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Deutschland schaff' ich ab - Ein Kartoffelgericht
"Wo kommst du her?", fragt mich der Inhaber einer Burgerrestaurantkette, der am Tresen sitzt, während ich die Weingläser poliere. "Aus der Türkei", sage ich. "Wie lange braucht eine Türkin, um Müll rauszutragen?" Ich sage, ich wisse es nicht. "Neun Monate", antwortet er und lacht sich kaputt.
20 pages, Pamphlet
First published August 21, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 30, 2022
I went to Leipzig last week to visit my cousin. Whenever I travel to a foreign city I love to roam its bookstores. In Leipzig, my favorite address has always been the Connewitzer Verlagsbuchhandlung. It's an elegant store with a great selection of books. However, this time around we stumbled upon a different bookshop by chance, and what can I say? ROTORBOOKS in the Kolonnadenstraße has now become my new fave.
ROTORBOOKS is an independent bookshop that focuses on queer literature, leftist theory, books by authors of color and bringing its customers a wide variety of independently published books alongside your regular mainstream titles, authors and publishers. It's heaven!
There, I discovered these cute little booklets by SuKuLTuR, an independent publishing house. One of its staples are the "Schöner Lesen" and "Aufklärung und Kritik" series: these booklets in DIN A6 format usually contain between 16 and 24 pages and are sold at a price of two to four euros.
Two booklets caught my attention and I decided to bring them home with me. One of them was Sibel Schick's tweet series turned essay Deutschland schaff' ich ab. Ein Kartoffelgericht. For those who understand German it's probably clear why this booklet caught my attention: its title is impeccable and so darn funny. It's a provocative wordplay on Thilo Sarrazin's racist and eugenic book Deutschland schafft sich ab. And if there's one thing you have to know about Germans: they don't like to be referred to as "Kartoffeln" (=potatoes).
Sibel Schick wrote a series of tweets in 2019 about German culture, trying to illustrate why Germany has a problem with structural racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism etc. The tweets are supposed to be provocative, over the top, and ... revealingly insulting, maybe? Let's just say: Schick doesn't hold back. She didn't come to play, she came to punch Germans all across the face.
Personally, I don't mind a provocative tone or a good satire. And some parts of Schick's essays/ tweets really worked for me. However, if you want to shit on a/your/our culture, your observations need to be sound. I, as a mixed Black German girl, love shitting on my country. There's many things that go absolutely wrong here in Germany and deserve to be called out. Schick's observations, however, are often far-fetched, if I'm generous.
The first section of this booklet is about stinginess. And yes, Germans are hella stingy. When Schick writes that it is not uncommon for Germans to say that "you still owe me 2 euros", she is absolutely right. When she observes that in German bars and restaurants it is common to pay separately, that is the truth; even if you had a fun night out with your friends and ya'll ordered 20+ drinks, most Germans will make the waiter or waitress go through the painful ordeal of matching drinks to the person, and if it doesn't add up at the end, there will be a big discussion, because no one wants to pay for a drink they didn't drink.... it's a hot mess, honestly, and EMBARAZZINNG.
However, when she then goes on writing that it is common for German families to eat dinner while their child's playmate has to wait in another room and isn't offered food, she goes too far. In my 26 years of existing in Germany, I have never experienced, seen, or heard of such a thing. And Schick is so serious about it. There's no tone of sarcasm to be detected.
The second section is about humor and how many Germans confuse humor with insulting (marginalised) people and calling it freedom of speech.
In the third section, Schick claims that Germans have no access to their own emotions and feelings because we are still influenced by the NS-regime. Well, I dunno about that. Schick only write a mere DIN A6 page on a topic that probably warrants a dissertation... her "argumentation" felt really cheep and superficial. There's nothing to learn here.
The fourth section is called "hypocrisy" and in it, Schick surprisingly writes about abortions. These tweets were written in 2019 and I can't recall if there was a public discussion about abortions at the time but the topic is more relevant than ever in 2022, as we have just legalised for doctors and clinics to inform their patients about abortions etc. What rubs me the wrong way about this section is that Schick insinuates that Germans/"Almans" across the board are against abortions, but show their hypocrisy and ableism as the only exception they'll make is when the child wouldn't be able to be born able-bodied. And that's honestly a whole lot of bull. Traditionally, there are annual surveys about the acceptance of abortions in Germany and 88% of Germans agree that women should be able to make their own decisions about having an abortion, regardless of reasoning.
The fifth section is about garbage, and that Germans recycle them. Schick also writes about "garbage shaming" which was actually quite fun to read about. There are definitely some housing complexes where neighbors are "at war" with each other about petty things like how to sort your trash the right way, I've seen passiv-aggressive notes in the hallway in which neighbors are called out for their actions and people threaten to "call the police" if they observe that kind of behavior (like cluttering the hallway with strollers or furniture) ever again. Let's just say I'm lucky that all of my neighbors are hella chill, and all "Almans" at that.
The last section is about tolerance. Here, I agree with Schick's observations. Germans can be tolerant, however, it comes with a caveat: as a person who receives tolerance (e.g. marginalised people) you have (!) to show gratitude. If you don't you're out. Germans enjoy seeing themselves as generous benefactors. If you don't play into their ego they can show their true and much uglier colors.
So all in all, Schick's essay is OKAY. Some observations are false and twisting the truth in a way to make Germans look purposefully bad, but other observations are true and actually hella funny. So I'm not offended by this piece – as many Germans probably will be (reason for that is explained in the tolerance section) – but I also don't think that Schick invented the wheel here. It's just OKAY.
ROTORBOOKS is an independent bookshop that focuses on queer literature, leftist theory, books by authors of color and bringing its customers a wide variety of independently published books alongside your regular mainstream titles, authors and publishers. It's heaven!
There, I discovered these cute little booklets by SuKuLTuR, an independent publishing house. One of its staples are the "Schöner Lesen" and "Aufklärung und Kritik" series: these booklets in DIN A6 format usually contain between 16 and 24 pages and are sold at a price of two to four euros.
Two booklets caught my attention and I decided to bring them home with me. One of them was Sibel Schick's tweet series turned essay Deutschland schaff' ich ab. Ein Kartoffelgericht. For those who understand German it's probably clear why this booklet caught my attention: its title is impeccable and so darn funny. It's a provocative wordplay on Thilo Sarrazin's racist and eugenic book Deutschland schafft sich ab. And if there's one thing you have to know about Germans: they don't like to be referred to as "Kartoffeln" (=potatoes).
Sibel Schick wrote a series of tweets in 2019 about German culture, trying to illustrate why Germany has a problem with structural racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism etc. The tweets are supposed to be provocative, over the top, and ... revealingly insulting, maybe? Let's just say: Schick doesn't hold back. She didn't come to play, she came to punch Germans all across the face.
Personally, I don't mind a provocative tone or a good satire. And some parts of Schick's essays/ tweets really worked for me. However, if you want to shit on a/your/our culture, your observations need to be sound. I, as a mixed Black German girl, love shitting on my country. There's many things that go absolutely wrong here in Germany and deserve to be called out. Schick's observations, however, are often far-fetched, if I'm generous.
The first section of this booklet is about stinginess. And yes, Germans are hella stingy. When Schick writes that it is not uncommon for Germans to say that "you still owe me 2 euros", she is absolutely right. When she observes that in German bars and restaurants it is common to pay separately, that is the truth; even if you had a fun night out with your friends and ya'll ordered 20+ drinks, most Germans will make the waiter or waitress go through the painful ordeal of matching drinks to the person, and if it doesn't add up at the end, there will be a big discussion, because no one wants to pay for a drink they didn't drink.... it's a hot mess, honestly, and EMBARAZZINNG.
However, when she then goes on writing that it is common for German families to eat dinner while their child's playmate has to wait in another room and isn't offered food, she goes too far. In my 26 years of existing in Germany, I have never experienced, seen, or heard of such a thing. And Schick is so serious about it. There's no tone of sarcasm to be detected.
The second section is about humor and how many Germans confuse humor with insulting (marginalised) people and calling it freedom of speech.
"Wo kommst du her?", fragt mich der Inhaber einer Burgerrestaurantkette, der am Tresen sitzt, während ich die Weingläser poliere. "Aus der Türkei", sage ich. "Wie lange braucht eine Türkin, um Müll rauszutragen?" Ich sage, ich wisse es nicht. "Neun Monate", antwortet er und lacht sich kaputt.I have no qualms with this section. Her core message is true, even though I'd say that there has been a shift in recent years. Especially younger German people are much more aware of structural discriminations and that words, as well as actions, can hurt people. I know my view is probably biased because I grew up in Berlin and literally 36%+ of our city's population has some sort of "migration background", so I'm not surrounded by as many "Almans" (Germans who consider themselves to have no migration history in their family whatsoever...) as other people from different cities might be.
In the third section, Schick claims that Germans have no access to their own emotions and feelings because we are still influenced by the NS-regime. Well, I dunno about that. Schick only write a mere DIN A6 page on a topic that probably warrants a dissertation... her "argumentation" felt really cheep and superficial. There's nothing to learn here.
The fourth section is called "hypocrisy" and in it, Schick surprisingly writes about abortions. These tweets were written in 2019 and I can't recall if there was a public discussion about abortions at the time but the topic is more relevant than ever in 2022, as we have just legalised for doctors and clinics to inform their patients about abortions etc. What rubs me the wrong way about this section is that Schick insinuates that Germans/"Almans" across the board are against abortions, but show their hypocrisy and ableism as the only exception they'll make is when the child wouldn't be able to be born able-bodied. And that's honestly a whole lot of bull. Traditionally, there are annual surveys about the acceptance of abortions in Germany and 88% of Germans agree that women should be able to make their own decisions about having an abortion, regardless of reasoning.
The fifth section is about garbage, and that Germans recycle them. Schick also writes about "garbage shaming" which was actually quite fun to read about. There are definitely some housing complexes where neighbors are "at war" with each other about petty things like how to sort your trash the right way, I've seen passiv-aggressive notes in the hallway in which neighbors are called out for their actions and people threaten to "call the police" if they observe that kind of behavior (like cluttering the hallway with strollers or furniture) ever again. Let's just say I'm lucky that all of my neighbors are hella chill, and all "Almans" at that.
The last section is about tolerance. Here, I agree with Schick's observations. Germans can be tolerant, however, it comes with a caveat: as a person who receives tolerance (e.g. marginalised people) you have (!) to show gratitude. If you don't you're out. Germans enjoy seeing themselves as generous benefactors. If you don't play into their ego they can show their true and much uglier colors.
So all in all, Schick's essay is OKAY. Some observations are false and twisting the truth in a way to make Germans look purposefully bad, but other observations are true and actually hella funny. So I'm not offended by this piece – as many Germans probably will be (reason for that is explained in the tolerance section) – but I also don't think that Schick invented the wheel here. It's just OKAY.
August 4, 2020
Ich werde dieses Heft auf unser Klo stellen. Nicht, weil es gar in eine zeitweise stinkende Betonschachtel gehörte, sondern weil ich will, dass der Blick derer, die ihren Hintern auf meine Klobrille setzen, über dieses Cover schweift, sie am "Kartoffelgericht" hängen bleiben, sich vielleicht ärgern, oder schmunzeln und nach diesem Buch greifen und anfangen, es zu lesen, sie am selben Abend übertrieben häufig aufs Klo gehen, um in jedem Fall noch das nächste Kapitel gelesen zu haben, und das wiederum nächste, und auch das darauf, bis sie mit leeren Darm und vollem Kopf den Buchrücken zuklappen.
January 6, 2022
Habs im Zug gelesen, während ich mich über Serienguckende Frauen im Ruhebereich aufgeregt habe und muss mein Alman-Level jetzt noch mal überdenken. o.o
June 21, 2020
Ich bin auch ein Migrantenkind und der Text ging echt ins Herz 😅 leider ist er sehr kurz, aber Frau Schick hat auch einen Podcast!
May 4, 2025
Freue mich jetzt schon weitere längere Texte von Sibel Schick zu lesen. Fühle mich nh bisschen ertappt und werde mein Alman Dasein weiter hinterfragen
October 3, 2019
Sibel Schick sinniert in Deutschland schaff' ich ab - Ein Kartoffelgericht über das typisch Deutsche. In rund 20 Seiten befasst sie sich mit einigen Themen, die zum Nachdenken anregen. Es ist in der Tat wenig Text, aber ziemlich auf den Punkt gebracht. Dennoch hätte ich mir noch mehr Text gewünscht, denn die Ausführungen der Autorin sind angenehm lesbar, leicht ironisch, aber doch so wahr, und damit äußerst interessant.
January 6, 2021
ich liebe es wenn leute gut schreiben, und sibel schick schreibt gewitzt, affrontativ und dennoch ganz bei sich und dem thema. die textstruktur (gliederung in unterschiedliche unterpunkte), und die wortwahl unterstreichen noch das kurze essay. sehr empfehlenswert, und eigentlich auch schin ein must-read!
December 29, 2022
*1,75
Einige witzige Schilderungen (Mülltrennung in Deutschland..). Leider beteiligt sich Sibel Schick nur anhand von Verallgemeinerungen und Klischees zu 'Almans' an der (wichtigen!) deutschen Rassismusdebatte.
Einige witzige Schilderungen (Mülltrennung in Deutschland..). Leider beteiligt sich Sibel Schick nur anhand von Verallgemeinerungen und Klischees zu 'Almans' an der (wichtigen!) deutschen Rassismusdebatte.
May 12, 2025
In diesem Text, der auf 2019 veröffentlichten Tweets basiert, schreibt Sibel Schick spitz und scharfzüngig über die Widersprüchlichkeiten von Almans ('Deutsche, die angeblich keine Zuwanderungsgeschichte haben'). Wunderbar unterhaltsam mit anklagendem Kern.
January 19, 2022
Sibel Schick ist wahrscheinlich der Zeit die beste Journalistin und Schriftstellerin die gerade in Deutschland und auf Deutsch veröffentlicht.
October 24, 2021
Auf 19 Seiten karikiert Sibel Schick Almans auf sehr gekonnte, lustige und auch frustrierende Art und Weise. Sie spricht die Themen Geiz, Humor, Zugang zu Gefühlen, Scheinheiligkeit, Müll und Toleranz an und zeigt anhand dieser Beispiele auf, wie engstirnig, selbstbezogen und diskriminierend sich einige Deutsche verhalten. Natürlich betrifft das nicht alle Deutsche, auch nicht alle Deutsche, die (in mehreren Generationen) keine Zuwanderungsgeschichte haben. Dennoch steckt ein ziemlich fetter wahrer Kern in den Erzählungen, die aus einer Tweetreihe 2019 entstanden sind. Beispiel Geiz: ich hatte damals in der Grundschule tatsächlich eine Freundin, bei der ich nicht Mittagessen durfte - wenn ihre Familie aß, musste ich im Kinderzimmer warten - "Ist nicht genug für alle da".
Eine sehr unterhaltsame Lektüre, die oft zum Lachen ist, gleichzeitig aber auch aufzeigt, wie gefährlich das Wertekonstrukt einiger Deutsche ist.
Eine sehr unterhaltsame Lektüre, die oft zum Lachen ist, gleichzeitig aber auch aufzeigt, wie gefährlich das Wertekonstrukt einiger Deutsche ist.
March 17, 2022
Sibel Schick hat hier kurz, prägnant und mit Humor vieles auf den Punkt gebracht.
December 9, 2019
Zum Nachdenken anregen? Frau Schick gibt hier eine Ansammlung an Klischées über "Almans", Deutsche ohne Migrationshintergrund, zum Besten. Bei allen Schwierigkeiten, denen Migrantenkinder ausgesetzt sein mögen, das rechtfertigt nicht einen solchen gruppenbezogenen Menschenhass in gedruckte und publizierte Worte zu gießen. Frau Schick hat sich damit auf auf dasselbe Niveau begeben wie Ausländerfeinde und Rassisten.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews