German states don't have uplifting, funny or otherwise quotable state mottos. Every now and then, we mourn this absence of comedy material.
The southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg would probably use Home of the Automobile to celebrate Mercedes Benz. From a cultural perspective, we'd suggest something like We Sweep the Common Areas, much older than autos and a reference to the mandatory, rotating duty of renters to sweep and mop common areas in rental buildings.
It is a fiercely enforced tradition, only mitigated for rich renters by the fact that they will hire cheap immigrants to do the job for them.
The neighboring state of Bavaria, home of the Disney inspired Neuschwanstein castle and the Octoberfest, might have gone with Give me Beer or Give me Death.
Some Bavarians love to see their state as the Texas of Germany, but we never mention that this may not be a compliment. Just recently, their state government put up a grand new web site called Welcome dahoam (Welcome home), featuring the castle on its home page.
The page Future showcases old and new inventions, presenting Bavaria as an innovative state that welcomes bright minds. Hey, they even have a pair of Jeans on the page and proudly mention the inventor as Levi Strauss, born in Bavaria.
The page does not mention that Levi hightailed it out of Bavaria as soon as he could, becoming famous elsewhere.
This sums up the official Bavaria better than the web site designers intended.
In recent years, Bavaria has turned out to be less of the laid back, interesting mix of high tech and rural life and have become more of Germany's NIMBY state.
When hundreds of miles of new high voltage power lines were being planned to take power from northern states that produced it to the industrial south, Bavaria wanted nothing of it. They need lots of power, but they wanted the lines to be re-routed through the neighboring state, creating a detour.
Their latest NIMBY venture relates to nuclear power waste. Bavaria embraced civil nuclear power early and happily shipped processed waste to an intermediate storage facility in the north. With the first storage facility flooded and the temporary one closed down, Germany needs a new long term facility. So, the federal government said, we'll store new waste containers at nuclear facilities in several states, one of which was to be Bavaria.
Oh, the outcry from the state government! We don't want no nuclear waste!
But you have been running plants for half a century and not been asked to store any waste!
So, if German states decide to come up with crafty mottoes, we will be the first to suggest one for Bavaria.
Germany's NIMBY state
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