photo: vario images

Over the weekend your correspondent picked up a German language paperback at a bookstore in Berlin and thumbed through it. The book was called Deutschland-Quiz ("Alles, was Sie über dieses Land wissen sollten und nie zu fragen wagten") and seemed pretty darn interesting. It's comprised of a series of whimsical questions (about 66) dealing with Germany and duly answered in an off-handedly ironic and clearly well-researched manner. Little did I know I was reading a book written in German by an American.

Eric T. Hansen, according to the book sleeve bio, grew up in Hawaii, studied medieval Europe and European culture, came to Germany in 1987 as a Mormon missionary (!), studied in Munich, left the Mormon church at some point and came to Berlin where he currently works as a journalist. He's been living in Deutschland for 20-odd years and by god his German is pretty damn good. Book-writing good, that's how good it is.

Back to the book. One of the questions Hansen asks is "Who is responsible for the Made in Germany tag on German exports?" His findings are quite contrary to expectation. What is today considered a mark of craftmanship and perfection was in the late 1800s a label slapped on by the British to warn consumers about the shoddy, mass-produced materials that were coming from Germany. One E. E. Williams published in 1896 a book called "Made in Germany" that shocked and alarmed its readers with tales of a plot to overrun British consumers with cheap, knock-off products churned out by German factories. After the label was fixed on German products to the UK, the rest of the world followed suite. In the meantime, Germany actually started making quality products and the mark of shame in time became a mark of honour.

Mr. Hansen has a rather sprawling online presence including personal websites in English and German, a photo blog from his neighbourhood in Schöneberg "My Pretty Mountain", a wry language blog "Englisch für Deutsche", a number of podcasts (in German) and, why the hell not, yet another blog (in English) named after his previous book, Planet Germany. He's a busy guy.