Get Rid of the Bavarians (Bavaria & Austria)
Bavaria was on his way to a conference of Alpine regions in Switzerland, when he crossed the border to his fellow federal state Baden-Wuerttemberg and saw it.
'Kreizkruzifixnomal, wos is des?', he burst out.
'What is it, Bavaria?', Austria asked, whom he had agreed to take with him in his car.
'Now, look at that!', said Bavaria and pointed at an election poster hanging from one of the street lamps.
'Don't you want to get rid of the Bavarians, too? Then vote for the Bavarian Party', Austria read.
'That … that is …' Bavaria was struggling for words.
Austria giggled. 'Well, if you want to separate from Germany so badly, you could as well join with me. Wouldn't that be irony of fate?'
Bavaria glared at him in shock. 'Over my dead body!'
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Notes:
'Kreizkruzifixnomal' (literally: 'cross and crucifix again') is a rustic Bavarian curse; the rest of the sentence means 'what's that?'.
The Bavarian Party (Bayernpartei) is a Bavarian splinter party aiming at separating Bavaria from Germany. In the EU elections in 2009, it tried to get enough votes for a seat in the European Parliament by putting up posters with the slogan cited above — only in German federal states other than Bavaria, of course, and to no effect.
The 'irony of fate' Austria alludes to is the fact that Austria became a duchy by being separated from Bavaria in 1156 (also mentioned in Chapter 3).