In einer freien Gesellschaft sollten alle Menschen die gleiche Freiheit und den gleichen Respekt bekommen.

In a free society all people should receive the same freedom and the same respect.

Breakdown of In einer freien Gesellschaft sollten alle Menschen die gleiche Freiheit und den gleichen Respekt bekommen.

• und: and
• in: in
• der Mensch: the person
• sollen: should
• alle: all
• den: the; (masculine, accusative)
• gleich: same
• bekommen: to receive
• frei: free
• die: the; (feminine, accusative)
• einer: a; (feminine, dative)
• der Respekt: the respect
• die Gesellschaft: the society
• die Freiheit: the freedom

Questions & Answers about In einer freien Gesellschaft sollten alle Menschen die gleiche Freiheit und den gleichen Respekt bekommen.

Why is it In einer freien Gesellschaft and not In eine freie Gesellschaft?

The preposition in can take either accusative or dative:

• in + accusative = movement into something
  
  • in eine freie Gesellschaft gehen – to go into a free society
• in + dative = location / state in something
  
  • in einer freien Gesellschaft leben – to live in a free society

Your sentence describes a situation within a free society, not movement into it, so you need dative:

• Feminine noun die Gesellschaft (singular, dative) → einer Gesellschaft
• With an adjective, dative feminine after einer → einer freien Gesellschaft

Why is freien used in einer freien Gesellschaft? How is that adjective ending formed?

Adjectives in German change their endings according to case, gender, and article.

• Noun: Gesellschaft – feminine
• Case: dative (because of in with location)
• Article: einer (indefinite article, feminine dative singular)

Rule of thumb:
In dative singular (all genders) and all plural cases, the adjective normally ends in -en, as long as there is some kind of article or determiner.

So you get:

• in einer freien Gesellschaft (dative feminine)
• similarly: mit einem guten Freund, von einer alten Frau, bei meinen lieben Eltern

Why is it alle Menschen and not allen Menschen?

Alle Menschen is the subject of the sentence, so it must be in the nominative case.

• Verb: bekommen
• Question: Who should get the same freedom and the same respect? → alle Menschen
  → subject → nominative → alle Menschen

Allen Menschen would be dative plural, as in:

• Allen Menschen sollte die gleiche Freiheit gegeben werden.
  (Passive: “The same freedom should be given to all people.”)

In your active sentence, you need the nominative form alle Menschen.

Why is it die gleiche Freiheit but den gleichen Respekt?

This is about gender and case:

1. Both Freiheit and Respekt are objects of bekommen, so they are in the accusative case.
2. Their grammatical gender is different:
   • die Freiheit – feminine
   • der Respekt – masculine

Accusative singular with the definite article:

• Feminine: die
  → die gleiche Freiheit
• Masculine: den
  → den gleichen Respekt

The adjective endings after the definite article der/die/das/den are:

• accusative feminine: die gleiche (ending -e)
• accusative masculine: den gleichen (ending -en)

Why doesn’t gleiche also end in -en in die gleiche Freiheit? Why not die gleichen Freiheit?

Because feminine accusative singular after a definite article takes -e, not -en.

Pattern with definite articles, accusative singular:

• Masculine: den guten Mann
• Feminine: die gute Frau
• Neuter: das gute Kind

Your sentence follows the same pattern:

• die gleiche Freiheit (feminine, accusative → -e)
• den gleichen Respekt (masculine, accusative → -en)

Die gleichen Freiheit would be wrong; -en would suggest either masculine accusative (den gleichen …) or a plural (die gleichen Menschen).

Why is bekommen at the very end of the sentence?

This is German verb placement with modal verbs.

Basic word order:

1. The finite verb (conjugated form) goes in second position.
2. Any infinitive (full verb) goes to the very end of the clause.

In your sentence:

• Finite modal verb in position 2: sollten
• Full verb in infinitive at the end: bekommen

Structure:

• In einer freien Gesellschaft (prepositional phrase, position 1)
• sollten (finite verb, position 2)
• alle Menschen die gleiche Freiheit und den gleichen Respekt (middle field)
• bekommen (infinitive at the end)

What exactly is the nuance of sollten here? Why not sollen?

Both forms exist but have different nuances:

• sollen (present): more like “are supposed to / are obliged to”
  • Alle Menschen sollen die gleiche Freiheit bekommen.
    • can sound like a rule or command.
• sollten is the Konjunktiv II (subjunctive) of sollen, often used like English “should” in a normative or ideal sense:
  • Alle Menschen sollten die gleiche Freiheit bekommen.
    • “All people should have the same freedom” (this is how it ought to be).

So sollten here expresses a moral or ideal recommendation, not a description of current rules.

Could this sentence be understood as past tense, like “all people should have gotten…”?

In theory, sollten can be a simple past of sollen (“they were supposed to”), but in modern usage, when sollten appears with another infinitive (bekommen here), it is almost always understood as Konjunktiv II (“should”).

• Past tense would usually be expressed more clearly:
  • Alle Menschen sollten die gleiche Freiheit bekommen, aber sie bekamen sie nicht.
    (“All people were supposed to get the same freedom, but they didn’t.”)
• In your isolated sentence, without context, the natural reading is:
  sollten = “should (ideally)”

Why is den gleichen Respekt accusative and not dative, like dem gleichen Respekt?

Because bekommen takes a direct object in the accusative case:

• etwas bekommen – to receive/get something

So:

• die gleiche Freiheit bekommen – accusative
• den gleichen Respekt bekommen – accusative

Dative (dem gleichen Respekt) would be used with verbs or structures that require dative, e.g.:

• mit dem gleichen Respekt behandeln – to treat (someone) with the same respect

Could you also say jeder Mensch instead of alle Menschen? What’s the difference?

Yes, both are possible, but they feel slightly different:

• Alle Menschen – “all people” as a group, humanity in general:
  • Alle Menschen sollten die gleiche Freiheit und den gleichen Respekt bekommen.
• Jeder Mensch – “every person” individually:
  • Jeder Mensch sollte die gleiche Freiheit und den gleichen Respekt bekommen.

Meaning-wise they are very close here. Alle Menschen emphasizes the entire group; jeder Mensch emphasizes that it applies to each individual person.

What’s the difference between die gleiche Freiheit and dieselbe Freiheit?

Rough distinction:

• die gleiche Freiheit – the same kind of freedom, equal in quality or degree
  (same type/level of freedom)
• dieselbe Freiheit – literally the very same instance of freedom, identical, not just similar

In practice, in this kind of sentence about rights and principles, Germans usually say:

• die gleiche Freiheit (or die gleiche Freiheit wie andere)

Dieselbe Freiheit would sound unusual here, because you are not talking about one specific, concrete “piece” of freedom that everyone shares, but about equal freedom.

Is the word order In einer freien Gesellschaft sollten alle Menschen … fixed, or can I move In einer freien Gesellschaft?

You can move that prepositional phrase. German word order is relatively flexible, as long as the finite verb stays in second position.

Some options:

• In einer freien Gesellschaft sollten alle Menschen die gleiche Freiheit und den gleichen Respekt bekommen.
  (Focus on the setting “in a free society…”)
• Alle Menschen sollten in einer freien Gesellschaft die gleiche Freiheit und den gleichen Respekt bekommen.
  (Focus more on “all people”.)
• Alle Menschen sollten die gleiche Freiheit und den gleichen Respekt in einer freien Gesellschaft bekommen.
  (Also possible, slightly different rhythmic emphasis.)

All of these are grammatically correct; the differences are mostly about emphasis and style.