What are some hero's and villians?

Question

Hi, from New York City. I'm doing a project on Germany. I can think of only Hitler, but would rather avoid him because its too obvious.

Thank you

Answer 1

A hero that comes to mind is Friedrich von Steuben. He drilled American troops during the Revolutionary War and became a trusted ally to the Colonists.

Answer 2

Concentrating on the 20th century, Claus von Stauffenberg, the leading head of the assasination try on Hitler got a good press. If you want to avoid this n**i-topic too, you could mention some "heroes" from science or sports. Helmut Rahn, the player who scored the deciding goal in the soccer world championship 1954 for West Germany might be a good excample. Siegmund Jähn, an East German cosmonaut, who was the first German to be in space might be good as well. Or maybe Michael Schumacher, a very sucessful formula 1 motorsports driver of the past years.

Or, to take a political issue again, maybe you might take Willy Brandt, the fourth chancellor of the FRG, who was honored for his politics with the Nobel Prize for peace.

If you want to go some centuries further back, poets like Goethe or Schiller shouldn't be too wrong.

About the bad guys: Maybe you could concetrate on the time of the divided country again, as it offers some nice opportunities. Depending on your ideological possition, you could either blame people like Walter Ulbricht (first general secretary of Eastern Germany and quite restrictive leader), Erich Mielke (leader of the GDR secret service for many years) and so on, or like Franz Josef Strauß (very conservative, communist-hating bavarian politician), Hans Filbinger (Ex-n**i-judge and minister-president of Baden Würtemberg for some decades), etc.

German World War 1-generals, especially Erich Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg (who became president of the Weimar Republic later) make some "good" villians too.

But, honestly, it's not like "heroes" hadn't some dark sides too, or "villians" had no good attitudes at all, so I'm not sure, if painting black and white is the right way...

Answer 3

only history makes heroes and villians and all of them have their own history.

Heroes are for shure all the people from former east Germany who in a peacefull way demonstrated until the wall came down.

everybody has his own opinion about the good and the bad.

All n***s are of cause the villians from todays view.

Also those who started the 1.WW, our emp.Kaiser Willhelm II and his generals.

we have Martin Luther who translated the Bible so that everybody can understand it and he broke up with the catholics/pope.

Answer 4

Here is a list of heroes, not all of them are from Germany.

http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/

Here is a list of villains.

http://www.auschwitz.dk/

Cheers

Answer 5

Bismarck, chancellor of Germany from 1871 to more or less the end of that century

Adenauer, first chancellor of the after-war Germany

Heuss, first president of the after-war Germany

The "white Rose Group", Munich students fighting against Hitler

Stauffenberg, who tried to kill Hitler in 1944

The people of Leipzig, which in 1989 started with their demonstrations the fall of the Berlin Wall and the iron curtain between East- and Westgermany

Only some suggestions

Answer 6

I'd definately consider Albert Einstein a hero. Or Dirk Nowitzki (basketball player in the NBA)

Villians.. well, the majority of our politicians could be considered that ;-)  The typical WW II junks that were already named, can't think of anybody else right now

Answer 7

Hero..Schindler,Rommel,von Falkenhausen,von Ribbentrop

Villans:n***s

Answer 8

You know, the many thousand people who demonstrated in cities like Leipzig and Dresden to make the wall come down: Those were heros. Thousands, many thousands of them. I admire them. But they took to a logical conclusion: If we're enough, you can't arrest, you can't shoot us all. You should have seen that! I was in Germany winter 1989/1990; it was fantastic!

Thinking about that, it's hard for me to think of villains. I have some criticism about our current government as to data and pricavy protection; but maybe the people who started and supported the Kosovo war were villains. Because that was the first time the German constitution was broken without legal rule, as our constitution states that our army is for defense of our country only. (Try and find the video "It started with a lie" somewhere; it's been deleted from Google Video.)