[getoffmylawn]

WW1 really blew for us Croats since it seemed certain that A-H was headed for a trialist solution. Instead we got lumped into "Yugoslavia" and were united with peoples who's culture was more byzantine.

If you two start goose stepping together, I'm going to have to go out and buy "The Producers" on DVD.

Egads. I pretty much love every ethnic group that I've ever met. I've got nothing against Bosnian Muslims, Croats (well, about half the Croats I've met aren't lunatic souless nazis) Albanians, African-Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Brits, French, Irish, Lithuanians, Swedes, or what have you... but Germans and Austrians?... Big Yuck. Maybe it's my German grandmother's fault. She was proud to tell me that she was Serbian much longer than she was German because she considered herself to be Serbian after she married my grandfather. She would go on and on about her dislikes of the German people.

Personally, I believe that Prince Bismark was simply an ass. If you need to quote him or embrace his views, .... well, if the shoe fits...

This Croatian desire to embrace this Germanic culture is most peculiar. I suppose it has something to do with the Croats inferiority complex towards the Serbs. I'm not really sure. What I do know is that they did more than just emulate their German and Austrian role models during WW2. They even often surpassed them in their maniacle slaughter. Bizarre and scary stuff.

[weikel]

The Ustashi in WWII were brutal and sick bastards but Im talking about WWI here. The basic effect of WWI was to replace monarchy in Europe with the welfare state and pave the way for Hitler.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

I am not at all fond of Prince Bismarck's policies, especially on the domestic front, such as the dissolution of the Hannoverian, Hessian, and Brunswick states, and the Kulturkampf. This does not stop me from quoting him on occasion. I have also been known to quote Marx, Robespierre, and Voltaire. Even evil people say things worthy of note.

I do not intend to beat this topic to death, but I really wish you people who are critics of Wilhelmine Germany would actually READ something about Wilhelmine Germany, rather than trust your judgement to Hollywood and English propaganda. I say this as a recovering Anglophile. Prior to the aggressive hate-literature of the 1914-18 period, the U.S. and Germany had been firm friends with many cultural ties.