…

…

No, I can’t. I am a snobby idiot, a social suicide bomber with a severe lack of self restraint and plenty of smartassiness, so I will list the errors quickly. (Also without looking it up. Promise!)
1. Günter Grass: Spelling no ‘th’ but a fancy umlaut; Year: almost, it was in the nineties and the book was the tin drum, not dogyears.
2. Hannah Arendt: Jewish philosopher, German born, emigrated to New York in the thirties, wrote about totalitarianism and the human condition.
3. Heinrich Heine: Poet, cf. Merzmensch’s entry.
4. Martin Luther: Man, you know!
5. Kant: Didn’t wear those socks (that was Leibniz).
6. Anna Seghers: Granted, not too well known. Wrote The Seventh Cross about an escape from a concentration camp.
7. Hegel: Not fat. Actually quite skinny.
8. Gebrüder Grimm: Better known as Brothers Grimm (remember the movie?). Jakob and Wilhelm. Linguists, philologists, folk tale collectors.
9. Marx: Nothing to complain about.
10. Heinrich Böll: Boring post-war writer (yes, 20th century). Overrated. Not worth the time.
11. Friedrich Schiller: Poet (18th century). Cf. Jason’s entry.
12. Gotthold Emphraim Lessing: Important playwright of the enlightenment (18th century). Powerful stuff. Yet a bit stuffy today.
13. Hesse: The chess board story is by Stefan Zweig, completely different guy.
14. Theodor Fontane: Not French but German. Something like the German Henry James.
15. Mann: There is not just Thomas but also Heinrich and Klaus. I don’t know whether Thomas was a dick but the association is not so wrong; he was a suppressed homosexual.
16. Bertolt Brecht: Commie writer, poet and playwright. Actually very entertaining. Didn’t write Cabaret, though. That was Christopher Isherwood.
17. Johan Wolfgang von Goethe: Basically correct. Yet a basic idea about the pronunciation of foreign languages is of use from time to time.

Forgive me, I have sinned.

http://xkcd.com/386/

…

…

No, I can’t. I am a snobby idiot, a social suicide bomber with a severe lack of self restraint and plenty of smartassiness, so I will list the errors quickly. (Also without looking it up. Promise!)
1. Günter Grass: Spelling no ‘th’ but a fancy umlaut; Year: almost, it was in the nineties and the book was the tin drum, not dogyears.
2. Hannah Arendt: Jewish philosopher, German born, emigrated to New York in the thirties, wrote about totalitarianism and the human condition.
3. Heinrich Heine: Poet, cf. Merzmensch’s entry.
4. Martin Luther: Man, you know!
5. Kant: Didn’t wear those socks (that was Leibniz).
6. Anna Seghers: Granted, not too well known. Wrote The Seventh Cross about an escape from a concentration camp.
7. Hegel: Not fat. Actually quite skinny.
8. Gebrüder Grimm: Better known as Brothers Grimm (remember the movie?). Jakob and Wilhelm. Linguists, philologists, folk tale collectors.
9. Marx: Nothing to complain about.
10. Heinrich Böll: Boring post-war writer (yes, 20th century). Overrated. Not worth the time.
11. Friedrich Schiller: Poet (18th century). Cf. Jason’s entry.
12. Gotthold Emphraim Lessing: Important playwright of the enlightenment (18th century). Powerful stuff. Yet a bit stuffy today.
13. Hesse: The chess board story is by Stefan Zweig, completely different guy.
14. Theodor Fontane: Not French but German. Something like the German Henry James.
15. Mann: There is not just Thomas but also Heinrich and Klaus. I don’t know whether Thomas was a dick but the association is not so wrong; he was a suppressed homosexual.
16. Bertolt Brecht: Commie writer, poet and playwright. Actually very entertaining. Didn’t write Cabaret, though. That was Christopher Isherwood.
17. Johan Wolfgang von Goethe: Basically correct. Yet a basic idea about the pronunciation of foreign languages is of use from time to time.

Forgive me, I have sinned.

http://xkcd.com/386/