Beethoven being born in Germany and Hitler being born in Austria was one of those trivia facts I learned as a 12 year old — or thereabouts; I forget how old I was — that made me question everything. I was obviously, by definition, uneducated at that age but I had just sort of lumped “classical music=Vienna” and “Hitler=Germany.”
It’s obviously an odd fact to blow a kid’s mind and there were many more such moments to come but, for some reason, that factoid was a very effective one on my journey to realizing I didn’t know shit. (A journey I’m still on, even on things I have a degree in or worked on. Nothing teaches you how much you don’t know like learning enough to realize you haven’t even scratched the surface.)
Technically speaking Beethoven was born in Austria. Austrian Netherlands that is (current day Belgium), owned by the Habsburgs.
Or even more generally, he was born in the Holy Roman Empire of Germanic Nations (today Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, parts of France, parts of Poland, Austria, Czechia, Germany) and died in the Austrian Empire.
Austria lol. Mozart, not kangaroos.
Schwarzenegger, not Satan.
Eurodeedoos not Dollaridoos.
Bierpartei, not Raygun
Beethoven being born in Germany and Hitler being born in Austria was one of those trivia facts I learned as a 12 year old — or thereabouts; I forget how old I was — that made me question everything. I was obviously, by definition, uneducated at that age but I had just sort of lumped “classical music=Vienna” and “Hitler=Germany.”
It’s obviously an odd fact to blow a kid’s mind and there were many more such moments to come but, for some reason, that factoid was a very effective one on my journey to realizing I didn’t know shit. (A journey I’m still on, even on things I have a degree in or worked on. Nothing teaches you how much you don’t know like learning enough to realize you haven’t even scratched the surface.)
Technically speaking Beethoven was born in Austria. Austrian Netherlands that is (current day Belgium), owned by the Habsburgs.
Or even more generally, he was born in the Holy Roman Empire of Germanic Nations (today Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, parts of France, parts of Poland, Austria, Czechia, Germany) and died in the Austrian Empire.
Whoops, thanks!