* The ‘flaw in the German character’ is being surrounded on all sides by powerful and dangerous states.
* Here’s an interesting question to contemplate: Why is it that Germany so completely failed to create a great civilization? France and Britain, despite much smaller populations, created great civilizations that spread their cultures and their beautiful yet efficient languages around the globe.
Today hardly anybody is studying German at America’s colleges and universities, and yet French, despite the ascendancy of Spanish, is continuing to hold its own. There must be some deep flaw in the German character that prevented Germany from creating a great civilization. True, Germany is located some distance away from Paris and London, the two great centers of European culture. As a result, the Industrial Revolution was delayed in Germany by 50 years. Berlin, ruled by dour and rigid Prussian Lutherans, was a backwater for most of its history while Catholic Vienna was full of life and a great center of culture ever since it was saved on Sept.11, 1683 from the Ottoman Turks by the Polish king Jan Sobieski and his winged hussars.
All this was brought home to me when several years ago I was on
the train to Frankfurt, and shared a compartment with a young
German fellow of about 28 who was, in fact, permanently moving
to China because, as he said, he saw no future for himself in Germany.
When I mentioned I was actually going to Paris, he reacted as if to say, “So Germany isn’t good enough for you?” except he was more polite about it. How many women dream of visiting Berlin? And how many dream of visiting Paris?
In June several years ago I was on the plane from NYC to Paris. About 40% of the passengers were young white women, and not just any women – they looked well-bred, the sort of women you might run
into at a cocktail party on the Upper East Side. And they all seemed in a state of hushed exhilaration, even euphoria – in a few hours we’ll be in Paris! This is what Germany lacks – too much of its energy has gone into military expansionism and the kind of science and technology that are too easily weaponized, and not into the finer things in life. Even today Germany is one of the largest arms exporters in the world.
So much effort going into aggression that underneath the thin veneer of civilization one cannot help but sense remnants of barbarism that perhaps makes the Turks in Germany feel right at home.
* What?
The same Germany that had the Holy Roman Empire, you mean?
The same Germany that, in the 19th Century, made more scientific accomplishments than any other nation on earth—and huge ones at that?
The same one that had the greatest national film industry of the 1920s ?
The same one that produced Wagner and Beethoven?
The same one that became a watchword for higher education for 200 years—to be educated in Germany meant you attended the very best universities?
Perhaps your problem is that you’ve actually not studied the history of Germany and are only looking at the current situation and Western world view. That’s understandable. But do a bit of historical research first—you sound utterly foolish.
And let’s be clear that “Germany” really was a lot of separate nations for a good long period, thanks to geographical divides. It was only technological advances in transportation that created the nation as united as we see today. But even despite that, Germany’s accomplishments are truly great.
* The commies turned out to be better for the native population than the cultural Marxists.
* “Imperial Germany” is an English-language coinage of convenience.
The state formed in 1871 as the “German Reich” was not dissolved in 1919. It lost all its sovereign princes and got first a provisional republic and then a new republican constitution, but the state was continued without interruption in law [it is an Americanism to assume that the constitution creates the state and the change of the constitution means a new state- no old world country thinks that; indeed- if there were a constitutional convention tomorrow and the 1787 constitution were replaced in toto by a new one, and the country remained the “United States of America”, would Americans really regard themselves as living in Year 0 of a new nation?].
The Weimar Republic, a popular neologism still in wide use in the west and used in Germany at the time both by friends [for convenience] and foes [as an insult] was not the name of the state. Neither was “German Republic”. The state was called the German Reich. Laws in force that did not conflict with the new constitution were continued until such time as the Reichstag saw fit to amend them, if it ever did.
The German Reich of 1871 was also not technically dissolved in 1945. The unconditional surrender placed all sovereignty in the hands of the allies, who proclaimed their assumption of such. The allies, for various reasons, allowed the construction of German states on [un-annexed] portions of the Reich but neither one was ever the legal successor of the Reich during the period of the occupation. The West German basic law was explicitly provisional for its whole pre-1990 history, pending reunification and a new permanent constitution for the German Reich.
When the two states became sovereign for practical purposes [FRG in I think 1951], international treaties reserved a few matters for the allies and put other issues of state succession on hold pending a formal peace treaty [which had not been signed- the states of war among the various powers with Germany were ended by other legal instruments]. During the period 1951-90, West Germany in particular operated as a sort of provisional successor of the German Reich on the soil it governed, pending the final settlement of all statuses by a peace treaty.
As such, and as is normal in almost any case of state collapse/reconstitution/succession, everyday laws remained in place until and unless amended by the competent sovereign. So, for example, plenty of laws were abolished by the occupation administrations and replaced with others, but only where denazification or allied interests were engaged. The FRG would have amended or replaced other laws by statute at times, but only where necessary. Most of the 1871 civil code is probably still in force, and even where it has been changed, those are amendments to the civil code, not replacements of it.
In 1990, the London Accords that saw all the 4 occupying powers renounce all remaining occupying power rights, recognized the unification of Germany under the existing Federal Republic, served as a peace treaty, settled all borders, and determined that the Federal Republic of Germany is the state successor of the German Reich.
It’s a matter of semantics whether you wish to interpret that as meaning:
a) the German Reich lasted 1871-1990 in law and the already existing de facto FRG formed 1949-51 on the Reich’s soil assumed all its powers in 1990, a new state acting as heir.
b) The German Reich lasted 1871-1990 in law and the already existing de facto FRG formed 1949-51 on the Reich’s soil was recognized in 1990 as being that state under a new constitution and name.
To give an analogy, no Frenchman regards the Kingdom of France to 1792, French Republic to 1808 [for 3 years it was a republic “governed by an hereditary emperor”…], French Empire 1808-14, Kingdom of France 1814, French Empire 1815, Kingdom of France 1815-30, Kingdom of the French 1830-48, French Republic 1848-51, French Empire 1851-71, French Republic 1871 [prov]-1940, French Republic 1945-58, and French Republic 1958-present as having been different states.
Even where the overthrow is more wholesale, it is actually common for everyday laws in place to be continued by all sorts of successor regimes. Even the US and its original states continued all sorts of laws in place under colonial government, admittedly sometimes by specific adoption but also by passing blanket bills acknowledging that these laws remained in force as normal even though the state had reconstituted its government by convention.
* The Germans, like the English/British [taken as a whole], French, and Italians, and maybe Dutch, were tier one contributors to western civilization, and like them contributed elements to most major fields of cultural endeavour, albeit with a degree of emphasis on some over others.
The Germans were the music masters of Europe for 200 years, outshining the Italians and French, the other big leaders, and far ahead of the 2nd tier Spanish, Russians or others.
The Germans were contributors in the visual arts, albeit behind the French, Italians, and Dutch.
The Germans also made major contributions to literature, albeit behind the French, Italians, and English [even if you exclude Irish writing in English]. Maybe the Russians should also be on tier one in this category.
Philosophy too, though I admit German philosophy’s constant attempts to systematize both itself and the world has left me cold.
The Germans mainly stunk up the joint at law [brilliant legal thinkers but too much assumption of servile premises] and politics, but then so did every other European culture except the English, so that’s not too much of a black mark.
They DID fail to spread a specifically German civilization, speaking German and governed by Germans according to German principles, around the world. That does speak to the political position of the German world in the 18th and 19th c, which in turn does suggest some of the weaknesses of the German political traditions. But they also faced tough geographic and political legacies dating back to the Middle Ages.
And of course German models of doing science and education were spread everywhere, having a profound impact on the west and world, and even changing the direction of the Anglo world in key respects. So there’s that.
