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Germany’s
top model
Wie ist ein Land beschaffen, in dem die
Wirtschaft ständig boomt? Vicki Sussens
befasst sich mit dem deutschen Mittelstand
und gibt einige wichtige Aspekte aus Sicht
interkultureller Experten wieder.
T
he Pentagon has decided that
wars to spread freedom and
democracy have not benefited the US; they haven’t
even brought oil. So they
call in the one person who can save
America: film-maker Michael Moore.
Moore knows just what is needed: he
will invade Europe and return with a
better prize than oil: the continent’s
best ideas.
In his 2015 satirical film Where
to Invade N ext, Moore visits the
pencil maker Faber-Castell in Stein,
near Nuremberg. He is astound-
38 www.business-spotlight.de
advanced
ed that workers take lunch breaks,
clock out at exactly 4 p.m. and have
six weeks’ holiday a year. How can
the firm succeed, he asks AntonWolfgang von Faber-Castell (who
died in January 2016). The count
explains that employers benefit if
employees are looked after. Moore
triumphantly plants a US flag in the
canteen, saying he is going to steal
this idea for America.
In Where to Invade N ext, Moore
finds that Europe’s focus on values,
traditions and quality of life is “filled
with solutions for America”. The film
has been criticized for idealizing Europe, but Moore makes it clear that
he is looking for Europe’s “flowers”
not its “weeds”.
Faber-Castell, the maker of pencils and pens, is typical of Germany’s
Mittelstand, the small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) that are the4
astounded [E(staUndId]
clock out [)klQk (aUt]
count [kaUnt]
enterprise [(entEpraIz]
invade (a country) [In(veId]
Nuremberg [(njUErEmb§:g]
weed [wi:d]
sehr erstaunt
(sich) ausstempeln
Graf
Unternehmen
einmarschieren (in ein
Land)
Nürnberg
Unkraut
4/2016
picture-alliance/dpa
GERMANY INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Attention to detail:
German watchmaker