Fun fact: German Chocolate Cake is actually from Texas. Either the cocoa company or the baker (I can't remember which) was named "German" and I think the original name was "German's chocolate cake"
It's also just a super German state from an immigration perspective. At the time, the Mexicans were very upset by all of the Europeans jumping the borders and taking work they didn't particularly want anyway.
A lot of folks don't realize that. We have cities like Fredericksburg and New Braunfels and events like Wurstfest and water parks like Schlitterbahn. We have Shiner Bock and Ziegenbock beer.
There's a lot of German heritage running around here.
Correct, the credit for that goes to Texas – the use of Coconut and Pecans should have given it away, those were very ingredients rare in Germany (still kinda are to this day).
As far as the story goes, the meat-in-a-bun concept was taken by sailors from Hamburg to the USA, where it was tweaked for local preferences and then called a hamburger. So the Germans invented it, USA marketed it.
And that doesn't count? What's the definition of inventing something? If I create a new flavor of bread, does it not count because flour was already invented?
Germany actually did invent this. The brothers Wright only stuck an engine to it. The first glider that actually deserved its name was inveted by Otto Lilienthal. He died in it. Without his work, the Wright brothers would not have been able to build their plane.
I agree. Lilienthal showed a proof of concept. The Wrights made it practical. As soon as aerodynamics was understood a bit better, there was enough lift, to move the whole elevator assembli to the back of the plane, but apart from that, the whole thing still is the most practical approach.
It was the first programmable, fully automatic, digital, turing-complete computer (although they only found out the last part after Zuse died).
So I'd argue, it was the first computer in the sense we understand and use the word today.
The English “wanderlust” comes from the German Wanderlust more recently (1902). In German, Lust is related to the English “lust,” but it’s got less of a sensual connotation. “Homesickness” also comes from German (1798), but it was translated into English.
Don't get me started on the Haber process. My students will tell you that I can and will go on for half an hour about how it prolonged WW1 and is one of the first commercial processes to make use of Le Chateliers principle.
Also, probably best not to spend too much time idolizing Fritz Haber, as I'm pretty certain he went on to become a staunch supporter of Hitler.edit: I mixed up Haber with someone else, but his research was foundational in developing many German chemical weapons, including Zyklon B
Edit 2: probably Richard Kuhn who fell into line and fired Jewish coworkers at the direction of the Nazis or Herman Kolbe who was an outspoken German nationalist and anti-Semite. I use all three of them as examples of prominent scientists behaving badly in my O-Chem course.
I recall that one of the men ended up shooting themselves or their wives did or something along those lines. It was the one that did his best to kill as many people with chemical weapons as he could.
I must have been remembering that his research between the World Wars lead to the development of Zyklon B muddled that up with some other chemist (maybe Otto Ambros?). I'll see if I can find my source.
Edit: probably Richard Kuhn who fell into line and fired Jewish coworkers at the direction of the Nazis or Herman Kolbe who was an outspoken German nationalist and anti-Semite. I use all three of them as examples of prominent scientists behaving badly in my O-Chem course.
Zyklon B was not developed for killing people. The most common usage was for killing lice in clothes.
(To make it very clear: It was also used for killing people in Vernichtungslagern).
Zyklon B might not have been developed as a chemical weapon, but Haber was instrumental in developing and advocating for the use of chemical weapons explicitly on humans for Germany and Spain both during and after WWI (source)
Kindergarten is even a German word would translate to Kinder= Kids Garten= Yard? So Kidsyard... Was funny for me as a German to learn that it actually is named Kindergarten in English..
Depending om what you mean by "inventing synthetic fertilizer", couldn't the invention be either Norwegian (Birkeland-Eyde), German (Haber), or English (Thomas)?
Yeah, obviously Haber is credited with creating the Haber process. As for inventing synthetic fertilizer, I'm going for it being a Norwegian invention with the Birkeland-Eyde process.
The Berlin Wall, putting beach towels on recliners at the crack of dawn, sauerkraut, lederhosen, frankfurters, doner kebabs, hamburgers, donuts, cheese, iron gates, macerated cherries, aardvarks, the car, the bicycle, diesel, the moon, beer, lager, tamagotchi, the letter 'a', the number 25, serrated saw blades, cantilever bridges, ice cream, hand lotion, galoshes, the ipod, bilateral symmetry, the dawn, goths, the parachute, that sizzling noise meat makes when you fry it, hats, gloves, left socks, altitudes over 1,773 feet, postmodernism, and geese.
The US Army. Given the history, you might expect it to based on either the French or British model, but no, they mostly took notes from Prussia.
You might also think it's a very top-down authoritarian model for a military, but also no. That notion mostly comes from the legacy of Nazis. Both before and after, the German model of the Army is one of the least top-down authoritarian militaries.
The Chinese invented movable type printing presses ~500 years before Gutenberg. The process was refined in Korea after that and made its way west. Gutenberg likely adapted and popularized the existing processes into the western industrialization movement.
The Disk of Phaistos was printed with stamps (movable type) between 1850 B.C. and 1600 B.C. according to Yves Duhoux. Predating the Chinese by millennia.
China invented fireworks around 1k years ago, but Germany made the first one that went to space (the V2, the same one they used to bomb a bunch of places in WWII), and scientists from Germany helped to develop rockets a lot further after Operation Paperclip
Nope. There where several "assault rifles" designed and built long before the StGew44 or the AK47 showed up.
The Italians even adopted one in the 1890s. But because Italian industry wasn't, let's just say not very capable at the time, only small numbers were produced. Even the Browning BAR, adopted in 1918, predates it and lasted far longer in service around the world.
If there is one thing the Germans did give to the world was the Reinheitsgebot in 1516. Because beer should only be made from water, barley, and hops. For that alone, they stand tallest in history.
It really is true what they say. Post something wrong, and soon enough someone will correct you. Maybe you could even think of this as a clever way of crafting an effective question.
The underlying point of my answer is that there is very little new under the sun. Most everything we "enjoy" today, is merely an extension and improvement of an idea that someone had earlier. From assault rifles to television to space flight. We merely extend the path of those that walked it before.
I never have thought that the trope "If you want an answer to a question, post something wrong" was a good method. If you have a question about something, ask the question. The problem is, most people ask their questions in the wrong place. Don't ask a question about fixing your car in a hair salon. And don't ask about hair cuts in a mechanic shop.
The automobile - pronounce it out loud, you'll say it something like "ow-toe moh-beel", i.e. in a German accent. Because Germans invented cars.
The assault rifle. They invented the concept, a handful of prototypes without the relevant doctrine (or for the 1890s one, even a detachable magazine) is irrelevant. Fight me, @bluewing.
I think the otto & diesel cycles are a better claim than the automobile, given there are like 100 different competing "first automobiles" to chose from
Rigid (as in using a solid frame to keep shape instead of gas pressure) airships? Unless there's an earlier example of that than the ones Zeppelin made that I'm not thinking of
Those are brands, not inventions. However, Otto, Benz and Diesel were all Germans, so modern cars along with both common types of ICEs were invented by Germans.
They invented Germany, that was a pretty big deal
Meh. Strongly derivative work, and they kept reinventing the wheel.
They didn’t invent East Germany.
The hamburger, from the city of Hamburg.
And German chocolate cake from Deutschschokoladenkuchen
Fun fact: German Chocolate Cake is actually from Texas. Either the cocoa company or the baker (I can't remember which) was named "German" and I think the original name was "German's chocolate cake"
It's also just a super German state from an immigration perspective. At the time, the Mexicans were very upset by all of the Europeans jumping the borders and taking work they didn't particularly want anyway.
A lot of folks don't realize that. We have cities like Fredericksburg and New Braunfels and events like Wurstfest and water parks like Schlitterbahn. We have Shiner Bock and Ziegenbock beer.
There's a lot of German heritage running around here.
Pretty heavily found in parts of Michigan and Ohio, too.
Correct, the credit for that goes to Texas – the use of Coconut and Pecans should have given it away, those were very ingredients rare in Germany (still kinda are to this day).
The first known instance of this recipe comes from a lady from Dallas, who named it after the brand of chocolate she was using to make it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_chocolate_cake
And schadenfreude: the joy that comes from others suffering!
Wasn’t the hamburger invented in the US? There they had Frikadellen, which are arguably much better.
As far as the story goes, the meat-in-a-bun concept was taken by sailors from Hamburg to the USA, where it was tweaked for local preferences and then called a hamburger. So the Germans invented it, USA marketed it.
So they
And that doesn't count? What's the definition of inventing something? If I create a new flavor of bread, does it not count because flour was already invented?
When you go back further it was the romans that brought that concept to Germany. Romans invented it, Germany tweaked it, and USA went further with it.
Name something the Germans didn't invent.
concentration camps
But they were the first to have a bakery attached.
Nope. The Brits did that, in South Africa, iirc.
You are supposed to mention things the Germans didn't invent in this section.
Oh, right. Somehow I only noticed the original post.
Humor
Hitler
And what about Mozart?
Civil engineering. And they've been confused at how the Italians beat them to it ever since
Inefficiency
Germans known inefficiency pretty damn well, I can tell you that much.
Tough one
The number zero, sanitation, statistics.
Noodles.
Telephone
Wrong
IN THIS HOUSE IT WAS ANTONIO MEUCCI, END OF DISCUSSION!
Okay then, glass. Invented in 9th century in Spain.
Beer
Airplanes.
Germany actually did invent this. The brothers Wright only stuck an engine to it. The first glider that actually deserved its name was inveted by Otto Lilienthal. He died in it. Without his work, the Wright brothers would not have been able to build their plane.
All inventions being based on some previous work, is it not the Wright who invented the airplane, and Lilienthal who invented the glider?
Technically, the Wrights' main contribution was the 3-axis steering mechanism, which is what made powered flight practical.
I agree. Lilienthal showed a proof of concept. The Wrights made it practical. As soon as aerodynamics was understood a bit better, there was enough lift, to move the whole elevator assembli to the back of the plane, but apart from that, the whole thing still is the most practical approach.
Greggs sausage rolls. Or are we counting the Anglo-Saxons as ex-pats?
The bicycle
The car
The computer (arguably, with the Zuse Z3)
Spoiler: I'm German.
Not the computer, but the first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer (which would be a stage in computer hardware.)
It would be Babbage's machine as mechanical computers precede digital ones and only if we only allow nonspecific turing complete machines.
It was the first programmable, fully automatic, digital, turing-complete computer (although they only found out the last part after Zuse died).
So I'd argue, it was the first computer in the sense we understand and use the word today.
They invented you
Schadenfreude. I mean they probably didn't invent the feeling but I can give them credit for it along with the word.
" I also like hiraeth. It's a Welsh concept of longing for home."
Or homesickness. Fernweh, on the other hand, only exists (somewhat) in English in idioms, afaik: itchy feet
wanderlust...damn it.
That is not quite the same thing.
Yeah, that’s a good call!
Why aren't they called "homelust" or "wandersickness?"
"Weh" means pain which is reflecting the feeling better.
It is also an older way to express a longing of the heart for something, in this case home / unknown places respectively.
The English “wanderlust” comes from the German Wanderlust more recently (1902). In German, Lust is related to the English “lust,” but it’s got less of a sensual connotation. “Homesickness” also comes from German (1798), but it was translated into English.
Any word in Welsh is a weird way to spell a word.
TIL that's a feeling and not just the TF2 laughing emote
Its more than a feeling.
Everyone knows they invented the Haber-Bosch process. Pretty important shit.
Don't get me started on the Haber process. My students will tell you that I can and will go on for half an hour about how it prolonged WW1 and is one of the first commercial processes to make use of Le Chateliers principle.
Also, probably best not to spend too much time idolizing Fritz Haber,
as I'm pretty certain he went on to become a staunch supporter of Hitler.edit: I mixed up Haber with someone else, but his research was foundational in developing many German chemical weapons, including Zyklon BEdit 2: probably Richard Kuhn who fell into line and fired Jewish coworkers at the direction of the Nazis or Herman Kolbe who was an outspoken German nationalist and anti-Semite. I use all three of them as examples of prominent scientists behaving badly in my O-Chem course.
Really a fascinating bit of science history
I recall that one of the men ended up shooting themselves or their wives did or something along those lines. It was the one that did his best to kill as many people with chemical weapons as he could.
The exact opposite is true.
I must have been remembering that his research between the World Wars lead to the development of Zyklon B muddled that up with some other chemist (maybe Otto Ambros?). I'll see if I can find my source.
Edit: probably Richard Kuhn who fell into line and fired Jewish coworkers at the direction of the Nazis or Herman Kolbe who was an outspoken German nationalist and anti-Semite. I use all three of them as examples of prominent scientists behaving badly in my O-Chem course.
Zyklon B was not developed for killing people. The most common usage was for killing lice in clothes. (To make it very clear: It was also used for killing people in Vernichtungslagern).
Zyklon B might not have been developed as a chemical weapon, but Haber was instrumental in developing and advocating for the use of chemical weapons explicitly on humans for Germany and Spain both during and after WWI (source)
And Haber of Haber-Bosch fame also invented using poisonous gas as a weapon in WW1.
Health insurance. Little known fact but it was actually invented not just before Google but before the entire internet.
Otto von Bismarck, 1883
The rotary engine, also known as the Wankel engine
They also invented diesel fuel. Is the Wankel engine used anywhere now?
There's some aviation and boating uses. Air pollution regulations have killed it for almost any automotive use.
And the Diesel engine to use the fuel.
Yes. New Mazdas use one as a range extender. It's shitty.
Well. You have the pleasure of making a diese engine get to 20k rpm for no reason whatsoever :)
In fact, I've got a Wankel engine in my pants right now.
Hard to say. There are soo many Germans, who knows what they’ve googled!
Those cool windows that Americans mistake for broken. I'm American and I want those windows... also a bidet.
Just need to combine those windows with built-in bug nets and we're solid.
I have several at home
What windows are you talking about? I tried searching for it.
Communism
We invented the car
The car, the bicycle and Spaghetti icecream are the three most notable inventions from Mannheim Germany.
I'm from the US and never heard of spaghetti ice cream. I just googled it and it looks pretty delicious!
alas, the fr*nch invented the bicycle, germans merely invented the dandyhorse.
Modern physics.
Nuclear physics.
Socks in Sandals
kindergarten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindergarten
Kindergarten is even a German word would translate to Kinder= Kids Garten= Yard? So Kidsyard... Was funny for me as a German to learn that it actually is named Kindergarten in English..
Garten is garden, but sure, yard is fine too.
The no card payment sign.
Diesel engine, Mustard gas, and Synthetic fertilizer.
Depending om what you mean by "inventing synthetic fertilizer", couldn't the invention be either Norwegian (Birkeland-Eyde), German (Haber), or English (Thomas)?
Haber, he is generally credited with creating the process. Also mustard gas.
Yeah, obviously Haber is credited with creating the Haber process. As for inventing synthetic fertilizer, I'm going for it being a Norwegian invention with the Birkeland-Eyde process.
I guess this is a matter of inventing it on a base level and making it worthwhile. Just cause ya domesticated the horse doesnt mean ya can ride it.
Stable Diffusion
Those same folks went on to create FLUX.
I'm loving it.
The Berlin Wall, putting beach towels on recliners at the crack of dawn, sauerkraut, lederhosen, frankfurters, doner kebabs, hamburgers, donuts, cheese, iron gates, macerated cherries, aardvarks, the car, the bicycle, diesel, the moon, beer, lager, tamagotchi, the letter 'a', the number 25, serrated saw blades, cantilever bridges, ice cream, hand lotion, galoshes, the ipod, bilateral symmetry, the dawn, goths, the parachute, that sizzling noise meat makes when you fry it, hats, gloves, left socks, altitudes over 1,773 feet, postmodernism, and geese.
Sauerkraut is way older then Germany. People have been fermenting food a long time.
Especially when you consider Germany as a country is not really that old
You forgot 'digging holes at beaches' and The Sound Of Music. For the rest you nailed it.
Made my day!
The bicycle was, in its present from, was invented by a Brit.
Gorilla Glass (the super strong glass used in most cell phone screens) was invented by East Germany after the war, before the wall fell.
Are you thinking of Superfest? Gorilla Glass is American and seems to predate Superfest.
The US Army. Given the history, you might expect it to based on either the French or British model, but no, they mostly took notes from Prussia.
You might also think it's a very top-down authoritarian model for a military, but also no. That notion mostly comes from the legacy of Nazis. Both before and after, the German model of the Army is one of the least top-down authoritarian militaries.
This contradicts Der Hauptmann von Kõpenick
Since folks have left me the easy ones, a fair number of things ending in "wurst," like Weißwurst.
Gelbwurst!
Gutenberg printing press
The Chinese invented movable type printing presses ~500 years before Gutenberg. The process was refined in Korea after that and made its way west. Gutenberg likely adapted and popularized the existing processes into the western industrialization movement.
That's why I specified the Gutenberg printing press, which is distinct from previous ones. I did not say they invented printing...
Touche
The Disk of Phaistos was printed with stamps (movable type) between 1850 B.C. and 1600 B.C. according to Yves Duhoux. Predating the Chinese by millennia.
Don't say that too loud, you shatter the western / white superiority complex. :<
Rockets
Wasn't that china?
China invented fireworks around 1k years ago, but Germany made the first one that went to space (the V2, the same one they used to bomb a bunch of places in WWII), and scientists from Germany helped to develop rockets a lot further after Operation Paperclip
Zyklon B, E605
V2 rockets
V1 rockets
V0 rockets
Automatic Transmission
The Haber process.
SAP (maudits allemands !)
Flammable "Fertilizer."
TV and TV propaganda
The Zweihänder and Aldi
Ps: I DuckDuckGo’ed this
Assault rifles
Nope. There where several "assault rifles" designed and built long before the StGew44 or the AK47 showed up.
The Italians even adopted one in the 1890s. But because Italian industry wasn't, let's just say not very capable at the time, only small numbers were produced. Even the Browning BAR, adopted in 1918, predates it and lasted far longer in service around the world.
If there is one thing the Germans did give to the world was the Reinheitsgebot in 1516. Because beer should only be made from water, barley, and hops. For that alone, they stand tallest in history.
Thanks for the interesting summary.
It really is true what they say. Post something wrong, and soon enough someone will correct you. Maybe you could even think of this as a clever way of crafting an effective question.
The underlying point of my answer is that there is very little new under the sun. Most everything we "enjoy" today, is merely an extension and improvement of an idea that someone had earlier. From assault rifles to television to space flight. We merely extend the path of those that walked it before.
I never have thought that the trope "If you want an answer to a question, post something wrong" was a good method. If you have a question about something, ask the question. The problem is, most people ask their questions in the wrong place. Don't ask a question about fixing your car in a hair salon. And don't ask about hair cuts in a mechanic shop.
Gummy Bears.
Nowadays we invent things by describing the thing in Chatgibidy instead.
Chatskibidi?
hamburger
Though named after Hamburg, it was an American invention.
ok, so uh i guess germany invented volkswagen
Printed circuit boards. Printing press. Graph theory. Theory of relativity. Homeopathy.
You could've really stopped at "relativity".
Yes but I felt the need to include the evil/misguided minority of Germans, and I managed to do it without referencing certain 20th century events.
Printing press as well as the linotype.
If a German invented the Xerox they would've had the hat trick.
well Einstein was swiss. If it's still a german invention then it depends how german the swiss are.
Zyklon B?
Walking around in general public in only Speedos.
the use of towels as a territorial marker
They draped one over the back of Poland that time.
Jet engines?
No I think the UK beat them by a few years but they had them in planes earlier.
everything that germany invented before google existed.
German ingenuity really fell off after they were done with the warmongering
Fanta?
The automobile - pronounce it out loud, you'll say it something like "ow-toe moh-beel", i.e. in a German accent. Because Germans invented cars.
The assault rifle. They invented the concept, a handful of prototypes without the relevant doctrine (or for the 1890s one, even a detachable magazine) is irrelevant. Fight me, @bluewing.
I think the otto & diesel cycles are a better claim than the automobile, given there are like 100 different competing "first automobiles" to chose from
The Wankel engine is also a German invention. Though you could argue it's an improved Otto cycle. Also the inventor is problematic to say the least.
Rigid (as in using a solid frame to keep shape instead of gas pressure) airships? Unless there's an earlier example of that than the ones Zeppelin made that I'm not thinking of
Diesel engine, Fischer-Tropsch, Homeopathy.
The blitzkrieg.
Brought to you by Pervitin.
They invented that too, BTW. Along with Heroin and MDMA.
facts
"I know a little German.. He's standing over there! "
The saxophone
Sorry, Adolphe Sax was from Belgium
The vacuum pump?
The woman that birthed Gutenberg
Rage
Leiderhosen
Fanta
Poodles
pretzels
that one really complicated way to turn bullets 180 degrees in a gun
(I know literally nothing but saw a meme on [email protected])
Frankfurters.
mp3
and then they patented it. the patents expired, but that doesn't make mp3 not suck
Volkswagen, puma, Adidas, aldi, lidl...
Those are brands, not inventions. However, Otto, Benz and Diesel were all Germans, so modern cars along with both common types of ICEs were invented by Germans.