...SIR JACKIE CHILES!!!!!!!!! No, seriously And the 'Best German' of All Time Is... Mon Dec 1, 9:11 AM ET Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Erik Kirschbaum BERLIN (Reuters) - The Cold War broke out in Germany again on Friday when the formerly communist east voted Karl Marx as the "best German" of all time in a television contest and the west picked post-war chancellor Konrad Adenauer. In an emotion-packed finale to the three month German television competition, a larger number of ballots cast in the more populous west carried the first West German leader Adenauer to the top overall ahead of Martin Luther, with Marx in third. Despite massive support for Marx in the formerly communist east and passion-filled arguments from backers, the co-author of the Communist Manifesto could not catch Adenauer, the patriarch who led West Germany out of the Nazi era and post-war gloom. The 3.3 million votes cast unintentionally exposed a deep rift between the rich west and poor east. Even 13 years after unity, wages and living standards are below western levels and many easterners harbor fond memories of the communist era. "I never would have dreamt that Karl Marx would make in into the top three of a united Germany," said his patron, a reform communist party (PDS) leader Gregor Gysi. "Marx is a man known around the world for seeking a freer and fairer society -- and some day in the future his vision will become reality," Gysi said. "In 10 years Marx will be voted second best German and some day after that he'll be number one." In the contest modeled on a British television show called "Great Britons" that selected war-time leader Winston Churchill, Germans cast votes for the 100 "best Germans" from 1,300 nominations. They were then whittled down to the top 10. While Marx won more than 40 percent of the vote in the five eastern German states, the 19th century communist philosopher got only about three percent in the west. Adenauer, who led West Germany into NATO (news - web sites) and a close alliance with the West, had very few votes in the east but dominated the west. "Adenauer put us on track for its happiest and most peaceful era in German history," said Adenauer's patron, historian Guido Knopp. "He led Germany out of the Nazi era into democracy." The PDS party had urged easterners to vote for Marx with a mass Internet campaign while Adenauer's conservative Christian Democrat party also did their own campaigning. "I thought Willy Brandt would get more votes in the east," said journalist Friedrich Nowotny, patron of the West German Chancellor famous for policies that relaxed Cold War tensions, who was fifth. "This shows the east is still closer to Marx." In a country long weighed down by guilt from World War II and wary of idolizing national heroes, the "best German" contest reflects a growing, if still modest, sense of German patriotism. Others in the top 10 included: Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans (4), Hitler resistance fighters executed by the Nazis; Johann Sebastian Bach (6), printing press inventor Johannes Gutenberg (8), 19th century chancellor Otto von Bismarck (9) and physicist Albert Einstein (10). http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=583&e=7&u=/nm/20031201/od_nm/germany_best_dc
"Best" German... if it means good, then there haven't been that many. "Most Influential" would be a much more interesting exercise.
Does anyone know this song by some punk band... "I wanna make love to Steffi Graf...like her father did a thousand times before"... Very tasteless. Anyway, there was a time when I thought that song was funny . F.D. Khan, those quotes were only from the East Germans and an extremist leftist party that practically only gets votes in the east (they are the successor to the formerly ruling communist party). By the way, there are many jokes about us West Germans wishing the wall was back up .
Still can't get over that quote...I mean...come on...they are not my personal favorites...but... Claudia Schiffer Heidi Klum
I would have said Claudia, without a doubt, was the best German ever but going out with David Copperfield as long as she did automatically disqualifies her. I didn't know that Heidi Klum was German, but that was a pleasant surprise. And even though she is my obvious choice, I am going to throw you people for a loop and say that the best German ever is the lead singer for Rammstein, whatever the hell his name is.
Dammit, I just remembered who the best German of all time is.... It is a tie between Florian Schneider and Ralf Hutter.
Well, I have another one for you: SmeggySmeg: That someone would ask this was not unexpected...but unnecessary...
