5 Reasons to Hate: Germany

Coming into the World Cup, I had said that anything more than 3 points in the group stage would be a rousing success for the United States. But a last-second goal by Portugal that forced a draw left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Objectively, there is nothing to complain about if you can earn a draw against the #3 ranked team in the world. However, to be seconds away from advancing out of the Group of Death has left something to be desired. The Americans clearly belong at this stage and can actually win the group with a victory over Germany or advance with a draw. If the US loses, there are a variety of scenarios in play.

As always, recommended reading for actual legitimate previews of this game:

• Yanks are Coming
• Shin Guardian

If you want to know what to watch for in the match, read those articles. If you want some good reasons to hate Germany (if you don't already) here we go...

5. Nazis

My #5 reason in the Reasons to Hate Ghana and Reasons to Hate Portugal were both about local political history. But in breaking from tradition, that's not what I'm talking about here. Yes, what the National Socialist Party did during their stay of power in Germany was atrocious. That is without doubt.

What also sucks is the linguistic jargon that is now associated with the word "Nazi" or "Hitler." Someone doesn't agree with you're point of view? They're probably Hitler.

Obviously, this doesn't compare with the atrocities of what the actual Nazis did. But it's still a gigantic headache to have to listen to anyone and everyone being called a Nazi about something or other.

4. The Internet

3. Vowels, or Lack Thereof

Have you ever tried to actually read German words? It's nearly impossible. This is a civilization that never heard of vowels. There are words that have 7 or 8 consonants in a row. What even. Then there is their totally absurd way of naming everything.

Just taking some of their absurd animal names, we have the word for "slug" which features 7 consecutive consonants (cktschn) and the word for "turtle" which features the ridiculous sequence of "ldkr" which are letters that should never appear consecutively. If this is how they name animals in their language, how ridiculous are the names of their soccer players?

2. Martin Luther

Selective interpretation? Check. Selective Translation? Check. Ongoing misinformation campaign against the Catholic Church? Check check check.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. "The Church used to teach that the earth revolved around the sun." or "The Church used to think that the Earth was flat."

Well, as it turns out Martin Luther himself once said:

"There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must needs invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth." (Source)

And a simple Wikipedia search pretty much blows the Flat Earth myth out of the water.

Basically, rooting for Germany is rooting for inaccurate, revisionist history. If that's your cup of tea, well, why are you drinking tea in the first place? I'll go with the team that actually did things in history as opposed to just making them up.

1. Nazis

The actual ones. The ones whose faces melted in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Also the ones who were responsible for the Holocaust.

Plenty of reason to hate Germany.