Counter-Currents
1,825 words
The recent demand by the Greek socialist government of Alexis Tsirpas for “reparations” of €279 billion from Germany comes at an interesting time.
Seventy years ago, Germany was being overrun by the combined assault of the Allied armies from East and West, and its people were being subjected to unspeakable atrocities, especially in the East where the Red Army was raping and killing its way through Eastern Germany.
Next month will also see the 70th anniversary of the end of WW2 in Europe, the last important anniversary that will feature considerable numbers of survivors from those events. Accordingly, we can expect to see a number of ceremonies, speeches, and TV specials commemorating what will be presented as an uncomplicated triumph of “good” over “evil.”
In particular, we can expect to see that peacenik and champion of moral virtue, Vladimir Putin, exulting in the heroic role that the equally peace-loving and virtuous Red Army played in the defeat of the “unique evil” of Nazism.
Russia Today will probably go into overdrive, and could even melt down like an over-excited hadron collider, creating a hole in the space-time continuum leading to a parallel universe in which Stalin actually was the good guy.
As we are regaled with badly-written and emotionally-manipulative content about the triumph of the “the democratic spirit” and how the millions who died fighting Germany did so because they implicitly believed in mass immigration and gay marriage, no mention will be made of the atrocities and inhumanities committed by the Allies – the mass rapes, the fire-bombing of cities, the maltreatment of POWs, the forced repatriation to certain death of Russian Cossacks, and the post-war starvation forced on Germany that killed millions.
Instead we are sure to hear again and again the old, shop-worn, and legally protected stories of the Holocaust. These will be dusted off and rolled out to ensure that we feel the right mix of moral euphoria and smug assurance about what were complex and multifaceted historical events.
Also no one will dare mention the highly significant fact that whatever deaths occurred under the Nazis, occurred under the strain of the greatest and most terrible war ever, nor that our “noble” Russian allies succeeded in killing millions of innocents not in the throes of war or revolution, but in the middle of peacetime. ( http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/1983/228321.shtml )
As we wade through this lukewarm bilge of WWII triumphalism, what will become apparent is the degree to which Germany, the dominant economy and heart of Europe, has been morally disarmed and deprived of its 20th-century history. Any German voices that chime in will acclaim their country’s past evil, and express gratitude for their brutal “liberation,” even if it was by the likes of Bomber Harris and the Red Army.
As Brennus the leader of the Gauls who once conquered Rome proverbially said, “Vae Victis” (woe to the vanquished). Yes, the Germans, despite being pound-for-pound the best military force in Europe by a long way, were ultimately the losers, and we all know who writes the history. So, should we even care, especially since modern Germans do so little to challenge the narrative? Weren’t they perhaps correct to just write off the period 1914 to 1945 as wasted time?
In 1945 and the years after the war it could be argued that there was little else for Germany to do but appease the victors and accept their version of events. Everything had been thrown into the war, so there was nothing left to bargain with. War had been total and so was defeat. For the reason surrender too had to also be complete.
To avoid extinction, the Germans had to accept the narratives of the victors. If they didn’t there was every chance of the Morgenthau plan or something similar being dusted off. Resisting the myth of Germany as absolute evil would only have lengthened and deepened the occupation and threatened Germany’s post-war boom. It would also have made rapprochement with its European neighbours and the foundation of the European Union extremely awkward.
From a pragmatic point of view, there was every reason for Germany to knuckle under and take its bumps in the post-war order: “Yes, mea culpa, we were wrong. Sorry . . . Now, can we interest you in a Volkswagen Beetle?”
Also, how long could it have been expected to last anyway? On past experience, it would seem only a few years. But, here we now are, seventy years later, and it’s not just the victors of the war who are lording it over Germany, or the Israelis with their privileged position. It is also minnows like Greece, a country that, in the post-war period, went through its own mini version of the great 20th-century battle between Communism and Fascism, only to wake up in the 21st-century, as a bankrupt social-democratic capitalist state, run by Cultural Marxists too terrified to implement actual Marxist economic policies.
Driven by a combination of economic obsolescence and Euro parasitism, it is this country that has belatedly latched onto Germany’s historical blind spot, in the hope that it might be worth some money or at least serve as a “moral” counterweight to German demands to repay debts.
Why is the Greek government now demanding €279 billion? Quite simply because it can and because it needs to.
When Germany decided to allow its wartime enemies a virtual monopoly on the historical narrative, it basically granted them a moral blank cheque that they could fill in and cash anytime. In the Cold War period, the Western powers, keen to foster German goodwill and bolster NATO, were careful not to overuse the privilege. The Soviet Union, by contrast, used it to justify the existence of its zombie East German state for four decades.
Nowhere was it ever imagined that the Greeks would make use of this moral blank cheque to demand “reparations” long after the vast majority of those involved in the war had passed on.
As a simple rule, reparations – if such a thing can be admitted to exist in international law – should be paid by the vanquished to the victor in the years immediately after a conflict. To diverge from this principle, opens up all sorts of problematic possibilities, as most countries have at one time or another attacked, invaded, occupied, and abused others. To allow any country, therefore, to claim reparations at any time from any country that wronged it is to abolish the distinctions between peace and war, and a recipe for global chaos.
There is also blatant injustice involved in these demands. While being conquered by the Germans and then mainly occupied by their Italian allies could not have been pleasant for the Greeks, they were treated no worse and in fact a lot better than many other European countries occupied in the 20th century. If Greece can demand €279 billion for four years of relatively mild Axis occupation, then what does Russia owe Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for their 50-year occupations?
You could also throw in the fact that the Greeks were treated a lot worse by the Turks. As recently as the 1920s, millions of Greeks were forcibly expelled by the Kemalite Turkish state, losing much of their wealth and property in the process.
Should Greece demand reparations there? Of course they won’t. Turkey, despite the genocide it committed against the Armenians, which actually started 100 years ago this month, is a country that makes considerable efforts to defend its historical narrative and is not prepared to be told how it should view its past.
We see the same thing in Putin’s Russia, which celebrates its Stalinist past along with its Tsarist one. China, too, is not shy about pushing a moralizing historical narrative that serves to justify Chinese power.
From an objective point of view, it may seem odd that China obsesses more about the tens of thousands supposedly killed in Nanking by Japanese troops than the tens of millions who died on the communist government’s own watch.
Japan, too, despite sharing “Axis pariah state” status with Germany, has made efforts to retain a positive sense of its past. Military and government personnel damned as “war criminals” by the occupation authorities are “enshrined” in Yasukuni Jinja, and history books are rewritten to give a more morally acceptable picture of Japan’s actions.
These countries – Turkey, Russia, China, and Japan – all realize that national history is less about objective truth and more about an expression of will to exist. For this reason, the Greek attempt at moral extortion is useful because it reminds us not only that Germany has neglected its past for too long, but also points to the consequences of this moral pacifism and historical masochism.
In the past, it may have suited the interests of post-war Germany’s powerful export industries to accept such a negative characterization of the preceding period, and it probably that such an attitude played a part in Germany’s tremendous economic success. But, while Germany has apparently achieved economic and a degree of political dominance in Europe by following this path, it has also left itself open to easy attack, rather in the same way that the incompleteness of the Maginot Line left the French open to a devastating flank attack. Germany’s economic power has a great and glaring weakness – the country’s dangerous moral disarmament and weak sense of itself. As Tsipras’s behaviour demonstrates, any country that wants can effortlessly insult and denigrate modern Germany.
This not only leaves Germany weak but also Europe, because Germany lies at the heart of the continent and is its most important country. A morally weak Germany, ashamed of its past and which believes itself to be uniquely evil, is a void at the heart of Europe.
But to avoid this, Germany does not even need to lie about its history in the way that Turkey and Russia so obviously do. It does not need to go to the trouble of creating a positive myth. So negative is the negative myth that just by switching to an objective and proportionate view of its history, the German sense of moral worth can be immensely bolstered.
For this reason, it is time for Germany to stop apologizing, to stop allowing the likes of Tsipras to kick it in the shins with their tardy and insolvent demands. It is time for Germany to face its history and that of its rivals with a sense of objectivity and balance. It is time for Germany to stop seeing itself through the wartime propaganda of its enemies – not because that generation has died off, but because that idea of Germany was always wrong and one-sided. It is time that the idea of Germany being the only “uniquely evil” country in world history was bulldozed into a pit and covered with quicklime.
If Tsipras’s inopportune and improvident demands can help push Germans in this direction, then the billions he is demanding may well be a fee worth paying.
30 comments
It is also worth noting that Germany only entered the war in Greece after Mussolini attacked Greece, causing the British to get involved almost immediately in the conflict and Italy began losing the war almost immediately. Hitler was upset when Mussolini attacked Greece; he didn’t want it attacked. When the Greek army surrendered it surrendered to Germany. It refused to surrender to Italy.
Of course the Jews have taken over this country too and “the holocaust” of Greek Jews takes center position in the Greek war too. Like other “allied” nations, some Greeks have grossly inflated their suffering.
About eight years ago I had the displeasure of sitting next to a woman of Greek extraction and her Jew husband. She didn’t know much about her own history (except maybe what she saw on TV) and perhaps what her Latvian Jew husband told her. We were casually talking and I mentioned my parents were German and she immediately told me she didn’t like Germans or perhaps even hated them. I then tried to explain how Germany’s got involved in the Greek war, but she had been Jewified for decades judging by their ages. She just wanted to tell me how much she disliked Germans.
From Golden Dawn it’s obvious not all Greeks feel this way towards Germans and some dislike the Jews.
Readers of this fine article may not realize it, but the novel I review elsewhere discusses this as well:
“ There were all getting so bored without another war they’ve soon started one. . . . Look at the way they kept going on about the war, films about it, parades, bugles on Nov. 11th, plays, T.V. films, the lot. Making out how brave they were once, living in the past. When we wouldn’t sit around and clap any longer they made out there was something wrong with us. . . . When we wouldn’t clap anymore, they had to look at themselves and what they saw started them off doing it . . .”
https://counter-currents.com/2015/04/wild-in-the-streets-of-sleepy-london-town/
Siriza’s demands for reparations are ridiculously pathetic and historically inaccurate. In fact Greeks benefits from German occupation were bigger than damage done by the occupation. Anyway, the most of the damage was done by their internal civil war and communist revolution, when EAM-ELAS fought ruthlessly to grab the power.
Grece was the only occupied country which has to be rescued by Germans from bankruptcy and general starvation. When in 1942 prices of food skyrocketed by 500%, Germany had to invest 1,5 million RM in Gold and huge quantities of food and industrial products to help starved Greeks (Robert Faurisson: When the Third Reich came to the aid of Greece).
In my opinion, WW2 has never officially ended for Germany and is still going on. There was never a peace conference and Germany is the only country in Europe or probably in the World that has no constitution. It is not a souvereign country and instead of a constitution it has an attrappe called Grundgesetz.
The German “leading circles” are putting in overtime to prevent any kind of normal, healthy reaction to the ridiculous treatment meted out to the country of the Germans. The very behavior of constant apologizing, erecting more monuments, holding more conferences on the NS, encourages of course the behavior we see with Greece.
The solution can come only from below, Merkel and Co. will never give up their cozy prostrations.
The only other thing which might bring Germans to their senses, another economic and financial collapse like we had in September 2008.
Greeks and the like freeloaders in the EU will have nowhere to beg for more capital but savoure and loath their demise. So much so for siding with the Victors after 70 years one only has to look at the state the UK finds itself today!
Much like America’s internal racial/social shaming of whites for: blacks, native americans, hispanics, jews, gays, trannies, women, blah-blah-blah…
American Whites need Moral Rearmament as well.
“For this reason, it is time for Germany to stop apologizing, to stop allowing the likes of Tsipras to kick it in the shins with their tardy and insolvent demands. It is time for Germany to face its history and that of its rivals with a sense of objectivity and balance. It is time for Germany to stop seeing itself through the wartime propaganda of its enemies – not because that generation has died off, but because that idea of Germany was always wrong and one-sided.”
What you ask for is illegal in still occupied Germany – you will find yourself in jail.
Is it illegal to say there shouldn’t be laws that criminalize the discussions of historical details?
Instead of “denying the Holoco$t,” deny the state the legitimacy of laws that violate freedom of thought and conscience on history.
That’s how Horst Mahler started. The German government are on top of every expression of nationalism. I dated a girl who had an aunt in the CIA posing as a bartender at a pub frequented by skinheads & the like. The domination is total.
Modern Germany, like the rest of West, is a thoroughly semiticised place.
Like most of EU, its mainstream leadership is entirely leftist and broadly adopts cultural-marxist positions on various issues. In that sense, the historical enemy of the Indo-European people has won big time. Germany does not wish to embrace its history, its heritage and its identity, thereby denting its will to survive.
The Greece/Tsipras – Germany/Merkel tussle is an interesting one. I am wondering if Colin (one of my favourite writers) is reading too much into the Greek ‘reparation’ demand. EU is a globalist instrument of we all know who. My question – who is more keen to see Greece stay in the EU? Tsipras or Merkel? Who does international banking cartel love more – Tsipras or Merkel?
EU is struggling to hold together as the financial crisis that started in 2008 shifts shape ever more (its latest avatar is the global commodity price collapse and downturn in several emerging markets). Bankers across West are going to be writing off further losses for their commodity and EM exposures. EU has just announced (a few weeks ago) its version of QE. EU survives on German balance sheet and Germany/Merkel have staked it all on the continuance of EU. They better pay the price.
Merkelism is the offspring of all of the Federal German Republic’s parentage and that is the putting in power of after the 8th of May 1945 riffraff willing to do the bidding of the victors. It is becoming obvious that the oh-so-clever psychologists, psychiatrists and students of mass manipulation and their executors on the Allied side were severely miscalculating the effect of driving a gifted nation of 100 million, being at the forefront of modernity, into a madhouse erected to somehow extinguish every trace of this nation. Instead of Germany disappearing either acording to Morgenthaus’s, Kaufman’s or Hooton’s plans, the madness installed is starting to infect and tear down the whole world that has been built upon Germany’s defeat. I don’t think that Germany (i.e., the remaining German people of intelligence and will to live) can clean out that pigsty on its own behalf anymore. Too entrenched has madness become in German daily life so that only a superior power could put an end to the system represented by the FGR. This could either be a military intervention (such as as been constructed by Churchill before the 2nd War, only this time for a meaningful gain, rather than Churchill’s lust for death and destruction as a value in itself) from abroad or the economic and cultural mega-catastrophe so long in the making.
Germans need a grand plan for their survival for the next seven generations.
Here is the first version:
http://lorenzkraus.com/index.php?cID=164
Since demographics is destiny, if the US breaks up, maybe middle America will become part of Germany and Germany will have a secure food supply for all time.
Germans should have a proposition for their identity.
Germans are the UNRULY kin-serving people who cherish Aryan Appeal.
@ Lorenz
“Is it illegal to say there shouldn’t be laws that criminalize the discussions of historical details?”
It is a grey zone. You can say many things in small circles. It is completely different if you say things publicly. The law is formulated in a way that you can define pretty much anything as “incitement to hatred” and “justification of Nazi ideology”. A politician from the NPD (tiny right wing party, infiltrated by several secret services, serving as a bogey man for the system) was found guilty of this crime because he didn’t mention the Holocaust in an enumeration of genocides. So yes: a person of public interest cannot even discuss this.
Outside Germany, many people think movements such as PEGIDA are a positive sign. These poor, naive activists ask for things such as an immigration law, which would include a “right to immigration” into our Basic Law [we don’t have a constitution] and make things even worse. They just say “we are not opposed to immigration, only to radical Islam. Everybody who respects our Basic Law is welcome”. So they do the job of taming the moslems, something the ruling parasites need, being insulted as Nazis at the same time and asking for things left wing parties have been demanding since years ago. Because of their media portrayal, the public perception is that they are already “far right”, so nobody will dare asking for the real thing. If you only dare mentioning the name of Hitler, i.e. discuss the false narrative about our history outside your home or a pub, the average German gets ghostly pale and wants to change the topic.
Your “unruly” Germans have been subdued by terror and mass murder, and the postwar generations have been raised inside a brainwash system. Unless you are part of very small circles, you will not find many “unruly” people in Germany. The desire to be a good guy and a great capacity of accommodation are typical features of our people. On top, thanks to feminism, half of our people are goodhearted but stubborn women who can be manipulated very easily and will defend mass immigration and socialism until they get raped and strapped of all their personal wealth.
Any way, without a great leader and a national elite, no people is able to defend itself against the meanest of all parasites. The Federal Republic of Germany, a political system designed by this parasite, has many security mechanisms to find and eliminate potential German leaders.
A German Cardinal did say to Angela Merkel that German women should have 4 kids instead of bringing in non-white immigrants:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329471/Cardinal-Joachim-Meisner-says-women-babies-solve-countrys-population-crisis.html
Commendable article by Liddell. A few quick points. Germany, and most of all Europe, need literal military rearmament as both an end and a means for their respective survival. This rearmament should, of course, include nuclear capabilities. However, Merkel and Germany are behaving at least as bad as Tsipras in this whole crisis. I would even draw an analogy between “movement” support for Merkel/Germany over this matter and similar support for Putin at the expense of Ukrainian nationalism. Both Liddell and Johnson are too smart for that.
Two interesting links:
Russians want in on the reparations game (surprise!):
http://rt.com/politics/228851-russia-germany-war-compensation/
The poorly misunderstood euro crisis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htktdv28EF4
The reparations game could become really interesting; not only for Germany suing over the diabolical Versailles Dictate signed under the duress of threatened occupation of all of Germany, but also by the maintenance of the hunger blockade. And of course against the Czechs and Poles, Britain and the US because of the wholesale destruction of Germany, etc. Furthermore, if this never-ending game will not be shut down but rather written into law, all the colonialist countries will be sorely sorry, especially now that China and India don’t have to beg in London anymore. That the Second War was a total catastrophe becomes more and more evident; that it will lead to even more destructive wars as well.
I can even imagine suing Italy over the Roman occupation of Northern Europe, Britain, Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Near East, etc.
I think a stupid world might very well take the plunge.
“A few quick points. Germany, and most of all Europe, need literal military rearmament as both an end and a means for their respective survival. This rearmament should, of course, include nuclear capabilities.”
Yes. Indeed, all the nations of Western Europe, and some in Eastern Europe (e.g., Poland) have the technical know-how to be nuclear capable. If they overcome the political obstacles, they can become nuclear powers “overnight.”
“However, Merkel and Germany are behaving at least as bad as Tsipras in this whole crisis. I would even draw an analogy between “movement” support for Merkel/Germany over this matter and similar support for Putin at the expense of Ukrainian nationalism.”
Merkel gets extra credit “movement points” for being ethnically German (Putin gets his for wrestling tigers with his shirt off). Forget about this financial crisis for a moment – Merkel advocates, supports, and celebrates the biological and cultural replacement of Germans by alien immigrants. Merkel denounces even the centrist moderates of PEGIDA. A real German moral rearmament would include voting Merkel out of office and then putting her on trial for treason.
I love the Germans, but it is highly unlikely that after so many years of mental torture and reprogramming they will take back what they frankly deserve. It disgusts me what the Anglo/English did to the Germans – both wars. In fact, that is why I know there is no God and no justice in this world and that life is ultimately meaningless and arbitrary.
DANKE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Utterly false. Germany would collapse without a tariff-free market of 400 million. Germany is the main beneficiary of the EU and the euro. But thanks to Merkel, Germany is now showing herself a traitor unworthy of these benefits. Flatulence such as your post above only deepens this conviction. Did you even bother to listen to the vid I posted?
“Germany would collapse without a tariff-free market of 400 million. ”
A collapse would probably be a good thing on the whole. It wouldn’t be the first one for Germany, and likely many of the Turks and Africans would leave.
“Germany would collapse without a tariff-free market of 400 million. ”
“The heart is the main beneficiary of the blood flowing through the body.”
The idea of Europe which at some point meant to combine the strength of Europe while at the same time quitting with internal enmities for the greater good has long ceased to be a cultural aim but rather become a an economic game with casino money. A giant machine was not on the mind of those who envisioned a unified Europe. Inasmuch eventual suicide benefits Germany is a question that seems to be only answerable in economic therms; I am unwilling to even ask it.
One of the effects of the EU is that Germany can’t provide enough food for its own population anymore. The farming estate was deliberately destroyed. Millions lost their livelihood and had to be accommodated by industry. This was promoted by Germany herself (i.e., the traitors implanted in the seats of power in 1945 and their offspring).
Germany had a decent and self-created standard of living, relatively low debt and a skilled workforce, all of which is gone or done away with. Trade in Europe has always existed, and it would exist even without the EU. What benefit Germany derives from the giant capital flow through the Euro from Germany to the other Euro countries, I don’t know. It reminds me of the suggestion of Geithner two years ago that there was no reason to have a debt ceiling in the US, which means practically that money could be printed freely and give to all.
I haven’t watched your video, but the economic argument in the life of nations doesn’t pull it for me. Loss and gain are for today and tomorrow, but what comes after day after tomorrow?
” Germany would collapse without a tariff-free market of 400 million.”
At least, this is what propaganda tells the Germans themselves. But actually, the Germans only have lost with the Euro and the EU. German was an exporting nation during the Kaiserreich. Who is interested in the basic political and economic structures of the EU fraud will find an explanation in this article:
https://schwertasblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/angela-merkel-is-not-germany-the-euro-is-an-instrument-to-enslave-all-europe/
Also, we don’t need infinitive economic growth, exportation records, etc. We need a healthy environment for ourselves and would like to live in peace. Talking about the alleged importance of the economy is a preferred strategy of the FRG traitors.
“At least, this is what propaganda tells the Germans themselves. But actually, the Germans only have lost with the Euro and the EU.”
Do tariffs help or hinder trade? Did the 19th century Zollverein expand the German economy or not?
“German was an exporting nation during the Kaiserreich.”
So what? Common markets benefit exporting nations. And times have changed markedly since the Kaiserreich. Do try and keep up.
“Who is interested in the basic political and economic structures of the EU fraud will find an explanation in this article:”
Your credibility just moved into negative integers. Let me guess, the Illuminati were in on the deal.
“Also, we don’t need infinitive economic growth, exportation records, etc.”
Nobody said you did. I’ll keep all this in mind when the next dummkopf (Sie?) ignorantly complains about how the EU and the euro are damaging the German economy.
“We need a healthy environment for ourselves and would like to live in peace.”
What’s stopping you from having and doing this? Before you can live in peace, you have to make a living.
“Talking about the alleged importance of the economy is a preferred strategy of the FRG traitors.”
Everybody talks about the economy. Most especially uninformed eurosceptics like you.
@Catilina
Your knowledge seems to be particularly strong in the field of insulting other commenters.
Dear Catiline,
you might be right and the EU is the most wonderful that could have happened to the economy of the country currently existing on German central territory.
However, the Federal Republic is not Germany. To be exact it is the Anti-Germany as the EU is the Anti-Europe – and btw the UN are the Anti-Earth.
It just doesn’t matter how great those advantages seemingly are because of the simple fact none of them had or will ever have in any way a positive effect on the health of my people.
You might be wrong that everybody is talking about the economy. I don’t. I don’t care. I want the German people to live. Reborn into freedom it’ll prosper automatically.
Same goes for most peoples out there, especially for Germanic ones. When providing tapeworms food and shelter it’s pure nonsense to think about becoming well-fed.
Illuminati? Perhaps. Tapewo… Jews in any case, that’s for sure. One cannot analyze a single event without considering their subversive activities even cloaked in national concerns.
You seem to know some German words. Maybe you know others: Please, don’t you dare to offend my beloved Volksgenossen (ihn, in diesem Fall)?!
Pidgin sounds horrible but I guess it’s for the greater good – for the cause, of course. With best regards from the other side of the ocean.
This was a very fine article. It should be translated into German, and I hope that it will be.
That said, Greece certainly has far more legitimate claims to German reparations than Jews do.
I’ll go out on a limb and say, that the French and English (not to mention the Western Hegemon) will do everything in their power to prevent German (moral) rearmament. They’ll prefer the extinction of their own people over it. As long as Germans go down the same route, at least.
Should they be ruled by Muslims one day, before we’ve given up the ghost completly, then we might stand a chance again.
Except for small circles within France and England, the idea of the pan-European Community of Fate (I am giving the German term S c h i c k s a l s g e m e i n s c h a f t an English expression) is an alien one. I think that especially in France, such an idea could win again momentum, as it did after the German occupation of France, as the monstrous blood-letting of the First War was seen as yet another unnecessary and self-destructive outcome of an unnecessary intra-European struggle that had led to just another war instead of a meaningful future with well-intentioned neighboring nations. Such a future could have been pursued in 1919, but gloating, revenge, avarice and plain stupidity won the day in 1919. The gains of 1919 were jealously guarded, and reason could not no arguments against unreason. In France at least in 1940, such an intra-European struggle was seen as artificial, ultimately leading not to an (unrealistic) elevation of one nation over all the others, but to a fatal weakening of the strength that could and should be used in maintenance and defense of the European world in Europe.
Only Britain has always had the luxury to watch the Continent from a safe distance, and the idea of Europe as anything else than a convenient backdrop for mercantile interests has never found a broad, impassioned following there. I think one can say that the people of Britain are not really Europeans, as in fact they speak of the Continent, not the continent. The capitalization makes it another place, not something Britain really belongs to. The most European people are the Germans, constituting the middle of the continent. It, of all European nations, has always had the greatest interest in a balance, but it was always in a position of being assailed by dangers from the east and plagued by the incomprehension of that dangerous position from the west. Hence, the dealings of Louis the 14th with the Turks at the time of their siege of Vienna in 1683, when France took Alsace-Lorraine, completely ignorant of the consequences of having Europe overtaken by the Turks, hence the English dealings to have Germany dismembered and destroyed as a power block. They didn’t want to recognize that their position of comfortable safety depended on Germany’s securing the frontier towards the east.
The only hope is that it will be realized now in England, in France, by the people there that a pan-European unity is needed in order to preserve what makes life worthwhile. They will not be able to rely on the politicians, of course, as they have rather regressed from the insights gained after the War in order to bring to a halt once and for all the machinery of conflict in Europe, with its interlocking cogwheels and mutual conflict enhancement by sowing discord, making clever military alliances, rather than deviating from centuries-old policy directions.
@Lew
Look here, because you will find a German translation of this fabulous article
Have a nice day
Einen schönen Tag noch
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