Final Report

This semester I had a great time in this class. Literally speaking, we covered more than I expected. We not only talked about the positive side of Germany but also the negative side. I like the movies recommended. Through those media, we could learn about what happened in the 70s and 80s without losing interest. The RAF was the part that impressed me most. Also through some research, I learned what happened during that time. Maybe this is a personal reflection, but I am just not a big fan of geography and politics. The war and history part is what I like most. And through watching movies, I think we could learn that most effectively. In this class we got touched on the WWII and terrorism in Germany. The terrorism in Germany was totally new for me. I did not know that much about the RAF in Germany before, only heard little about them. So, with the digging after class, I learned much about RAF. The RAF was formed under a police society circumstance. Those generation lived with knowing Nazi so that they knew what would happen if nobody standing out and speaking out. We once had a debate about the violent resistance or not. I chose the violent side, that was partially affected by the movie. The terrorism was absolutely wrong but their will to build a better world through their fight was right. What they did at first was good, just burning a department store without killing anyone. That kind of action could remind others but relatively safe. I never think putting problem above a table and negotiate would work for a national or social conflict. If speech would work, then why do they bother using violence?
The stuff about Germany happened in 19th century and 18th century was attractive but the materials seemed to be insufficient. I like the famous people part, this looks like a biography, and that worked out very well. The stories are always more appeal to me than just reading materials.
The discussion about Berlin Wall was very fun. I did not know the west and east people treat it so differently, like two extremes. Before the wall was pushed down, people there lived in two ways. The west lived in capitalism while the east lived in communist. Once they united together, the capitalism swept the east. Millions of people lost their jobs, and that was shown in the movie Goodbye Lenin
The last part about food was not that attractive, I think if we could make the food for extra credits and share in class maybe people would not lose interest and patience for the last meeting. For me, I like delicious food very much, but just doing research without tasting them, it seems like lack persuasion.