The Limits of German Patience
An Edgy Nation
Let me sum up. Germans are, just as the stereotypes go, thrifty, solvent, and an industrial people who played by all the postwar rules. To watch the Rhine is a dizzying experience as barges zoom by, as if on a three-lane highway, while rail cars roar in the background and the parallel autobahns are crammed, all beneath the steam stacks of the Ruhr plants. In comparison, California seems like it is in a slumber.
Germans rebuilt their country, renounced war and did not rearm, unified their bifurcated nation at their own cost, subsidized European development, were good EU and UN head nodders, are at the forefront of the green global warming cult, are rejecting nuclear power — and are terrified that they are unfairly not liked. I am not sure whether they are afraid that the world does not appreciate their efforts or that anytime the world does not appreciate German efforts, petulant Germans can become a bit scary to Germans themselves as well as to their neighbors.
I would be very careful to support Germany as much as we can in accordance with U.S. national interests. I would not, like Obama, encourage French-socialist calls for “growth,” which is a euphemism for inflating and stimulating European economies without commensurate structural reform at the expense of Germany.
I would also be careful about downsizing and redirecting NATO at a time when Germany has an anemic military and a growing list of envious if not angry rivals and former friends. I would cut Germany some slack (and I have been guilty in the past in print of not doing this) about its hypocrisies and strained multicultural internationalism, given its own psychological uneasiness about its past proclivities. And finally, at some point, cannot some American flat out state that it was Germany that worked hard, saved, invested, and prospered, and that is to be admired rather than caricatured and condemned? Texas is not responsible for California any more than Germany is responsible for contemporary Greece. An envious Europe seems to look at Germany the way that Obama has trained us to disdain those above the $200,000 in annual income Mason-Dixon line.
Yes, we might prefer to vacation in Florence or Santorini, but only because we are able to — given that there are for a while longer more wealth-producing Germanys in the world than there are wealth-consuming Italys and Greeces.
Every good thing contains the seeds of its own destruction. Germany has twice let it’s ability to work and invent get out of hand and turn into illegitimate agression when they focus on past injustices. Who could know that it won’t happen again.
But a similar thing is true for southern europe. The leisurely life is great, particularly when other people pay for most of it, up to the point when the bills come due.
And the US has the same core problem. Everybody has it. The blinding success since 1776 has created a furious class of malcontents who are intent on exploiting that success to gain power for themselves.
It never pays to let your guard down. History doesn’t end. Those who say it does have agendas of their own.
As M. Thatcher so aptly stated:
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].”
The odd thing about the Germans is we trust them more than they trust themselves. Maybe they know something we don’t.
Good analysis – however the term Germans needs further explanation. We – the average Germans- trust ourselves and we trust our neighbours. However, we are not trusted by our political “elite”. Those people – together with some fashionable historians – claim, that the only ones responsible for Hitler and Co. are the average Germans. That is why we are never allowed to vote for people directly but only for parties. People like Steinbrück and Gabriel (SPD) or Fischer(Grüne) argue that we have the duty to save Europe – no matter the costs for Germans(as long the pensions for the elites are save. Oh, the Fischers and Co. do not shy away from undemocratic processes as long those processes only hurt Germans(Nazis need control, not democracy). That is why nobody trusts the German “elites” who claim to represent us. Or would any citizen of any country claim to act against the interests of those who voted for him/her? Ours do and they are proud of it.
“However, we are not trusted by our political “elite”.”
Hello, this is the same in Italy and I think near all Europe and US (probably the world). They always say they have our interests in mind all the time, but they always do their interests first at the expenses of ours. The lie is so naked no one is believing it anymore. The problem is finding an sounding alternative and using it fast enough the people in the party is not polluted by the atmosphere in Rome before they are able to change the government structure enough to make difficult or impossible for the old zombies to raise again.
How could the man in the street trust the European elites who gave them Brussels and its unelected European Parliament dictating even the curvature of bananas that can be sold?
I gather most Germans disdain the U.S. “Tea Party,” as part of its (and other Europeans’) ongoing posture of vast intellectual and moral superiority over us cowboy Americans. But it is the Tea Party movement that is confronting precisely the nature and extent of elite ruler depravity you describe. And it is precisely the conceit of European intellectuals that smart, competent politicians and bureaucrats can justly and wisely direct all phases of life for the better—itself the essence of elitism—that gave rise to the leadership system you have. It is that elitist conceit that continues to insist that the correct way to live can, and should, be dictated from the few to the many, and that the many will behave and benefit accordingly, that has led Germans to imagine that EU membership and a common currency will change cultural habits developed over centuries.
Perhaps some real self analysis and humility (at least as difficult for Germans as for Americans, you must admit) is in order for Germans. Perhaps you need something like your own Tea Party to begin dismantling the the great power you have given your elites, with what appears to be impending catastrophic results.
Insofar as the German media are covering the Tea Party or the Wisconsin recall, they are giving their readers exactly the liberal Democrat line – sometimes almost foaming at the mouth over those radical “arch conservatives”. And yet if Europe had leaders like Walker their problems would be infinitely smaller. I believe most regular Germans would agree (those who have jobs anyway) but they will never hear the truth. Their elites cannot ever allow them to know that there is another way. And far too many people in Germany live off the state in some way or other. Germany is doing well now but they are far too eager to cut off the branch they are sitting on, the private sector.
“However, we are not trusted by our political ‘elites’.”
Marianne, no “elites” – those people making up a governing force within a nation – have EVER trusted their “average citizen”.
To expect otherwise from such as these is to have a view of the motives of those drawn to politics today that is completely scued. I’m not sure if this was always the case, but from observing governments over the past 60 years, I have to say those seeking governmental careers today (in any form of government, including democracies & either in elected, appointed, or ‘civil service’ careers) are people who are seeking POWER. To expect these types of people to give their trust to those whose power they are borrowing ( whether lent by consent or taken by force, the power those “in power” possess ALWAYS comes from the people ), is to expect these “elites” to go against their own human nature.
And frankly, it truly couldn’t work any other way. Governments shouldn’t trust their people. Just as people should not trust their governments.
For the simple reason we are all human and as someone once famously observed: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is one reason the U.S. Founders wrote our Constitution the way they did and constructed – to the best of their ability to foresee struggles for power likely to arise in a Republic – the “checks & balances” form of Executive – Legislative – Judicial governmental triune we in the States still have (so far) – to prevent (as far as humanly possible) any acquiring of “absolute power” within the government by individuals or by bureaucracies. We’ve mostly succeeded up to this point in time – with the probable exception of the Internal Revenue Service.
Whether a Democratic-Republic form of government will be strong enough to stand against the rising tide of socialism (also known as the “give me your hard-earned stuff because not only do I want it, I deserve it” movement) that is so alive in the world today, is something we will learn over the next 5 years or so.
As far as Europe goes, of the larger countries, only Germany seems to have a prayer of maintaining a semblance of coherency through these uncertain times (Britain is finished, France is well on the way to insolvency, Italy is hanging by a thread, and Spain is a lost cause). Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint), this puts your country in the “drivers seat”, as we say in the States. A place the US has been over the past 65+ years as a “super power” in the world. Got news for you – Nobody will like you, nobody will respect you, and many will hate your guts. Welcome to our world. And good luck to you all. I sincerely mean that – good luck (you’ll need it).
The Germans are dying out & being conquered by (Turkish) Muslims. The invading Muslim Turks are replacing the aging, shrinking, dying Germans. Germany, as we know it, will cease to exist in a few decades. By midcentury, Germany will be an Islamic state.
The birth rate among Turkish immigrants in Germany is 2.4, nearly double that of the native German population (which at 1.38 is far below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per couple).
According to projections by the German Federal Statistics Office, Germany’s current population of 82 million, the largest in the European Union, is set to decline by as much as 20%, to 65 million, over the next five decades. At the same time, 34% of the population will be older than 65 and 14% will be 80 or more by 2060, up from 20% and 5% respectively in 2009.
The number of pensioners that will have to be supported by working-age people could almost double by 2060, according to the Federal Statistics Office. While 100 people of working age between 20 and 65 had to provide the pensions for 34 retired people in 2009, they will have to generate income for between 63 and 67 pensioners in 2060.
Germany is dying & the Islamic invaders are stepping in to fill the void.
You’ve fully bought into their propaganda and Marc Stein’s doom and gloom.
If you really believe it, you can act on the belief and become wealthy and powerful beyond your dreams.
Projecting populations based on birth rates is simple math, not propaganda. Now, I know that Barbie said that math is hard but it really isn’t. Germany’s brithrate has been low for a long time. When I was stationed there (’78-80), they were giving money to women for each child born. The low birthrate issue has been going on for a long time.
The latest figures show that Muslim birthrates are falling rapidly, right across the board, and that in Europe other unanticipated factors are coming into play e.g. non-Muslim European women are now having their figures for fertility dramatically revised upwards because of shift in the ages they have their children (i.e. in their 40′s).
Remarkably, Pakistan is nearing the replacement level for births, and will do in a few years time. Iran is actually heading for a population crisis because their birthrates have fallen so far.
So I would say the picture is far more complex, and that cultural and generational shifts have occurred – alot of this due to improved education for women. It appears the new generation do not share the same desire to have children as did the last, so, as you say, that is just mathematics showing that things aren’t quite as bad as you seem to fear.
Larry, what German women got in the ’70′s was NOT money for just having each child, it was a government subsidy to working mothers based on the number of children they had, called “kinder gelt”. It was intended to encourage mothers to rejoin the workforce.
“native German population (which at 1.38 is far below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per couple).” This is one of the big reasons why socialism “runs out of other people’s money” as Lady Thatcher put it. When you stop having to depend on our own children for your support in your old age and instead get to depend on other peoples’ children in any country’s social security program, people stop having an incentive to have children. We see our childless friends and family having fun lives because they aren’t having to spend all their money on children. So “everyone” decides to not go through the bother of having children, and the few children they have, are raised poorly. Think about it: how many kids would have ended up OWS types if the parents knew they’d be depending on the kids in old age?
Great comments, Jeannette. What you’re saying, if I may extrapolate, is that Social Security sets up a Moral Hazard in that parents are less risk averse in their parenting, and so if little Johnny shows signs of laziness and a disrespect for authority, no worries; that he’s not a dependable and responsible person will not redound upon them negatively, they conclude, since they will not be at his mercy in their old age. Why go to all the hard work of shaping him into a decent human being? The cost of raising an ingrate (the eventual “cost” of being dependent on him 50 years down the road) are magically removed by the independence SS promises. Meanwhile, mom and dad themselves miss out on the character-building exercise produced from being and becoming good parents. The whole society starts to disintegrate at its core.
Bing!! We have been explaining this type of immorality to our children, and with fewer words, you echoed our opinion, as well. I couldn’t have said it better!
I’ve been saying this for years, just not as well as you did. The costs of children are individualized. When you socialize the benefit of those costs, the incentive for having children disappears. Why can policy makers never figure out that if you provide incentives for certain behaviors you will get more of those behaviors and that when you provide disincentives, you will get less?
People expect a retirement supported by taxes on other people’s kids.
Totgesagte leben länger – those declared dead live longer. No need for a requiem.
Those families – German and Turkish alike- who have children tend to have two or three. Some have no children. My grand-mother had only one child left out of six after World War II. My mother in law had six left out of ten in the 50s(my husband and one sister were born after the war). So what. We produce the children we wish and love and do not care about economic needs. Whose needs? Whose profit? Our society does not undergo more dramatic changes than it used to do in all those centuries. Good times, bad times, some of us are still here.
Frau Vom Bodensee:
Your flippant sumnation is why in thirty years is Germany is becoming a retirement society devoted to their self interest (I was stationed here thirty years ago and now can see the resultant loss of vigor/youth). I went to UC Berkeley and remembered/lived through the days of Flower Power where the axiom was to love everybody and do your thing. But when you love everybody…you love no one. Your jaded summary was very discouraging because in your first post you seemed to proffer some intelligent points. Bottom line, the Germans have the right to have a future as any other species. All groups have or carry the potential to commit heinious crimes but that should not condemn future generations. Children are the future of a nation and raising children should be a duty along with working for a living. But as an old saying duty is as heavy as a stone. Instead of exploring space and pushing the edge, Germans are quietly sipping half liters of bier, drinking their coffees, and getting old. In the gasthauses, the sound of music is gone giving way to larmshutz…Heartbreaking to see people abhor raising a future generation..glad my parents did not.
I just returned from Switzerland (my sister in law is in hospital), therefore I am rather late to answer your comment. However, you formulated your lines in such a way that I need to clarify some points(though your assumptions mirror many lives in Germany but not my life and the lives of the majority here). But first the Flower Power time: I was rather young then and some elements I did not like. But I liked the songs and I still like them. We in Baden-Württemberg are rather traditional people (poor and sexy is not our argument). Perhaps, you ever have heard the song: “Schaffe, schaffe, Häusle bauen..”. These are we. We believe in life and therefore in children too. Most of us are working for a living(honestly), provided we have a job.Even our Green Ministerpräsident is rather normal and a practising Catholic(something odd for the Green person). Our problem: We should be very flexible but our companies are far less flexible and it is difficult to have a family and a job when children are young.
Most important: In Germany, less in Baden-Württemberg, we are constantly educated the way we have to behave, what we have to say and how we have to feel. However, feelings are very complex and you cannot order someone to mourn etc. On the other hand, every single German should lern to show more civil courage. Civil courage we lack. Oh yes, I forgot: My mother had 4 children. My siplings and I have six children together(one child died in a car accident).I know this is a bad record but not hopeless. Servus, ade.
My question is – once the balance is tipped in favor of unassimilated/poorly assimilated immigrants – will they be willing to continue the generous social support of the elderly/retired? I have a similar concern about Canada. As an American living temporarily in the Great White North, I have asked how they plan to continue their government pension programs while not having enough children to replace themselves, much less growing their population. The response is that there will always be plenty of immigrants willing to come to Canada. This is likely true, but I wonder how they will feel once the immigrants become citizens and are granted voting rights – will they want to continue to pay exorbitant taxes to support a bunch of old white people?
This will be a problem in Germany too. We already have cuts in Rente but actually no cuts in pensions(teachers, politicicans). Merkel already told us that retirement at 67 is too early in the long run. Some people argue that in the end we all get Hartz IV or something similar. My husband claims that poorly assimilated people immigrate directly in our social welfare system. Sure is that we cannot rely on our rente. Pensions will be o.k.
What is VDH doing lauding Germany? Sure Germany is better than Greece or Italy, but Germany is still a social democracy and should be given no quarter. Germany has an industrial policy that picks winners and losers in the economy, they have socialized medicine and although everyone has insurance coverage it is a clear interference in the free market, and labor unions have guaranteed representation on corporate boards, rather than a race to the bottom wage spiral. That Germany can “create wealth” and have a high quality of life while being a social democracy is a pure fiction and when someone as renowned as VDH starts promoting social democracy, I fear all is lost.
Or can we learn something from Germany?
I agree with Brutus. The historical record shows that every single command economy, large or small, totally regulated or partially regulated, will underperform an unfettered free market economy. The evidence for this truth is incontrovertible. Yet it is pathetic to constantly encounter intellectuals and government officials who continually refuse to recognize this truth. The German people, like so many others in Europe and around the world, have enjoyed social democratic benefits that have only been made possible due to the costs of their defense paid for by others, in blood and treasure, and primarily Americans at that, since the end of WWII. The Germans have been freeloaders that have had the luxury of concentrating their assets to productive purposes that we have not enjoyed. In fact, the entire developed world has gotten rich by selling to the American market and restricting sales to their own. Its time this one-way trade practice of beggar-thy-neighbor ended.
I see you point of view and agree with most of what you say, and we still need to be careful. We don’t have to look much further than south of the border to see cartels’ effects on an unfettered economy. A vacuum of leadership creates thugs and a “survival of the fittest” atmosphere.
Right on. Germany’s renunciation of war and spending little of their GDP on defense is not a virtue when the cost has been passed on to the Americans. American taxpayers and citizens have paid in blood and treasure to maintain the safety of Germany and the rest of continental Europe. Without American strength and steadfastness during the past 70 years, the Germans would be speaking Russian. Yet they can make snide comments about American capitalism and alleged American cowboy international policies while admiring the likes of Obama-type left-liberalism at home and a pusillanimous posture abroad. If they cannot express proper gratitude with a simple “Thank you,” they might at least keep quiet. Their costly and uneconomic social policies are paid for by the American taxpayer.
Right. Because bailing out failed banks and rigging trade through the WTO makes America a model of free market capitalism ?
There is no fully free economy in the entire world, and the trend in the West has been to less freedom rather than more. Yet we can judge economies as relatively more free and cultures as relatively more healthy compared to others. Relative to Greece, Germany wins on both counts. This does not mean, and Hanson’s article does not imply, that Germany is Galt’s Gulch.
Sure Germany is better than Greece or Italy, but Germany is still a social democracy and should be given no quarter.
“Given no quarter”? You might want to rephrase that, you sound like one of those kooks who wants to nuke Germany.
Germany has an industrial policy that picks winners and losers in the economy
Just like America. The difference seems to be that German industrial policy is a lot better at picking winners and losers than ours is.
“Your German friend takes a quick look to the side, to see whether anyone is listening. And then in a quiet, but soon to be louder and finally animated voice…”
That’s exactly how Americans talk about race!
That is also how the men in large companies talk about women in the company. I remember being in a hall during a 1990′s Company wide Christmas celebration with about 5 men and we were popping our heads up and looking around like prairie dogs after they hear a coyote howl. We were tired of the lectures and films on “harassment”
and how it was defined, tired of women who gamed they system, tired of women getting preferential treatment and filing law suits when they didn’t get it. Tired of the drones in the Human Resources department hiring more and spreading their tentacles further and further into operations. “Did you finish your project? No I spent the last two days being lectured on harassment standards. I’m going to become a gay minority leper and take over the company.”
Your post should have a warning label, “set down your coffee!”
For their unspeakable and unforgiveable crimes during the Shoah, the Germans will never get one ounce of sympathy from me, no matter how hard they work.
They should be forced to spend their filthy Nazi money to prop up the PIIGS until they go bankrupt and rot.
And this time, if the Nazis take advantage of the chaos and look to come to power, the Jews (in Israel) can just nuke them off the planet before they cause any more trouble.
Enough of this. “70 years are our lives, 80 if we are strong,” says the Psalm, and again the Scriptures say, “The son shall not bear the father’s guilt.” Anyone old enough to be involved in the Holocaust is either dead or too old for these economic policies to matter to them. Do you imagine it is 90 year old pensioners who are being taxed to pay for this nonsense? No, it is their grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are paying those taxes.
Well, what about: “The sins of the fathers shall be passed to their sons unto the seventh generation…” [sic]
Citation please, I cannot find such a verse, though I do find one that states the third or fourth generation continues to suffer for the sins of the fathers (not share their guilt, but suffer the effects of their fathers’ sins, which can lead them astray).
I stand corrected. That’s what the [sic] was all about.
Now you give me the ref, please.
The sins of the fathers are not to be visited on their children I think must refer to individual sins of the fathers – murder, corruption, etc. The sins of the fathers visited on their children to future generations may refer to national sins – debt. So much for Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the US. Germany was divided at the end of WWII. Families were broken, cities were in shambles. They paid for their sins. Now the debt comes . . .
Almost all the Germans who were adults during the Holocaust have died of old age.
A German who is 40 years old today was born in 1952, after World War II and after the denazification programs. Why blame him for what happened long ago?
Slight correction, a German (or anyone else) who is 40 years old today was born in 1972, not 1952.
But other than that, your point stands. I was born in Alabama in 1957. That’s over 90 years after the end of the Civil war and the abolition of slavery. I have no evidence one way or the other whether any of my ancestors owned slaves (only about 10% of the people could afford them), but even if they did, I have no responsibility for something that happened generations before I was born. Neither do over 90% of all Germans alive today. They were either born after the war or were children during the war.
This crime was so horrific, there can never, ever, ever be any forgetting or forgiveness. Ever.
Germans stand convicted as vile killers for all eternity. There is no redemption for them. None.
They are forever the scum of the earth and to think otherwise is to minimize and belittle the Shoah and its victims.
You may be justified in your attitude – who am I, a gentile, to say that you are not? But it is the kind of attitude that leads to more shoas. If you do not allow the children of the Nazies to reject the acts of their fathers and apologize, then what are they to do? When Jesus said we should love our enemies, it was not just a moral platitude, it was also wisdom. It may be very hard to do, but it is the only way out of hell on earth. I hope you will try to find a way.
The Germans are still biological / racial determinists. Scratch a German, and you will find ‘biology is destiny’ under the cultural relativity claptrap lib\service veneer (just as you will under many modern ‘leftists’).
In their heart of hearts, even many younger Germans believe Jews are still malevolent and harbor anti-semitic ideas, and furthermore have the gall to declare themselves ‘tired’ of bearing Holocaust guilt. Check the polls.
They make great cars and machine tools. Lots factories, and pick garbage off the streets. Good for them.
Give me a bankrupt Italian whose father ignored Il Duce’s racial proclamations any day.
Funny how Jews are expected to be better Christians than Christians. European history, until just very recently, is nothing if not one near genocide after another. Not that the rest of the world isn’t . . .
Michael, do not your own prophets say that the sons are not liable for the sins of their fathers? They are scandalized by them, to be sure, but God will not condemn them for what their fathers did; only a man’s own sins can condemn him.
Maines Michael, Jesus was a Jew who was deeply knowledgeable of Judaic law. Christianity may be properly seen as a Jewish sect embraced by Gentiles. It was a Jew who said “Love your enemies.”
Einstein was a determinist.
Obviously, the Shoah means nothing to you. So don’t preach to me about forgetting or forgiving it.
The only thing the Krauts deserved for it are mushroom clouds.
Which were created over the wrong country in 1945.
The Shoah means enough to me that I can see you are not that different of Nazis: what sets Nazism apart was that you were guilty no matter what you had done, you were guilty even if you had left judaism (ie people believeing that Jewish religion was evil or antipatriotic and its adepts were perpetrating evil or treasonous acts should have left alone those who had left it. Not with Nazism) as soon as you were born if you had perpetrated the unspeakable crime of not being born in the wrong family. According to your reasonment, the new born German baby is guilty. What are you doing to do? Nuke him or make him breath Zyklon B?
Stop kvetching. The Germans have confronted their guilt. If you want something to whine about, pick on the Arabs that are still propagating the same old nazi bs.
Inherited guilt – a sick belief system if ever there was one.
Well man, I’m sure we can find a murderer in your ancestry. Burn in hell forever for that.
Anonymous – you just want to burn me because I am a lowly Jew. But this time, the world will pay a price for burning Jews.
You are right. And likewise, I will never forgive the Jews for supporting the election of the Tyrant, Barack Obama, with huge amounts of cash and about 80% of their votes. And most are still supporting him, while he participates in the destruction of Israel. We should never forget how complicit were the Jews in the destruction of the American system. Right?
Those peuple are dead, you fool. Stop masturbating about it.
And of those wacko Christian heretics who claim that the Jews forever bear the guilt of deicide, what of them? Is the charge of blood guilt “in bounds” now, or out? Because you are espousing the same philosophy as them — only the crime being referenced as the cause of blood guilt (Shoah, instead of Crucifixion) has changed.
Their ancestors did say, “His Blood be on us and on our children.” That said, having the Blood of Christ on your heads can mean either a blessing or a curse. If you hate Him, it is indeed the curse of bloodguilt, for you share in the deicide committed by your ancestors. If, however, you proclaim Him the Messiah and Savior, the Blood on your heads is the blessing of salvation that washes away your sins. “Blessed is he who washes his robe clean in the Blood of the Lamb.”
I suppose your bigotry is understandable, in a sense. If I was Jewish I might feel the same way. But I’m not, and I don’t. I feel no more need to hate Germany for how it treated the Jews than I do to hate the British for how they treated the Irish, or the Russians for how they treated the Chechens.
Eric, don’t you dare accuse me of thinking the Holocaust means nothing to me. I am Polish. My grandfather is a holocaust survivor and AK veteran. The Nazis murdered my great-grandparents. My great-aunt had to hide from the Russians for fear she would be raped. I also have a German-American great-grandparent, as well as an Italian-American great-grandparent. If you curse the Germans to the last of their race, you curse me as well, because German blood does run through my veins, however thin.
Your hatred so blinds you that you single out Germans as the scum of the Earth while ignoring the crimes of others, and you transgress Torah by cursing people who have committed no crime for the crimes of their fathers. The only reason that the Japanese did not massacre Jews during WWII is that there weren’t any Jews in Japan to begin with, but to their neighbors they were, as incredible as it may seem, more ruthless than the Nazis were. And why should we have dropped the atomic bomb on Germany after the war was over? Remember, the bombs weren’t finished until after Germany surrendered.
You talk about hatred in this instance like it’s a bad thing. It is not. Hatred of murderous, genocidal evil is a good thing.
Hating a man because of the crimes of his father is never justified. You may indeed be a Jew, but you know nothing of Tanach if you believe in condemning people for the crimes of their ancestors. Are you unaware that you will be judged based on how you judge? If you condemn all Germans based on the actions of their ancestors, why should God hold you guiltless for the crimes of your ancestors, who murdered the prophets and spurned the covenant?
Obvious troll is obvious.
Agree. Eric R is as Jewish as Warren is Cherokee.
Leftist sidetrackers always pose as a caricature.
They are stupid enough to belief it’s accurate.
Willing to be fooled, so we can all keep playing along with each other.
You would do well to remember what that infinitely wise man Winston Churchill said about the Germans “The Hun is either at your throat or at your feet”.
As some old and highly respected German politicans and historians stated some days ago, the aim of Churchill was to destroy Germany. This was after World War I. He argued that there was no place for a united and powerful Germany. At the beginning of World War II, many Germans like Trott and Moltke ask the Brits for help. In vain. For the Brits, any German was a Hitler or even worse. Shall the Germans kill each other was the argument. The aim was unconditional surrender and nothing else. Joachim Fest wrote many essays about that topic for example “Bürgerlichkeit als Lebensform”. Only after the war the Jews came into focus. Why? I simply cannot believe that Churchill did not know anything about the fate of the Jews. I remember the German woman in London who had to flee because she was a Jew and who was imprisoned because she was a German. By the way, she was a great woman. I seem to have met many great people during the spring and summer of my life. Somehow I am a lucky person.
Uebrigens, heute habe ich keine Zeit und Energie um zu hassan die Enkelkinder von der Leute die haben meine Grosseltern ermoerdert. Mein Angst ist vor die Leute die heute wollen den Holocaust fertig machen, und die viele Leute im West die haben liebe fuer solche Leute.
For what it’s worth, at this point I don’t have the energy or attention to resent or be angry at people whose grandparents murdered my grandparents. I’m too concerned about the people in the world (and their western sympathizers) who today want to murder me and the other descendents of survivors today.
Well said, fsilber.
By the same reasoning, you should be blamed for the fact that some Americans practiced slavery, right?
Somehow I am afraid of people like you. Nothing more to tell.
Fuck you Eric..
“Germans like to point out …”
The Germans got just little payback. They should be thankful for being alive! Kill 1/3 of the Germans, and then let them speak.
I don’t much support the Greeks here, but Germans complains about destruction during WWII? They didn’t get enough!
Yep. I’m a Jew.
Amen.
Keep the submarines coming, Germans. Otherwise, STFU. We know who you really are and what you really think. Your ‘left’ is giving it away these days, giving your ‘right’ a rest.
In a previous comment (rant) you stated, “The Germans are still biological / racial determinists. Scratch a German, and you will find ‘biology is destiny’”.
Based upon what has come out of Planned Parenthood lately (abort that unborn infant girl if you rally wanted a boy, etc.) do you really wish to lay such a claim exclusively at the feet of the Germans? Seems like a lot of American liberals wouldn’t mind a little infanticide if it suits their designer baby wishes.
By the way, my entire family on my mother’s side are of German descent. We have had and enjoyed many Jewish friends. I am tempted to tell you to go suck an egg. But I won’t just now.
The liberals have been “enjoying a little infanticide” for 40 years since the passage of Rove vs. Wade into law.
6 million German dead from forcibly-conscripted soldiers and Sudenten civilians on forced march alone. Not counting civilian casualties.
There. You’re even.
Mom’s a German Jew- proud to be of both. Especially since Judea drove ten tribes into Europe for Persian/Babylonian favors. How many blood-and-soil Germans were ultimately Abraham’s seed?
“Is it really a good time to be drawing down NATO and redeploying Americans to “Asia”? (As in “who will pay for our defense or ensure NATO solidarity as the EU unravels?”)
Awwww, poor babies. You mean the Europeans will actually have to start paying for their own defense? Say it ain’t so! They’ve been freeloading off the backs of the United States ever since the Cold War when it comes to the defense of NATO. The Europeans will have to pick up the slack and they most certainly will not. Just look at how poorly they did in Libya, a war against a tiny country where half of the population actually fought against Gaddafi.
ALL of the European countries have already announced massive cuts to their already small militaries, which will make things worse for NATO’s defense, not better. The only thing saving NATO is that Russia is in even worse shape with lousy demographics and a plummeting birth rate. Who knew that the lack of kids would actual prevent the next war from taking place?
The only good news out of all of this is that there probably will not be another war in Europe simply because nobody, including the Russians, can afford it. But if you expect any of these NATO characters to help us in any other part of the world, forget it. They are nothing more than paper tigers remembering how powerful they used to be. If they could barely defeat Gaddafi, they won’t be able to do a thing against Iran. And the Iranians know it. This is going to make the rest of the world a very dangerous place to live in.
For 3 generations, Americans have spent vast sums to protect Europe from itself. At first, it was necessary but like the 39 year old “adult” kid living in the basement, sooner or later they have to grow up and care for themselves.
It’s really quite simple:
1. If the Europeans don’t believe they need military defenses, then why should we pay tens of billions of dollars each year providing one for them.
2. If they do believe they need military defenses, then it’s their responsibility to make the political and fiscal sacrifices to provide it. They can either pay us the full cost of protecting them or build up their own militaries to do the job.
I’d say that the Germans, specifically what used to be West Germany, held up their end of the bargain on their own nickel (well, 5 pfennigs). For the same reason that Dr. Hanson’s statement that they “didn’t rearm” after WW II is a bit shy of the truth. To wit;
United States, M1 Abrams main battle tank (MBT) production 1978-2012; 9,273, roughly 85% for US forces.
FRG (West German) Leopard 1 MBT production, 1967-78; 6,485
FRG/reunited Germany Leopard 2 MBT production, 1980-2012; 3,480
Total German Leo production; 9,965, roughly 80% for German forces, the rest for (mostly) other NATO member states plus a few neutrals (Switzerland, Sweden), and some even further from home (Brazil, to name only one).
Doesn’t sound like lack of rearmament to me. Nor does it sound like Germany hasn’t been pulling its weight, either. MAP didn’t pay for all of those tanks.
Oh, and incidentally, our M1A2 Abrams M256 120mm smoothbore gun, that has a track record of killing every other tank in the world when its long-rod penetrator connects, is a license built version of the Leo 2′s gun, built by Rheinmetall.
Vielen Dank Deutschland, ich bin froh, dass du auf unserer Seite!
cheers
eon
Another excellent article by VDH. Yet,with all due respect, I do take exception at the stereotype of German militarism.
Yes, that has been a problem, but no so more than all of the nations that the British, French & Japanese have conquered in the past during colonial times. For instance, in he revolution of 1848, Germany was in the midst of a movement of freedom & democracy. Ultimately, it was crushed w/ Russian Imperial help.
Then there is Spain taking over the Netherlands & attacking & destroying Indian cultures in the New World such as the Aztecs, Mayans & Incas. Now THERE was an aggressive nation!
And what about Imperial France under Napoleon?
Look, WWII is over. It was basically the fault of the old fools making the Treaty of Versailles. Yes, Hitler was to blame to a great extent along w/ the rest of the Nazi slime. But yours truly contends that he would never have risen if Germany was not driven prostrate into the dirt & crushed by the treaty. Thus, the bitterness of Germany & the rise of fascism & Hitler.
Sadly, as VDH notes, Germany has swallowed the bogus Green Movement & Global Warming to the hilt. And,they do love O.
However, Germany is part of the solution to a better Europe. They should immediately withdraw from the EU & let the debtor nations lie in the bed that they made. Naturally, they might learn a lesson that you can’t live off of other’s money forever.
Forget about the war guilt. WWII ended 67 yrs. ago! Should the US STILL feel guilty about slavery or butchering the Indians & stealing their land? Of course not!
It is time for the German psyche to move forward. The Nazi’s did horrible things to the Jews. But it is over. They have paid their debt literally & figuratively to that bastion of democracy Israel.
Me? I’m for a re-armed resurgent German military. This is one of the only things which will cause dictator in fact Putin to think twice about gobbling up all of the newly independent former Soviet nations in both Europe & Asia.
O has clearly demonstrated that he could care less about our natural allies in Eastern Europe. Naturally, someone must step in & fill this role.
A resurgent, aggressive & fascist Russia is to be feared. NOT Germany!
The Germans are about as pacifistic as any people come. But they need to be a bastion of a free & independent Europe. Not a nation that sticks it’s head in the proverbial sand. This would also help ease the US bearing the burden of NATO’s defense policy.
Good comments. WWII is over; the generation now in Germany did not create the Reich. Therefore, just as American slavery is over, there is no reason for America to act-with-guilt to any and all with any trace of black genetics, nor is there any reason for Germany to act-with-guilt to others in Europe.
The key problem is setting up a single economic unit, the European Union, but allowing vastly work and management modes of operation in that Union, which lead to different wealth results.
So, the German industrial mode of operation produces wealth, while the Greek business mode of operation produces no wealth – and yet, all expect to live the same, equal, lifestyle – then, that EU economic infrastructure is in serious trouble.
It has set up a system with a wide range of different business practices and yet,embedded lifestyle expectations. The Greek individual expects to operate within a laid-back work mode, an early retirement, and yet, expects full social benefits. Germany is paying the tab for this!
ETAB, it is so wonderful to see you again back in the comments. I was concerned a bit when I didn’t see your comments.
Greece and Germany are brothers of the same father, but of a different mother. The Brothers or European Bee Gees, hold the lesson for us all.
I often told people that New Orleans and Charleston were brother cities. One stayed up all night, drank heavily, partied until dawn, ate spectacular food and in the light of day was dirty, smelly and hungover. The other was nicely trimmed and shined and polished. But, they were both dying. Just from different strains of the same genetic disease.
It is the adherence to mindless leftist propaganda that is killing the European Bee Gees. (and the rest of the EU…as well as California, Illinois and every bankrupt American Democratic stronghold)
Greece and Germany are separated by a work ethic chasm but handcuffed together as shackled twins to destructive and necrotic notions of hippie academics. VDH, a man I admire for his wisdom and logic suggests that we should give Germany a break because of their inbred guilt over Hitler and the Third Reich.
The Holocaust was an atrocity as was slavery. You can’t run away from history when it rightly condemns you.
But having to adopt the crap of leftism as a penance is illogical and a non sequitor. Having to accept “multi-culturalism” as penance is beyond ridiculous. Germany deserves to be understood, it does not deserve to be absolved of past sins nor absolved of present bad decisions.
Germany, like America…is needed by the world to be strong and wise. The strength contained in each should be used to lead, not be lead around by small c communists and other assorted twits.
And, Germany …as it concerns America…should seek first to understand, THEN to be understood. If they are championing Obama and trashing Bush…they are not getting it right in their heads. In between wimp and warrior can be the wise.
In the final analysis…it will probably be up to America to save Europe. If only we can save ourselves first.
the nowadays Germans don’t feel guilty for WW2, even it’s where the highest percentage among the youngs ignore what were the concentration camps for
And French youth have little interest and feel no guilt about Napoleon’s countless crimes. Nor that the French police kidnapped enough French Jews to fill 72 trains for Nazi death camps. What we do now is what counts.
“And French youth have little interest and feel no guilt about Napoleon’s countless crimes. Nor that the French police kidnapped enough French Jews to fill 72 trains for Nazi death camps. What we do now is what counts.”
I recall you that Napoleon didn’t commit crimes nor genocides, his campains mainly made soldiers casualties, wheras the French’ paid the biggest part
oh the french police was ALSO reluctant to send Jews in “polish death camps”, cuz France still managed to save more than 70% of them, while in the countries that you’re reverring as your best “allies”, only 5% did !
Tell me, if the French had been as much touchy as the Poles are, how many “escuse” letters your government would have had to write to the french presidents?
“The report shows that German foreign ministry diplomats in Nazi-occupied Paris and throughout Europe played an active role in deciding whether Jews should be deported and sent to the gas chambers.
“If the French Resistance killed German soldiers, it was the diplomats who immediately deliberated whether to deport a thousand or 2,000 Jews to the extermination camps as a punishment,” Mr Conze said.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-foreign-ministry-helped-nazis-flee-country-after-the-war-had-ended-2116414.html
‘France was one of the countries controlled by the Germans at the early stages of war, but it had a high level of democratic tradition of Liberte, Fraternity and Egalite. In France about 75000 Jews perished out of a population of 350,000, about 70% survived. Many factors contributed to the relatively high survival rate, the most important factor was the attitude of the silent majority, who made it difficult of the Germans to identify and catch the Jews. Even the local police cooperated only reluctantly with the Germans, Jews were provided with false identification papers, given shelter and moral support. Jews also participated massively in the resistance and at the beginning stages about 33% of the resistance fighters were Jewish”
-http://kimel.net/france.html
bizarre:
-http://kimel.net/poland.html
oh and Atlas shrug on the Dutchs:
-http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/01/wilders-dutch-government-should-apologize-for-passive-attitude-to-wwii-deportation-of-jews.html
Your ignorance of French history is astounding.
no, it’ your blinkered antifrenchism, are you a good AIPAC pupil?
ONE-FIFTH of young Germans have never heard of Auschwitz, survey reveals
A survey carried out two days before Holocaust Memorial Day shows more than a fifth of young Germans do not know the name of Auschwitz or what happened there.
Twenty one per cent of people aged between 18 and 30 quizzed about the most notorious Nazi extermination camp had not heard of it, the survey revealed.
And almost half of all those canvassed by the Forsa research institute said they had never visited a concentration camp despite the fact Germany has made all of those on its soil permanent memorials to the dead.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091572/One-FIFTH-young-Germans-heard-Auschwitz-survey-reveals.html#ixzz1wpvNm0A5
Re: your comment that Napoleon only killed soldiers, not torturing and slaughtering innocent civilians —
I invite you to the Prado museum in Madrid, or just Google it now, to see the collection of Francisco de Goya’s graphic reportage at the time, “Disasters of War”.
“Re: your comment that Napoleon only killed soldiers, not torturing and slaughtering innocent civilians —
I invite you to the Prado museum in Madrid, or just Google it now, to see the collection of Francisco de Goya’s graphic reportage at the time, “Disasters of War”.”
I visited Prado, of course Goya’s painting reflect of the Napoleon’s Spain occupation’s reactions ( it was his bread earning inspiration) which can be labelled as popular “guerillas”, though not impulsive, they who were ignited by the Brits, the French army reacted, like any army in such circonstances, Repression, but there’s no record of tortures and or of mistreatment, which was the case of the spanish rebels when they caught a french soldier.
cf,
You have pointed out a very important point WRT the lefty multiculti group that controls so much of information flow to the normal people. It was this group that started a debate about whether young people could put German flags on their cars during the soccer world cup that was held in Germany. Cars displayed the flags of all the competing teams, yet 20-year-old Germans were made to feel guilty about theirs. It was also this elitist “intellectual” group that controlled all the info about George Bush and about environmental matters, etc. This group doesn’t really care about the issues, be they anti-semitism, integration of the Turks, or organic farmers. They only care about maintaining their superiority, and they know as much about the real life of the people they advocate for as Leonard Bernstein and the radical chic knew of life in American inner cities.
Weep for Europe
By Robert Winkler Burke
Book #4 of In That Day Teachings
3/15/2009 http://www.inthatdayteachings.com
Weep for Europe,
God help her soul,
Wail for Europe,
God make her whole.
Somewhere in history,
Look deep to find,
In Europe what it is,
God has in mind.
Great peoples, great steeples,
And great standards,
Now shattered, now scattered,
Bitches, bastards.
No mothers of wisdom,
No fathers of lore,
Just cheap thinking thinkers,
Like pimp, like whore.
Where art thou, oh great legend Europe?
Pray, do you have it in you?
In your leviathan self-appetite,
Any muscle, any sinew?
Cry for Europe,
So much beautiful character wasted,
Howl for Europe,
Her best we need for the coming ages.
Hitler didn’t came into power because of the Versailles treaty charges, but because Germany defaulted on american loans in 1931, that made Germany going into a deap depression, Hitler used the Versailles treaty reasons, and the Jews, for justifying the poor economical situation in which the Germans were, in the meantime it was ment for rallying a large popular support (a strategy that governments use for furthering their bellicose agenda, in neocons’ books too, like Bush did for his war on Irak, it was a excellent argument to demonise the French and the Arabs at the same time)
Alas, history begins again at a subjectively selected point, a point while nominally factual, is selected in large part to support a chosen “slice of life” type narrative.
I wonder about the Franco-Prussian War, and the role of Russia/USSR. Selected historical points.
I want to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with bias, except lack of some acknowledgement of it. And allowing other’s “biases” wrong or right, to be valid as well.
you should read economists, they, the serious ones will tell you that
there are good one on “Daily Telegraph”
idem, for the franco-prussian war it was but a disguised economical war under volkish recepts, whereas coal and iron were the objective for Bismarck new Industry, we had the iron in Alsace Lorraine, Germany had coal, the deal was how to get the hand on the iron mines, a fake message managed it, and if it hadn’t been sufficient, I trust Bismarck’s intelligence to have found another trick, hey he managed to conquest the whole Germany before, ever heard of “zollverein”?
think about the what brought to Germany thefrench capital manna of the era
“The explanation focuses on macroeconomic developments in Germany and traces
the roots of the process that led to the adoption of the 1879 tariff to the indemnity imposed by Bismarck on France following the 1870/1 Franco-Prussian War. The war indemnity, in essence a very large capital inflow, translated into a massive stimulus. This led in turn to fast growth, price inflation and other symptoms that are typically observed in episodes of large capital inflows.”
http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~azussman/protectionism.pdf
“However, for either country to achieve its political aims it required an industry capable of producing and powering the tools of geopolitical expansion: ships, guns and railroads. Essential to this industry were coal and steel. The control of natural resources essential for war-making, specifically the coal and iron ore of the upper and lower Rhineland, was one of the primary aims of boths the wars and the peace settlements that followed each. Indeed, the it was the struggle for resources in the peace settlements that fueled further conflict. In this case study I will examine this conflict over war-making resources. I will also investigate the paradigm shift that occurred after World War II, when the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community reflected a change in the way the two countries regarded natural resources and their relationship to national security.”
-http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/saar.htm
And you should check out “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman.
sorry, I ain’t so Lucky !
A Tea Party I told you so! May 31, 2012
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2012/05/tea-party-i-told-you-so/676326
Perceptive and well said!
As Dr. Hanson well knows, this mess is all due to those lazy, indolent Spartans.
Or, perhaps things change. Nations change, people change. The EU was created, during a US guaranteed peacetime, to compete with Uncle Sam. He maintained a military capable of preventing Germans and Greeks from becoming slaves, while they drank beer or Ouzo. When they authorized a common currency, every nation agreed to basic fiscal and monetary disciplined policy, to prevent any one nation from becoming the free loading brother of their hard working sibling.
People started cheating on the first day. Nations ran up unsustainable debts, particularly obligations to Greece’s bloated civil servant population. In the PIIGS, no real man paid his taxes; it is considered effeminate to pay your share. The pols kicked the debt can down the street. But now the bill is due and payable.
IF I may read European history with prejudice, they repeatedly do the above for several generations then opted for some strong guy who will make the trains run on time.
Beware of Greeks bearing bonds, and some Spartan who promises to fix the problem.
Constructed optimism is another term for faith. No one locks their doors at night based on constructed optimism, but in fact we organize our politically correct societies in the West based on such a premise.
As for war guilt, the Germans were cured of their madness, the guilty are dead. I’m not slapping any German tourists or making DNA connections.
Yet that is exactly what the political Left does: they slap people and reward them for things they in fact have no connection to, for historic “crimes” that often are grossly exaggerated or portrayed. On the Left, they smear lynchings, for example, in greater numbers then occurred and in more areas of the U.S.
America’s history is now said to be based on slavery while simultaneously committing genocide.
The Germans, as is in fact portrayed by Dr. Hanson, will survive or not to whatever extent they stop having faith in things that don’t exist and start taking a hard look around them, a thing few in the West gives even the slightest hint of being willing to do.
The German guilt card is about used up.
Deutschland Erwache!
Mr Hanson; I thank you for your insightful article on Germany. As an overview it is amazingly correct. I say this as an American that has lived here for over 30 years. (And if Obama wins re-election, I will switch citizenship to Germany.) Alas, many of the comments upon your article evince a good portion of ignorance and, worse, much prejudice. I could add to your report supporting comments from Germans with whom I speak to eveyday. Moreover, I find no need to speak secretively. It takes little effort on my part to convince Germans that they have been swindled by Barack Obama — my disdain for Barack AUGUSTUS Obama is evident and willingly communicated. (By the way, I explain Obama to Germans by retelling how “First Citizen Octavius” transformed himself into “Augustus Caesar”. Amazing parallels.) Alas, Germans know little about what is going on in America, the liberal mass media feeds watered down info to German reporters to be simplified in tv. One has to go even beyond some decent newspaper to very learned groups to encounter depth understanding. The “common man”, if any interest is evident, finds his info from CNN or second-hand versions in German tv. But, enough. I think it would be well for your readers to reflect upon your ideas as they reflect very well German reality. My views would only make things appear a bit more bleak. For a long time (and many Germans agree with me) I have viewed Germany as a “democratic Political Party Dictatorship”. At the present moment, technocratic Chancellor orders are beginning to sideline the “democratic” part of my description. –Oh, should you again float along the Rhine in either direction, look me up in Bonn.
Are you a descendant of the famous “HORST’ by any chance.
“Pragmatist” asks me if I am related to the “famous (sic) Horst”. Pragmatist is referring, of course, to Horst WesseL (who wrote “Die Fahne Hoch” as, let us say, the Nazi theme song). My German name (which can be found in Church records in North Germany dating as early as the early 18th Century) is spelled with two “l’s”, i.e., as “WesseLL”, a relatively rare spelling which, by the way, changes the pronunciation in German. Just pick up any German phone book and the double “l” spelling is hard to find. (Aside: David Wessel, no relative of mine, of the WSJ has, namewise, a greater probablity of being related to the INfamous Horst than I.) In all probablity I am no relative to Horst WesseL. If I (or David Wessel) were, so what?
What I do not understand is the point of the question. Is some sort of guilt by association being ascribed to me? I hope not, but wonder. However, the fact of a similarity between Horst and Leonard relative to last names, has had a catalytic effect upon me. I do ask myself in internal urgency and often how the land of my grandparents (who fled Prussian expansionism as a one reason for migrating) could produce within a 100+ years of my grandparents departure from the not-yet-Germany not only a “composer” (sic) of an INfamous Nazi song (if any comparison between myself and Horst is possible, it would be that Horst, even as a 3rd rate composer, possessed more musical talent than I), but produced Nazis and entered into an INfamous rampage of mass murder. Would I have sung the “Horst Wessel Lied” if I had been born and bred in the Germany of Hitler? Frankly I do not know. The educational system of the Nazis was, PRAGMATICALLY judged, seemingly effective. But that is a question that can be proposed to anyone brought up in a totalitarian system, e.g., Stalin’s Russia. So, I hope that “Pragmatist” has received a sufficient answer and I trust that he meant no aspersions.
I do happen to possess a few doctoral titles, both in German literature and philosophy. I have lived for more than 30 years in Germany (when I am not wandering about in other European countries). I have frequented the educational institutions of the various political parties so as to familiarize myself with German life TODAY. I think that I possess the qualifications to render a plausible judgment on Germany TODAY. I found in Hanson’s article a description of TODAY’s Germany which I could readily recognize. For that reason, I strongly recommend the article.
A final note: Germans are “orderly” in their mentality. Less today than 30 years ago. Nevertheless I think that I am not uttering a stereotype by ascribing the need of “Ordnung” to Germans (and I could, not here, tell you a sex joke abot German proclivities that hangs for its humor on German “orderliness”). I become nervous when a framework of “order” seems to implode in Germany. There was extreme lack of order during the Weimar Republik. Such excess is not to be found today, not yet. But there is a certain feeling in Germany that the EU and all the promises of the welfare supported life ad infinitum is in peril. In this context I sense (and no more) a certain danger here.
Horst Wessel was not the author of the lied. He was a pimp who got killed by a communist pimp in a fight over a prostituite. Goebbels hid this context and had an hymn composed in his honor.
Mr. JFM:
I have no intention in going in too much detail relative to just how the “Horst Wessel Lied” came to be. You can find info tapping into German internet. In 1929 Horst WesseL wrote the lyrics (and there is question concerning a bit of plagerism by Horst W) and the lyrics were printed In Goebels’ “Der Angriff” (“The Attack”) under the title, I believe, of “Der unbekannte SA-Mann” (“The Unknown SA-Man”). The music goes back at least to WW I reservists for a German warship “Königsberg”, the lyrics of which were not those deriving from Horst W. The “Horst Wessel Song” was, let us say, offically canonized by the Reichsinnenminister Wilhelm Frick in the early 1930s. (If my memory serves me right, Frick appeared as an accused at the Nürnburg Trials.) The “Urmelodie” itself seems to stem from a Peter Cornelius in 1865. Earlier than that I get lost. If Mozart can pick out folk music and turn it into HIS beautiful music, I will grant Horst W the claim to have snapped up an existent melody and to have turned it into HIS perfectly horrible, but, alas, effective Nazi song for which he “composed” the lyrics, not excluding that he might have partially plagerized the words. Give the man his due, which is also to condemn him.
But all this squabbling over detailed historical fact does not alter the “fact” that for the contemporary sucker in Germany, the music and lyrics were really from the “martyr” (as Nazi propaganda twisted his probable murder), Horst WesseL. And the important thing is not necessarily that which “really” was, but that which was taken to have been real at the time. Horst W is in the general narratives of that period seen as that author who composed the words and, apparently, got credit for the melody. Unless JFM can offer me information contradicting what German sources have to say about the damn song, I find JFM’s history to be inadequate. (I would really like to know whom Goebels supposedly commisioned to write the lyrics, i.e., if JFM has the “true” historical version.) But does it really matter? The point is the the “Horst Wessel Lied” was seen at the time to be that of Horst W. For whatever it is worth (and “Pragmatist” posed the question to me), I am in all probably in no way as “blood” relative to Horst W. And if I were, so what? That is the question, the answer to which, an answer would interested in. “Geschichte hin, Geschichte her, ich finde sie nimmer und nimmermehr” to parody Goethe.
I concur.
“… the green Germans pride themselves on being model globing warming alarmists…”
I was in Dortmund (a coal mining center) a few years ago. The coal mines were conducting counter-propaganda with billboards reminding the Germans that over 40% of their electricity comes from burning coal.* (Another 20% comes from burning oil and natural gas. Nuclear power plants provide about 28% of electricity.) The German government’s “plan” (idiotic pipe dream) to close its coal mines by 2018 is unfeasible even if the Germans get over their recent panic about nuclear power. If they close their mines, then they will have to import coal for their power plants, but there isn’t any extra coal in neighboring nations.
*German underground coal mining is the least cost cost-efficient in the world because Germany decided to have the safest mines after the 1988 mine explosion in Borken that killed 51 miners. Modern mines use expensive metal frame shaft supports, have improved ventilation, and automate dangerous tasks. The technology is diplayed at the German Mining Museum in Bochum.
Merkel was/is a political animal, she surfed on the waves that would make her party win local elections (though it doesn’t seem that it worked all right for it), and now she is forecasting a alliance with the FDP to stay at the Germany’s commandment position
I’m afraid the politicians will be the LAST people to lose their jobs.
For example- if Greece is so broke, why are Golden Dawn and Syriza even running?
“War guilt, then, looms as the lever to pry out German cash, and after three generations the Germans are getting tired of it.”
Here in America we might be getting played by “slave guilt” if one thinks about such a game plan longer than it takes to join any group.
Here in America we might be getting played by “slave guilt” if one thinks about such a game plan longer than it takes to join any group.
There’s big money in them thar Guilts. And, the school of Guilt beneficiaries can expand. After first writing in a decision that he’d go along with racial discrimination, and that it should only apply to ex-slaves and natives, John Paul Stevenson then reversed himself, allowing that the beneficiaries of wealth transfer made via race discrimination could be applied to other non-white pools. That’s why you have legal Vietnamese and Moslem immigrants, illegal immigrant “Hispanics” and all manner of non-whitey folk on the behavioral dole now.
Jeez, I’m feeling racist just typing about this. But hey, it’s the law. Sure, it was unconstitutional (i.e., lawless) to begin with, but at least it has grown on size, scope and cost. We’ve gotten the Guilt industry built out well beyond the hopes and visions of the federal judges who made the original illegal legal decisions to right historical wrongs.
I worked with Germans in one of their Max Planck institutes in Frankfurt am Main (1987 through 1989) and was continually amazed at their work ethic, all the more surprising was the fact that it was a public sector and not a private sector endeavor.
One rarely reads of another remarkable thing that Germany has recently done. VDH did refer to it above. After the reunification in 1991, former West Germany had to pull former East Germany from the gutter of the “German Democratic Republic”. They are or pretty much have finished this and now they are calling the shots in Europe. The ONLY “currency” with any value in Europe is the German worker, highly educated and with a work ethic unsurpassed on the continent.
yet, you can only refer to your only german experience for juging the whole Europeans, Germans aren’t the only ethical people in Europe, though they are the most patriots
“highly educated and with a work ethic unsurpassed on the continent.”
And never was that famed German work ethic and efficiency more in evidence than when they rounded up, transported, and gassed the Jews of Europe.
F**k the Nazi Germans and their work ethic.
The Germans did many horrific things 70 and 80 years ago. Sadly it has also made you a racist Nazis in your own attitudes. Knowing the past is tremendously important but living in the past is a sad, silly thing.
Tribalism is a terrible thing.
“The Germans did many horrific things 70 and 80 years ago. Sadly it has also made you a racist Nazis in your own attitudes.”
Take your sick, depraved, bigoted moral equivalency and shove it up any body orifice of yours where the sun does not shine.
Why? For daring to hold Jews to the same standard as Gentiles? Woe to you Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are quick to condemn others but deny your own sins.
But, Eric R., you ARE the moral equivalent of a Nazi. It’s obvious that, if you could get away with it, you’d kill a German infant in its crib for the sins of its great-grandfather. For you, guilt adheres to races and nationalities. Any German reading your rants would have to conclude, “I must find Eric R. and kill him before he kills my kids.”
Fuck you Jew.
You’re both off your meds, but you’re even a bigger idiot than Eric. You need to make amends, this is the USA..
Education, efficiency, and technology are neither vices nor virtues. They can be used just as easily for good as for evil. Tell me, where in the Torah does it teach you to hate the Egyptians? It doesn’t, even though the Egyptians enslaved your ancestors and murdered Israelite babies. They paid their bloodguilt by suffering the plagues.
I wonder how former many former Stasi found new political jobs, as well as what sounds good to an East German voter. Gotta have an impact.
Does Obama understand Europe? LOL!
Heck! He doesn’t understand America. I never thought the Germans were dummies before. I do now.
What’s that word? Dummkopf.
Spain is in Total Emergency
Don’t wannna discuss it
Think it’s time for a change
You may get disgusted
Start thinkin’ that I’m strange
In that case I’ll go underground
Get some heavy rest
Never have to worry
About what is worst or what is best
(Get it)
Oh oh Domino (it’s all right)
Roll me over, Romeo, there you go
Lord, have mercy
I said oh-oh, Domino
Roll me over, Romeo, there you go
Say it again
I said oh-ooh-oh Domino
I said oh-ooh-ooh-oh Domino
(Dig It)
There is no talk of firewalls, or of simply letting Spain go, or of the European banking system being re-capitalised to compensate for the losses that it would suffer. Nope. This is it. The cancer has now spread to the vital organs of the EU. Spain is not a peripheral Mediterranean country. It is not an insignificant player in the political project. It is not a marginal going-along-for-the-ride-and-the-free-money passenger on the euro train. Not only is its economy so large as to be indispensable, but its ties with Italy mean that the Italian economy (which is the third largest in the EU) would be fatally compromised by its fall. “Itexit” is almost unpronounceable, so perhaps it’s fortunate that it will never be required: after Spexit, there would be nothing left to exit from.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9307106/Spain-is-in-total-emergency-the-EU-in-total-denial.html
Roll me over, Romeo. Germany is going to take it in the end.
My wife and I were on holiday in Barcelona, Spring ’11.
We have a GREAT pic where I’m standing beside a light post with a poster advert for some Socialist party hoedoen that approaching week-end. Whereas in the pic I’m wearing a t-shirt with the words, ‘Enjoy Capitalism’ in Coca-Cola’s iconic lettering.
Idiots. The Spaniards economy was one to be envy of not 12-15 years ago. NOw they and MANY aforementioned countries asked, nearly begged for their NWO-like demise.
Then again, we American’s can’t laugh nor brag much, either.
As for the ‘down with Bush’ meme – I experienced the same sentiment in ’04 while in NZ of all places. A tiny, commonwealth, albeit beautiful, specifically the South island, country being sanctimonious. It was then in my late 20′s where ‘mental restraint’ kicked in..!
Ah yes, Spain. Another country of insatiable Jew-haters. They deserve all the misery and poverty they get.
Maybe they can now restart their civil war and get back to the business of killing each other.
and you’re here to pour more oil on the fire, don’t expect in return some sympathy
That is a rather strange response from someone whose above postings seem to endorse everything I have said on this thread.
may-be, but the Spanish don’t deserve such hate
Yes, Marie, they DO deserve it. And you know it.
hey eric, give it a rest.
Some pundit pointed out that every time – every time – German has been united and isolated there has been a European war. Today, they are united and are increasingly isolated. If the EU fails due to Germany not willing to pay for freeloaders, they’ll just switch to panzers and such as they did in the 1930s. A little known fact is the German military still sings this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi5iFoMU7Ok&feature=related
exactly, and it was just a couple of years to achieve it, Germany has the infrastructures to make it
Adolph Hitler and the NAZIs had a dream for a post war Europe. It was to be a Union of Nation States governed bu an unelected bureaucracy and dominated FINANCIALLY and POLITICALLY by Germany. that Ladies and Gentlemen is the EU in a NUTSHELL.
http://www.relay-of-life.org/nazi-roots/pdf/chap-uk-whoswho.pdf
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/8424749/MI5-files-Nazis-planned-Fourth-Reich-in-post-war-Europe.html
Please, Mr. “Pragmatist”, your nutshell summary of current EU politics is, alas, “nutty”. If Germany had won WW I (or better, if England had kept out of the fray and the event had not taken place), one would have had a German dominated continent heavily controlled by bureaucratic regulators of German accent. Check out the opinions of Prof. Niall Ferguson on the causes of WW I. That war was not necessary and was not just the “evi”l doing of Germany. If the EU collapses, Germany will in one way or another again be trend setting (I do not like the work “dominate) for Europe. The nature of trend setting influence lies in the structure of German material productivity. (This may alter if the “takers” of the EU can con Germany into being the “supplier” or “giver” of money, earned by their production, for said prolifigate “welfare” consumption of the rest. If Merkel falls, this might happen.) German dominance in Europe (with German bureaucracy) began with the rapid industrialization of the country in the 19th Century–long before the Nazis were on the horizon. If the Nazis had won WW II, there would have been nothing that looked like the EU or a post WW I victory of Germany (presuming the counterfactual of German victory). Germany today or Germany of the Kaiser is and was not structurally Nazi. If the Nazis had won, Europe would have looked like Eastern Europe under Soviet control minus all Jews and millions of slaves. Mr. Pragmatist has, indeed, a point concering German power insofar as he has highlighted a certain similarity. However, the equation in any shape or form of “democratic” Germany (or even the Germany of the Kaiser — then in the process of slow democratization) with the Nazi state strikes me as similar in quality to the old thesis about “Bolshevik Jewish” control of the Soviet Union. (Afterall, Trotsky was there: QED) I doubt that Mr. Pragmatist wishes to go that far nor would he appreciate my extrapolation on his comments. But then, his equation was not very pragmatic, rather dogmatic and left me with the feeling that prejudice of some sort is present. Alas, my impression is that a goodly number of the commentators were more interested in expressing disdain for Germany or someone, rather than understanding the excellent analysis that Hanson realized. Not “nutty” comparisons, rather serious reflection is what Hanson’s article deserves. Sermon ended — Amen!
WW1 would have happened anytime, just that Austria brought the opportunity on a tray. Germany remnent exportaton machine needed a extensive Lebensraum for its merchendises, and was limited by France, Britain, and Russia empires, so Germany’s goal was to change the given geopolitical advantages of these “empires”, in colonial possessions, and on sea lanes controls. And don’t forget the arms race of the era too, we were all in the expectative of a conflict with Germany (already strated in Marocco sinde 1905/06. WW1 at least would have happened a couple of years late. Also Germany had the Schlieffen plan, for when times will come for a war, “Attack France first, she would be beaten soon like in 1870, then turn on Russia”, and Molke said, “the sooner the better”, for it would be impossible to beat France a couple of years later, as she would have achieved her complete rearmament.
The only good reason the Germans shouldn’t pull out of the EU altogether is NATO. As Spengler pointed out elsewhere here, a free ride is good finances and who wouldn’t wanna join a club where one member does all the dirty work and pays all the dues? But… BUT… the military deal now is being vaporized in the first half hour of a post-modern war, so what do alliances matter any more?
EUrope was a happy Faculty Lounge fiction from the beginning. Bondholders are less sanguine, even when controlled by central banks of sovereign nations, in this case especially the FRG.
Here’s an idea for Germany’s exit from EUrabia: agree to buy the next five years bonds from failing EU economies in exchange for them taking the millions of Turks the FRG stupidly took in as part of the EAD (the European Arabian Dialog) a post-racist EU fantasy embodied by Jacques “Iraq” Chiraq. If nothing else, the EAD met its racial-cultural objectives, and left yet another major problem to repair.
“he only good reason the Germans shouldn’t pull out of the EU altogether is NATO. As Spengler pointed out elsewhere here, a free ride is good finances and who wouldn’t wanna join a club where one member does all the dirty work and pays all the dues? But… BUT… the military deal now is being vaporized in the first half hour of a post-modern war, so what do alliances matter any more?”
Spengler is but a supporter of a german re-armed super-power
I recall you that the Germans aren’t alone to contribuate to the EU, and EZ , comparatively we do as much as them, knowing that the contributions are mainly based on VAT, it doesn’t seem then that the Germans, whose population is above 80 millions, and France 65 millions, consumerise the most, hence the unbalance of the EZ trades
Germany: €21 189.9 millions
France: €19 075.6 millions
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/2011/2011_en.cfm
“Here’s an idea for Germany’s exit from EUrabia: agree to buy the next five years bonds from failing EU economies in exchange for them taking the millions of Turks the FRG stupidly took in as part of the EAD (the European Arabian Dialog) a post-racist EU fantasy embodied by Jacques “Iraq” Chiraq. If nothing else, the EAD met its racial-cultural objectives, and left yet another major problem to repair.”
Germany isn’t going to renounce to her “IV Reich” so easily, it would mean ruining her banks and big corporations, Turks were the Germans allies in WW1 and in WW2, they aren’t going to go into FRG land where thy’ll be in concurrence by the Maghrebin, who don’t want to have anything to deal with their Ottoman former rulers !
and still you’re a racist and a ignorant !
There is a lesson here for the rest of us: Spend all your money now because anything you manage to save will eventually be looted by spendthrifts anyway.
I wonder who the scapegoat would have been had it not been Germany with all the chips? There are certainly none that could have been more convenient and with such leverage. Germans must feel silly with the benefit now of hindsight – they had to know this would happen. Or maybe they look now to ingratiate themselves to the rest of Europe?
I heard an interesting anecdote about a discussion between a rather naive American general and a Soviet cold-war counterpart. The American asked what would happen if we met every single one of their demands. The Russian calmly and somewhat incredulously replied that he would then issue the next set of demands.
“I wonder who the scapegoat would have been had it not been Germany with all the chips? ”
I can’t believe you even need to ask this question. For Europe, it is always — and I mean ALWAYS — about blaming the Jews. And they will get around to that soon enough.
uh, sorry, at the moment it’s the Greeks the biggest scapegoats
Give it time, Madame Marie:
Soon enough it will ALL be the fault of the Jews. To Europeans, it is ALWAYS the fault of the Jews.
Read around the web today and you will see what is about to come. Socialism will finally fail, Europe will fail. China will fail. Japan will fail. We will all fail. Germany was socialist well before WW1, it was socialist during WW1, it was socialist between WWI and WWII, it was also socialist during WWII, and it has been socialist ever after. Socialism sucks. It always has! If you are Jewish and socialistic, you are nihilistic!
about VDH articles, what a German wrote on a german blog:
“With regards to his thoughts in the National Review, a very similar thought has crossed my mind in the last 2 years: When has Germany ever been in a more favorable strategic position in Europe since 1871?
A) Germany today is united and rich on the one hand as described in the article
B) It is also relying on the “right” industries on the other hand, —which like automotive and precise machinery production can be turned into war industry shortly on a large scale—
and C) in strict contrast to the wars so far former (colonial) powers Britain and France have changed their industries into banking, dis-industrialized and crippled their former military capacities.
Still I don’t think it would be the best time to antagonize and go to war within a few years. —-As long as we can employ the EU and there is a chance that we can send troops into states suffering from public disorder under the Treaty of Lisbon I say we should go along that route. That would reduce resistance and keep other nations from forging a counter-alliance. And we might even get the more prosperous euro-members on our side.—”
and expect that Westerwelle will not be shy to side Russia at the UN anymore, when the Syria conflict will be questionned, the good reason why, there’s a big gas reserve that Russia doen’t want to leave to anyone else but to Gasprom, within Germany is the biggest shareholder outside Russia
http://mecanoblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/la-syrie-centre-de-la-guerre-du-gaz-au-proche-orient/
Lets pray the Germans march south into Greece collecting debts owed them, instead of turning north and marching into Poland..
Dem funny stereotypes! Do you really think the “Trachtenverein” which is the German army is capable of conquering Poland?
“how can their sons somehow afford our BMWs?””
like 40% of the german labor force, that are paid with Harzt IV program wages
“Perhaps buy nuclear-produced electricity from a cash-hungry France?”
hmm if France was such a cash hungry, she would make Germany the highest price for electricity, er no, France lets Germany to buy her nuclear electricity when it’s cheaper on the markets, and Germany resells it when we need it in maintenace times of our nuclear sites, but Germany doesn’t sell it at the price she bought it, but with benefits !
The EU has become a interconnected energy net, hey our enterprises had to open their markets fields to the foreigners, and who are these foreigners that benefitted the most of these rules in the occurence? the Germans, while it still is difficult tp enter into their own strategical markets !
Meanwhile, the good-life, statist Germans are shrinking and aging with one of the most depressing fertility rates in Europe.
Right. Therefore lots of highly educated people from Spain and Portugal are immigrating to Germany and the UK (London has attracted about 400.000 French expats).
The angst grows because the Germans themselves brought Muslims in, kept them as permanent second-class aliens, and now are quite confused over their proper status — both not wanting them to become full Germans (there is still a word, after all, Volk, in their language, which, like Raza, denotes a solidarity beyond mere shared citizenship), and yet resentful of their chauvinism and often militant Islamism.
Germany has been attractive to foreign workers from Europe and -to some extent- Asia (GDR/Vietnam) for hundreds of years.
To put the blame (of failed integration of a large part of the Muslim minority)on Germany alone is rubbish.
Harold Rhode is digging deeper:
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3089/questions-facing-muslim-world
It is totally bizarre that Germans or other nations are accused of keeping the Arab immigrants second class citizens. But the issue cannot be debated of rationalized in anyway to people who believe this. I know it from my own experience, I had to LEARN it.
It is as explaining that fire is hot to a child, only the experience of getting burnt is the path to knowledge. But let me assure you all in vain, nobody is keeping the Arabs second class citizens in any way, quite the contrary. But as stated, it has to be learned, the burn must be felt to be understood. And I am sorry about that, just ask the Jews, why cant they just be friends with the Arabs? Because they cant, that’s why, but to know that is to have touched the fire and you cannot do that if there is no Arab encampment near you.
The Germans devalued before joining the Euro, so they could sell stuff to PIIGS, who used money borrowed from foreigners including Germany to buy.
The Germans have looted the other economies but don’t want to write off their self inflicted bad debts.
Tha’ve been too clever by half.
still we don’t use “looted”, but “siphoned” which looks more machiavelian
The Germans didn’t loot anybody. And Marie Claude embarrasses herself again.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9309669/The-week-that-Europe-stopped-pretending.html
as you’re a lover of all french things, I presume that you can also read french
there’s a article that explains what is “siphoning” for the current german behaviour in EZ
http://lecercle.lesechos.fr/economie-societe/international/europe/221142252/quand-allemagne-siphonne-liquidites-voisins
I noticed that you used “loot” when I was using siphoning, depends on your basic subtility, I suppose !
The Greeks were not the amateurs. They were playing with house money.
I still don’t understand the reason for the EURO- which any B student undergrad Econ major would have had doubts about- let alone the upper echelon economists.
Either Germany wanted a “Buy the World a Coke” Kumbaya moment- OR
They had an insidious plan to dominate Eurpean manufactures by preventing Italians, French, etc from weakening their currency (I am in manufacturing and I have to occasionally point out to others that the Italians, French etc make some good stuff- but the Germans have the killer brand)
German savings have to share part of the blame with Irish housing bubble and Greece’s troubles- didn’t they have a clue that they were inflating a bubble?
I’m a bit tired of Germany and its guilt over WWII- especially when it becomes self serving-
It’s the culture, stupid.
Ever wonder why it is that Germans are so thrifty, hard working and especially NEAT? Those images of sweeping a path with a broom come to my mind.
From a book I read years ago, I learned that the survivors of the plagues that almost wiped out Europe realized that not only is cleanliness next to godliness, but it is the sine qua non for mere survival in THIS world. Sort of resembles the point James Taranto, at opinionjournal’s Best of the Web, makes—as abortion works its “magic”, over time, there will be more people against it, because the pro abortionists are not reproducing.
And people think that what’s past is dead and buried!
Not true—it isn’t for FUN that Germans, as a Volk, have been well trained to keep order, right down to picking up trash. My mother always said—look both ways before crossing the street. Well, Germans love and respect, in the NOW, their ancestors, in their very actions.
It’s as if great-great-great-great-etc grandmother, who survived the plague, is still surrounded by the filthy dying fools who, unlike her, failed to keep it clean, is right THERE, 24/7 to remind her progeny in 2012 about what really matters—if they want to avoid the consequences of any actions that don’t keep death at bay.
Also long ago, I realized that the whole rotten culture back in the Middle Ages, which did not have waste treatment facilities—you know, when excrement and urine literally flowed everywhere, untreated: sort of like in lots of Africa today—guaranteed Nature would bite, and bite back. So, the Black Death was totally “natural”.
It was only when science spread its wings, and societies started creating and installing modern plumbing, that this PHYSICAL problem was (mostly) solved.
And—note, humans are psycho-physical beings.
To date, isn’t it obvious humanity is still suffering a noospheric “Black Death” epidemic? In the “psycho-“ or thought dimension, there sure is a lot of CRAP floating around, doing its own natural duty—to wit, bringing about death and destruction.
It is still, and always, true, that ANY reality has three aspects—birth-endure-death = begin-persist-end = Yahweh-Jesus-Satan = Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva. Hey, aren’t YOU born, don’t YOU live for a while, don’t YOU die?
The other day I chanced to inspect “Brave New World Revisited”, by Aldous Huxley, from 1958. His dire analysis on over-population was both edifying AND humorous, in a God-Only way—his “scary” numbers—
“On the first Christmas Day—250 million, less than half of modern (1958) China.
When the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock—500 million
By the time of the Declaration of Independence—700 million.
In 1931, just under 2 billion.
Today (1958), only 27 years later, 2 billion 800 million of us.”
WOW!!!
Writing down the last fact plucked a memory of my own, from around 1960 when I graduated from high school. I DO remember being struck by the fact that there were around 3 billion human beings, then.
So, after ONLY 50 years or so, we’ve gone through the 4 billion, 5 billion, 6 billion, and soon enough, the SEVEN billion number!
What would Aldous have to say, if he were alive in 2012?
My point—at least physically, if growth is the measure of success, humanity is SO FAR a wild success story.
Maybe all the mental “hell”, or Shiva-like destructive powers dancing around, led by the Marxist Obama, can’t stifle the irrational exuberance expressed by the regular births gained from sexual unions, from ecstasy.
“Be Consciousness.
Contemplate Consciousness.
Transcend everything in Consciousness.
This is the Epitome of the Way of Truth”
Da Free John, from “The Liberator (Eleutherios)”
These people are feeble and moribund;moreover they want to die!The idea that American soldiers should be put at risk for these exhausted,confused, Obama-loving dunces is obscene.Leave them to the Islamisys and the Russians!
Possible danger: Will there be a time when many Germans of today will view the financial support they are “supposed” to provide to Greece and the other failing 17 Euro-using nations in the same way their elders once viewed the allied imposed war reperations under the Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI?
Clearly only a minority of Americans understand Germans and Germany; the rest have watched too many reruns of “Hogan’s Heroes” One of the advantages of having had a lot of US servicemen in Germany before the fall of the USSR is that a couple of generations of Americans lived and served among the Germans. These are now part of the past.
In 1900, Germany was a great power, in 2012, a largish medium sized power without a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. It is despised by many and liked by few. It offers its citizens safe lives and employment, but little nourishment for the soul.
But really, the world has got the Germany it wanted. Down, but not out; subservient, and with a relatively small military. In 1900, every German male dreamed of being a field marshall; today they dream of being rap stars.
If the population trend prognositicators are correct (I’m not convinced), they will die out as a people within this century, much to the delight of Eric R. I’m sure. Most likely the future will be just like today, only more so.
So germans are still dangerous.. funny since there are more german-americans than any other variety of americans
I love my German ancestors!!! When Prussia took over in 1870, my paternal grandmothers family left Hanover and maternal grandfathers family left Holstein. Both families dodged WW1, Hitler, English bomber command and quietly farmed in Wisconsin through the 20th century. My Family did not suffer a casualty in WW1, WW2, Korea or Vietnam. Note: A family member almost died in a training jump before his unit went to Vietnam.
God bless those devout Lutheran farmers who wanted nothing to do with Prussia’s Germany.
Some my German ancestors did the same–though one discovered Methodism in WI & returned to proselytize.
” . . . cannot some American flat out state that it was Germany that worked hard, saved, invested, and prospered, and that is to be admired rather than caricatured and condemned?”
– - – -
Certainly, just as soon as Germany apologizes for demonizing Bush, and for caricaturing Americans who supported Bush and who continue to support those things that Bush supported as redneck racist rubes.
Your characterization of the German Volk aside, they still seem to place a higher value on Obama’s qualities than on the historical “American” values. They, and their EU neighbors, had a bit to do with BO’s election. They can have him. If and when they chose to repudiate Chicago Thug Socialism, then we can talk about our respect for them. Until then, they’re simply Greek moochers who still have some funds left. Anyone who wants to be able to pretend that Obama stands for some moral high ground better look to Obama for recognition; they’ll get none from me.
They need to understand: Obama is Greece is Obama. If we’re rubes for disliking Obama, then they’re rubes for disliking Greece. They can’t play it both ways, National Guilt Trip or not. Their country’s role in both World Wars ought not weigh that heavily on people not even born in those times, but it sure as hell doesn’t give them some moral advantage over me.
Virtuous Germans:
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=272813
Its not about holding the sons accountable for the sins of the fathers. It’s when the sons commit sins of their own.
Dr. Hanson, you will forgive some of us if we could not care less as to the fate of Germany (or Europe, for that matter), or care much for the wonderfulness of its industrious virtues.
I am confused. Why is it okay to abuse Germans – and I might add Americans – without compunction for their culture and character traits deriving from culture but disallowed to say anything negative about other cultures and character traits deriving. Especially among putatively educated people. And those who call themselves liberals.
An odd, not to say irrational, way to develop an international community. Creating pet cultures handled with kid gloves and others readily abused without tolerance, fairness and social justice when the going gets rough. Do these liberals not see how insulting this is not only to their abused peoples but to their pet cultures /peoples. As if none of the people in either is smart enough to recognise manipulation when they see it. With of course the invitation to get what they can while the going is good, i.e. take the money and run. The secret that the money can be taken only from those who have it, i.e mugging them..
Germany is not the only, or in some ways even the worst nation to have despicable chapters in its history. Known to educators, intelligentisia (at least I hope it’s known) and social mentors of the West Soviet Russia also had slave camps and murdered at least as many, but is not included in disgrace of holocaust. China has a recent history of murdering uncountable millions of her own citizens. China is now hands-off for such criticism. It is ludicrous and neither intelligent, tolerant or socially just to discount and refuse to remember the crimes against people in numbers of the African nations since colonialism ended. These as only examples of behaviours of cultures / peoples.
The refusal to inform as meticulously as the crimes of Germans and Americans such examples is undoubtedly intentional of New Age educators and social “leaders”. Intentionally to revise the history of the West to their aim of is it international community?
That so many otherwise intelligent and in some cases even wise people in the West/Germany/America bought the snake-oil of these “compassionate liberals” is a real puzzle.
hey, seriously, can you let the younger germans who have families that we’d be happy to have them in Texas? And it would be less of a culture shock than if they moved elsewhere? We’ve got French folks next door- Louisiana- we’ve got towns named Fredericksburg. We’ve got beer and sausage. And manufacturing. And their cousins, who moved here a 100 years ago.
I’m not kidding. We’ve got jobs and houses and space and no income taxes. Not much of a social safety-net- I know single moms who have moved to Massachusetts to get on the dole, since it’s so meager here- but if you work- you get to keep your money.
We could use an infusion of what made us great in the first place.
[T[here is still a word, after all, _Volk_, in their language, which, like _Raza_, denotes a solidarity beyond mere shared citizenship..."
As I once posted elsewhere, "_La Raza_--isn't that Spanish for _Das Volk?_" Behold the Razis!
I just would like to make clear that Italy is not exactly wealth-consuming like Greece or Portugal or Spain. Half of Italy worked hard, saved, invested, and prospered exactly like Germany and for 70 years is subsidizing the other half that, Greece-like, wealth consuming, caricatured and mocked the part that produce. Just check the made-in-Italy products, they all come from the North. It’s the same EU blueprint.
Well, there’s olive oil from the south. But yes, exactly: Italy is bifurcated in terms of culture and productivity. The southern Italians call the northern Italians “Germans.” The northerners in turn call their southern compatriots “Africans.”
As for Germany, the US and Germany don’t have to hold hands and smooch. We can do business with Germany, to use the famous Margaret Thatcher expression (about Gorbachev). That’s a vastly underestimated advantage.
I think it may end up being a good thing that we don’t have troops all over Europe in the coming decade. The weight of our presence is too light now for it be decisive merely because it exists. With a lighter but still substantial footprint, we’d run the risk of being everyone’s favorite “leverage,” someone to hide behind or rope into third-party schemes, just as if we WERE a dying empire. Europe has to fix itself, and the right tools for assisting the Europeans with their most pressing problems aren’t military, except for missile defense, and naval/air presence in the Med.
Honest people can legitimately arrive at different assessements about contemporary Germany, its domestic situation as well as its role in Europe.
But that group of people definitely excludes Marie Claude.
Oh, and Napoleon, founder of the Red Cross, UNESCO, Save the Children etc., and inventor of apple pie and motherhood, had to march through quite a few countries before he, and his more than 100,000 soldiers (how many exactly?), arrived before Moscow. Then they marched back the same way.
I’m sure all the ordinary folks along the way gladly offered them their cows, goats, potatoes and daughters for free, but the valiant (if undersized) emperor always insisted on having his soldiers pay.
I would like to think that German militarism in the first half of the 20th Century owed more to their newfound power as a recently united nation state – rather late in the history of nation states in Europe. The German speaking people for the first time felt the power, the grandure, of such a populous and resourceful united Volk. I would like to think that having now experienced a catastrophic defeat, the German nation has a more realistic approach to its place among the nations of Europe and the world. Seventy years of recent history seems to bear that out. There is certainly no genetic predisposition for war among German people – the Germans who came to the New World, including some of my own ancestors, have left by and large, a peaceful and productive legacy to their descendants. Indeed the German Amish and Mennonites are some of the most peaceful people in the world. There are other immigrant groups who have had a distinctly more violent or warlike history here, such as some of my other ancestors the Scotts and Irish. It seems likely that over the long run Germany has no greater inclination to militarism than other European nation states.
Dr Hanson, Having lived in Germany for 10 years, I think you have given a very insightful analysis, all the more impressive for being based on a short visit (one of many over the years, I believe). I’d like to touch briefly on a topic related to your tour that may be of interest to you and your readers. My apologies in advance if that’s not so. Sure, touring the Roman (and WWII) history along the Rhine is grand. Here in North Germany, though, we too have some fascinating episodes from Roman military history. You likely already know about Kalkriese, near Osnabrück. Archaeologists are pretty certain they have found there the site of the Battle of the Teutoburger Forest in 9 AD, where three Roman legions under Varus were wiped out by Arminius’s Germans in an extended ambush. There’s an informative museum and one can walk the ground. In a more recent discovery at the Harzhorn Pass between the town of Bad Gandersheim and the Harz Mountains, a battlefield from the 230s AD has been found and is being described as an archaeological sensation. It had previously been thought that after the Varus fiasco the Romans stuck pretty much to their side of the Rhine. The site is being interpreted as a Roman expeditionary force of infantry, heavy cavalry and artillery, at least 1,000 strong, encountering a prepared German blocking position in the narrow pass as they were returning to winter quarters along the Rhine. The Romans moved to flank the ambush, encountered German resistance along a forested ridge, and after a stiff fight apparently broke through and resumed their march to the Rhine. The archaeologists have done a great job of uncovering and interpreting, and they do a fascinating weekly guided tour of the ground. I’d be interested, though, to have a military man or military historian give an opinion on what the Romans were doing so deep inside Germania at this time. Does a relatively small force of 1,000 men seem credible? Maybe you should put the Harzhorn on the itinerary for your next visit to Germany!
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I am reading Volume VI of Pulitzer Prize winner Will Durant’s “The Story of Civilization”. This volume is titled “The Reformation”.
Prior to reading this volume, I thought a main trigger of the reformation was based on biblical grounds: the “indulgence” controversy of “buying a way into heaven”. Mr. Durant questions this, and perhaps you will too.
After reading Mr. Durant’s account, I think it was as much due to the ruling religious and civil German and Dutch authorities objections at sending hard earned German coin to Italy. This is understandable as coins were necessary for commerce.
Mr. Durant cites multiple correspondences by Dutch & German bishops – writing the Vatican to stop this cash transfer from Germany to Rome. These letters went back and forth for 100 years before Luther’s list went up on the church wall.
I would not under-estimate the angst the ordinary German might feel if he is forced to send his money to southern Europe – AGAIN!
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!
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Dear Dr. Hanson,
I apologize for my angry personal comment that I directed toward you at the end of the second submitted instance of my comment. I wrote that angry personal comment because I, when I wrote it, thought that you had rejected the initial submitted instance of my comment that I submitted, in which I described and denounced that bigoted antipathy that I saw being expressed toward Jewish people in comments here, and in which I listed articles that present facts of about important aspects of contemporary actions by German corporations (engaged in trade with Iran) and by German academics and by many other prominent German people which involves anti-Jewish bigotry and which is an important aspect of the situation that Israel is in.
I recently saw that the first submitted instance of my comment post was not rejected but was, rather, awaiting moderation. I apologize for my angry personal comment that I directed toward you at the end of the second submitted instance of my comment that I submitted.
I flew off the handle because I’m in a difficult personal situation, and because I’m distressed about the situation that Israel is in, and about, as part of that, the anti-Jewish bigotry that is one of the main factors that is causing Israel to be in the situation that Israel is in.
I apologize.
Sincerely,
Daniel Bielak
Who is Who in German trade with Iran?, by Matthias Küntzel
http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/who-is-who-in-german-trade-with-iran
Ahmadinejad’s Bank, by Matthias Küntzel; “Germany has to make up its mind about calling a halt to the activties of Hamburg-based EIH bank”
http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/ahmadinejads-bank
Propagating feel-good anti-Semitism in the tageszeitung (TAZ), by Clemens Heni
http://clemensheni.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/propagating-feel-good-anti-semitism-in-the-tageszeitung-taz/
Forget About Nazis, Talk About “Islamophobia”, by Clemens Heni
http://clemensheni.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/forget-about-nazis-talk-about-%E2%80%9Cislamophobia%E2%80%9D/
The Prague Declaration, Holocaust Obfuscation and Antisemitism, by Clemens Heni
http://clemensheni.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/the-prague-declaration-holocaust-obfuscation-and-antisemitism/
Antisemitism and Germany: anti-Jewish images from 1602 to 9/11 About Ahasver (the »eternal Jew«), anti-capitalist antisemitism (»Mammon«) and blood libel (»Moloch), by Clemens Heni
http://clemensheni.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/ahasver-mammon-and-moloch-anti-jewish-images-1602-to-911/
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Correction:
“…and is the Western anti-Jewish racism that is causing the West to be colluding with the ideologically genocidally anti-Jewish contemporary Islamic supremacist political movement today.”
My initial comment, to which my most recent previous comment is a correction, was not posted.