1923: Albert Leo Schlageter, Nazi martyr

ExecutedToday.com ^ | May 26, 2008 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1923, a German paramilitary was shot by a French firing squad near Dusseldorf for his anti-occupation sabotage efforts. Albert Leo Schlageter, a World War I veteran and conservative Catholic who signed up with the right-wing Freikorps and tangled with communists after the war, joined the fledging Nazi party when it absorbed his Freikorps unit in 1922. The next year, France occupied the Ruhr to secure war reparations payments then crippling Germany, which would do much to speed the rise of the Nazis in the years ahead. Schlageter was nabbed sabotaging railroad lines in resistance, and Berlin’s protests didn’t help him much.

[CheshireTheCat]

I'm not sure that this fellow would have necessarily remained a Nazi had he lived a few years longer.

[2banana]

German Molly McGuires...

[SunkenCiv]

[Eleutheria5]

Hitler himself was apoplectic that the German people were fighting back against the French occupation, without the Nazi Party being in the forefront. For that reason, he was opposed to the resistance. This according to Konrad Heiden’s Der Fuhrer.

[Zhang Fei]

Like some of his economic ideas, Keynes was full of crap about the Versailles reparations.

https://thefederalist.com/2014/07/29/world-war-i-reparations-werent-as-unfair-as-you-think/

[Flavious_Maximus]

It’s hard to believe the French could occupy anything except a factory that manufactures white flags.

[Mr. Blond]

Versailles was France’s revenge for losing the Franco-Prussian War.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

How coincidental. I’m doing a lot of genealogical research and just today was studying the occupation of the Rhineland. I was wondering what my occupied ancestors were thinking.

I didn’t realize that there was resistance to the occupation and executions.

[Zhang Fei]

[Versailles was France’s revenge for losing the Franco-Prussian War.]

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The first Versailles involved a hefty reparations bill bigger, relative to France’s economy, than the second (post-WWI) vis-a-vis Germany’s. But Keynes just had to advance his gormless pet theory. The real problem is the Germany lost WWI, but the West’s victory wasn’t pressed to the point of taking Berlin. That was remedied at the end of WWII, by killing Germans until they were sick of death. Germany’s losses were maybe 1/4 of the deaths suffered by the Allies in WWII, but it was enough for Germany to cry uncle. And in the postwar period, they got the consolation prize of realizing Hitler’s dream - the EU is the Fourth Empire in all but name, and Germany got it going without firing a single shot.

[FLT-bird]

I disagree with the Federalist on this. Not just the repairs but the whole Versailles Treaty seemed calculated to cause another war. Which, is exactly what it did. Germany did not start WWI. It was not seeking to dominate Europe or indeed any territorial aggrandizement.

[Zhang Fei]

[I disagree with the Federalist on this. Not just the repairs but the whole Versailles Treaty seemed calculated to cause another war. Which, is exactly what it did. Germany did not start WWI. It was not seeking to dominate Europe or indeed any territorial aggrandizement.]

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Sure it did. That was the whole point of it. It was tired of being Johnny-come-lately to the game of empire, and decided it was easier to just seize its neighbors to get the empires they had acquired.

[FLT-bird]

No it didn’t. Austria-Hungary responded to an act of state sponsored terrorism on the part of Serbia. Russia then backed Serbia and contrary to their promise not to do so, also mobilized troops on Germany’s border. That left Germany no choice - as they had explained to the Russians in advance. When the Germans asked France if they would stay neutral or use the opportunity to attack Germany, the French responded that they would have to “consult their interests”.....which everybody knew to mean “yes” they planned to attack Germany with Russia now Committed to war.

German wasn’t seeking to acquire anybody’s empire. WWII, yes but not WWI.

[Zhang Fei]

[No it didn’t. Austria-Hungary responded to an act of state sponsored terrorism on the part of Serbia. Russia then backed Serbia and contrary to their promise not to do so, also mobilized troops on Germany’s border. That left Germany no choice - as they had explained to the Russians in advance. When the Germans asked France if they would stay neutral or use the opportunity to attack Germany, the French responded that they would have to “consult their interests”.....which everybody knew to mean “yes” they planned to attack Germany with Russia now Committed to war.

German wasn’t seeking to acquire anybody’s empire. WWII, yes but not WWI.]

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Barbara Tuchman’s mobilization theory of WWI is fine and dandy, but Germany could have stayed out of it. It chose not to. It saw this as an opportunity to take what had been denied it after the Franco-Prussian War, because a newly unified Germany had its hands full keeping the German states under the Prussian thumb. And it came pretty close to victory in WWI. Until the US jumped in.

If Germany had stayed out of WWI, would Austria-Hungary have invaded Serbia? Or the other parties have gotten involved? Austria-Hungary committed suicide, and the Germans joined them in hopes of completing their victory of 1870, during which Germany wasn’t unified enough to take on the additional burden of assimilating France.

[dfwgator]

I still say the world would have been a much better place, had Britain, and consequently the US, had stayed out of the fight.

[Zhang Fei]

[I still say the world would have been a much better place, had Britain, and consequently the US, had stayed out of the fight.]

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If Britain and the US had stayed out, we’d both be speaking German today. The real mistake was FDR’s hankering for decolonization. If we had helped the British, Dutch and French keep their empires, while not batting an eyelash at the atrocities necessary, instead of dropping land mines in their way, the world would be a better place today, and we wouldn’t stand alone facing both Russia and China. Heck, we might even have been able to fully demobilize to a pre-WWII military once they recovered from WWII. By forcing them to downsize their empires, we made Pax Americana necessary.

[dfwgator]

I was talking WWI, not WWII.

If we stayed out of WWI, would never have been a Hitler.

[Zhang Fei]

[I was talking WWI, not WWII.]

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So was I. Germany and Austria-Hungary would have divided up Europe. And gone beyond. Here’s how it goes - empire builders’ horizons are limited by their capabilities. Ambitions expand with those capabilities. Did Alexander set out to conquer the world? No - he set out to conquer Greece. Once Greece was under his belt, his horizons expanded. It’s no different from Sam Walton building his first store, moving on to the next, and the next, and so on.

[dfwgator]

Did Germany have colonies in the Americas? No.

Britain and France did.

Germany was interested in the European continent, they weren’t interested in but having maybe a few African colonies.

And those “poor” Belgians got everything they deserved for what they did in Africa.

Britain and Germany should have made a deal.

[Zhang Fei]

[Did Germany have colonies in the Americas? No.

Britain and France did.

Germany was interested in the European continent, they weren’t interested in but having maybe a few African colonies.

And those “poor” Belgians got everything they deserved for what they did in Africa.

Britain and Germany should have made a deal.]

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Interests expand with capabilities. What you don’t dare to hope for when you’re a pauper becomes a must-have once you acquire the capability to get and hold them. The Belgians operated in the dark about what their black subordinates did to the people of enemy tribes.

[x]

Hanns Johst, the Nazi playwright, wrote a play about Schlageter. The famous line, “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun,” which has been attributed to various Nazi leaders, comes from the play. The quote actually translates as “When I hear ‘Culture’... I release the safety catch on my Browning!”