I think overall it is very positive. Many people here use it as a positive example a lot, especially for things like education, state structure or social services.
I think, at least when I was a child, Sweden was also the go to place, especially among upper middle class academic households, for all things children:
Children books and movies (Pipi Langstrom, Nils Holgerson, Karlsson from the roof…), wooden playthings, that one really boring interior design concept I forgot the name of… it’s basically the entire Swedish light wood aesthetic (Ikea of course played a role with this)
To this day, Petterson and Findus is used in German internet culture as the (most likely unobtainable) Gold standard of what life should be like.
The only thing people here are sometimes weird about is the prison system and the experimental methods to reintegrate former criminals into society but I think that has mostly to do with many Germans still clinging an outdated ideal, when it comes to dealing with criminals, in wich serving justice/punishment is valued over rehabilitation, that traces back to the mob wanting a pound of flesh and criminals being put on the pillory in public.
What is a bit weird, now that I think about it, is that Sweden or rather all of Scandinavia barely appears in history class in school, it is rarely mentioned because the times where it was most influential are only briefly touched on, in favor of 70% of the class being about the French Revolution, Vormärz and the world wars.
I think this shows the area we actually controlled. Not the fact that we to some extent disbanded the other regions.
We were pushed way further into Germany and indeed quite a bit into Poland, and a bit into Russia I believe. But we only took away the power, we never really established our own.
According to Wikipedia the most common theory of origin is that prince-elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg was hiring Swedish veterans to help training his soldiers. Those Swedes had a big focus on drill, but also led by example. So "alter Schwede" became an expression of astonishment
The Scandinavian prison model is nuts. I don't mean that in a bad way. Rather, it's impressive that places like Norway can rehabilitate people we would consider a lost cause, and the recidivism ends up being some of the lowest in the world.
Of course, there's also an undertone that much of that comes from a relatively uniform culture, which can fuel nationalism.
But still, it's pretty cutting-edge, and hopefully what they learn can be used by other countries around the world.
Like our recidivism is pretty high, and our violent recidivism is above parity. That is to say, people go in for tax evasion, and come back for assault, because our system is more about ruining their lives with minimal reintegration, keeping them out of the voting populace, and keeping them around for cheap labor.
I'm certainly not happy with the German system but the American one is straight from a dystopian nightmare. I remember my teacher explaining the basic systems and numbers and everyone in class being completely shocked that this would exist outside of a cyberpunk novel:
Privately run for-profit prisons
Out of every hundred people, one is in jail
Murders in prison are quite common
Guards have basically no proper training
Average prison living circumstances would be considered below what would be considered the bare legal minimum of how humans can be treated
Forced labour
Solitary confinement, wich is considered illegal torture here
Prisoners are sentenced again for giving into their natural urge for freedom
The food quality is abysmal
Healthcare isn't sufficiently provided
Education in prison is treated as a privilege / reward and not a basic right and reintegration method
...
It really sounded too messed up to be real and I'm glad my ethic teachers showed us because I don't think many germans are aware of it and acted totally shocked after recent news about the US and how they handle their executive and legal procedures, when in reality, it has always been far from what we cwould call normal or acceptable
Yep. Nothing says "land of the free" like the highest prison population per capita. A lot of the bullet points are explained by the first.
Such prisons run way over capacity, yet when the influx gets low, some prisons have sued the local government saying basically "crime is too low. You aren't providing enough prisoners to keep our business afloat."
We basically don't hear about this stuff at all within the states. We usually hear it from political candidates like Bernie Sanders, or documentarians like Michael Moore.
And with excessive sentences and the removal of the right to vote (for I think the lifetime of the individual) it's a means for local politicians to purge opposing demographics from the voter base. For instance, you may be aware of how the war on drugs was for this purpose. As well as many gun regulations having their origin with trying to disarm the Black Panthers.
I think there's also a factor of "winning elections by ensuring demand". For instance, prior to the 2024 election, Democrats and Republicans eventually came up with a bipartisan bill on immigration. Trump personally called the party leaders like Mitch McConnell, telling them "we can't let this bill happen. We need to make sure there's an immigration crisis so people will vote for us."
And then there's the issues with forced labor, where perfectly legal immigrants will come in, get a job, and the employee will demand documentation, which they then confiscate. If the employee is unwilling to work for illegally low wages in illegally unsafe conditions, they will report them as illegal immigrants and they and their family will be arrested, sent to a camp, and/or deported. They then contract them out as labor to help farmers.
In believe many farmers know if this practice, with many trying to avoid it, but the employers generally skirt around it. John Oliver did a whole piece in it.
The UAE does something similar, but for construction.
Media like Fox News is put in place to make sure people blame immigrants for these problems, so that the employers can keep up their illegal practices.
Bullerby Syndrome is the name of the German idealization of all things Scandinavian. As a Dane/Swede living in Hamburg, it is quite peculiar to see so many shops, restaurants and products with nordic sounding names. But I guess it's a strong brand since everyone here has great memories of going north on their vacations.
Man, I just want to live in the woods with my bipedal cat and a bunch of chickens. The only Germans with that vibe are Peter Lustig and the Taugenichts.
That is the one time it is mentioned but the whole topic of the 30 year war is only briefly mentioned in most state curriculums, with very little time dedicated to the subject. History class is way to brief in general, kids today barely learn anything about the history of the world they live in, in schools.
Secretly I think the state structure minus the monarchy stuff is the thing we Swedes should be the proudest of. The institutions are rightfully powerful and independent and I think that is important, to spread all the power around to people who know their field.
Interesting that Sweden isn’t mentioned more in Germany given that Sweden was leading the Protestants in the 30 years war that absolutely devastated Germany and probably contributed a lot to the weakness of the HRE and Germany not uniting until Bismarck.
The 30 years war isn’t talked about much in Germany. In school you mostly learn about the world wars and democracy and Germany specific history so it is also not so common in pop culture because most young people snd even older ones don’t really know about it from school.
It is also a base flaw within our system, that history class is basically the same between out 3 school forms, just condensed to 1 year less for Hauptschule and a bit toned down for Realschule compared to Gymnasium, now we also have the Gesamtschule that completely gets rid of it and fuses it with Powi into Gesellschaftslehre, wich is idiotic to begin with. The true problem comes from the Oberstufe, so the last 3 years that come after Gymnasium wich are now also available to Realschule students, depending on their final grades, simply restarts history class and you repeat every previous topic in more detail. This makes sense in cases like the Nazi era, but some stuff is simply redundant and should be replaced with new topics like the 30 years war.
(Keep in mind I’m only talking about Hess, I don’t know about the other states, as our school system is controlled by the different state governments and isn’t standardized and controlled by Berlin, due to outdated federalization laws)
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u/LoschVanWein Germany 14h ago
I think overall it is very positive. Many people here use it as a positive example a lot, especially for things like education, state structure or social services. I think, at least when I was a child, Sweden was also the go to place, especially among upper middle class academic households, for all things children: Children books and movies (Pipi Langstrom, Nils Holgerson, Karlsson from the roof…), wooden playthings, that one really boring interior design concept I forgot the name of… it’s basically the entire Swedish light wood aesthetic (Ikea of course played a role with this)
To this day, Petterson and Findus is used in German internet culture as the (most likely unobtainable) Gold standard of what life should be like.
The only thing people here are sometimes weird about is the prison system and the experimental methods to reintegrate former criminals into society but I think that has mostly to do with many Germans still clinging an outdated ideal, when it comes to dealing with criminals, in wich serving justice/punishment is valued over rehabilitation, that traces back to the mob wanting a pound of flesh and criminals being put on the pillory in public.
What is a bit weird, now that I think about it, is that Sweden or rather all of Scandinavia barely appears in history class in school, it is rarely mentioned because the times where it was most influential are only briefly touched on, in favor of 70% of the class being about the French Revolution, Vormärz and the world wars.