Germans told to stockpile food and water for civil defence

[pairatime]

For the first time since the Cold War the German government is advising citizens to stockpile food and water for use in a national emergency.

Comments

[fka]

a few friends of mine were planning to go to germany around the end of september but they canceled their bookings because they didn't feel safe going

[pairatime]

Why don't they feel safe? It's just as safe as any place in Europe to my knowledge.

[fka]

they think it's not a good idea to go since oktoberfest will draw a big crowd

[lied_ohne_worte]

Because going to Oktoberfest is the only thing a person could possibly do in Germany. /facepalm

I'm active on other sites, and currently there are almost daily posts from (usually) Americans who think that they can't travel to Germany any more because rape gangs and terrorists and refugees (who are of course all criminals) are roaming the street and killing/raping everyone they see. Meanwhile, all the Germans in that online space go "WTF are you on about" - especially if you compare crime rates in Germany and the US.

[pairatime]

Yeah you hear about stuff happening in Europe but you hear about stuff in the US too so, I'd love to travel to central Europe.

[lied_ohne_worte]

The thing is that on the whole nothing is happening here. The Munich shooting wasn't an IS attack, it was a bullied loner (every person he killed in fact had an immigrant background, and he was a racist), and that sort of thing happens a whole lot more in the US than it does here, which makes Americans giving it as a reason for not coming here so utterly bizarre. Then yes, there were a few smaller attacks, two of which had a terroristic background, but again the likelihood of that sort of thing happening to anyone is minuscule compared to, say, dying in a traffic accident.

A short time after the Munich attack, an old man in Berlin shot his doctor, and that made international news until they realised that oops, it wasn't a scary brown person. If German media started to report on every murder in the US or elsewhere, they wouldn't have room for anything else. Granted, they do report on some of the cases of American toddlers shooting themselves or others, as that sort of thing isn't something that happens here.

[pairatime]

yeah, every place have it's share of bad news (the US more then most) but it's rarely a reason to not travel.