and an effort to exterminate the Jews, leading to the deaths or exile of almost all of the pre-World War II Jewish population.

Today Germany is trying to better integrate Gastarbeiter (guest workers) and more recent refugees from the former Yugoslavia, such as Bosnian Muslims.

Minorities

Since the post-World War II decades and especially the later 20th century, the German-speaking countries of Europe have reflected striking demographic changes resulting from decades of immigration. These changes have led to renewed debates (especially in the Federal Republic of Germany) about who should be considered German. Non-ethnic Germans now make up more than 8% of the German population. They are mostly the descendants of "guest workers" who arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. The Poles, Turks, Moroccans, Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spanish, and people from the Balkans form the largest groups of non-ethnic Germans in the country.

As of December 2004, about seven million foreign citizens were registered in Germany, and 19% of the country's residents were of foreign or partially foreign descent (including persons descendent or partially descendent from or who are ethnic German repatriates). The young are more likely to be of foreign descent than the old. Thirty percent of Germans aged 15 years and younger have at least one parent born outside the country. Certain cities in particular have attracted large populations of foreign born people. In the city of Nuremberg 67 percent of all children were of foreign or partially foreign descent (including persons descending or partially descending from ethnic German repatriates), in Frankfurt am Main that was 65 percent and in Düsseldorf and Stuttgart 64 percent. 96 percent of the persons who have at least one parent born abroad lived in Western Germany or Berlin. The largest group (2.7 million) are descended from ethnic Turks.

A significant number of German citizens (close to 5%), although traditionally considered ethnic Germans, are in fact foreign-born. They retain cultural identities and languages from their native countries. This sets them apart from native Germans. Foreign-born repatriates are not unique to Germany. The English and British equivalent legal term of lex sanguinis (law of blood) stipulates that citizenship is inherited by the child from his/her parents. It has nothing to do with ethnicity.

Ethnic German repatriates from the former Soviet Union constitute by far the largest such group and the second largest ethno-national minority group in Germany. The repatriation provisions made for ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe are unique and have a historical basis. These were areas where Germans traditionally lived, that is, where they had migrated and maintained some German language and culture. Nonetheless, the fact of their separation meant they developed differently from populations within German borders.

The Volga Germans, descendants of ethnic Germans who settled in Russia during the eighteenth century, have presented a controversial case of "repatriation". They have been permitted to claim German citizenship even though neither they nor their ancestors for several generations had been to Germany. In contrast, persons of German descent living in North America, South America, Africa, etc. do not have an automatic right of return. They must prove their eligibility for German citizenship according to applicable German nationality law. Other countries with post-Soviet Union repatriation programs include Greece, Israel and South Korea.

Unlike these ethnic German repatriates, some non-German ethnic minorities in the country, including some who were born and raised in the Federal Republic, choose to remain non-citizens. Although recently German citizenship laws have been relaxed to allow such individuals to become naturalized citizens, many choose not to give up allegiance to the countries of their ethnic roots. They live in Germany under the status of an alien resident. Although this status means that people lack certain political rights, they often can still get work and free public higher education, and travel freely abroad.

As a result, close to 10 million people permanently living in the Federal Republic today distinctly differ from the majority of the population in a variety of ways such as race, ethnicity, religion, language and culture. Official statistical sources often fail to account for them as minorities because such sources traditionally survey only German citizens classified under the so-called jus sanguinis (right of blood) system, limiting citizenship to those with German forebears, which has been in effect in Germany since the nineteenth century. It has only recently been partially replaced by the alternative jus soli (right of soil) system, allowing citizenship to all individuals born there. This situation contributes to the invisibility of Germany's minorities.

See also

s are common in the US. Light blue indicates counties that are predominantly German ancestry.]]

List of Germans

Culture of German-speaking Europe

Ethnic groups in Europe

Genetic history of Europe

Ethnic Germans, also referred to as the German diaspora

German eastward expansion

German idealism

German Jews

German American

German Canadian

German Mexican

German Brazilian

Names for the German language

Immigration to Germany

List of Alsatians and Lorrainians

List of Austrians

List of Swiss people

List of terms used for Germans

Organised persecution of ethnic Germans

References

External links

Famous Germans

German, Austrian and Swiss inventors

Top 100 Germans

Germans - First arrivals

Category:Ethnic groups in Europe Category:Germanic peoples

Hans Peter Wilhelm "Hape" Kerkeling (; born 9 December 1964, in Recklinghausen, Germany) is a well-known German actor, presenter and comedian.

Career

At secondary school in Recklinghausen, Hape Kerkeling and some fellow students formed a band (Gesundfutter, meaning: health fodder) and published a record (Hawaii).

Kerkeling started his career as a comedian in radio, working for various German broadcasting companies, such as WDR and BR.

The real breakthrough came in 1984/85 when, still aged only 19, Kerkeling got a role in the Känguru [sic] television comedy show (the German word for kangaroo deliberately spelt without an "h" at the end although this broke the spelling rules at that time). The best-known character in this show was the little boy Hannilein, played by Kerkeling, an irritating child with red hair in a pudding-basin style, dungarees and sitting on giant-sized chairs, who commented on the world of adults.

Later came guest appearances and sketches on the Radio Bremen show Extratour. Then in 1989 Kerkeling started up his own comedy TV show, Total Normal (Totally Normal) along with pianist Achim Hagemann. This show, a satirical spoof on prime-time TV-Shows, had a totally new format and was awarded several television prizes such as the Goldene Kamera, the Adolf-Grimme-Preis and the Bayerischer Fernsehpreis.

On the show, Kerkeling made television history on 25 April 1991 when he dressed up as Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands on a state visit to Berlin and almost managed to get into Schloss Bellevue to meet the President of Germany for dinner. The satirical song from this show, Das ganze Leben ist ein Quiz (All life is a quiz) made it into the German pop charts.

On 10 December 1991 in German television talkshow, the filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim revealed that Kerkeling, among others, was gay. Kerkeling's comment on the ensuing fuss (mostly in the gutter press) was that while anyone of a more sensitive nature than him would probably have climbed into the bath with a hairdryer, he could not see the point: they would be dragging another poor soul through the dirt the next day anyway.

In 1992, Kerkeling's first film came out: Kein Pardon, which he directed and starred in, as well as helping to write the script.

In 1992, Kerkeling turned down an offer by the big public broadcasting company ZDF to work on the immensely popular prime-time show Wetten, dass..? and instead, without his previous partner Hagemann, moved to the independent television sector with the show Cheese. This was similar in concept to Total Normal and viewing figures were relatively high; still this is considered as his first flop.

In the second half of the 90s, Kerkeling worked once more for ARD, presenting the show Warmumsherz (Heartwarming), and filmed several television films (Club Las Piranjas (1995), Willi und die Windzors, 1996; Die Oma ist tot, 1997).

In 1999 Kerkeling returned to success with his Sat.1 show Darüber lacht die Welt (What makes the world laugh). He also presented the yearly fundraising gala for the German AIDS fund Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe. In 2003 he was awarded the Deutscher Fernsehpreis (German Television Prize) in the category Best Entertainment Presenter.

In January 2004 Kerkeling made another film entitled Samba in Mettmann, which is set in Mettmann in North Rhine Westphalia. In May 2004 and a year later in May 2005 he presented the Großer Deutsch-Test (a national test show for German grammar and spelling) and in October 2004 the Großer Deutschlandtest (a test about people's knowledge of Germany). In April and May 2006 he presented the live TV show Let's Dance, the German version of Strictly Come Dancing/Dancing with the Stars, with Nazan Eckes.

In a survey by the television station Kabel 1 in 2005, Kerkeling made it into the top ten favourite faces on German television; the only other two presenters were Günther Jauch and Thomas Gottschalk.

In 2001 Kerkeling went on a pilgrimage, following the Way of St James for to Santiago de Compostela. In June 2006 his book Ich bin dann mal weg (I'm off for a bit, then), his diary of this pilgrimage, was top of the Spiegel magazine non-fiction bestseller list. By May 2008 it had sold 3 million copies. It is to appear in English in June 2009 entitled I'm Off Then: My Journey Along the Camino De Santiago. It has also been translated into French, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Spanish.

Hape Kerkeling lives with his life partner and co-author Angelo Colagrossi in Berlin. Colagrossi wrote a large number of texts and sketches for Total Normal and other shows, and co-directed the films Kein Pardon, Willi und die Windzors, Die Oma ist tot and Samba in Mettmann.

Since Spring 2005, Kerkeling has presented the show Hape trifft! (which is ambiguous in the German language and may be translated as Hape hits the spot! or Hape meets!) show, produced by Günther Jauch's production team i&u; TV on RTL.

Characters

Horst Schlämmer

Horst Schlämmer is one of Kerkeling's current characters (and the most successful), the deputy editor of the fictitious newspaper Grevenbroicher Tagblatt. His motto is to "get up close and ask tough questions". Dressed in a grey trenchcoat and with a small black manbag on his arm, he holds interviews at real events such as the Bundestag elections.

Schlämmer speaks to interviewees in an overfamiliar manner, using du for you rather than the polite Sie, and addressing them as Schätzelein (sweetheart). He seems to think he is a sex symbol, attempting to kiss female interviewees despite his loose false teeth. To impress women, he boasts that he earns three thousand (euro) net a month.

On the ARD's Harald Schmidt show, Kerkeling explained his methods. Before a Schlämmer interview, he said, he pours a few drops of strong liquor over his coat, to give the interviewee the impression he or she is being interviewed by a real reporter, but with an alcohol problem, prompting a real response.

The single Schätzelein came out at the start of 2006, including the songs Schätzelein and Meine letzte Zigarette (My last cigarette).

In May 2006, Schlämmer appeared on Wer wird Millionär (the German Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) as a celebrity candidate, and became the first person to persuade Günther Jauch, the presenter of Wer wird Millionär, into the contestant's seat. The two made 500,000 euro for a good cause (German AIDS Foundation).

In 2007, a computer game "Weisse Bescheid?!", based on Horst Schlämmer, was released.

In 2009 Kerkeling announced a mockumentary about Horst Schlämmer running for German Chancellor. It is scheduled to be released to cinemas in Germany shortly before the German federal election of 2009. According to a BBC piece, Horst Schlämmer would receive 18% of the German vote due partly to his Obama inspired slogan, "Yes weekend".

Hannilein

Kerkeling, in Kerkelings Kinderstunde (Kerkelings children's hour), as a cheeky child of preschool age named Hannilein, with red tousled hair and a bib overall, sits on oversized chairs and comments on the adult world.

Evje van Dampen

Is a female Dutch relationships counsellor, who meets various German celebrities (such as Günther Jauch or Udo Jürgens).

Siggi Schwäbli

Siegfried (Siggi) Schwäbli is a character who first appeared in 1990 in some episodes of Total Normal. Slow-witted, short-sighted and with glasses made of plastic blocks, Siggi constantly puts his foot in it and often has no idea what is going on. At the Cannstatter Volksfest festival in Stuttgart, for example, he went on the ghost train with Barbara Schöneberger, a TV host, and almost passed out with fear.

Gisela

Gisela is a middle aged woman. She has done several tv commercials for "krueger" coffee. She met Horst Schlaemmer at a bar and became famous quite quickly. Her favourite quote is "I don`t want that".

Awards

;1983

Scharfrichterbeil

;1991

Adolf-Grimme-Preis in silver for Total Normal

Bambi

Bayerischer Fernsehpreis for Total Normal

Goldene Europa

Goldene Kamera for Total Normal

Goldener Gong of the TV program magazine Gong

Bronze Rose of Montreux for Total Normal

Telestar ;2002

Peter-Frankenfeld-Preis

;2003

Deutscher Fernsehpreis (as a host) for Die 70er Show

;2004

Bayerischer Fernsehpreis for presenting Die 70er Show

Deutscher Comedypreis as best presenter, for Die 70er Show

;2005

Deutscher Comedypreis "Best Comedian"

Goldene Kamera "Best TV Entertainer"

;2006

Deutscher Comedypreis best comedian and special award for Horst Schlämmer

Deutscher Fernsehpreis in the category best entertainment broadcasting/best presentation for his participation in Wer wird Millionär (Who Wants to be a Millionaire?) celebrity special WM 2006 (RTL)

1Live Krone from the 1LIVE radio network by (WDR) best comedian

Horst Schlämmer given an award by the independent MediumMagazin as "honorary entertainment journalist of the year"

Bestseller Author of the Year for 1.1 million copies sold of his travelogue Ich bin dann mal weg

Honorary member of the Verein Deutsche Sprache (German Language Association)

;2007 Adolf-Grimme-Preis Special Honor of the Association of German Adult Education Centres

Verdienstorden des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen Order of Merit from North Rhine-Westphalia

Osgar in the category "Charity"

Works

References

External links

German homepage

"Weisse Bescheid" homepage

Hape Kerkeling erhält den Adolf-Grimme-Preis

"German Borat shakes up election" BBC

Category:German television personalities Category:German comedians Category:LGBT comedians Category:LGBT television personalities Category:LGBT people from Germany Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:Gay actors Category:Members of the Order of Merit of North Rhine-Westphalia Category:German autobiographers

Name	Basil Fawlty
Series	Fawlty Towers
Caption	Cleese as Basil Fawlty.
Years	1975–79
First	A Touch of Class(1975)
Last	Basil the Rat(1979)
Creator	John Cleese
Introducer	Connie Booth
Portrayer	John Cleese
Born	1940
Occupation	Hotelier
Wife	Sybil Fawlty (1958—)

Basil Fawlty is the main character of the British sitcom Fawlty Towers, played by John Cleese. The character is often thought of as an iconic British comedy character, and has been deemed unforgettable despite only a dozen half-hour episodes ever being made.

Personality

Torquay hotellier Basil is a snobbish, miserly, xenophobic and sexually repressed paranoiac misanthrope who is desperate to belong to a higher social class. He sees the successful running of the hotel as a means of achieving this ("turn it into an establishment of class..."), yet his job forces him to be pleasant to people he despises or aspires to be above socially. His unstoppable wife Sybil will often get in the way of Basil's treatment towards the guests, often trying to bridge the peace, or pick up the pieces, to quite limited success.

According to Manuel in "Communication Problems" Basil is from Swanage.

Basil has strong socially conservative views regarding almost everything he comes across. This is especially apparent in The Wedding Party, when he shows open disgust towards a young unmarried couple with an active sex life. He despises socialism: while concussed following an incident with a fire extinguisher in "The Germans", he diverts from a rant on fire extinguishers to exclaim "What's happening to this country? It's bloody Wilson". He is apparently a supporter of Thatcherism, taking offence at a comment that 'The Wit of Margaret Thatcher' would be "one of the world's shortest books".

He is terrified of his wife's sharp tongue, but wishes to stand up to her, and his plans often conflict with hers. She is often verbally abusive towards him (describing him as "an ageing, brilliantined stick insect") and though he is much taller than Sybil, he often finds himself on the receiving end of her temper, expressed verbally or physically. Basil usually turns to Manuel or Polly to help him with whatever scheme he has planned, while trying his best to prevent Sybil from finding out, and as such he gained a reputation as an unabashed prevaricator.

Basil takes many of his frustrations out on the hapless Manuel, physically abusing him in a variety of ways. On occasions he also assaults others, such as strangling the guest Mr. Hutchinson in "The Hotel Inspectors", kneeing Major Gowen in "Basil the Rat", and even—most famously—striking his "vicious bastard" of a car in "Gourmet Night" with a tree branch when it refuses to move. "The Germans" is the sixth episode. It is best remembered for its line "Don't mention the war" and Cleese's "funny walk" when he is impersonating Adolf Hitler.

Another eccentricity affecting Basil is that of occasionally swapping words around in a sentence while propounding a falsehood, for instance in "The Anniversary" when he announces to the party guests that it's "perfectly Sybil! Simple's not well. She's lost her throat and her voice hurts", and – less obviously – reassuring himself as much as his wife in "The Wedding Party" that the sound of knocking on his bedroom door was "probably some key who forgot the guest for their door". He also has difficulty disconnecting his thought-process from unrelated events, as in "The Wedding Party", when he is looking through Polly's sketchbook of life-drawing pictures and answers the telephone with, "Hello, Fawlty Titties?" or in "The Psychiatrist", where, after inadvertently staining the chest area of a female guest with paint, he realises that Sybil has noticed, but then in confusion puts his hands all over the woman's breasts as a means of stopping her from seeing it.

Basil is known to have served in the British Army during the Korean War, possibly as part of his National Service. He claims: "I fought in the Korean War, you know, I killed four men" to which his wife jokingly replies "he was in the Catering Corps; he used to poison them". He is often seen wearing a military tie and a military-type moustache. Fawlty also claims to have sustained a shrapnel injury to his leg in the Korean War, which has a tendency to flare up at convenient moments - usually when Sybil asks him an awkward question.

John Cleese himself described Basil as thinking that he could run a first-rate hotel if he didn't have all the guests getting in the way. He has also made the point that on account of Basil's inner need to conflict with his wife's wishes, "Basil couldn't be Basil if he didn't have Sybil."

Basil seems to have an attachment to any upper-class guests visiting, such as Lord Melbury, Mrs Peignoir (a wealthy French antique dealer) and Major Gowen, a recurring war veteran, although Basil is sometimes scalding towards him, frequently alluding to his senility and his attachment to the bar ("drunken old sod"). This is probably because he aspires to be in the upper echelons of society. He has particular respect for doctors, having aspired to be one himself (though Sybil says that he couldn't even have been a tree surgeon: couldn't stand the sight of sap), and shows a reverential attitude to Dr. & Dr. Abbott in "The Psychiatrist" (until he learns that Dr. Abbott is a psychiatrist), and Dr. Price in "The Kipper and the Corpse" (until Dr. Price begins to ask awkward questions about the death of Mr. Leeman, and inconveniently requests sausages for breakfast).

Basil is constantly maniacally depressed, intimidating towards guests, and liable to pick up a tail-end of a situation and turning it into a farcical misunderstanding. Basil is known for his tight-fisted mannerisms, employing incompetent builder O'Reilly in "The Builders" because he was cheap, and more importantly Manuel, for the same reason.

Basil has been married to Sybil for fifteen years, as stated in the episode "The Anniversary". He very rarely shows any signs of real love for his long-suffering wife ("my little piranha-fish" is one of the kindest epithets he bestows on her), and vice-versa. Sybil's friend Audrey — who is, with exception to "The Anniversary," an unseen character— will often be the only support she gets. Ironically, "The Anniversary" was one of the few episodes in which Basil was the one trying to be nice, and Sybil was the one who had misread the situation (i.e., thinking he had forgotten what day it was).

John Cleese reprised the role of Basil in the song "Don't Mention the War", based on the situation in the episode "The Germans", for the 2006 Germany FIFA World Cup. This same phrase, "Don't Mention the War", was used as the title of the first episode of a 5-part BBC documentary series When Rover Met BMW.

Origins

Fawlty Towers was inspired by the Monty Python team's stay in the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay. Cleese and Booth stayed on at the hotel after filming for the Python show had finished. The owner, Mr. Donald Sinclair, was very rude, throwing a bus timetable at a guest who asked when the next bus to town would arrive and placing Eric Idle's suitcase behind a wall in the garden in case it contained a bomb (actually it contained a ticking alarm clock). He also criticised the American-born Terry Gilliam's table manners for being too American (he had the fork in the "wrong" hand while eating), and it is reasonable to assume that his treatment of Gilliam partially inspired Basil's treatment of an American visitor in the episode Waldorf Salad. Cleese used the name "Donald Sinclair" for his character in the 2001 film Rat Race. In the episode The Builders, Fawlty refers to a local hotel or restaurant called "Gleneagles" while talking to Miss Gatsby and Miss Tibbs. The name 'Basil' comes from Basil Street, where Cleese lived for some time.

Libel case

In 1989, Cleese successfully sued the Daily Mirror for libel when it described him becoming like his character Basil Fawlty.

Cultural references

In the British fantasy series "Redwall", an extremely sarcastic and imprudent anthropomorphic hare, "Basil Stag Hare", makes an appearance. He is somewhat aristocratic, and an ex-serviceman, who sometimes makes reference to his "honourable war wound". A running gag is his 'Officer and a Gentleman' way and his "tally ho!" slang. Author Brian Jacques claims to have based his name and character on Basil Fawlty.

References

Category:Fawlty Towers characters Category:Fictional English people Category:Fictional hoteliers Category:Fictional versions of real people Category:Fictional Korean War veterans Category:Fictional businesspeople