RSSNo need join the ‘war’ with African-Americans. Move to central or western Canada. Very few African-Canadians in these parts…
German 1920s Hyperinflation had many fathers. First - egregious borrowing within Germany. German leaders suspended the gold standard in 1914, believing that war costs would ultimately be paid by reparations leveled on countries they’d defeat (ala France 1871). From 1914-18 only 14% of German governmental spending was supported by taxes. 86% war spending was financed by borrowing (bonds). Annual inflation (1% 1890-1914) increased to 32% 1914-18.
“At the end of WWI Germany was essentially devastated by the massive reparations it was forced to pay to France and other economic competitors and former belligerent countries by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. As a result, by 1923 Germany faced astronomical inflation.”
Are you serious? A guy who pulled pudding on his Jan 1940 tome and reversed course to become an establishment-suck-up?
“Historian Sir Arthur Bryant, in Unfinished Victory”
Nice to read that point-of-view re. Germany and the First World War. For my parents’ generation, it was always ‘poor Germany — stabbed in the back!’
My history teacher pointed out that the main problem was that Germans believed they were winning the war right up until their government agreed to the Armistice. The sudden end of the campaign & the Versailles treaty with its (relatively mild) stipulations came as a real shock to all Germans.
My prof. said that if the Allies had marched into Berlin, it would have actually had a better outcome — showing the Germans that yes, they’d been defeated in an ordinary fashion, and possibly clearing out the militaristic component of their state…
Indeed, ordinary Germans were sold a bogus bill of goods 1914-18 by incompetent/criminal leadership. They (Wilhelm II, von Moltke, von Falkenhayn, von Hindenburg, Ludendorff, etc.) survived and went on to pass the authoritarian ball to gefeiter Hitler for a revenge match 1933-45. Didn’t turn out any better.
“Germans believed they were winning the war right up until their government agreed to the Armistice.”
Thus ordinary Germans (and millions of others) were sacrificed on the altar of Eric’s hubris. Hitler was his natural heir.Replies: @Seraphim
“War is the natural state of man, which brings out the best in a people. War is without end and is the magnificent contest for which Germany is better qualified than all others. Peace is the bothersome interval between your last war and the next. It is neither desirable nor manly. We Germans used to say that war is the continuation of politics by other means. That has changed. We live in a new age where politics are subordinated to war. Warriors are in charge of this new world. Politicians are there to serve them. Modern life demands a military leader, and the politicians should wait upon him.”
-Generalquartiermeister Eric Ludendorff ‘The Next War’ 1931 (Brownell, ’The First Nazi’ 2016, p. 202)