After Occupation: Why Didn't Germany Hold a Grudge? - Jack Rackham Reaction
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
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Heads up - at around 12:34 there are around 12 seconds of silence where youtube muted the sound and I have absolutely no idea why. Apologies.
hey can you respond to claim that you were rude towards people when you weren’t
At least the US and UK learned the lessons caused by the treaty of Versailles.....a treaty insisted on by France in vengeance against the terms the Germans imposed on them after the Franco-Prussian war "peace"; a treaty which only created the extremist views of the German voter looking for leadership in the 1930's during the economic crash. Ok we made different mistakes ..... however it did create a democratic and economic stability in the Western Federal Republic of Germany which the Weimar Republic never really achieved post WWI.....much in contrast to how Stalin created the German Democratic Republic (,the name was a sick joke as if was never in any way Democratic), which was a police state firmly held under Soviet control.
and at 20 03 there is a small missing sound moment
Its been happening to me on your past few videos its quite strange
There's also a couple seconds of silence around 20:00, just in case you weren't aware of that.
My grandfather was born 1942 in Silesia and he had to flee into the west when the red army came. He grew up in Freising which lies north of Muinich. He always tells us how great the relationship with the American soldiers were
my grandmother was born in Pommerania in 1935 and my grandfather was born in east prussia in 1931, they fled to a small town in Schleswig-Holstein. They had fond memories of the western allies. essentially they said that "the British gave us food, the French gave us a home and the Americans gave us a job.... all things the Russians took from us" which tells a lot why the common people were more on the side of the west.
My 9th grade history teacher was great he covered WW2 in two words "We won" and then went on to cover the consequences.
Better than my 11th grade history teacher who got up to 1900 (this was 1973-74) and then said anything newer was "too soon" and had us read 1984 by George Orwell. I didn't learn much about the Civil War and nothing about WWI and WWII until I went to college, where I majored in History with a minor in English. I STILL can't believe that he did that.
Was he inspired by the Simpsons by any chance? xD
My 9th grade history teacher couldn't tell the difference between a picture from the Korean War and WW1. Literally.
I was a soldier in the 80s, we were not an occupation force at the time but to say most Germans appreciated we were there, well that wasn't true and I get it. I felt much more comfortable in Bad Tolz in Bavaria than in Karlsruhe along the Rhine, two places I spent a lot of time.
Hello Chris love the content. This my first time recommending a breakdown but general knowledge just dropped another video on “Countries that MOVED Location” and they’re awesome. As well as “the territorial evolution of Germany”
There is another factor: General Ludendorff's behavior after WWI. In one of the first-ever radio broadcasts, he blamed German civilians for HIS loss in WWI. "Stabbed in the back" is HIS phrase that was used repeatedly by Adolf & Friends (ever dwindling) at every downturn in Adolf's 1920s, 30s and 40s. But in fact, Ludendorf was the German leader - not the Kaiser - for at least the last 2 years of WWI. He was Supply Chief. He had control of transportation, goods, resources AND more then all of the German Army. Whatever Ludey wanted, the Kaiser gave him, including abrogation all of the Kaiser's leadership duties by 1918. Ludey knew where ALL resources were - no one BUT HIM stabbed Germany in the back.
Adolf, upon getting to know Ludendorf more personally, cut him out of Germany's future during his start of 1931 Nazy Party leadership. But what Adolf couldn't do is 'cut out the memories' of Germans who rightfully felt betrayed by Ludey so, when Adolf started showing the same betrayal tactics first to other German leaders then more and more people, I have always believed the German population - by 1945 - were clearly running at faster speeds FROM Adolf and the Nazi nuts. Why? In the 1943 3-days-of-bombing that roasted about a third of Hamburg, Adolf refused to show up and appear sympathetic. Goebbels was begging him to, in person, and even made a radio broadcast that Adolf would appear. Adolf of course refused - he did not want to witness true war horror. He always ran from that... always had, always would. And there was a growing resentment over his abandonment of civilians until Jan 1945 when it was his official in-his-own-mind belief that all defeats were solely the fault of the German People. In later rants, he'd make this known to every crowd of so-called loyalists - the German military leaders - and they too recognized they were being thrown under the bus. They were going to be blamed more and more for "stabbing Adolf in the back."
I believe a really massive change in West Germany actually happened in the late 60s. That was when the first post-war generation was getting into their 20s and there was already a big political student movement worldwide. They really started kicking the hornets nest when they were asking what their parents and the current group of ruling politicians had been doing during the war, which they previously had mostly been very quiet about.
I'm not really familiar with that whole story, but that is being regarded as a major shift in German society.
I definitely agree with you that Normandy wasn't the main turning point in the war. Other important battles like El Alamein and Stalingrad turned the tide of the war long before D-Day. The D-Day landings basically just shortened the war
the Anschluss of Austria is an interesting topic. And a highly controversial one. Not least in Austria...
Talking of which... 9:45 it's fascinating how the fact the the Soviet Union worked WITH Germany in the war first is completely lost to history ("When they joined the war against Germany". That might be better remembered in Poland.
Portugal, Spain and Austria were already fascist, not just Italy. It was a Catholic thing. Germany was half Catholic, but Martin Luther had been antisemitic too.
And then there's Finland, who did nothing wrong, but fought back against the Soviet Union after they were invaded. And because of this, they were considered an "Axis" member, had their second-largest city stolen by Russia, and were forced to pay reparations.
There were unity movements fairly far back and only the Treaty of Versailles prevented Austria from joining greater Germany right after WW1 when they could have really used each other for combined economic strength.
on the topic of we did not commit the atrocities of our grandparents, we should also acknowledge that many of us still benefit in some way from their actions
Yeah some did benefit, most didn’t. No one should feel guilty for things they can’t influence.
Hello Chris, hope you have a great trip. I recommend the usefulcharts video on who would be kings of Germany today? (Part 2:) Grand Duchies and Duchies.
There is a channel called tikhistory. I think he offers a good perspective and historical analysis on post war German economy and society. Which he points out that many of the issues of Germany were not caused by Versailles but by the political parties and ideologies.
Hope you have a great trip and am so looking forward to all the future content! Hey have you played the newer Wolfenstein games? The one level where you have to act as a normal citizen in Germany controlled rural America gets me every time. That really could have been real life if the Axis won. Crazy to think about. I'd love for you to give your opinion on that. You probably won't even see this but that alt history is so interesting, but scary to think about.
Take care on your trip!
18:00 All that and he was the first president of German ancestry elected and relatively recently left office so ....
Short answer: we could’ve held a bigger grudge 😂
If that happened, you would had been destroyed forever.
German history courses, as far as I remember, didn`t focus on World War II, they dealt with the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis, and the the holocaust, but german history classes taught not a lot about the military aspect. Sure, everybody knows about the Attack on Poland and of Stalingrad and probably Normandie might be popular as well, but for example Kursk 1943? Was not mentioned in west german history classes (maybe in east Germany?) Even the battle over England got neglected. And the war in the Pacific is reduced to Pearl Harbor and The Bomb. Battle of Midway? Usually not a topic.
The foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany and later the German Democratic Republic and the division Germany was more of a topic.
Which makes a lot of sense in my opinion. The actual details of the war apart from "first they won everything, then they lost everything, with a lot of genocide in between" is not actually that important for everyone to know. The causes of how the Nazis came to power, how they retained it, and which horrors they inflicted on the world are what we all should know and learn from to make sure it can never repeat itself
tbf I don't remember having gone into detail about the military aspect of any war in history classes. WW2 did get a lot more attention than any other conflict.
Note that my comment is a reaction to 1:00 to 1:15 ("everybody talks about the war itself") and 6:50 to 7:21 about the focus on the history of warfare. VTT pointed out that lots of people (inclding myself) focus on the history of warfare.
I agree that in the short time for history classes in school there are way more important things than the military aspect of most wars (though it is often combined with social change and political development), I just wanted to point out that THE WAR is NOT the focus of typical german history classes in the last years since maybe the 70s. I heared stories that things were different in the 1950s and early 1960s, when the teachers were... politely said "different".
12:35 whats with the mute?
Good Evening Mr. Mowery. Is there any chance to meet you on October 15th in Salzburg?
I don’t yet know where we will be after we get back from the Eagle’s Nest but we will be in Salzburg. You can email me that afternoon or message me on Instagram
Lol. I don’t know if you caught it, VTH, but Jack literally flashed the illuminati symbol talking about the major players in dividing up Germany lol.
Yes, Jack Rackham!
I'd love to see a reaction and input on the history of Israel, much like Russia when its conflict with Ukraine flared up.
4:50 Austria was very still extremely closely linked to Germany at that point and before WW1 the NSDAP and "reunification" of Austria with the rest of Germany had very high support. After WW1 the "remaining" Austria wanted to rejoin Germany, but it was denied by the Triple Entante. The support for that idea remained very strong though. Even today you have a few right wing nutcases in Austria (for example some Burschenschaften - student fraternieties) for example, that oppose the existence of an Austrian state, outside of the German fatherland.
I am actually in favor of taking Austria back as a federal state: This way, I wouldn't have to pay their annoying highway toll when driving through there to get to Italy 😀And we wouldn't have all the Arguments in the RUclips comments anymore about whether Schnitzel and Mozart could be considered German or not... You know -> The important issues.
Love VTH
I would of titled it Why didn't Britain have grudge ??I think that if there was no Marshall plan and never let Germans leave for xx years even criminals get treated worse who just make have broke misdemeanor. There rehab is a joke .Germany just got a slap in the wrist .Britain feels guilty of their days of colonialism why they sorry all the time .Should of been stiffer ..Britain had to pay and rebuild them selves no compensation from Germany.
Why aren't Americans proud to be English and don't tell me it the revolutionary war which ever needed to be fought no .Why not English I am proud of mine .I am Canadian btw .Where was our junk of Germany ?
Germans did not hold a grudge because: 1. Their government was wiped out, unlike Japan. 2. Life was bad for Germans for decades, worse under the Nazis. The Allies brought hope. Russia, it was false.
Stalin was bad, very bad. But i wouldn't consider him as bad or worse than Hitler, by the sole virtue that Stalin never laughed a war of mass extermination. Still bad tho
Unfortunately they are making a return, but this time they are Americans.
Okay i will say the German people def did do a huge job at changing their way of thinking but i watch a German streamer and idk how true it is but he says there is a big Nazi movement in the younger generation which sucks to hear.
@@AlexanderLittlebearsnonsense
there is certainly a large portion of right wing young people but definitely not of nazis, the vast majority is pretty tame
I've spoken with many Germans throughout my life. There is a constant mental struggle of feeling proud of your nation but trying not to feel TOO proud. Germans nowadays focus very much on how extreme nationalism, patriotism, authoritarianism, et cetera, can be destructive. It's not that Germans hate themselves, it's just that they want to avoid that horror from ever happening again.
They didn't learn anything from history.
They treat the topic like the nazis are some magical evil thing that happened.
It even feels like they feel guilty for the Marshall plan.
Right now they are destroying their own economy with a mindset that creates a weimarish political landscape while the refugee situation creates a massive rise of radical Muslims gaining more power.
It's insane and I am glad I left the country
I think the feeling that you describe is portrayed really well in the song Deustchland by Rammstein, especially when it gets to the chorus and there are lines like: "Germany, my heart in flames, want to love and damn you" or "Germany - my love I can't give you". And although I'm not German, the song gave me a very important lesson and it's one that I will carry with me forever.
We are proud to not be too proud. If that makes sense. 😄
@DerDickeVomLande it does and for outsiders and migrants that actually makes it harder to integrate since the culture is about saying that there is no German culture 😂
@@labra6969 DEUTSCHLAND, MEIN HERZ IN FLAMMEN
With regard to the remark to Austria at 5:00,
Austria from 38-45 was seen as part of Germany because although it was annexed in 1938, support for the annexation was very strong in Austria at this time and participation in the War and the Holocaust was substantial. Unlike many other occupied Countrys, resistance against the Nazis was almost nonexistent. Probably even less then in Germany itself. During this period there was defacto no difference between Germany and Austria on a societal level.
And The Moscow Declaration on Austria from 1943 acknowledges this in the following:
"The governments of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States of America are agreed that Austria, the first free country to fall a victim to Hitlerite aggression, shall be liberated from German domination."
"Austria is reminded, however that she has a responsibility, which she cannot evade, for participation in the war on the side of Hitlerite Germany, and that in the final settlement account will inevitably be taken of her own contribution to her liberation."
According to *official* records, 98% of 90% of the population (excluding about 10% who were Jewish/Roma). Many claimed that the vote was rigged. There was no vote-secrecy as well.
Read the wiki on it. I like the bit where they mention the gestapo internal reports that claim only about 20% of Austrians would vote yes.
@@TheUberjammer
The vote was heavily influenced and rigged, yes, but it did not need to be if i can be brutally honest. Most of my grandparents (not the jewish one ofc) would have done anything to live in a country that was not gutted by ww1, the financial crisis and the political turmoil, were in austria armed militias of neighbours were fighting one another.
The state in which the austrian state was in at the time meant that a huge swath of the populus were very on board with the anschluss if it meant a betterment of their situation. The ones against it were either christian authoritarian right wingers and militarized left wingers, and most of the population hated them and their terror too.
The greatest lie our ancestors told was that of victimhood, which was important for the survival of the state and the people, but a blatant lie, austians were perpetrators, and very much on board.
However, i am hugely proud of the diplomatic actions the austrians made possible during the cold war. Even tho at the moment we, as much of europe too, have a bigger rightwinger problem again, which is worrying.
Edit. It has to be said tho, our right wing is the american center, which is in no way an excuse, but people seem to forget that. And i think it is highly problematic, that americans think this is normal. It is a scurge that needs to be understood and countered by sensible policies and a love of fellow human beings.
To add to your comment: Austria had by far the highest amount of high ranking nazis per capita out of any region in the Third Reich.
About the killing of German peoples in Czechoslovakia. My Grandmother (then living in the Sudetenland) once told me, that she witnessed Soviet and Czech troops showering civilians in Oil, torching them and then chased through the streets while still burning, until dead. Also they were given the choice of either fleeing their Home towards Germany, leaving their whole life behind, or being practically imprisoned. She said she would never forgive, nor forget what they had done to her, so I guess while the entirety of Germany perhaps didn't hold a grudge, many still do to this day.
Being Eastern European... yes, that is the kind of thing the Russians did. My grandmother had to hide with her sisters in the basement of their home when Russians would break into people's homes looking for women to rape and for alcohol. She distinguished in her stories between the Cossacks (Ukrainians) who were faithful and normal and the Asians... the Asians were the ones who did this sort of stuff. And I always assumed this was all a thing of the past, but then when I heard about the Bucha massacre last year, I immediately knew it was the Asians who did it, even before it was confirmed which unit did it. It's their MO. This war in Ukraine has re-ignited a lot of negative memories who Russians are, how evil they are and this reminded us that they didn't change at all. They're still the same torturers, rapists and murderers they were back in WW2. During the Cold War, especially in the early days: "The Americans are coming" (implying the start of WW3) was a hopeful saying, that the Americans would come and we'd join them to liberate our country (Romania) from the Soviets. We had a resistance fighting in all over the country against the communists, with this hope, who would have joined the Americans. They fought on until the early 1960s.
They don’t hold a grudge because it isn’t well known what happened there, we are only told in school what we did and how wrong that was… I only saw a video a short time ago what happened to the Sudetendeutschen and I was shocked and surprised honestly…
You do need to remember that all those "innocent" Germans, Romanians, Hungarians and others visited Russian lands in 1941 and left over 20 million dead soldiers and civilians, many of them tortured as described above and worse. I say it is a miracle the Soviets did not killed every single German alive in Germany after they crossed the border.
Plus, take into account that many of those same soldiers were at war for 2 to 4 years, seen their friends die, their family members die, their countryman slaughtered and villages burned. At that point they were no more humans but more closer to animals, and they became that only because you had to invade them in 1941.
@@octavianpopescu4776 In ex Yu, those kind of things were done by Cherkessians.
This is a true example of 'the history is written by the winners'. Everyone knows the nazi Germany truly has committed atrocities but so have the others and that should be acknowledged.
This can happen anywhere and to anyone. The desperation, the anger, and bitterness, combined with a group of people peddling a dogmatic ideology (that claims to offer resolution in exchange for absolute power) and fully capable and willing to manipulate raw human emotion to gain power and exert force on the world. By the same token, people are capable of amazing things as well and the combination of a desire to move on combined with responsible and stable leadership, can quickly shift a dynamic like this.
Thomas Sowell said the same in one of those book. "That this could happen in Germany, shows that it could happen everywhere"
12:30 A take so hot RUclips had to mute it xD
14:30 The irony is we have seen the exact opposite strategy used more recently, leading to disaster. Strict "de-baathification" was carried out by Paul Bremmer in Iraq and this along with completely dissolving the Iraqi Army, basically helped to plunge the country into chaos and insurgency.
Yes, this was especially influenced by Paul Wolfowitz, one of the three „Bushies“with Cheney, Rumsfeld.
Understandable that Jewish families in the USA were disappointed with the way too much Nazis got away and was never really strafed.
As a modern German I share this feeling.
It should also be mentioned that even in the communistic East-Germany, controlled by Russia, former Nazis were making career.
This Nazi were easier to control and more humble than former members of resistance and Antifa.
The CIA even gave the deputy officer of Eichmann, Franz Joseph Huber, who sent all Austrian Jews to the gas chambers, a written confirmation that he was no Nazi perpetrator!
On the other side, the case Irak shows that a complete destruction of the authorities of a country doesn’t work.
The truth it that the bush administration had no plan for Irak in the cupboard when they won the war.
Where everyone believes in conspiracy theories - that everything in the world is controlled by CIA and Co. and It was all a sinister plan by the USA - the opposite is the problem: they had absolutely no plan - and that is the real danger.
Rumsfeld later visited Germany and was somehow disappointed that he couldn’t find these Germans as allies who lived here in the past.
The Austrians shouldn't have their own country anyways, they are just Mountain Germans!😛
Regarding the denazification, no power was very thorough with the middle and lower management, with the Soviets the most rigourous if memory serves. As my history teacher said when we talked about the post-war occupation, "lawyers, doctors and bureaucrats don't grow on trees".
You can tell by looking up how "strong" the NSDAP was in the Bundestag (the German parliament) following the war, as a number of former Nazi party members would enter the Bundestag for other parties, the high point being 129 members in 1961. On the German wikipedia there is a page with a list.
I've recently been listening to a couple of talks by a German historian by the name of Sönke Neitzel on the topic of the Wehrmacht and its influence on todays Bundeswehr. In them he sometimes mentions that German society was kept together in part by... "taking off the edge" of the Wehrmacht (which is in part where the Wehrmacht is clean myth comes from), after all you couldn't well tell millions of constituents that they were all war criminals if you wanted to integrate them into a democracy. "All those crimes, those were of the SS and the Nazis, the German soldier was a professional and the best in the world, the Allies just had insurmountable numbers." That is kind of the line that was taken.
I've seen it said in places that what really denazified Germany were the new generation of Germans that started asking their parents uncomfortable questions in the 60s that led to a lot of "self-reflection". Well, the next part is probably going to be a little contentious in today's political situation, but I've seen explanations for east Germany's "righ-wing problem" that postulate that in the GDR this never happened, as per socialist doctrine it was capitalist West Germany that was teetering on the brink of falling back into fascism, which couldn't happen in the east, which is why there had never been the same process there. (Not sure if true, GDR history is what I know the least of regarding German history).
As for another reason for why a Fourth Reich never rose (if we ignore the EU for a moment, as per some Polish politicians😅), besides the mentioned reasons like the overwhelming defeat and economic growth I think Jack Rackham could have singled out the creation of the Grundgesetz (the German constitution) as an important factor for the political stability in the country as it was deliberately designed to correct the flaws of the Weimar constitution that were thought to have led to the Third Reich. In Germany those are called "Lehren von Weimar", the lessons of Weimar.
(Oh, I also take a little issue with making out the Kaiserreich as the most militarised society on Earth when per capita they were lagging behind France and Russia in military spending and the British had their boyscouts.😉)
Two other overlooked points: Marshall Aid and the Berlin Airlift. They showed the West German public that the USA in particular was committed to common cause with them. The Berlin Airlift in particular was a breakthrough in making the West German population see the Western Allies as friends rather than a hostile occupying force. It probably also helped that the USA overtly cracked heads with France over postwar policy, as France very much wanted Versailles Treaty 2.0.
The point about positive interactions between occupying forces and civilians is true too. For the first two years of the occupation, before Marshall Aid, official occupation policy was quite hostile: Germany was to be de-industrialized to the point of never being able to wage war again (the Morgenthau Plan), and food imports to Germany were banned on the basis that others should rather get it, that Germany should be fed last. US soldiers were even forbidden from sharing their rations with German civilians. To their credit, many US soldiers outright and overtly disobeyed the prohibition, and much of the officer corps refused to enforce it.
There were of course very notable exceptions to those self purges. like a Govenour of Baden-Würtemberg that was a Nazi Judge up to 1945 issued death sentences, also an aid to aforementioned Konrad Andenauer was a high ranking SS officer. but truth to be told as it was mentioned the allies would have had to run germany for at least twenty years cause "cleansing" every govermental and judiciary branch would have put 2/3 of thos people in prison. that would have been at least like 1,000,000 people or so
Kind of what Himmler and other SS leadership wanted to bargain with the allies at the end. Any government after the fall of Hitler would need a former or current nazi rulers since they were the only competent native germans to efficently rule the country.
I think it is telling that german curriculum leaves out the war to focus on it's reasons and aftermath. Knowing the details of how the war was fought is interesting sure but in the grand scheme of things to our students why they fought is more important to understand than how they fought.
I think we gravitate towards wars so much because they often have strong narrative lines...at least in the most talked about wars. History is storytelling to a degree and war makes for good stories, even if peace is often where the more important and consequential history happens
4:50 At the time it would've been less contentious than you'd think. Austria always wanted to join Germany after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Their first government immediately voted for a Union and there were referenda in Tyrol and Salzburg about the issue with massive turnout in favor, but the Entente forces didn't let them, which Austrians found unfair. So the Anschluss wasn't unwelcome. The "Hitler's first victim" narrative only really became popular among Austrians after the war.
"But you'd think at that point the world would go listen Germany heres the deal, you don't get to be a country no more on a count of you keep attacking...the world. What do you think you are? Mars or something?" - Norm Macdonald
I think that Germany did a better job with desnazification than the US with the desconfederation and desdiscrimination
@@AlexanderLittlebears so you think that the Jim Crow laws and all the white race purity that happend in the south were a good thing? and the Nuremberg laws that take away the rights of the jews where also okey? because thats discrimination
@@AlexanderLittlebearsBad bait
The Union claimed a moral victory for freeing the slaves - but had no real plan for what to DO with the slaves once they were free. They *could* have given each freedman 40 acres (in the North, on on the Western frontier) and a mule. But instead they decided to just leave the freedmen where they were, and let them work for their resentful former masters. It was doomed to failure.
@@danielbishop1863 the Union or Andrew Johnson?
@@AlexanderLittlebears n A z I
I can't speak for the Germans and the Austrians in general, but my grandmother who was an 18-year-old girl in 1945 Vienna did certainly hold a grudge at least against the US bomber crews and against all Russians, having one of her closest friends being raped, murdered and mutilated by Russian soldiers certainly plaid a part. But one thing that brought the Allies, and that's including the Russians, a lot of good will was that they were feeding the civilians. In 1919 my great-grandmother smuggled food into Vienna from the Burgenland because Vienna was starving it was cut off from its food supply in Hungary after WW1. After WW2 Vienna was destroyed by allied bombs, not to a degree like Dresden, but thousands had been killed in the bomb raids as well, but after the war food rations were slim and often of bad quality, my grandmother's tale of more worms than peas in a pea soup they go comes to mind, but it was enough to prevent starvation, and it got better in the long run. I think nothing produced more goodwill in Germany and Austrian than the Care packages and the Marshall plan. Without these things, there would have been a very big grudge in my opinion.
I agree, I'm of German descent and I always felt that it was a bit much to feel that responsible for the sins of the past. I feel as if a lot of Germany's problems would clear up if we stopped blaming ourselves for crimes we didn't commit. Acknowledging that wrongdoing took place and making sure it doesn't again should be enough. It's time to move on, take control of the country back, and let German culture get some sunlight again.
You mean let Nazism return?
Germany was able to use four things to get past animosity about their WW2 defeat and subsequent occupation: the shame and horror the old regime had earned with the holocaust, the accountability forced by the Nuremberg trials, East Germany's severe decline under Russian occupation, and West Germany's spectacular recovery under the Marshall Plan. These truths allowed West Germany to not only lead reunification efforts but deny attempts by some die-hard nazis to rally 'lost cause advocates' regarding German WW2 justification myths.
And they found out bout the nazi crimes that had happened when they came back with a grudge
marshal plan is overhyped
Matshall plan didnt do shit in teality, its a cold war myth
What brought germany bavk was the massive demand for steel all over europe and germany still haf a lot of coal and steel industry nearly unharmed by the war
The post war building boom rebuild germany.
The US was ironically a big obsticle to germqny rebuilding. The US stile so many industrial patent rights and industrial secrets that nobody in germany wanted to do reseach anymore because the US would just steal it. This was s8 bad the first german chancelor post war wrote a letter to the US president to please fucking stop stealing stuff which finally stopped US theft.
After that germany got a massive industrial boom because every industry, now safe from us theft, pulled out all the stuff and reserch they hid at the end of the war.
The backbone of the german economical miracle was all the nazi families that got rich during the nazi rule and hid zhe stuff they stole at zhe end of the war.
Better not look up the family histories of the guys running germanys car and chemical industry, you might realize how much of a joke allied denazification was.
Meanwhile, Japanese children are taught that they were just minding their own business in the 1940s when the US suddenly nuked them for no reason.
@@TheGamePlayZoneDE
Nah its fcking underrated lol. They didn't teach that at my school and my parents never knew about it either, as well as a lot of people I met in my country
Not sure if you have covered it but there are videos about how Japan reacted to the atrocities it's gov't had perpetuated, and how it recovered to become one of the leading economic powers in the world.
Japan denies any wrong doing to anyone but Allied soldiers to this day, so basically UK and its former colonies and the US, anyone else was disregarded by the japanese government to this very day
@@felixmustermann790
That doesn’t stop their own people accepting their own country committed atrocities and showing regret. The Diet many times try to censor that but failed.
The biggest acknowledgement is Kamen Rider where the popularity of the show is having a protagonist (who was tortured and experimented into a cyborg) literally killing Unit 731 and Nazi henchmen.
And second biggest is Godzilla, and that’s a huge statement. And gotten bigger thanks to GMK Godzilla (2001) since Shusuke Kaneko, the director, is said that GMK Godzilla is a zombie that is possessed by the souls of the victims that are killed by Japanese aggression during World War 2. And the Japanese can’t stop it because vengeance in perpetuity.
The Adenauer Government also had one of the lawyers who worked on the Nürnberger Rassengesetze in a key position.
I highly doubt the pro Naziism was not so bad poll numbers given the massive push back against rearmament.
I kind of disagree on the Germans purged themselves. Because initially they did not. Which led to a massive culture clash between the Generation that tried to keep silent about the war and the younger Generation that demanded accountability (68er revolution).
I actually think its quite simple why the end of ww1 and ww2 ended so differently.
1. Total unconditional surrender. No armistice, no peace treaty. Germany was to rebuilt from the ground up, which is exactly what happened.
Government and institutions were completely dismantled and rebuilt, the entire country occupied, every aspect under allied control.
Note this is not what happened at the end of ww1, ww1 ended with the 1918 revolution in germany overthrowing the kaiser, and a civilian government signing the peace treaty. But there was still total chaos and revolution going on in germany and the new weimar government was incredibly unstable.
This was not a unified stable country, it was a country engulfed in revolution and anarchy. Radicalism went unchecked, communism, fascism and all sorts of extemists thrived, and the poor economic conditions only exacerbated the problem.
The allies mostly just left the new weimar government to figure out its problems for itself...which was a massive mistake.
We practically just left germany to its own devices without realizing the potential consequences.
This was corrected after ww2, where the entire country was occupied and a new stable government established under allied supervision.
2. Marshall plan and other economic aid to rebuild the broken country rather than harsh reperations like after ww1.
So there was no economic incentive to pull towards any extremist side.
Though frankly its not like the allies would have allowed it anyway.
The principle point here is that the germany that came after ww2 was an entirely different country (or two) than the one that came before it.
It can be argued that the home grown idea of a sovereign germany essentially died in 1945, and that what came after was entirely a product of foreign influence with each allied building the nation in their respective image.
So really. Nothing about germany itself changed at all. Germany was razed to the ground...quite literally, and in its place 2 entirely new states were build by the allies.
4:53 Yes, Austria was annexed by Germany, but Nazi-Ideology and German nationalism was very strong in Austria. If there would have been a real and fair vote, I think the majority of Austrians would also have voted to become a part of Germany.
The Austrians perfectly integrated themselves into Germany and as a Austrian myself I would even say that the percentage of Nazis might have been higher in Austria than in Germany.
Also it was because of the victors of WW1 that Austria wasn't allowed to join up with the German republic at the time. Hitler did what both countries' populations pretty much wanted anyway for a long time. Only the means by which he achieved it were questionable.
Yeah, as soon as the Habsburg and Hohenzollern monarchs (with their petty rivalry) were dethroned, there was no real reason for Austria and Germany not to unite, except that the WW1 victors wanted to keep their enemies weak.
The Western Allies were far nicer to the Germans than the Soviets were. The Western Allies actually wanted to HELP and rebuild post-war Germany while the Soviets wanted to make the Germans suffer.
Understandable
Winning a war is useless if you can't win the peace.
Right now there are at least 14 US military bases still active in Germany....... (Just in case?)
Well they are in a military alliance with us. We have bases basically everywhere
When I was a young kid in the 80s, my grandparents lived 700 meters from the German-German border.
At that point, the official border line was a river and the East German border fortifications were a good distance inside their territory hidden behind trees. There might have been signs on the West German side, but I wouldn't have been able to read them. So there really was nothing to indicate you were right at the iron curtain.
There even was a little pub that was right where a bridge across the river used to be, and we would go down with my grandfather to get ice cream many times.
I wasn't even in school before the reunification, so everything I knew was to "never ever, under any circumstances, swim across that river". (Because of East German border guards, and also land mines.) It's really surreal now to know that was right on the most heavily armed border in the world.
It's all gone now and it still looks exactly the same.
Not a big fan of the video, really to much simplification for my taste.
Elsaß und Lothringen: Just saying this dispute goes back to the settlement of the 30 Years War, not the Franco Prussia War, as it is always been told in the Anglo-Saxon narrative.
Greetings from Berlin.
After 2 World Wars Germany managed to have the largest and most productive economy of Europe. Germany exports and industry output is so massive they aren’t to far behind America which is extremely impressive.
which is kinda ironic if you consider that in the 30's, Germnay couldn't hold a candle to the US output by any means, and only industrialised meaningfully with US investments
Source? Trust me Wirtschaftswunder. Read up the numbers mate.
@@delfinenteddyson9865No, Germany was one of the few countries that was completely industrialized in the 19t century. It was also leading in science, physics, chemistry and was able to lead WW1 against 90% of the world population.
America was superior in mass production.
But after the Versailles treaty Germany was broken and struck by hyper inflation.
A piece bread costed one million reichsmark on Monday and ten million at Tuesday.
German export were hampered by lack of trade deals - the country was isolated.
It had also to deliver all merchant ships, planes and locomotives as Reparation.
Later in the 1920th the Americans were seeking a way to help Germany out of financial misery effected by monetary reparations. The rates were reduced and stretched in time.
The last rate of WW1-reparations (200 Mio €) was paid 2010 (!).
In the 1930 the German industry wanted to cope with the American in matters of mass production.
Henry Ford, who liked the Nazi, sent workers to Germany for the production of the „Volkswagen“.
Finally the German industry learnt mass production through the war.
Millions of slave-workers were suffering in German plants.
After the war, Germany was to be strafed for it’s horrible crimes.
While the Russians dismantled every piece of machinery tools the USA focused on German technology.
They strategically and with enormous efforts searched for German inventions, because at that time Germany was ahead in many technological areas.
While in Russia the German machinery tools were rusting in some corners the USA achieved by own conviction a massiv boost in technology.
The German „Wirtschafts-Wunder“ later was possible because Germany could export goods anywhere.
West Germany you mean.
Short and over simplified history of Alsace-Lorraine: 843 Charlemagne's grandsons divide the Frankish Empire into three parts. Alsace becomes an important part of Middle Francia/Lorraine for about a century, then Lorraine gets gobbled up by West Francia (later France) and East Francia (the later HRE). Alsace becomes part of the HRE for about 700 years till Louis 14 conquers it in the 2nd half of the 17th century. It stays French till 1871 where it becomes part of the German Empire till 1918 (1920). Once more, German for a few years under Moustache Guy.
So in summary, Alsace-Lorraine was its own thing for a century more or less, part of several iterations of Germany for 750+ years and part of France for 300 years and counting.
Hello VTH! Loving the content like always and I was wondering if you have ever watched The Part Time Explorer? They have amazing ship sinking content and they really go in-depth about the teaching of these sinking's. They would be a good watch for the channel if you are interested!
Just wanna say thanks for keeping me interested in learning/history even after school
Given his history, I always wondered what Truman, Marshall or Ike were thinking when they named Patton as the military Governor of the American zone in the first place. What else did they think was going to happen?
In my experience almost nobody understands Viche France. They think it was occupied by Germany, but for the most part it wasn't. They think it was a puppet regime established by the Nazis, but it was in fact a continuation of the Allied French government under the final leader appointed freely before capitulation. Viche France is WEIRD and doesn't at all fit in with the otherwise black and white sides of WW2.
I would say, I don't feel guilty, for what the Nazis did, but I feel responsible, it will not accure once more.
And knowing the history and the cruelty is important.
And there are some, that still or newly think, that time would have been not so bad, and there would have been some good things from that area.
So we have to keep this knowledgge alive, and face those rigt wing guys with facts.
And to be honest, it feels good to do the correct things, to show the bad things in history and you can blame others, that say "You did horrible things in the past!"
"Yes, we did, and we acknowledged them. When will you and your country acknowledge the cruelty, you did to ... ?"
Germany economy was out shining America economy like hey BMW ,Porcha , ,Volkswagen was not good for the American car market .There are others. It was mush the same with Japan
Czech guy here. Czechoslovakia in 1945 had around 15 milion people. 3,5 milion of the were Germans. (there were even more Germans than Slovaks at that time in Czechoslovakia.. Slovaks were only 2,5 milion). All of them were deported and displaced by force and most of their property confiscated by Czechoslovak government. Alogside with this around 150 000 Germans were murdered by Czech nationalists who blamed them for 6 years of opression, murder and stealing. Czechs were just frustrated and wanted some revenge. I don't want to apologize them but that's how things were. Czechs and Germans lived peacefully together there for centuries. Czech men married German women and vice versa. In late 30's everything changed with "Adolf". Now Czechs were bad and Germans good guys. By the way those regions which were abandoned by Germans are now much more impoverished than the rest.
Not being allowed to hold a grudge by law is kinda working. Most Germans kind of feel an inherited sense of guilt. Of course we all know that we had nothing to do with it, it's not our fault, but it's damn well our duty to make sure it's not forgotten and repeated. And apparently we're kinda failing in that right now.
I feel bad for Germans who feel they need to shame themselves for crimes they weren’t even born for.
When it comes to crimes. Evil doesn’t have a race.
Every nation in all ways is responsible for a lot genocide. US with the native Americans, Britian and France with there colonies, Soviets with themselves and Eastern Europe, Japan with its colonies during ww2, Memebers of the hutu in the Rwanda genocide.
List goes on. Credit to the Germans for acknowledging that the holocaust was bad, wrong and evil and for the Germans to do everything possible to not let it happen again. The Germans today still in my opinion shouldn’t blame themselves for somthing they were not even born for.
on the topic of "we didn't know anything": i don't buy it. my dad was from a place near Würzburg, which was fairly central (i.e. far from the frontline for a long time) and not really that close to any major KZs. but they did know things were wrong and bad; probably not the details, but they knew undesired people were being deported (and most likely that they were killed) and they definitely knew that the military course of the regime was _destroying Germany._ they were afraid, and that's probably why they didn't actively move against it - and i say that is okay! but claiming you just didn't know? i mean, i often underestimate the ability of humans to lie to themselves and then believing their own lies, and maybe that's what's going on here. as a victim of parental abuse (yes, being recruited as a frigging _child soldier_ did leave my dad with horrible emotional scars that turned into a "gift that keeps on giving") it appears to me the same way as when people try to undersell what they went through - but that isn't even healthy, it's just lies! Germany 1933-1945 simply was _not_ a good father(land), in fact it was a horrid one, and all Germans - especially those who want to be "patriots" so badly - are better off acknowledging this fact. and when a politician like Gauland claims that part is just a "fly's shite" on the rest of German history, then that must not be taken as anything less than outright treason.
Question; why do we generally conceive the treaty of Versailles as harsh on Germany while the conditions of peace in 1945 had more severe consequences? In 1945, Germany lost much more territories and even it's sovereignity.
@0:59 So I'm watching as I go so my opinion can change(what can I say, im just a react watcher :| )
But, why would I care if an aggressor(who lost) in a cinflict holds a grudge?
Should I not be more concerned with how their victims have responded?
4:50 this is such a great propaganda feat the Austrians pulled off branding themselves as "the first victim of the nazis", which is absolutely absurd.
Not only were the first victims the German people, especially minorities who were by the time of the Anschluss already suppressed for five years, it also ignores that the Austrians were largely collaborating with the regime. It is clear Hitler could have annexed them in a free and fair democratic vote, Austria tried that before shortly after WW1 but Germany didn't accept (because they were bound by the treaty of Versailles and Austria was dirt poor at the time)
Well, yeah, about Austria. They had a fascist government in power already before the Nazis seized power in Germany and when they invaded, they were greeted by the austrian population with flowers. It is safe to say, that Austria chose to go down the same path as Germany, don't act like they are the victim, you shouldnt let them off the hook that easily.
The key is pride. Hitler used the pride of Germans for his case and after WW2 the national identity got erased from Germans, so there is no pride left in Germans for their country today. People has been asked if they would defend their country in war and only 5% of civilians in Germany would do so. So if Germany would not be in the NATO, it would have a hard time in war, as they do not feel connected to their nationality anymore enough to defend it.
25:33. There's all that and the fact that today German is the largest single identifiable ethnic group in America. Since the beginning of the 20th century Germans have featured huge in American culture due to their share size and breadth throughout the country.
Poland got a part of germany in 1945 because Stalin didn't want tongive up the land the sovjets annexed in 1943
"Would have the germans voted for the Nazis at that point?". Well, since the allied authorities carried out polls in 1949 which resulted in a 60% of germans that said that "things were better under the former regime. In Austria, a poll about "if nationalsocialism was a good idea, though carried out badly" 52% of Austrians answered yes, and those were the ones who had the courage to be honest with their occupiers. In all honesty though, these answer might be more a sign of dissatisfaction with the occuping powers.
Oh dang It was mentioned in the video, lol. Remember folks, don't be hasty.
Austrian/German here. I would like to add two important reasons to the change of the Austrian and german societies, that I felt were missing.
Both countries did have strong liberal roots, not less than other western countries at that time. I don’t think the society overall was more racist or antisemitic than others. These roots were already there and it was what made this shift after 45 possible. If you read Stefan Zweigs „Welt von gestern“ you will find amazing descriptions of Austria before the war and it is just unbelievable how this could be turned into a fascist country.
Second, it was simply that Germany was too important from a geostrategic perspective, and the fear of the Soviets forced the western countries to come together, even when the wounds of WW2 were not healed. Imagine that Germany was allowed to play in the World Cup 54, not even ten years after this horrendous war ended. Cultural Successes like these as of course the economic miracle were contributing in many ways to the German Trauma.
I am not so sure that the present is not responsible for the past. It is. My great grandparents land was ripped away.
Your work is otherwise terrific. Germany is rightly responsible for the sins of its past.
Consider it was not that long ago.
9:22 I think their needs to be some context placed on the sanctions. The Sanctions, in a vacuum, would not have caused Germany's downward spiral. They would have hurt certainly, but not to the extent of the early 1920s hyperinflation. What made it so destructive was the political environment, which the Germany politicians played into (Stab in the back myth among others), which in turn led to poor economic policy decision making (especially in terms of monetary policy), which in turn led to the hyper-inflation of the early 1920s and that misery was then blamed on the allies and their sanctions. To some extent, I think we have bought into the narrative of the Nazis in conceding the blame for the situation on the sanctions to this extent and by extension absolved German politicians of the mistakes that they made over this period.
Even beyond all of that Hitler did not come into power in the 1920s, so pointing to the sanctions/Weimar Hyperinflation ignores the elephant in the room that is the Great Depression and its more direct impact in terms of bringing Hitler to power, as well as the political chaos, widespread lack of faith in the government and the desire of many to see it overthrown. The Communists, under orders from Moscow, refused to ally with any of the other parties for example, since they saw chaos as an opportunity to seize power. Conservatives and the right wanted the Monarchy back and Hitler wooed a large number of people in this group, though many would come to regret their decision and their support. The breakdown in parliamentary democracy owing to the inability of anyone to get a majority, thus making everyone use to rule by decree under emergency powers, in a county that had a very short history of democracy I would add, created a scenario where Hitler could slide into power without much resistance.
Oh we do hold a grudge.
and anti-americanism is still pretty popular, though not as much as when Trump was president.
seeing how you covered napoleons italy campaign , i need napoleons marshals ur reactions make me obsessed with history
Thanks , keep it up , you are doing an excellent job giving us all a refreshing view of history !
23:08 Even games made in the 90s, Command and Conquer: Red Alert (1996) for example, in the opening missions for both factions the front was Germany.
Because Germany isn't a guy. Not after 1945.
Good returns! I come back to you now, and my, it is fabulous to see you so enthusiastic as ever, and those Translation vids are a right hoot! Oh, that glorious He!; I hope you're well!
i still dont understand why youre not a history teacher in the US actually. I myself am german but youre a very valuable person with alot of knowledge thank god. And no. Austria is ours. The Mountain Germans are part of our nation. Noone can tell me otherwise.
The German soul and mindset cant be so easy be broken from one tyranic goverment. It lives on and still does to some degree.
Well, Austrians probably don't agree with you on that
@@AlexanderLittlebears It is irrelevant now what cause separate austrian identity. They don't consider themselves German anymore, they want their own state and you should respect their will or you are no better than any nationalistic and imperialist state nowdays
I feel like one can't compare the arrival and occupation of western and eastern forces
I figured the main reason was that this time the treaty was FAR harshy than versaille one
far less harsh, as the assigned war debt led to the rise of nazism.
Well, it was harsher in terms of the amount of land taken from Germany, and that there were forced relocations of 12+ million Germans outside the new borders.
@@danielbishop1863 after WWI Germany had to pay war reparations and lost approximately 13% of its land and 7 million in population, including industrial coal and iron-producing areas, all of which contributed to Germany's post-war economic problems, which Hitler capitalized on to gain power, and cause WW2.
Been watching for a long time Chris! Be safe on your trip! Love your content ❤️
7:40 : french people confirmed not happy about this... 🤨
Please do biographic video on Franz Joseph since your heading to Austria.
Did the Marshall Plan have a role in economic recovery of Germany?
Well, I'm from Austria and in this case and (even though we don't like to admit it) in many more, Austria is just Germany writ small, nobody did soul-searching for their dark parts of history as thoroughly as the Germans, we Austrians were even more thorough as long we were occupied and got very sloppy afterwards till the 1980s, but we are in my opinion a distant 2nd and nobody else comes even close to own their dark deeds in history (at least on a national level, not talking about historians) as Germany and Austria do.
Maxim 29: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less.
Audio problems at 26;36
Why is he shitting on my main man Adenauer?🤦♂️
1:00 Wa Wait? Did Stalin have constituents or victims?
Speaking of Oversimplified, we're overdue for a video
Some SS still fought after 1945.
Im german and i actually do lol