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A Whiff of Ostalgie
Back in the day, East Germany's secret police would break into the homes of suspected dissidents, steal unwashed underwear, and "store" the human scents they'd collected in meticulously marked jars. Now the German government is improving on a Stasi classic:
The German authorities are compiling a database of human scents to track down possible violent protesters at the G8 summit in June.
The method, once used by East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, involves collecting scent samples in advance from selected targets.
The scents are then passed to police equipped with sniffer dogs who can pick the individuals out amid a crowd.
Elsewhere in reason: Glenn Garvin reviewed Anna Funder's wonderful Stasiland last year.
lunchstealer|5.23.07 @ 3:35PM|#
Dunno. The whole thing seems fishy to me. Why aren't the Germans raising a big stink about this?
Fluffy|5.23.07 @ 3:36PM|#
I don't believe this. For this to be true, I'd have to believe that there are Germans who wouldn't instantly notice if they were missing a pair of underwear.
|5.23.07 @ 3:40PM|#
From what I've seen of German pr0n, there may have been some other use for the stolen undies.
|5.23.07 @ 3:41PM|#
It sounds too weird to be true, but I clicked the link and I'm
sure BBC isn't making stuff up.
I wonder if they will have a sort of olfactory version of a police
lineup: "OK, do you recognize any of these scents? Smell them one
at a time." Of course it would have to be an unusual crime if the
victim or witness is smelling suspects' underwear.
Otto von Skidmark|5.23.07 @ 3:42PM|#
For this to be true, I\'d have to believe that there are
Germans who wouldn\'t instantly notice if they were missing a pair
of underwear.
Ah, but you assume too much. Like that Germans wear underwear!
:O
|5.23.07 @ 3:45PM|#
What is the deal? Yet another thread with Gotcha! written all over it? Is an Anthony Edwards revival going on that I don't know about?
GILMORE|5.23.07 @ 3:48PM|#
Thats it, from now on i'm soaking my underwear in ammonia and chili powder. Ill show The Man!
Fluffy|5.23.07 @ 3:49PM|#
But Otto, my mental picture of Germany is a bunch of guys
obsessively ironing and counting their underwear while listening to
David Hasselhoff albums.
How could an underwear thief survive in such an environment? And if
there are, as you say, Germans who go commando, how do they fill
the many hours of David Hasselhoff sing a long? You can only empty
alphabetize your CD collection so many times.
|5.23.07 @ 3:51PM|#
That was in response to Pro Libertate\'s comment:
Is an Anthony Edwards revival going on that I don\'t know
about?
|5.23.07 @ 3:55PM|#
Oh, nevermind. I just Googled it. He was in the 1985 movie
Gotcha!
Damn my Pop Culture ignorance!
Anonymo the Anonymous|5.23.07 @ 3:57PM|#
The scents are then passed to police equipped with sniffer
dogs who can pick the individuals out amid a crowd.
Anyone know enough about canine sniffing capabilities in real-world
applications to know if this is realistic or is it as ridiculous as
it sounds?
Christopher Monnier|5.23.07 @ 4:04PM|#
Can dogs be put on the witness stand?
"Now, Mr. Bojangles...did you or did you NOT detect a scent
that you attributed to the defendant?"
|5.23.07 @ 4:09PM|#
Anyone know enough about canine sniffing capabilities in
real-world applications to know if this is realistic
Dude! Didn\'t you see the Mythbusters bloodhound episode?
Those things can sniff out the scent of ur penis in my moms vagina
20 years after she dies in a horrible accident involving a fire in
which the fire is put out coincidentally by a crashing truck
carrying a ton of lime and said accident is itself not discovered
for another 30 years and which said penis scent is obtained from a
petrified penis from your now 5 year old corpse.
In other words, ya. ;)
Chucklehead|5.23.07 @ 4:13PM|#
"May I see your papers, please?"
"May my dog sniff your ass, please?"
|5.23.07 @ 4:13PM|#
The scents are then passed to police equipped with sniffer
dogs who can pick the individuals out amid a crowd.
I don't know much about canine sniffing ability, but I do know
science, and I would think the samples would have a pretty short
half-life.
Judging the evidence left after a visit to my favorite chicken wing
establishment, I conclude that even the most pungent of smells will
dissipate over time.
...sniffer dogs...
As opposed to non-sniffer dogs? I thought the British invented the
friggin' language!
|5.23.07 @ 4:23PM|#
They're just being efficient. By getting the underwear, they
won't have to undergo the redundant acitivity of asking for a urine
sample, a stool sample, and a semen sample.
We should be thanking them for this.
|5.23.07 @ 4:26PM|#
...sniffer dogs...
Perhaps they\'re just suckers for a good glass of cognac.
\"You sniffer dogs, you.\"
Heinrich Bimmler|5.23.07 @ 4:45PM|#
Und vee vill verk for a better Meinhead.
Not much fun in Stalingrad, no.
Yakov Smirnov|5.23.07 @ 4:46PM|#
In west, you look for underwear.
In communist Germany, underwear looks for YOU.
D.A. Ridgely|5.23.07 @ 4:47PM|#
"Possible violent protesters"? I smell a rat. Germans don't protest violently for the same reason there's so little crime of any sort in Germany -- it's illegal.
|5.23.07 @ 4:59PM|#
Not to be a spelling Nazi, but it\'s \"snifter.\"
Blaaaaaargh! Curse you! You have ruined me forever!
*runs away, Phantom-of-the-Opera-like, into the shadows*
lunchstealer|5.23.07 @ 5:18PM|#
I forsee this being foiled by Hogan and LeBeau sneaking in and drugging the sniffer dogs (german shepherds, of course) while René Artois gets Michelle and Yvette to hide the two British airmen's underwear with General Klinkerhoffen's copy of Von Klempf's "Fallen Madonna met der Big Boobies".
Michelle in la Resistance|5.23.07 @ 5:29PM|#
Lunch:
Listen very carefully. I shall say this only once:
Don't forget Leftenant Gruber and his little tank!
|5.23.07 @ 6:30PM|#
Not to be pedagogic, but it\'s spelled SHADO.
Blaaargh!!! I have been twicely smitten!
What\'s next, and attack by pedantic, pedagogic, pedophilic,
pediatrician podiatrists?
This must stop at once!
lunchstealer|5.23.07 @ 6:36PM|#
Don't forget to throw in pederasty. It's always good for a
Donnie/Walter joke, if nothing else.
Um, not Donnie/Walter in the slash sense, though. Or maybe, if
that's your thing. Whatever, the slash fiction isn't the issue,
dude.
|5.23.07 @ 6:38PM|#
\"and attack...\" should read \"an attack...\"
I shall beat myself in penetance \'till ribbons of flesh run
red.
|5.23.07 @ 6:42PM|#
"Back in the day, East Germany's secret police would break
into the homes of suspected dissidents, steal unwashed underwear,
and "store" the human scents they'd collected in meticulously
marked jars."
For fun or profit?
I mean, yeah, they were in a communist country, but maybe they were
holding the jars for ransom?
I bet a lot of people would be willing to pay to get their jar out
of the hands of some police department pervert.
|5.23.07 @ 7:05PM|#
Don\'t forget to throw in pederasty
I concur with you manyfoldly. However, I felt that using pederastic
and pedophilic would have been unecessarily redundant, hence I
chose the more \'populist\' version, though I may have been in
error with that choice.
|5.23.07 @ 7:05PM|#
"Now the German government is improving on a Stasi classic:
"
The German government, hell: this will be the next big fad after
geocaching.
|5.23.07 @ 7:07PM|#
Anyone else see The Lives of Others?
I haven\'t, but that reminds me that I want to see it! Along with
Goodbye, Lenin! and Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.
VM|5.23.07 @ 7:21PM|#
Heh! Lunch!
we have the first two series on DVD... lotsa fun!
It's always a nice surprise to encounter those references (on those
rare occasions!)
Karl Troll Marx|5.23.07 @ 7:49PM|#
\"Du, du du du du, I will be right here waiting for
you.\"
That\'s Richard Marx, you idiot!
|5.23.07 @ 8:00PM|#
I\'d just like to commend Kerry Howley for the wonderful German
word play in \"Ostalgie\"; a combination of the German \"Ost\"
meaning \"east\" and \"Nostalgie\" meaning \"nostalgia.\"
Sehr gut. Only a Libertarian could command such an informed use of
wit.
The Wine Commonsewer|5.23.07 @ 9:01PM|#
Kind of expected to see Warren hanging the girls bicycle seat
section or something equally sinister.
Mao Tse Troll, that is a great name.
|5.24.07 @ 6:03AM|#
Uh, PLS, the term "Ostalgie" has been around for years, it gets
572 thousand hits on google. Still, good of Kerry to be up on
German culture.
Also German soiled underwear would probably be more pungent than
most - I remember a survey once showing that Germans changed their
underwear only once every 3 days or something, even less often than
the French. And that was in the West, one can only imagine how
rarely the Ossis changed.
Thomas Stevens|5.24.07 @ 6:55AM|#
Anyone else see "The Lives of Others"?
I did! You must live in New York and/or LA, too. I thought it was
excellent. Although it might have been nice if the writer signed
over some royalties in the end..
Rhywun|5.24.07 @ 10:21AM|#
I have Westalgie from living there as a teen... Oh, and we changed every day, thank you very much.
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