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The Great German Meltdown
Defining Ideas: Hoover Institute ^ | May 23, 2018 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 05/24/2018 7:02:57 AM PDT by C19fan

Every 20 to 50 years in Germany, things start unraveling. Germans feel aggrieved. Ideas and movements gyrate wildly between far left and far right extremes. And the Germans finally find consensus in a sense of victimhood paradoxically expressed as national chauvinism. Germany’s neighbors in 1870, 1914, 1939—and increasingly in the present—usually bear the brunt of this national meltdown.

Germany is supposed to be the economic powerhouse of Europe, its financial leader, and its trusted and responsible political center. Often it plays those roles superbly. But recently, it’s been cracking up—in a way that is hauntingly familiar to its European neighbors. On mass immigration, it is beginning to terrify the nearby nations of Eastern Europe. On Brexit, it bullies the British. On finance, it alienates the southern Europeans. On Russia, it irks the Baltic States and makes the Scandinavians uneasy by doing business with the Russian energy interests. And on all matters American, it increasingly seems incensed.

(Excerpt) Read more at hoover.org ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: angelamerkel; brexit; emmanuelmacron; europeanunion; france; germany; macron; nato; theresamay; unitedkingdom; vdh; victordavishanson
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Was it Churchill who stated the only way to keep the Germans inline is for your boot to be constantly on their throat.
1 posted on 05/24/2018 7:02:57 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan
movements gyrate wildly between far left and far right extremes

Oversimplification alert. There has been effectively no right, hence no "far-right" in Germany for a century. Nazi's were far left, to say the least. IMO the lack of a "right" is the reason they're melting down now.

2 posted on 05/24/2018 7:06:18 AM PDT by gr8eman (Since God has been banished from our classrooms, Satan has filled the void.)
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To: C19fan

Every other generation, the Germans seem to go off-the-rails pursuing some utopian political-religious scheme, and Europe pays the price.


3 posted on 05/24/2018 7:09:57 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: gr8eman

> Nazi’s were far left, to say the least. <

Yep. Central planning, putting the state above the people, limiting personal freedoms...these are all classic leftist policies.

But hey, the Nazis wore fancy military uniforms. So they must be right-wing.


4 posted on 05/24/2018 7:17:53 AM PDT by Leaning Right (I have already previewed or do not wish to preview this composition.)
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To: PGR88

It takes the Germans time to catch up with whatever madness the French pioneered several generations prior.


5 posted on 05/24/2018 7:25:02 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: PGR88
Every other generation, the Germans seem to go off-the-rails pursuing some utopian political-religious scheme, and Europe pays the price.

Yep, like a recurring nachtmahr.

6 posted on 05/24/2018 7:25:15 AM PDT by Charles Martel (Progressives are the crab grass in the lawn of life.)
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To: C19fan

Either you are on top of them or they are on top of you.


7 posted on 05/24/2018 7:46:00 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: C19fan

I have always felt that this is why we have maintained a military force in Germany long after Germany was restored and rehabilitated and why we never pushed (actually rather than rhetorically pushed)Germany to take up its full Defense responsibility as a rich Western nation. The cost of defending Europe and giving European nations, primarily Germany, a free defense ride is the price of preventing rather than having to go to war against resurgent Germany.


8 posted on 05/24/2018 7:48:23 AM PDT by arthurus (t7890)
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To: Rurudyne

The Germans and the French lost their genetic warrior blood lines the past century.

The offspring of balerinas and poets are what populate their countries now.

The bloodlines of the Germans and French here in America are closer to the pure lineage they once we’re.


9 posted on 05/24/2018 7:51:18 AM PDT by jcon40 (The other post before yours really nails it for me. I have been a DOithS / PC guy forever and alway)
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To: gr8eman

“Nazi’s were far left, to say the least. “

Bull shit. After WW1 there was a life and death struggle between the communists and the NSDAP as to who would rule Germany. The communists...the left...lost. Whatever you want to call the NSDAP they sure as hell weren’t left in the same sense as the reds.


10 posted on 05/24/2018 7:51:18 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: gr8eman

“Nazi’s were far left, to say the least. “

Bull shit. After WW1 there was a life and death struggle between the communists and the NSDAP as to who would rule Germany. The communists...the left...lost. Whatever you want to call the NSDAP they sure as hell weren’t left in the same sense as the reds.


11 posted on 05/24/2018 7:51:19 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: C19fan

Ha! I knew it was Hansen even before I clicked on it. As usual he gets the history wrong.

In 1870 Germany was not united and it was France which declared war on Prussia, not vice versa. The other minor states in the German Confederation allied to Prussia then joined in in kicking the crap out of France. Germany was then reunified in 1871.

In 1914 it was not German aggression which started the war. Germany was not seeking territorial aggrandizement. They felt - with considerable justification - that they were being surrounded. Russia insisted on going to war to protect Serbia after Serbia committed an act of war against the Hapsburg Empire, assassinating the heir apparent to the Hapsburg throne via state sponsored terrorism. The Russians then mobilized all along their border - including the German border, AFTER the Germans told them that this would force them into war and AFTER promising the Germans that they would not do so. When the French were asked point blank if they would attack Germany in the event that Germany and Russia went to war, instead of assuring the Germans that they would not attack, they said they “had to consult their interests”.....which obviously meant they were going to attack. That’s how the war started. Germany was fighting a defensive war, not trying to conquer Europe.

He is spot on in his analysis of present day Germany though. I don’t think they will ever be a military threat to anybody. They have no spine at all. I think the real danger is their collapse which is not as fanciful as it seems. The Southern Europeans can’t buy much of their stuff since the collapse of their economies. Saddam is gone. The hoped for windfall from pocketing more of the mullah’s blood money has vanished with the US withdrawal. The UK withdrew from the EU and they’ll have to be careful about trade negotiations there since they run a trade surplus and would be hurt worse than the Brits by any trade dispute. Just imagine if the US stop subsidizing their national defense and starts tightening the screws on them a little more in trade terms.

Oh and their population is aging and now they have well over a million new leeches to pay for.


12 posted on 05/24/2018 7:54:59 AM PDT by FLT-bird (..)
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To: Bonemaker

“Nazi’s were far left, to say the least. “

Bull shit. After WW1 there was a life and death struggle between the communists and the NSDAP as to who would rule Germany. The communists...the left...lost. Whatever you want to call the NSDAP they sure as hell weren’t left in the same sense as the reds.
.........
Both parties were leftists. The reds were further left. The difference between them was that the Nazi allowed for privately held large companies whereas the communists did not. Beyond that both were dicatorial, and both slaughtered millions. The reds killed more as they did in china under mao and in cambodia under pol pot.


13 posted on 05/24/2018 8:01:42 AM PDT by ckilmer (q e)
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To: Bonemaker

it was the great achievement of the Frankfurt School in the 1940’s at american universities to claim that the nazis were rightists rather than just another leftist group.


14 posted on 05/24/2018 8:03:50 AM PDT by ckilmer (q e)
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To: Bonemaker
Whatever you want to call the NSDAP they sure as hell weren’t left in the same sense as the reds.

Well, in Russia at the time of the 1917 revolution, you had the Mensheviks struggling with the Bolsheviks. Both were socialists, but they were in conflict. In the end, Lenin and the Bolsheviks came out on top. It was clear from the beginning that the Left would run the country after the czar, but it took a while to see which Leftists would come to power. In the end it was Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin.

In Germany, the National Socialist Workers Party was in conflict with the Soviet-backed communists and with the Trade Unionists. Everyone wanted bigger government, more control, and no one valued the rights of the individual. It was clear from the beginning that the Left would run the country after the Weimar Republic, but it took a while to see which Leftists would come to power. In the end, it was the Nazis.

15 posted on 05/24/2018 8:04:55 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy
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To: FLT-bird

So the treaty between Germany and Austro-Hungry had nothing to do with Germany marching (kicking and screaming) thru Belgium and into France.


16 posted on 05/24/2018 8:06:39 AM PDT by fatboy
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To: C19fan

All the German Christians came to America. Everything they do is done with an anti Christian worldview and the results over the last 100 years are clear. They can still engineer stuff but they are morally bankrupt.they still hate jews, they just do it now by proxy....import muslims


17 posted on 05/24/2018 8:11:50 AM PDT by BRL
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To: fatboy

Of course it did. But the timeline was as I stated:

- Serbia commits act of war against Austria-Hungary
- Austria-Hungary issues ultimatum to Serbia which Serbia rejects
- Austria Hungary goes to war with Serbia
- Russians mobilize all along border including Austria Hungary AND Germany AFTER Germans tell them it would force them to go to war and AFTER they promised the Germans that they would not
- Germans ask French of they will stay out. French say “non!”
- Germans then try to knock out France quickly before lumbering Russian bear can mobilize its full strength
- German war plan to go through Belgium then draws Brits in

This was not 1939. The Kaiser was a flawed man but he wasn’t a monster bent on European conquest. The Germans weren’t looking to grab anybody else’s land.


18 posted on 05/24/2018 8:16:10 AM PDT by FLT-bird (..)
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To: Bonemaker

Bull shit. The National SOCIALISTS were most definitely on the left. They weren’t the same Left as the Commies but they were on the Left.

“There is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separates us from it. There is, above all, genuine, revolutionary feeling, which is alive everywhere in Russia except where there are Jewish Marxists. I have always made allowance for this circumstance, and given orders that former Communists are to be admitted to the party at once. The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communists always will.” Adolf Hitler

“Of what importance is all that, if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme over them regardless of whether they are owners or workers. All that is unessential; our socialism goes far deeper. It establishes a relationship of the individual to the State, the national community. Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings.” Adolf Hitler

“The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. The activities of the individual may not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the frame of the community and be for the general good.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in life and property, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as a crime against the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits whether in assets or material.

13. We demand the nationalization of businesses which have been organized into cartels.

14. We demand that all the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.

15. We demand extensive development of provision for old age.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle-class, the immediate communalization of department stores which will be rented cheaply to small businessmen, and that preference shall be given to small businessmen for provision of supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand a land reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to confiscate from the owners without compensation any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.”
-Adolf Hitler

Hitler was named “Man of the Year” in 1938 by Time Magazine. They noted Hitler’s anti-capitalistic economic policies:

“Most cruel joke of all, however, has been played by Hitler & Co. on those German capitalists and small businessmen who once backed National Socialism as a means of saving Germany’s bourgeois economic structure from radicalism. The Nazi credo that the individual belongs to the state also applies to business. Some businesses have been confiscated outright, on other what amounts to a capital tax has been levied. Profits have been strictly controlled. Some idea of the increasing Governmental control and interference in business could be deduced from the fact that 80% of all building and 50% of all industrial orders in Germany originated last year with the Government. Hard-pressed for food- stuffs as well as funds, the Nazi regime has taken over large estates and in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism.”(Source: Time Magazine; Jaunuary 2, 1939.)

“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance.” - Adolf Hitler

Just because they fought the Commies does not mean they were not also Leftists and Socialists. Many of the nastiest ideological fights take place not between opposites but between two groups fighting over the same space in the ideological spectrum.


19 posted on 05/24/2018 8:27:57 AM PDT by FLT-bird (..)
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To: FLT-bird

And it was just a dumb luck that Germany had a huge army and navy. And detailed plans to invade France via Belgium. And to counter Russia in the east.

Got it.


20 posted on 05/24/2018 8:35:51 AM PDT by fatboy
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