Hitler has started by annexing Germanophones, but I think he is unlikely to then go for a full scale conquest of all Europe.
Should Germany attack a country formally allied with the major powers of France and Britain, like Czechoslovakia, it would at the very least be financially crippled by loss of trade with Western European countries, the conflict would likely excalate to a full scale conventional war with the US. Hitler may not be exactly a nice guy, but in 1938 he certainly doesn’t seem crazy.
Also, even if he was crazy, Germany, while not being exactly a paragon of democracy, is not a dictatorship. The people who keep him in power would depose him if they saw him as a threat to their material interests and safety.
Parts of Czechoslovakia and Poland were parts of what had been Germany and populated by German-speaking people. Britain (and later the US) declared war on Germany, not the other way around; my understanding is that Germany at that time did not want war with Britain and had not expected the declaration.
Given Hitler’s views on the slavic peoples, Nazi Germany was always going to go to war with the USSR and Yugoslavia sooner or later, but I don’t find it implausible that Western Europe (and the US) could have stayed out of that war, had that been how we wanted to play it.
Technically Germany declared war on the US, not the other way around.
As for war with Britain (and France), they had formally committed to it in the event that Germany invaded Poland. In retrospect it was odd that Hitler seriously thought they might not attack him; it looks more like hope than rational expectation.
it would at the very least be financially crippled by loss of trade with Western European countries
Maintaining trade relationships with other European countries wasn’t really much beneficial for 1938-era Germany, and in fact it could be argued that it was actively harmful, given the huge foreign debt from WW1 reparations.
the conflict would likely excalate to a full scale conventional war with the US
The US wasn’t that much interested in European affairs back then. Certainly there wasn’t anything comparable to the NATO. Also, nuclear weapons didn’t exist in 1938.
Hitler may not be exactly a nice guy, but in 1938 he certainly doesn’t seem crazy.
Except that he had written a book detailing his deranged political plan that he had then been following to the letter.
Maintaining trade relationships with other European countries wasn’t really much beneficial for 1938-era Germany, and in fact it could be argued that it was actively harmful, given the huge foreign debt from WW1 reparations.
All remaining German WW1 reparations were cancelled in 1932, and were under moratorium since before then. They had nothing to do with the beginning of the war in 1938.
The German economy through the 1930s was suffering from a foreign trade imbalance—it relied on crucial imports while not having enough exports to earn the trade balance to pay for them. This remained true even after the annexation of Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia. If Germany had not conquered such a large territory in 1938-1940, if the war had merely become another stalemate with trenches and mostly stable fronts (as many military thinkers predicted), Germany would have run out of supplies in less than half a year and collapse. (This was why much of the German army leadership quietly opposed Hitler’s plans until the Battle of France.)
Expanding trade and avoiding a French-British blockade and a US embargo seemed to be top economic priorities for Germany in 1938-1939. It turned out that making war was a bigger one.
The US wasn’t that much interested in European affairs back then. Certainly there wasn’t anything comparable to the NATO.
The US withdrew from European affairs during the Great Depression. But by 1938 it was back and it was clear that in another European war, while it may not participate, it would supply Britain and France with arms, loans and everything else it could, if only to make sure they could repay their remaining loans from WW1.
I agree it was less clear that the US would enter the war. In fact Hitler declared war on the US for a reason that looks laughably trivial in retrospect. Then again, he believed war with the US was inevitable anyway; I don’t remember right now what his reasons were for believing that.
Also, nuclear weapons didn’t exist in 1938.
I don’t think that makes such a big difference. Today several actors have nuclear weapons, which balances things out. In 1938 nobody did, but the US still had the biggest economy in the world (although it would take a few years to get up to speed for war) and could decisively tilt the balance in any war it intervened in at full capacity.
Except that he had written a book detailing his deranged political plan that he had then been following to the letter.
Could you point out what was deranged about it, exactly? (Parenthetically: It’s hard to have a discussion when you use an emotionally charged term like deranged without making any actual descriptive statements.)
All remaining German WW1 reparations were cancelled in 1932, and were under moratorium since before then.
Didn’t know that, thanks.
Could you point out what was deranged about it, exactly?
“The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all.” “the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.” ”For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? …Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas… it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith.”
“The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all.”
Strip away the slightly overblown rhetoric, and you’re left with Social Darwinism: the idea that desirable traits, or “fitness”, is strongly heritable on the individual and therefore also the societal level. And racism: the idea that humans can be grouped into discrete categories the differences between which are much greater than the differences between individuals within each group.
Hitler and other Nazi thinkers made a lot of factual errors: mixing genetic/biological and memetic/cultural evolution together and even declaring them inseparable, greatly overstating the discreteness of races, and going against psychometric facts in declaring Jews to be vastly intellectually inferior. But scientific errors, which were not all that glaring given the 1920s state of knowledge and its popularization, and committed by a poorly educated non-scientist, do not make one “deranged” (i.e. crazy in some sense). And very many people in all nations in the 1920s, including some very smart ones, would have agreed with most of his statements, if not necessarily with the specific racial hierarchy he proposed.
The elevation of social Darwinism and racism into an ethical code was also not really unique and certainly I wouldn’t call it “deranged”, when contrasted with some other popular ideologies and ethical theories of the time (e.g. Communism through revolution, or Anarchism by Propaganda of the Deed, or even the divine right of kings, which only really died in Europe in WW1).
“the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.”
I don’t know whether to call it “deranged” or not. We would need to taboo the word. I do know it is far from original and was a common sentiment among many Christians.
“For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? …Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas… it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith.”
I really don’t see what’s wrong here; it’s a sound instrumental prescription. Is the entire Catholic Church “deranged” for following this rule?
Strip away the slightly overblown rhetoric, and you’re left with Social Darwinism: the idea that desirable traits, or “fitness”, is strongly heritable on the individual and therefore also the societal level. And racism: the idea that humans can be grouped into discrete categories the differences between which are much greater than the differences between individuals within each group.
The factual claims are empirically falsifiable, at least in principle. The most contentious point is deriving ought from is.
The elevation of social Darwinism and racism into an ethical code was also not really unique and certainly I wouldn’t call it “deranged”, when contrasted with some other popular ideologies and ethical theories of the time (e.g. Communism through revolution, or Anarchism by Propaganda of the Deed, or even the divine right of kings, which only really died in Europe in WW1).
There was also classical liberal democracy, but I concede that early 20th century Europe had lots of ideologies which we would consider weird by modern standards. In this cultural environment, Hitler may not have looked as weird as he does now, but I’m under the impression that he was a loose cannon even by the standards of his time.
I don’t know whether to call it “deranged” or not. We would need to taboo the word. I do know it is far from original and was a common sentiment among many Christians.
Historically, yes. But the 20th centuries it was unusual to publicily express these opinions, especially for a politician. Jews were well integrated in Western Europe. There were Jewish academics, politicians, judges, etc., though obviously there was an antisemitic undercurrent that Hitler pandered to.
I think I should concede that the word “deranged” was not very appropriate. My point is that Hitler had an unusually aggressive ideology. One could have been tempted to write it off as rethorics, as many people of that time indeed did, but by 1938 it should have been fairly clear that he was interested in implementing it for real.
Historically, yes. But the 20th centuries it was unusual to publicily express these opinions, especially for a politician. Jews were well integrated in Western Europe. There were Jewish academics, politicians, judges, etc., though obviously there was an antisemitic undercurrent that Hitler pandered to.
Maybe. My impression was that antisemitism was alive and well among the non-highly-educated majority of the population. But I’m not very sure about it. (In countries other than Germany, like Poland, Ukraine and Russia, antisemitism was definitely as bad as Hitler’s.)
Your observation and V_V’s don’t actually contradict each other: for example in parts of the present-day western world homophobia is alive and well among the non-highly-educated majority of the population but it’s unusual to publicily express these opinions.
Strip away the slightly overblown rhetoric, and you’re left with Social Darwinism: the idea that desirable traits, or “fitness”, is strongly heritable on the individual and therefore also the societal level.
There’s at least one more error—the idea that you can tell in advance what “fitness” is going to be, so that you can select among human traits to optimize for the future.
> Except that he had written a book detailing his deranged political plan that he had then been
> following to the letter.
“Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.”—the famous 2005 speech.
Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory.
Without condoning, I think I understand his point: Soviet Union was a multi-ethinic country dominated by a Russian ethnic majority (partially due to deliberate ethnic cleansing and genocide). When Soviet Union collapsed, it was precipitously broken up along administrative or historical internal borders, without giving much thought to the ethnic compositions of the countries that were formed. Russians who found themselves cut off from Russia went overnight from being the dominant ethnicity to being an ethnical minority. I guess they didn’t like it.
Putin has a platform based on Russian nationalism, hence catering to the plight of the “co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory” is natural to him. It panders to his electorate and, should he indeed succeed to annex them, he could probably count them as his supporters.
All of this seems consistent with Putin wanting to annex Russophones, as I said in my comment upthread. He certainly isn’t ranting about a divine mission to destroy “the Jew” and reclaim the Lebensraum for a Thousand-Year Empire.
When Soviet Union collapsed, it was precipitously broken up along administrative or historical internal borders, without giving much thought to the ethnic compositions of the countries that were formed. Russians who found themselves cut off from Russia went overnight from being the dominant ethnicity to being an ethnical minority. I guess they didn’t like it.
Replace “Soviet Union” with “Austro-Hungarian Empire” and “Russians” with “Germans” and you have a decent description of the ethnic situation before WWII.
Ok, but his platform then logically includes taking the former Baltic republics, probably big chunks out of central asian republics, and depending on the reading parts of Brooklyn also.
There are lots of Han Chinese in all sorts of places.
There are lots of mexicans in California.
> I guess they didn’t like it.
You treat the local opinion as monolithic, your analysis is superficial.
Ok, but his platform then logically includes taking the former Baltic republics, probably big chunks out of central asian republics, and depending on the reading parts of Brooklyn also.
So what? He certaily can’t take parts of Brooklyn, most likely he can’t take even parts of the Baltic republics, which are members of the NATO, EU, Schengen Area, Eurozone, etc. Taking them would cause much greater disruption to Western European and American interests than taking Crimea or Donetsk.
He may indeed take parts of the central asian republics, if China lets him.
There are lots of Han Chinese in all sorts of places.
Which makes this an issue between Russia and China, not Western Europe.
There are lots of mexicans in California.
I’m not exactly expecting columns of Mexican tanks rolling into California any time soon, do you?
You treat the local opinion as monolithic, your analysis is superficial.
It’s a first-order approximation. Do the Scottish people want independence from the UK? Well some do and some don’t, no true Scotsman in its literal form. And yet, they will soon have a referendum and if the majority votes for indepdendence, Scotland will be an independent country.
Compare with this statement made in 1938:
Parts of Czechoslovakia and Poland were parts of what had been Germany and populated by German-speaking people. Britain (and later the US) declared war on Germany, not the other way around; my understanding is that Germany at that time did not want war with Britain and had not expected the declaration.
Given Hitler’s views on the slavic peoples, Nazi Germany was always going to go to war with the USSR and Yugoslavia sooner or later, but I don’t find it implausible that Western Europe (and the US) could have stayed out of that war, had that been how we wanted to play it.
Technically Germany declared war on the US, not the other way around.
As for war with Britain (and France), they had formally committed to it in the event that Germany invaded Poland. In retrospect it was odd that Hitler seriously thought they might not attack him; it looks more like hope than rational expectation.
Human precommitment is pretty weak, and national precommitment more so (cf Budapest Memorandum elsewhere in the thread).
Maintaining trade relationships with other European countries wasn’t really much beneficial for 1938-era Germany, and in fact it could be argued that it was actively harmful, given the huge foreign debt from WW1 reparations.
The US wasn’t that much interested in European affairs back then. Certainly there wasn’t anything comparable to the NATO.
Also, nuclear weapons didn’t exist in 1938.
Except that he had written a book detailing his deranged political plan that he had then been following to the letter.
All remaining German WW1 reparations were cancelled in 1932, and were under moratorium since before then. They had nothing to do with the beginning of the war in 1938.
The German economy through the 1930s was suffering from a foreign trade imbalance—it relied on crucial imports while not having enough exports to earn the trade balance to pay for them. This remained true even after the annexation of Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia. If Germany had not conquered such a large territory in 1938-1940, if the war had merely become another stalemate with trenches and mostly stable fronts (as many military thinkers predicted), Germany would have run out of supplies in less than half a year and collapse. (This was why much of the German army leadership quietly opposed Hitler’s plans until the Battle of France.)
Expanding trade and avoiding a French-British blockade and a US embargo seemed to be top economic priorities for Germany in 1938-1939. It turned out that making war was a bigger one.
My source: The Wages Of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, Adam Tooze.
The US withdrew from European affairs during the Great Depression. But by 1938 it was back and it was clear that in another European war, while it may not participate, it would supply Britain and France with arms, loans and everything else it could, if only to make sure they could repay their remaining loans from WW1.
I agree it was less clear that the US would enter the war. In fact Hitler declared war on the US for a reason that looks laughably trivial in retrospect. Then again, he believed war with the US was inevitable anyway; I don’t remember right now what his reasons were for believing that.
I don’t think that makes such a big difference. Today several actors have nuclear weapons, which balances things out. In 1938 nobody did, but the US still had the biggest economy in the world (although it would take a few years to get up to speed for war) and could decisively tilt the balance in any war it intervened in at full capacity.
Could you point out what was deranged about it, exactly? (Parenthetically: It’s hard to have a discussion when you use an emotionally charged term like deranged without making any actual descriptive statements.)
Didn’t know that, thanks.
“The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all.”
“the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.”
”For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? …Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas… it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith.”
And so on.
Strip away the slightly overblown rhetoric, and you’re left with Social Darwinism: the idea that desirable traits, or “fitness”, is strongly heritable on the individual and therefore also the societal level. And racism: the idea that humans can be grouped into discrete categories the differences between which are much greater than the differences between individuals within each group.
Hitler and other Nazi thinkers made a lot of factual errors: mixing genetic/biological and memetic/cultural evolution together and even declaring them inseparable, greatly overstating the discreteness of races, and going against psychometric facts in declaring Jews to be vastly intellectually inferior. But scientific errors, which were not all that glaring given the 1920s state of knowledge and its popularization, and committed by a poorly educated non-scientist, do not make one “deranged” (i.e. crazy in some sense). And very many people in all nations in the 1920s, including some very smart ones, would have agreed with most of his statements, if not necessarily with the specific racial hierarchy he proposed.
The elevation of social Darwinism and racism into an ethical code was also not really unique and certainly I wouldn’t call it “deranged”, when contrasted with some other popular ideologies and ethical theories of the time (e.g. Communism through revolution, or Anarchism by Propaganda of the Deed, or even the divine right of kings, which only really died in Europe in WW1).
I don’t know whether to call it “deranged” or not. We would need to taboo the word. I do know it is far from original and was a common sentiment among many Christians.
I really don’t see what’s wrong here; it’s a sound instrumental prescription. Is the entire Catholic Church “deranged” for following this rule?
The factual claims are empirically falsifiable, at least in principle. The most contentious point is deriving ought from is.
There was also classical liberal democracy, but I concede that early 20th century Europe had lots of ideologies which we would consider weird by modern standards. In this cultural environment, Hitler may not have looked as weird as he does now, but I’m under the impression that he was a loose cannon even by the standards of his time.
Historically, yes. But the 20th centuries it was unusual to publicily express these opinions, especially for a politician. Jews were well integrated in Western Europe. There were Jewish academics, politicians, judges, etc., though obviously there was an antisemitic undercurrent that Hitler pandered to.
I think I should concede that the word “deranged” was not very appropriate. My point is that Hitler had an unusually aggressive ideology. One could have been tempted to write it off as rethorics, as many people of that time indeed did, but by 1938 it should have been fairly clear that he was interested in implementing it for real.
Maybe. My impression was that antisemitism was alive and well among the non-highly-educated majority of the population. But I’m not very sure about it. (In countries other than Germany, like Poland, Ukraine and Russia, antisemitism was definitely as bad as Hitler’s.)
Your observation and V_V’s don’t actually contradict each other: for example in parts of the present-day western world homophobia is alive and well among the non-highly-educated majority of the population but it’s unusual to publicily express these opinions.
There’s at least one more error—the idea that you can tell in advance what “fitness” is going to be, so that you can select among human traits to optimize for the future.
> Except that he had written a book detailing his deranged political plan that he had then been > following to the letter. “Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.”—the famous 2005 speech.
Without condoning, I think I understand his point: Soviet Union was a multi-ethinic country dominated by a Russian ethnic majority (partially due to deliberate ethnic cleansing and genocide).
When Soviet Union collapsed, it was precipitously broken up along administrative or historical internal borders, without giving much thought to the ethnic compositions of the countries that were formed. Russians who found themselves cut off from Russia went overnight from being the dominant ethnicity to being an ethnical minority. I guess they didn’t like it.
Putin has a platform based on Russian nationalism, hence catering to the plight of the “co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory” is natural to him. It panders to his electorate and, should he indeed succeed to annex them, he could probably count them as his supporters.
All of this seems consistent with Putin wanting to annex Russophones, as I said in my comment upthread. He certainly isn’t ranting about a divine mission to destroy “the Jew” and reclaim the Lebensraum for a Thousand-Year Empire.
Replace “Soviet Union” with “Austro-Hungarian Empire” and “Russians” with “Germans” and you have a decent description of the ethnic situation before WWII.
Ok, but his platform then logically includes taking the former Baltic republics, probably big chunks out of central asian republics, and depending on the reading parts of Brooklyn also. There are lots of Han Chinese in all sorts of places. There are lots of mexicans in California. > I guess they didn’t like it. You treat the local opinion as monolithic, your analysis is superficial.
So what? He certaily can’t take parts of Brooklyn, most likely he can’t take even parts of the Baltic republics, which are members of the NATO, EU, Schengen Area, Eurozone, etc. Taking them would cause much greater disruption to Western European and American interests than taking Crimea or Donetsk.
He may indeed take parts of the central asian republics, if China lets him.
Which makes this an issue between Russia and China, not Western Europe.
I’m not exactly expecting columns of Mexican tanks rolling into California any time soon, do you?
It’s a first-order approximation. Do the Scottish people want independence from the UK? Well some do and some don’t, no true Scotsman in its literal form. And yet, they will soon have a referendum and if the majority votes for indepdendence, Scotland will be an independent country.