Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
The rise of great powers, like the battle of the lion kings in the beasts, is full of intrigue and bloodshed. In the history of the world, there have been countless attempts to rise as great powers, most of which have failed. Among them, the most tragic was the German Empire. It was the trigger of the First and Second World Wars, bringing endless disasters to the whole world, but at the same time it itself paid a heavy price for defeat.
The defeat of Germany in one stop paid the reparations for the record losses of Britain, France and the United States; the defeat of Germany in World War II, the country was directly dismembered, and it has almost stepped into a place of no return, even so, Germany can still be reborn and grow into today's major European economies and even leaders. Looking at Germany along the way, there will always be inexplicable feelings, and sometimes even feel how similar this is to our country! Let's talk about Germany today.
The German Empire in 1871
First of all, we must know that Germany was founded in 1871, this period is very late, and the Chinese ruler of the same period is the Shunzhi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, that is, the father of Kangxi. The Age of Discovery was from the 15th to the 17th century. That is to say, by the time Germany appeared, all the colonies had already been divided up by Britain and France and other countries. As a result, the Germans had no way to plunder resources from all over the world, as Britain and France had done, and could only rely on their own development.
Chinese are not very familiar with Germany nearly a hundred years ago. But in reality, Germany at that time was very similar to China.
At the time of Germany's founding, Chancellor Bismarck promulgated the Imperial Constitution, which clearly stipulated that the German Empire was a federal state, consisting of 22 states, 3 Libreville and 2 direct territories. The states retained only the powers of education, health and local administration, while retaining their own monarchical government and parliament, while the key powers of military, diplomatic, customs legislation, banking legislation, indirect taxes, and criminal law were entrusted to the imperial government, so that the emperor equivalent of Germany combined military and political power, had supreme power, and could appoint and dismiss officials at all levels of the empire.
From the perspective of the concentration of power, Germany is different from Britain and the United States from the beginning, and the separation of powers system in Britain and the United States is essentially to prevent the concentration of power, while Germany is more like the centralized system in our Chinese history. This also led to Germany having an advantage from the beginning: it was able to concentrate on big things. Isn't it a bit familiar?
Germany realized that if it wanted to develop, it had to do what the United States had done: the government needed to build a big infrastructure, reduce the cost of social business by investing in infrastructure, and let the government manage public utilities such as transportation, telephones, and communication systems, and the government could provide free public health care, medical care and other services at cost or in a subsidized manner. Well, this one is also familiar.
To make an investment, you need to take out a loan, the German government spokesman and the bankers and industry, together with the industry, together to propose how much the state should increase credit, when the German bank invests in a company, it will not be required to pay dividends quickly, and even say"Do not pay dividends to investors, we do not want dividends, we want the company to grow." "Then the investor takes the bank's earnings from capital accumulation and stock prices.
Bank of England of the British Empire
This is quite different from The United Kingdom, which was already in the late stages of capitalism at that time, and all the banks wanted to get a quick return after the stock market was hit. Securities traders let investors buy a company and put it there, and the company hasn't grown long and there hasn't cooperated with government, finance, and industry, which is what they call a free market. The British themselves say that "the Market in England is full of fraud." ”
In contrast, the German model naturally provides better financing, with which the German economy has continued to grow rapidly, becoming the world's second largest industrial country in 1905, with steel production exceeding 10 million tons, and the level of military equipment has reached the level of first-class powers. By 1913, Germany's share of world trade had reached 13.1 percent, second only to Britain's 13.9 percent and surpassing the United States' 12.9 percent, and German-made goods could be seen everywhere in the world. At that time, the whole world believed that in time, the German Empire would become the most powerful empire in the world. Of course, there is a premise, no one is messing around. Germany is getting better and better, and Britain and France are not so happy.
The reason for France is that Germany and France are bordered by each other, and I don't know how many wars have been fought, and the two families have never been harmonious in history. The second is Britain, which at that time was sitting in the top position in the world, thinking that the world was Lao Tzu's, and anyone who dared to challenge Lao Tzu's status would have to find a way to kill it! That's what the U.S. is doing now.
As we said before, Germany has no colonies compared to other countries, which leads to its own lack of resources, it needs to be done from the outside, at that time the Germans had an idea, wanted to build a railway through Eurasia, so that goods can be circulated, that is, the idea of building a railway, which stimulated the nerves of Britain and France.
For Britain and France, Germany's move is equivalent to challenging its own maritime hegemony, world trade is our final say, want to avoid our own engagement? Dreaming?
Early Railways in Germany
Thus, on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, through which the German railway was to be built, the assassination of the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary occurred, which became the trigger for the outbreak of the First World War. The conflict of interests between the great powers led Germany to the war. The war soon spread throughout Europe.
But in the beginning, Germany did not fall behind, and what really determined the outcome of the war was that the United States joined the war and sided with Britain.
The day before the United States entered the war, the British went to the White House and told President Wilson that the United States had borrowed so much money from Britain through armaments that if they wanted to recover their debts from Britain, they would ensure that Britain would win. Only then would Britain have enough money to pay American arms exporters.
Well, when the battle is over, does Britain have the money to pay off its debts? If there is a ghost! The British didn't even intend to pay it back at first.
The traditional experience of european wars is that when a country wins a war, after the war, the victorious power usually forgives the debts that arise from mutual support between allies. The British's initial calculation was that after the war, the Americans would act according to tradition, as britain did in the 18th century: we are allies, and now that we have won, everyone is happy, and the costs of participating in the war will be written off!
The United States did agree that Britain would not have to pay for rifle bullets and aircraft supplied by the United States during the war, but before the United States entered the war, France, Britain, and the Allies had borrowed huge sums of money from the Americans to buy weapons needed to fight Germany. The Americans said that the money we had after entering the war would be forgotten, but the loan before the war could not be exchanged.
This is a debt of up to 28 billion US dollars, which was a sky-high price at the time, and once the Anglo-French Confederations repaid, they would face bankruptcy. Simple, that's not a defeated country, just let him come. As a result, Germany was forced to pay Britain and France $60 billion in war reparations, allowing Britain and France to pay off American debts and have money to change hands. Because this indemnity treaty was signed at the Palace of Versailles, it was later called the "Treaty of Versailles".
This is the world's number one war reparations, reparations include the taking away of the most productive and profitable German land bordering France, taking away Germany's currency reserves, so the German people fell into a huge economic disaster, Germany from 1920 began hyperinflation, and then experienced the collapse of the Deutsche Mark, triggered the Great Depression, food crisis, racial problems, etc., the German people have no choice, in order to survive had to put their hopes on the Nazis and Hitler, The fuse was laid for Germany to detonate the world war again.
Germany was in the Great Depression
The decline and fall of a powerful empire generally has external and internal causes, and we are talking about external causes above, and then we are talking about internal causes.
In ancient China, there was always a saying that "the imperial power does not go down to the county" because there was another force below the county that ruled the grassroots, and they were the landlord class. As we said before, Germany is somewhat similar to China, which has always had a landlord class that checks and balances with the imperial power, and in Germany there are also landlords, which are called Junker landlords.
Junker landlords refer to the aristocratic landlords of the eastern part of Germany, represented by Prussia.
The noble landlords, Chinese are too familiar, the family has land, money and grain, and there are people who have already occupied the time. Later, Germany did not want to carry out the industrialization of the country, and a large amount of investment produced many military and political posts, and these Junker landlords used their unique resources to install their own people in the state organs, and over time even monopolized the country's military and political important posts for a long time. Later, with the rise of the bourgeoisie, the junker landlords became more and more important in the German economy.
On the one hand, they joined the industry and banking industry in large numbers, while at the same time changing the form of agricultural operations, changing from rent-collecting landlords to agricultural entrepreneurs. At the same time, the bourgeoisie tried to squeeze into the ranks of the nobility. Eventually, the economic interests of the Junker landlords and the bourgeoisie became increasingly integrated, forming a new power group.
When a new all-out group emerges, it will weaken the centralized rule, and the constitutional monarchy under the control of the Junker landlords will gradually become a copycat representative system with only formal significance, which cannot adapt to the rapid development of the German economy.
And what happens to the big landlord class once it comes to power? Profit for yourself! Crazy expansion outside, oppression of the people internally, grassroots people live or die, they do not care. Over time, the contradictions between Germany and abroad continued to intensify, and the war became an inevitable end, and the demise was doomed.
Germany after World War II
However, historical developments are always unexpected, and after the Second World War, the Anti-Fascist League carried out large-scale economic and social reforms in Germany in order to eradicate German militarism from its roots. The Soviets were familiar with this, and they either nationalized the land of the Junker landlords or distributed it to small-scale farming, and the Junker class was completely wiped out! This was the most meaningful thing the occupiers had done for Germany.
Later, when Germany was once again unified, there was no Junker landlord class within the country, and a unified Germany regained its self-confidence. Their gaze transcends history and beyond the German borders. German politicians began to reorganize the political and economic map of Europe. From Kohl to Merkel, it is still a continuation of the German spirit from Bismarck. The Germans have not given up on the dream of a rise of great powers.
Brandt knelt down and an agreement was reached between The German (former West German) waves
The Germans are admirable, and after completing the negation of history, they have also completed the transcendence of history, and they have once again occupied the forefront of history. Germany is like an immortal bird that can be reborn after nirvana. For the best thinkers of this nation have not been exterminated, and the soul of this nation is still there. So, as soon as the opportunity is given, the nation can make a comeback immediately.
The full text is over, thank you for watching (picture from the network)
Night view of Berlin, Germany today