Masks in public transportation - still
This was basically a post-COVID travel log, but since it is all about Germany and of little general interest, I shortened it to an update and moved most into this thread, though the quote and the beginning is basically the same.
Interesting this crackdown is Hamburg which is (was?) a fun-loving place where the Beatles honed their chops.
Last week, I tried to go through Hamburg again, and it was different. When I was on the bus, Flixbus, we were told by the drivers that we were about to enter Germany and all had to wear masks, as they were mandatory in public transportation. Okay, I dug out the FPP2 mask and put it on. The first Germans we met on the border were the border police that entered the bus, all duly masked, but the drivers had not put on theirs...!?
The border guards did not make an issue, and the bus continued with the drivers showing the way. By the time we came to Hamburg, all had dropped the masks and on the station, there were also few signs of masks, though it was in the evening. Three hours later, I entered a bus driven by two Italian Italians, meaning they only spoke Italian. They clearly had no mask issues, but they pushed around with the passengers, so they had the first four seats on the right side to their luggage and to the maximum laid back seats, suitable for their sleep between turns. With this bus, we went through the whole of Germany during the night and entered Switzerland in the morning.
On the Swiss border, several people were taken out for questioning regarding papers, first three and then two more. Two of the five did not return.
A few days later, I had to go from Zürich to Munich, also by bus. On the way in, there was a sign in the bus coming on every two minutes saying that one needed to wear a mask in Germany. Nobody bothered, and surely not the drive, that spoke German with some Slavic accent.
Once in Munich, the tune was different. It was impossible to enter the next bus without a mask. One person had none and was asked to stand aside. Later he entered with a mask, but where he got it from I don't know. The only leniency was that even if FPP2 type masks were required, the standard surgical masks were also tolerated. Another variation, beside the well known but now not often used "below the nose", was demonstrated by a woman who somehow could keep the mask on the face even if the mask was unhooked on the right ear. I'm sure one could do a study that would show how masks stick better to some ears and some noses.
Talking with other Germans, the impression is that the mask drive has been stronger in
Bavaria. Why that is so is not clear. Is it because a state like
Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg are closer to countries that are easy on masks and COVID measures? Or is there a historic aspect? The Wiki on the history of the
Nazi Party shows it was at least initially stronger in the South.
In the 1920s, the Nazi Party expanded beyond its Bavarian base. Catholic Bavaria maintained its right-wing nostalgia for a Catholic monarch;[
citation needed] and
Westphalia, along with working-class "Red Berlin", were always the Nazis' weakest areas electorally, even during the Third Reich itself. The areas of strongest Nazi support were in rural Protestant areas such as
Schleswig-Holstein,
Mecklenburg,
Pomerania and
East Prussia. Depressed working-class areas such as
Thuringia also produced a strong Nazi vote, while the workers of the
Ruhr and
Hamburg largely remained loyal to the
Social Democrats, the
Communist Party of Germany or the Catholic
Centre Party. Nuremberg remained a Nazi Party stronghold, and the first
Nuremberg Rally was held there in 1927. These rallies soon became massive displays of Nazi paramilitary power and attracted many recruits. The Nazis' strongest appeal was to the lower middle-classes—farmers, public servants, teachers and small businessmen—who had suffered most from the inflation of the 1920s, so who feared Bolshevism more than anything else. The small business class was receptive to Hitler's antisemitism, since it blamed Jewish big business for its economic problems. University students, disappointed at being too young to have served in the War of 1914–1918 and attracted by the Nazis' radical rhetoric, also became a strong Nazi constituency. By 1929, the party had 130,000 members.
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One might find other correlates like the presence of a
foreign military bases:
Or is it because
BioNTech has an office in
Mainz in the South and Western German state of
Rhineland-Palatinate ?
There are talks that mask requirements in public transportation may get cancelled, but it is not yet clear when it might happen. And of course a new wave may enter the concern of the German government.