In our next to last night in Germany, I decided to go on a casual outing with another student from the program, a white cis male. On this outing, we befriended two German students ages 22 and 23. The students spoke coherent English with enough nuance to have complicated conversations. After learning that my friend and I were from the US and specifically the south they immediately asked about the “southern flag” referring to the Confederate flag. This deeply political jump in conversation occurred within 15 minutes of meeting. Student one posed the question in a light tone and was immediately chastised by student two in German. Studnet two said, in Eglish, “That’s like asking about the Nazi flag, you can’t ask her that a black girl of all people”. They compared the Confederate flag to the Nazi flag and Germany’s complicated history to the complicated history of the US and acknowledged my race in contrast to my friend’s race. This alignment of Nazi Germany and Civil War Era US, both in a present-day context, should not have come as a surprise and yet this “real world application” in such a casual setting was jarring. My friend and I were quick to denounce confederate flags in a joking manner even though they fly on UT’s campus and we laughed when student two described the “redneck” stereotype racist even though plenty Ph.D. professors are just as racist as the traditional uneducated born and raised racist. We didn’t hold this topic for long but the fact that German students are aware of the present-day American conflict with our past, even if the knowledge is very surface level, was eye-opening.