6 Dec

For my last post, I would like to say a couple of things about East and West German relations as well as Cold War relations following WW2. First off, we talked about the early mass exodus of people from the GDR in the 1950s, prompting the construction of the Berlin Wall. It makes perfect sense that the FGR would not recognize such a regime. If your country is that unpopular with its citizens, where is the legitimacy of the government? People were fleeing their country, leaving what they had behind, and possibly family because they don't want to live in such a country, especially in a country that is in occupation by another foreign power, as unpopular as the Soviet Union. People were pouring through the West German border to escape a totalitarian regime that was imposed on them by a morally bankrupt power. People knew that Bolshevism was a very flawed system, and its revolutionary agenda is very problematic for the nations trying to recover from such a disastrous war. Also, the Soviet Union was pushing hard to take war reparations out of East Germany and further impoverish the people there. It's not like we were good friends with Stalin when we were Allies in the war, just by default, nobody really liked the communist power. I also believe that many East Germans fled in the early days because they feared the Communists. They remembered the retribution the Soviets brought as they pushed the Wehrmacht west, and into Berlin. The Soviets attacked the German people just as the Wehrmacht had done to Soviet citizens. The Western powers decided to bomb civilians instead of beat, rape, torture, and kill innocents. I would be very nervous about what the Soviets had in mind for me if I was a German in the Soviet occupation zone. Alright enough, the Wall went up and so began the East-West rivalry in full. Though people were not escaping in mass numbers, there were still people attempting to get out. This was a trend for the East German state and it required intense Stasi surveillance to keep people in line. However, people got used to it. We also talked about how when the Wall fell, because the Soviets crumbled and said they wouldn't strong-arm any of its satellite states, and reunification came, East Germans and West Germans just saw each other as a different type of people, not really just Germans. The Westerners were well-off, competed for high-paying jobs, a commercial culture, and a free market society. The Easterners didn't know what was going on. Competition for everything, the subsidies for food were gone, other state-sponsored programs no longer existed, they were poor to begin with, plus they were flooding west in the millions. There was a period of disillusionment, like, did we really want to be unified? However, such a huge change would inevitably be difficult at first, but things would definitely normalize, this is what happened because Germany hasn't torn itself apart which would have happened if the East and West couldn't agree or get along.

15 Nov

I want to talk about what our discussion was about on friday of last week about anti-fraternization. I remember one of the questions raised was why this policy was instituted in the first place. The reasons to me are both military reasons as well as political. For the first reason, military seems to be obvious to me. Wehrmacht POWs were returning home to an absolutely destroyed home. These POWs never got the chance to be debriefed, or had time to be demobilized. These are still trained killers thath have not had a chance to calm down. When they were returning to their homes and saw their women hanging out and in bed with the occupied soldiers, this is just yet another thorn in the side. The occupying Allies did not want to aggravate an already tense situation. For any occupying army, the goal is to pacify civilians and keep them calm and under control. The Allies needed the German POWs to come back home to something. If they came back to nothing, a violent insurgency could be expected as these war-torn veterans felt they had nothing to lose and a vehement and violent attitude towards the victors. Plus, the POWs felt that they had been betrayed by their women as they galavanted out with American and Allied soldiers. This is one of the reasons the Americans tried to get families out as quickly as possible. This I know because my grandfather was a WW2 vet, he was on the outskirts of the Austrian-German border after liberating Dachau on the day Berlin fell. He ended up being part of the Occupied Forces in Germany and became the mayor of Marburg. My grandmother and my father (who was very young at the time) moved out a couple of months after the war was concluded, and the Army took care of the transportation. This shows me the commitment the Armed Forces were to keeping to the anti-fraternization policy. So finishing up, I believe originally the anti-fraternization policy in the beginning was of more of a military purpose. It was one of the policies the Allies were using to pacify the occupied Germans, and prevent an insurgency. The Allies truly were trying to help rebuild Germany as quickly as possible after the war, and rubbing salt in the wounds of the Germans by then taking their women, definitely could have sowed the seeds of hate and violence to troops that had not been demobilized.

25 Oct

I know that this one has been posted late, thanks to my computer deciding to stop working, but I would like to put to discussion of the Germany's push to war in Europe and of what people thought about Hitler on his warpath. Our reading last week showed some interesting figures. Lots of people thought what Hitler was doing and his foriegn policies made him to appear to be a great statesman. Technically, he lined up sucess after sucess, so it is not surprising that this view could be off. However, this is a strictly view of Germans, not Europeans. Europe had the strength to not allow the Nazis grow to the point where they could deem war as an option. France in 1939 had the largest army in the world, and Czechlosovakia was not far behind in 4th. These countries, backed with other nations in Europe could have kept Germany in check, yet the Failure of the Allies made ultimate war inevitable due their reluctance to stand firm against the Third Reich. However, the Allies chose appeasement to deal with Hitler which only solidified Nazi support in Germany and gave Hitler's ego a steroid shot pushing him to tackle bigger ambitions. It's not difficult to see this as when Germany mobilized for Poland in 1939, its was only around 50% fully mobilized, yet at this point Hitler didn't think he could be stopped so he went into the war anyways. As in hindsight, the failure to fully or near full mobilize is like shooting yourself in the foot before you even get out the door. That is why blitzkrieg had to work, otherwise, the economy and supply would not be able to fully make it through the length of a long war. I believe this to be a serious error based on Hitler's hubris thinking himself to be invincible after his stunning bloodless victories, that a prolonged war would not require serious munitions stockpiling, as well as normal commodities as uniforms, fuel, food, etc. Yet Hitler thought he could get all this through conquest. After the offensive stalls for Germany, it is apparent how big a blunder this was to not fully prepare for a prolonged war.

11 Oct

Tonight I would like to discuss the end of the first World War, and the beginnings of the Weimar Republic. Just to start off, I think it is very interesting that the 1918 revolution came well before the Treaty of Versailles. That point in itself shows how frustrated Germans were with their government as well as their almost universal disbelief in their government. They just wanted a change and a government that would take care of them, not starve them to death and destroy their money, which is a fair judgement. Germany, its generals, and the kaiser should have been wise enough to see that victory, especially on the western front was going to be an impossible task, especially after blindly invading neutral Belgium and bringing the British into the fight as well. However, this blunder was perpetuated and Germany was put into a stranglehold, starting in 1917. Well, things obviously get worse for the German war effort, and by 1918 after immense food and essential goods shortages, the German people seem to have lost all faith in its government, though they hadn't lost all faith in the war effort (they were told as well, things were going good for them). Then comes the fall of 1918, and it is revolution time, and the kaiser is offered an honorable exit to abdicate. However, yet predictably, Wilhelm II refuses, and in early November, abdication is no longer an option for the kaiser, he is booted. Yet, importantly, this revolution has an extremely difficult task ahead of itself. Immediately, the SPD, who take it upon themselves to direct the revolution, try to slow it down after the abdication to prevent chaos from breaking out as well as letting it become a bolshevik-style revolution. Coupling with the fact that Germany had lost the war, and the Treaty of Versailles was in the making, as well as citizens' high expectations, the new republic really had its work cut out for itself. To skip a little bit, much of the early Weimar was plagued by social division, increasingly polarized politics, and almost routine strikes, putsches, assassinations, and continual violence. But these negative characteristics are not so unlikely following a disastrous defeat in WWI, and almost a complete failure of the kaiser's reich to maintain the confidence of its people, by the end of the war. Further, it was time to move into the future, of the promotion of the german nation and its people; as well as to be done with the seemingly choreographed court-life of the kaiser's reich.

4 Oct

This week, I wanted to discuss WWI. It is the consensus that Germany should be blamed for the outbreak of the Great War, however, I believe Germany is not deserved the full brunt of it. Even though the policies that Germany took before 1914 were definitely building up military and antagonistic towards the other European powers, Germany was not unique. The other imperial European powers took the same type of policies. All the major powers were building up in proportion to the others. Where the Allied side deserves partial blame is how they were not willing to let another power center develop in Central Europe. They wanted to hold on to everything they had and were not willing to let another competitor enter the scene, and especially not let them join the imperial court as well. This type of behavior only agitated Germany even more and emboldened them to rise up and join the ranks of imperial nations. Germany was ready to move its power outside of its borders. Where Germany deserves blame is their annexationist plans, especially on the territories it wished to add to the Reich. There was no need to take pieces of territory from other established nations, that was their main fault. At the same time there is no military advantage by instigating a two front war when you are the meat in the sandwich, this is guaranteed failure. This may be going beyond my point, but still largely a blunder to underestimate your enemies, hubris. But it understandable that Germany should desire to be a first-class imperial nation surrounded by the powers it was near. The Allies made the mistake by making war the only option for the German-dominated alliance to accomplish the goals that their people wanted.
It has been also said in class that society should be blamed for the war, and this rings true to myself as well. It has always been in modern government that the societal climate can determine government policy. I think that European society as a whole was just itching for a war even though they had no idea really what modern combat was like. The type of combat experienced in WWI was like nothing else experienced in human history between brutality and unequaled casualty rates. It seemed to not matter if combat for the youth was one of the most grotesque episodes imaginable, society wanted to see it. Plus the war was sold throughout Europe as the war to end all wars and great societal cleansing, and other slogans that came along with that. In all though society made the atmosphere that the only option in 1914 was to engage in war, fingers had been on triggers for too long, all it took was a small incident for everyone to let their hammers fall...

13 Sep

This week I think I would like to say a little bit about the emergence of mass politics and the resurgence of desire for democracy among the majority of Germans, and of course abroad as well at the time. There has always been debate about if democracy is truly the best method of governance. This is a worthy debate. It has been said that the majority should have the final say, regardless of what they personally have invested in their government. This became a big desire for Germans, and they were optimistic that they were beginning to taste what it was like to have a constitutional system as well as being able to choose who would represent them in their government, not just by due aristocratic right. At the same time, the traditionally aristocratic ruling class was very anxious of the system as they saw the weak parts of the system; namely, the fact that the voting pool is essentially the mob. History teaches us that "mob rule" very often is focused chaos and used for extreme measures. The traditional ruling class was worried that any common Joe could run for an office and capture an election by recognition and not particularly merit. This is the fundamental danger democracy and mass politics inevitably brings to the table. However, it was very interesting how the new constitutional state in Germany was able to withstand the two opposing forces and basically keep society on an even keel and proves the risiliency of the system, especially in the rapidly developing industrial economy as well as in collapse as was seen in the mid 1870's as Germany was poised to be the industial powerhouse in Europe.

Aug30

So for this first post, though it may not be the best, I would like to discuss the topic of emerging German nationalist hopes in the years after Napoleon. It has been said that the wars with Napoleon had sparked nationalist ambitions in German states. This I believe is an absolutely correct observation. Foreign occupation usually ends in a uniting patriotism against the occupiers among the occupied. Just a simple recent historical example would be the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Afghanistan at the time was a disorganized state and a highly tribal culture with local loyalties. The Soviet Union, invades and many militant Afghanis from around the territory took up arms against the invaders. These people as it seems would not have banded together without the spark of the need for a united defense. This seems along the lines of the argument presented about the beginnings of German nationalism, post-Napoleon. However, to me this is not a full explanation for the true beginnings of nationalism in German states.
It seems this type of uniting German nationalism only had a single purpose, to expel occupying forces. That is the same in the example of Afghanistan. If you look at Afghanistan, post-Soviet withdrawl, it remained a highly tribal culture. Though the Taliban took "official" control of the country, it was not a widespread consensus by Afghanis throughout the state. The same seems true in the German states after French forces had been finally expelled. The German states kept their local loyalties, and there were only parts of the citizen base throughout the states that promoted a united Germany, further, these were only idealistic promotions. All Germans did not necessarily think that this was either possible, or a good idea. So concluding, it is true that the expulsion of French authority from German territories gave German nationalism a spark, it was not enough to keep the momentum going; there was too strong of opposition to unification coming from German conservatives. It would take many years, strong industrial growth that expanded the more liberal middle class looking for a more capitalistic system in order to fully take advantage of their growing wealth and power. Ultimately, it seems that growing industry was the key to German nationalism after the initial spark provided by the removal of French occupying authority.