Given German thought at the time I find that unlikely.
The author could have written: “We lost the war because Jews, Social Democrats and Communists backstepped us and not because we didn’t have a good plan to fight two sides at once.” He isn’t that direct, but it’s still the most reasonable reading for someone who writes that sentence in 1923 at a military academy in Germany.
ChristianKI’s point is that this quote is a good example of coded language (aka dogwhistle) and while it looks irrational on the surface, it’s likely that it means “That those plans failed was not due to any unsoundness on the part of the plans, but rather due to the fact that we were betrayed”.
Or it could be read ironically. It would be hard for anyone to disagree with it without looking bad, allowing the writer to say what he really thought (as in Atheism Conquered)
This is my interpretation, similar to a teacher saying he gave a great lecture that his students were not smart enough to understand.
Given German thought at the time I find that unlikely.
The author could have written: “We lost the war because Jews, Social Democrats and Communists backstepped us and not because we didn’t have a good plan to fight two sides at once.” He isn’t that direct, but it’s still the most reasonable reading for someone who writes that sentence in 1923 at a military academy in Germany.
I don’t think I said what I meant, which is that the quote is a good example of irrational thinking.
ChristianKI’s point is that this quote is a good example of coded language (aka dogwhistle) and while it looks irrational on the surface, it’s likely that it means “That those plans failed was not due to any unsoundness on the part of the plans, but rather due to the fact that we were betrayed”.
Or it could be read ironically. It would be hard for anyone to disagree with it without looking bad, allowing the writer to say what he really thought (as in Atheism Conquered)