• Blackout
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      3129 days ago

      And German chocolate cake from Deutschschokoladenkuchen

      • NielsBohron
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        1829 days ago

        Fun fact: German Chocolate Cake is actually from Texas. Either the cocoa company or the baker (I can’t remember which) was named “German” and I think the original name was “German’s chocolate cake”

        • @[email protected]
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          629 days ago

          It’s also just a super German state from an immigration perspective. At the time, the Mexicans were very upset by all of the Europeans jumping the borders and taking work they didn’t particularly want anyway.

          • @TexasDrunk
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            1329 days ago

            A lot of folks don’t realize that. We have cities like Fredericksburg and New Braunfels and events like Wurstfest and water parks like Schlitterbahn. We have Shiner Bock and Ziegenbock beer.

            There’s a lot of German heritage running around here.

            • faust
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              328 days ago

              Pretty heavily found in parts of Michigan and Ohio, too.

        • MacN'Cheezus
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          227 days ago

          Correct, the credit for that goes to Texas – the use of Coconut and Pecans should have given it away, those were very ingredients rare in Germany (still kinda are to this day).

          The first known instance of this recipe comes from a lady from Dallas, who named it after the brand of chocolate she was using to make it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_chocolate_cake

    • @jaybone
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      128 days ago

      Wasn’t the hamburger invented in the US? There they had Frikadellen, which are arguably much better.

      • @SlopppyEngineer
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        328 days ago

        As far as the story goes, the meat-in-a-bun concept was taken by sailors from Hamburg to the USA, where it was tweaked for local preferences and then called a hamburger. So the Germans invented it, USA marketed it.

        • @StaticFalconar
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          128 days ago

          When you go back further it was the romans that brought that concept to Germany. Romans invented it, Germany tweaked it, and USA went further with it.

        • Victor
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          28 days ago

          So they

          1. Applied previous knowledge
          2. Created something observed to be new
          3. Named it

          And that doesn’t count? What’s the definition of inventing something? If I create a new flavor of bread, does it not count because flour was already invented?

  • Diplomjodler
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    3529 days ago

    Name something the Germans didn’t invent.

  • @MehBlah
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    3229 days ago

    Schadenfreude. I mean they probably didn’t invent the feeling but I can give them credit for it along with the word.

        • @idiomaddict
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          29 days ago

          Or homesickness. Fernweh, on the other hand, only exists (somewhat) in English in idioms, afaik: itchy feet

            • @samus12345
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              229 days ago

              Why aren’t they called “homelust” or “wandersickness?”

                • @[email protected]
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                  129 days ago

                  It is also an older way to express a longing of the heart for something, in this case home / unknown places respectively.

              • @idiomaddict
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                228 days ago

                The English “wanderlust” comes from the German Wanderlust more recently (1902). In German, Lust is related to the English “lust,” but it’s got less of a sensual connotation. “Homesickness” also comes from German (1798), but it was translated into English.

        • @BatrickPateman
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          328 days ago

          Any word in Welsh is a weird way to spell a word.

      • @MehBlah
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        128 days ago

        Its more than a feeling.

    • massive_bereavement
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      3529 days ago

      Not the computer, but the first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer (which would be a stage in computer hardware.)

      It would be Babbage’s machine as mechanical computers precede digital ones and only if we only allow nonspecific turing complete machines.

      • @[email protected]
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        2229 days ago

        It was the first programmable, fully automatic, digital, turing-complete computer (although they only found out the last part after Zuse died).
        So I’d argue, it was the first computer in the sense we understand and use the word today.

    • NielsBohron
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      29 days ago

      Don’t get me started on the Haber process. My students will tell you that I can and will go on for half an hour about how it prolonged WW1 and is one of the first commercial processes to make use of Le Chateliers principle.

      Also, probably best not to spend too much time idolizing Fritz Haber, as I’m pretty certain he went on to become a staunch supporter of Hitler. edit: I mixed up Haber with someone else, but his research was foundational in developing many German chemical weapons, including Zyklon B

      Edit 2: probably Richard Kuhn who fell into line and fired Jewish coworkers at the direction of the Nazis or Herman Kolbe who was an outspoken German nationalist and anti-Semite. I use all three of them as examples of prominent scientists behaving badly in my O-Chem course.

      Really a fascinating bit of science history

      • @[email protected]
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        229 days ago

        I recall that one of the men ended up shooting themselves or their wives did or something along those lines. It was the one that did his best to kill as many people with chemical weapons as he could.

      • @ChickenLadyLovesLife
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        129 days ago

        I’m pretty certain he went on to become a staunch supporter of Hitler

        The exact opposite is true.

        • NielsBohron
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          I must have been remembering that his research between the World Wars lead to the development of Zyklon B muddled that up with some other chemist (maybe Otto Ambros?). I’ll see if I can find my source.

          Edit: probably Richard Kuhn who fell into line and fired Jewish coworkers at the direction of the Nazis or Herman Kolbe who was an outspoken German nationalist and anti-Semite. I use all three of them as examples of prominent scientists behaving badly in my O-Chem course.

          • @DaBPunkt
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            228 days ago

            Zyklon B was not developed for killing people. The most common usage was for killing lice in clothes. (To make it very clear: It was also used for killing people in Vernichtungslagern).

            • NielsBohron
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              28 days ago

              Zyklon B might not have been developed as a chemical weapon, but Haber was instrumental in developing and advocating for the use of chemical weapons explicitly on humans for Germany and Spain both during and after WWI (source)

  • @Jesus_666
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    2829 days ago

    Health insurance. Little known fact but it was actually invented not just before Google but before the entire internet.

    • @Frostbeard
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      529 days ago

      They also invented diesel fuel. Is the Wankel engine used anywhere now?

        • @Frostbeard
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          128 days ago

          Well. You have the pleasure of making a diese engine get to 20k rpm for no reason whatsoever :)

      • @[email protected]
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        428 days ago

        There’s some aviation and boating uses. Air pollution regulations have killed it for almost any automotive use.

    • Victor
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      228 days ago

      In fact, I’ve got a Wankel engine in my pants right now.

  • @WhatDoWeHaveEre
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    2529 days ago

    Hard to say. There are soo many Germans, who knows what they’ve googled!

  • Queen HawlSera
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    2329 days ago

    Those cool windows that Americans mistake for broken. I’m American and I want those windows… also a bidet.

    • @[email protected]
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      1129 days ago

      Relatedly: the pension. (Before implementing the state pension, Bismarck probably saw nightmares that involved red and black banners.)

    • @merari42
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      1528 days ago

      The car, the bicycle and Spaghetti icecream are the three most notable inventions from Mannheim Germany.

  • @ikidd
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    1829 days ago

    Modern physics.

    • @[email protected]
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      529 days ago

      Kindergarten is even a German word would translate to Kinder= Kids Garten= Yard? So Kidsyard… Was funny for me as a German to learn that it actually is named Kindergarten in English…