Strange Java Timezone Date Conversion Problem

Question

I want to convert ms-since-1970-timestamp to a date with timezone (Germany).

Here are two variants of code which worked - at least, I remember using it

Answer 1

I believe the problem is the default timezone on the platform you're running on.

java.util.Date() does have a time zone. It maintains "inherited" time zone information, which, it appears, is acquired from the system's default locale.

this code.

TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT-03:00");
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(tz);
cal.set(1953, 2, 22, 4, 20, 13);
Date dateTime = cal.getTime();
System.out.println(dateTime.toString());

yields this on my system, which is uses the PST locale: Sat Mar 21 23:20:13 PST 1953.

I don't believe that there is a way to use the java.util.Date object, or the DateFormat objects which use it, to accurately handle time information from a "foreign" time zone.