ialso may think not oops with the emthapuation with hitler latelty

I'm a new member to DU and this is my first post. Sorry if this is out of line. However I speak and read German and I've traveled to Germany 7 or 8 times in the last 20 years. What's really relevant is that I sing with a German chorus here in Pittsburgh so I'm very familiar with their national anthem.

Their anthem was written by Josef Haydn in the 1700's and the first verse was "Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles" the same that one hears in the old World War II war movies. (Boo Nazis!) However after the war was over the new German government immediately made it against the law to ever sing the first verse of that song since it was forever connected with Hitler and the Nazi era. Instead they named the 3rd verse as their national anthem, "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" which means Unity, Justice and Freedom.

So we Americans who have mostly been educated in public schools don't know these details because public schools never teach history of the modern era. How few of us have graduated high school knowing about anything as recent as World War II? Not many of us. The reason is politics pure and simple. Whenever children used to come home from school telling their parents that they learned about Nazis and Communists etc., the parents would raise hell and get the teacher fired. I graduated in the late 60's and I know that we never covered any US History as recent as WWII, things like Russia, Red China, Vietnam, the Middle East were never discussed. I'm sure it's worse now because there's so much more political correctness the teachers must observe.

Americans do not know the sensitive issues that other countries face (such as the German national anthem) because it has never been taught to us. One can also say that we're too lazy to learn about other cultures, but that might not be fair. I believe that the gaff by the USTA was one of ignorance, it wasn't a conscious insult. However they should be ashamed anyway for not knowing that it's important to get it right.

And I take your point about other countries. As Americans, we tend to just assume that everyone speaks English, for example, and chances are good that they do. That's one area where we're definitely behind, those in other countries learn other languages early on in school, are often fluent in two or more. In the US, other languages are usually offered only in high school and without the opportunity to actually use them, it's easy to forget. With the world becoming more global, we need to catch up!