Posted on 12/15/2011 2:21:36 AM PST by Kaslin
The rise of a German Europe began in 1914, failed twice, and has now ended in the victory of German power almost a century later. The Europe that Kaiser Wilhelm lost in 1918, and that Adolf Hitler destroyed in 1945, has at last been won by German Chancellor Angela Merkel without firing a shot.
Or so it seems from European newspapers, which now refer bitterly to a "Fourth Reich" and arrogant new Nazi "Gauleiters" who dictate terms to their European subordinates. Popular cartoons depict Germans with stiff-arm salutes and swastikas, establishing new rules of behavior for supposedly inferior peoples.
Millions of terrified Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, Portuguese and other Europeans are pouring their savings into German banks at the rate of $15 billion a month. A thumbs-up or thumbs-down from the euro-rich Merkel now determines whether European countries will limp ahead with new German-backed loans or default and see their standard of living regress to that of a half-century ago.
A worried neighbor, France, in schizophrenic fashion, as so often in the past, alternately lashes out at Britain for abandoning it and fawns on Germany to appease it. The worries in 1989 of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President François Mitterrand over German unification -- that neither a new European Union nor an old NATO could quite rein in German power -- proved true.
How did the grand dream of a "new Europe" end just 20 years later in a German protectorate -- especially given the not-so-subtle aim of the European Union to diffuse German ambitions through a continent-wide super-state?
Not by arms. Britain fights in wars all over the globe, from Libya to Iraq. France has the bomb. But Germany mostly stays within its borders -- without a nuke, a single aircraft carrier or a military base abroad.
Not by handouts. Germany poured almost $2 trillion of its own money into rebuilding an East Germany ruined by communism -- without help from others. To drive through southern Europe is to see new freeways, bridges, rail lines, stadiums and airports financed by German banks or subsidized by the German government.
Not by population size. Somehow, 120 million Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese are begging some 80 million Germans to bail them out.
And not because of good fortune. Just 65 years ago, Berlin was flattened, Hamburg incinerated and Munich a shell -- in ways even Athens, Madrid, Lisbon and Rome were not.
In truth, German character -- so admired and feared in some 500 years of European literature and history -- led to the present Germanization of Europe. These days we recoil at terms like "national character" that seem tainted by the nightmares of the past. But no other politically correct exegesis offers better reasons why a booming Detroit of 1945 today looks like it was bombed, and a bombed-out Berlin of 1945 now is booming.
Germans on average worked harder and smarter than their European neighbors -- investing rather than consuming, saving rather than spending, and going to bed when others to the south were going to dinner. Recipients of their largesse bitterly complain that German banks lent them money to buy German products in a sort of 21st-century commercial serfdom. True enough, but that still begs the question why Berlin, and not Rome or Madrid, was able to pull off such lucrative mercantilism.
Where does all this lead? Right now to some great unknowns that terrify most of Europe. Will German industriousness and talent eventually translate into military dominance and cultural chauvinism -- as it has in the past? How, exactly, can an unraveling EU, or NATO, now "led from behind" by a disengaged United States, persuade Germany not to translate its overwhelming economic clout into political and military advantage?
Can poor European adolescents really obey their rich German parents? Berlin in essence has now scolded southern Europeans that if they still expect sophisticated medical care, high-tech appurtenances and plentiful consumer goods -- the adornments of a rich American and northern Europe lifestyle -- then they have to start behaving in the manner of Germans, who produce such things and subsidize them for others.
In other words, an Athenian may still have his ultra-modern airport and subway, a Spaniard may still get a hip replacement, or a Roman may still enjoy his new Mercedes. But not if they still insist on daily siestas, dinner at 9 p.m., retirement in their early 50s, cheating on taxes, and a de facto 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. workday.
Behind all the EU's 11th-hour gobbledygook, Germany's new European order is clear: If you wish to live like a German, then you must work and save like a German. Take it or leave it.
That sort of welfare cheat is almost admirable...
IIRC, there was a conservative thinker that thought that the biggest catastrophe for Western Civilization was that the Germans lost WWI.
I wish I could find the article again to go over his reasoning, which was actually somewhat persuasive.
But I guess its a good thing that Germany finding a dominant position again.
Lawrence Welk, and the next time you watch one of his reruns, ask yourself how he got that accent, since he was born in North Dakota, USA.
It’s a short article so obviously it cannot go into too much depth, but it does make Germany sound like one homogeneous entity, with everyone working to achieve the same goal (European domination in the minds of some). This, of course, is anything but true.
Many forces (leftist politicians, the media, “intellectuals”, unions et al.) are working hard to destroy Germany, or rather the values and culture Hanson mentions, from within. Most notably by trying to establish a “multicultural” society and a new socialistic state (i.e., even more than it already is). Dissent with this course will get you smeared as a nationalist or Nazi - the usual leftist tactics. On the upside, more and more people are getting fed up with this crap and voicing their concerns.
Germany wanting to rule Europe? Only from an outside perspective.
I always thought he had a close-pin loose in his shorts. ;-)
VDH has a knack for cutting through the BS.
VDH threads the PC lines very carefully, leaving plenty of room for us to read between them.
-——supposedly inferior peoples-——
Why include supposedly? It is obvious that the people in question are inferior. If they were equal, the problem would not exist.
The same is true here. There is a great mass of inferiors that are screwing up the works. Unlike Europe, they are not concentrated in the south. The American inferiors are concentrated in cities in which they have gained political control. The inferiority is telling however, the American cities are failing.
I will also add that a lot of the Mid West farmers have German names even if they are only part German. Look at John Boehner and Steny Hoyer. Both are MidWest USA German last names.
good you posted that or you’d get a few bumps saying that you’re a feelty Jerry peeeg etc. etc.
it was the best situation possible for the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Belgians.
I’m not defending anyting. I’m just saying that if you don’t like the terms, then don’t take the money. The one that pays the piper calls the tune. And the Greek government only fell after bailout number 3 or 4. The Italian government fell before it received any kind of bailout, and the Irish government hasn’t fell. Bailing out iresponsible governments in southern Europe isn’t very popular with the people in Germany and it is costing Merkel at the polls. I don’t think this is some grand German plot and Merkel would probably rather the Greeks would pay their own bills. However, any country that’s going to bail out another has a right to attach whatever strings to the money they wish. Again, if they don’t like the terms of the bailout, don’t take the bailout. If you know the terms, and you still accept the money, the STFU.
socialism is inheritly “irresponsible government”
all this is about self validating their socialist models and the bizzre belief they can tax themselves into prosperity.
The “piigs” want food to eat.
The French and Germans want to be the new aristocrats.
all of them want the USA to pay for it.
Obama and the democrats only want to know how high they need to jump.
forgot to add: if the Greeks don’t take the loan and then simply default, the German banks are royally screwed since they held much of the Greek sovereign debt.
Why did they buy so much debt?
This is like giving farmers 0% interest loans and then lobbying to/and cutting off farm subsidies to guarantee the farmers default.
Welk was born in the German-speaking community of Strasburg, North Dakota. He started learning English when he went to school. His family emigrated from Odessa in Ukraine.
First of all, my one and only point was that if you accept a multi-billion dollar bail out, you have to accept the terms. If you borrow money from a bank, your Uncle Fred, or Germany you take the money on the terms it is offered.
But your analogy is messed up, Germany is lobbying the Greeks to stop spending like drunken soldiers and is offering them more subsidies if they do.
First of all, my one and only point was that if you accept a multi-billion dollar bail out, you have to accept the terms. If you borrow money from a bank, your Uncle Fred, or Germany you take the money on the terms it is offered.
But your analogy is messed up, Germany is lobbying the Greeks to stop spending like drunken soldiers and is offering them more subsidies if they do.
bookmark
Was thinking that myself.
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