Es Geloybte Aretz Continuation Thread
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- Start date
Following the victorious war against Russia, Berlin was in a unique position to influence policy in China, and many rival powers were more than concerned what their aims might be and whether Germany, flush with victory, might attempt to muscle out established concessions or even entirely clientise China, turning the country into a de-facto colony. Though such ideas circulated among conservative and right-wing liberal politicians in Berlin, there is no evidence they were ever seriously entertained by the government. These fears, voiced most insistently in Paris, did not reflect the actual capabilities of the German state in any way. Neither could its navy operate in Chinese waters in any significant strength nor its army sustain a significant force on the mainland even if it met no opposition at sea. German influence in China, unless exerted in concert with other powers, was limited to economic and political pressure. This makes the scope of its success all the more remarkable.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, Germany’s role in China was mainly providing advice and equipment. The presence of military and political advisers throughout the imperial government that had begun during the war was its greatest asset, the paucity of investment funds its greatest liability. Where French, British and US companies were able to build or buy up mines, railways, canals and factories throughout the country, manage imperial concessions and monopolies, and extract profits in the millions, German industry was reduced to selling its products to whoever could muster the purchasing power. In a war-torn, impoverished and politically unstable country, that was an unenviable role. Its policy towards China was accordingly defined by three key tenets: Opposition to any exclusionary policies by other powers (“Open Door”), efforts to foster political stability, and great reluctance to antagonise Japan in any meaningful way.
German support for Japan was motivated in part by admiration for the country’s military prowess, but more importantly by a misplaced hope of gaining it as an ally in containing Russia. Its policy of balancing Chinese and Japanese interests even where this compromised its own position in China did not end until the Tsingtao Convention of 1937. For many years, German diplomats were firmly convinced of the possibility of close and friendly ties with both powers and dedicated much ink and sweat to this fruitless pursuit.
The first great test of Germany’s China policy came immediately after the war with the Wuchang Army’s mutiny and subsequent march on Peking. At the time, this was met with shock and confusion, though it now regarded in large parts the responsibility of German military advisers. Shaping the various Chinese armies into a modern, Westernised fighting force without affecting their political consciousness proved impossible, and little allowance was made for what the newly mobilised citizen soldiers would do in a world where ethnic nationalism and esprit de corps fuelled tangible victories. The emergence of a decided Han Chinese identity among the majority of the soldiers (but not its sizeable cavalry contingents) was initially opportunistically welcomed, later underestimated by the Manchu dynasty until growing tensions exploded into a catastrophic crisis of deference. The field army effectively decided to stop obeying court-appointed officials and insisted on a direct chain of command all the way to their emperor as was customary in European kingdoms. When this met with opposition, they responded by violence which the government and its Manchu banner forces found themselves unable to counter effectively. Resistance fell apart in a matter of months, and when the army entered Peking in early 1909, the dowager empress fled the city, having failed in her attempt to assassinate the Guangxu Emperor.
Though initial reports by Western observers suggested that the revolt was a German ploy, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that. German instructors with the troops interpreted their remit narrowly, supporting the units they were assigned to and insisting that the ultimate loyalty to the emperor had to be maintained. As all sides in the coming civil war claimed that allegiance, this was no hindrance. The outcome for Germany proved positive – all parties found them partners they could work with – yet the great prize of dominating Chinese politics eluded them. As the Chinese Empire disintegrated into rival fiefdoms of generals, provincial governors, and local princes, Germany watched and sold equally to all. As warfare, ethnic cleansing and lawlessness spread, Chinese business came to flourish in the Western exclaves, protected by European military prestige and power. Close to the imperial centre at Peking which Germany never ceased to consider representative of all of China, the Shandong peninsula became a key centre of industrial development fuelled by local coal deposits and fostered by German expertise. It was the taxes of these prospering companies that paid for the German presence on the Chinese mainland and their products that ultimately allowed the Guangxu Emperor and a camarilla of Wuchang generals to reassert meaningful power through much of the country.
Berlin’s relationship with the Chinese government, though generally friendly, was never free from strain. One continuing issue of contention was that even as the countries allied against Russia, Germany never waived the indemnities from the Boxer Rebellion. Germany, of course, could ill afford to forgo any source of hard currency, but the contrast to the United States was glaring. Another problem was the German insistence on an ‘Open Door’ policy that included low or no tariffs, hampering China’s domestic industry and limiting its revenue potential. This was not resolved until the 1940s, when China’s resurgent government unilaterally imposed import duties and Germany, like most Western countries, simply accepted the fact. Yet the greatest disappointment to Peking was Berlin’s willingness to embrace the Manchuria Scheme. This may, in fact, have been down to genuine ignorance on the part of the German foreign policy establishment who believed the Japanese propaganda line that China, a proud and ancient nation, had suffered oppression from the Manchu for generations and, as it cast off the shackles of foreign domination, should be glad to expel the Manchurian provinces as a foreign body. More likely, it was owed to the doomed effort to appease both China and Japan. Left without even token support from anyone but the United States, China bowed to the inevitable, allowing the provinces to become a nominally independent Japanese protectorate, but the loss rankled. This may ultimately explain why China did not choose to join Germany in the second Russo-German War, though it agreed to close its ports to Russian trade at Berlin’s insistence.
(from R.A. Gardner: Eagle and Dragon. Two Centuries of German Policy in China, Penguin 1998, foreword)
In the immediate aftermath of the war, Germany’s role in China was mainly providing advice and equipment. The presence of military and political advisers throughout the imperial government that had begun during the war was its greatest asset, the paucity of investment funds its greatest liability. Where French, British and US companies were able to build or buy up mines, railways, canals and factories throughout the country, manage imperial concessions and monopolies, and extract profits in the millions, German industry was reduced to selling its products to whoever could muster the purchasing power. In a war-torn, impoverished and politically unstable country, that was an unenviable role. Its policy towards China was accordingly defined by three key tenets: Opposition to any exclusionary policies by other powers (“Open Door”), efforts to foster political stability, and great reluctance to antagonise Japan in any meaningful way.
German support for Japan was motivated in part by admiration for the country’s military prowess, but more importantly by a misplaced hope of gaining it as an ally in containing Russia. Its policy of balancing Chinese and Japanese interests even where this compromised its own position in China did not end until the Tsingtao Convention of 1937. For many years, German diplomats were firmly convinced of the possibility of close and friendly ties with both powers and dedicated much ink and sweat to this fruitless pursuit.
The first great test of Germany’s China policy came immediately after the war with the Wuchang Army’s mutiny and subsequent march on Peking. At the time, this was met with shock and confusion, though it now regarded in large parts the responsibility of German military advisers. Shaping the various Chinese armies into a modern, Westernised fighting force without affecting their political consciousness proved impossible, and little allowance was made for what the newly mobilised citizen soldiers would do in a world where ethnic nationalism and esprit de corps fuelled tangible victories. The emergence of a decided Han Chinese identity among the majority of the soldiers (but not its sizeable cavalry contingents) was initially opportunistically welcomed, later underestimated by the Manchu dynasty until growing tensions exploded into a catastrophic crisis of deference. The field army effectively decided to stop obeying court-appointed officials and insisted on a direct chain of command all the way to their emperor as was customary in European kingdoms. When this met with opposition, they responded by violence which the government and its Manchu banner forces found themselves unable to counter effectively. Resistance fell apart in a matter of months, and when the army entered Peking in early 1909, the dowager empress fled the city, having failed in her attempt to assassinate the Guangxu Emperor.
Though initial reports by Western observers suggested that the revolt was a German ploy, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that. German instructors with the troops interpreted their remit narrowly, supporting the units they were assigned to and insisting that the ultimate loyalty to the emperor had to be maintained. As all sides in the coming civil war claimed that allegiance, this was no hindrance. The outcome for Germany proved positive – all parties found them partners they could work with – yet the great prize of dominating Chinese politics eluded them. As the Chinese Empire disintegrated into rival fiefdoms of generals, provincial governors, and local princes, Germany watched and sold equally to all. As warfare, ethnic cleansing and lawlessness spread, Chinese business came to flourish in the Western exclaves, protected by European military prestige and power. Close to the imperial centre at Peking which Germany never ceased to consider representative of all of China, the Shandong peninsula became a key centre of industrial development fuelled by local coal deposits and fostered by German expertise. It was the taxes of these prospering companies that paid for the German presence on the Chinese mainland and their products that ultimately allowed the Guangxu Emperor and a camarilla of Wuchang generals to reassert meaningful power through much of the country.
Berlin’s relationship with the Chinese government, though generally friendly, was never free from strain. One continuing issue of contention was that even as the countries allied against Russia, Germany never waived the indemnities from the Boxer Rebellion. Germany, of course, could ill afford to forgo any source of hard currency, but the contrast to the United States was glaring. Another problem was the German insistence on an ‘Open Door’ policy that included low or no tariffs, hampering China’s domestic industry and limiting its revenue potential. This was not resolved until the 1940s, when China’s resurgent government unilaterally imposed import duties and Germany, like most Western countries, simply accepted the fact. Yet the greatest disappointment to Peking was Berlin’s willingness to embrace the Manchuria Scheme. This may, in fact, have been down to genuine ignorance on the part of the German foreign policy establishment who believed the Japanese propaganda line that China, a proud and ancient nation, had suffered oppression from the Manchu for generations and, as it cast off the shackles of foreign domination, should be glad to expel the Manchurian provinces as a foreign body. More likely, it was owed to the doomed effort to appease both China and Japan. Left without even token support from anyone but the United States, China bowed to the inevitable, allowing the provinces to become a nominally independent Japanese protectorate, but the loss rankled. This may ultimately explain why China did not choose to join Germany in the second Russo-German War, though it agreed to close its ports to Russian trade at Berlin’s insistence.
(from R.A. Gardner: Eagle and Dragon. Two Centuries of German Policy in China, Penguin 1998, foreword)
Germany exemplifies a different historical trajectory in the recognition and integration of the disabled. Its path was followed in many Central European states that had been involved in the First Russo-German War as a direct consequence of the toll of modern warfare. Faced with the prospect of having to support hundreds of thousands of war victims, the Prussian government took the initiative with the ordinance of February 12, 1909, the famous “Kriegskrüppelverordnung” that was copied in other states. It forbade any form of discrimination against veterans with disabling war wounds, granted them preferential access to civil service employment according to their abilities, and provided for medical treatment to be funded through the Krankenkassen from royal coffers. Research and bitter experience made German medicine a world leader in prosthetics, plastic surgery, and rehabilitative therapy, allowing tens of thousands of amputees, blind, and those suffering from disfiguring wounds to rejoin the workforce and civilian society. It was the universal, visible presence of these men as postmen, bus drivers, station masters, elementary school teachers, and in hundreds of other low-ranking civil service functions more than anything else that conditioned acceptance of handicapped people in public spaces and even in authority. Businesses who hired them in the first wave of public sympathy found them competent, dedicated employees. For a German in 1920, meeting a blind phonotypist, a wheelchairbound schoolteacher or a one-armed railway conductor was normal.
To many visitors today, Germany appears a paradise for the handicapped. Public amenities – wheelchair ramps and elevators, acoustic guidance systems, Braille signage and barrier-free entrances – are almost ubiquitous in urban areas and found even in rural areas and old buildings where one would not expect them. Housing for the severely disabled is often located centrally, combined with workshops and farms where its inhabitants can find gainful employment. Laws descending from the original Kriegskrüppelverordnung regulate rights and standards in thousands of details Yet these appearances are deceptive. The German approach to disabled rights is very different from the American, and it can be shocking to learn the details.
First and foremost, German law makes a strict distinction between acquired and hereditary disability. The former is considered deserving of assistance, and the initial legal differences between disabilities suffered in war and through accident have largely been removed. The underlying assumption is that if you ever had a ‘normal’ life and have lost that capacity in the service of the nation or through some misfortune, society is obligated to make every reasonable effort to restore it to you. German health insurers pay large sums for rehabilitative measures. Hereditary disability, on the other hand, is given no such consideration. It is largely treated as a public health problem, subject to preventative measures and regrettable in every instance. Help, though by now available, is far stingier, and while universal institutionalisation is no longer the norm, it is still common especially for mentally handicapped to be warehoused far from cities. The standards for judicial commitment are low and recourse difficult. Health insurers, meanwhile, provide generous access to genetic screening. Abortion, strictly regulated otherwise, is universally legal and covered under public insurance if the risk of disability exceeds a certain low threshold. Support for parents who choose to bear a disabled child, on the other hand, is meagre. Disabled people can be forbidden from having children by court order (Fortpflanzungsverbot) and until very recently were routinely sterilised in childhood. Though no longer commonly used, the option of medically indicated euthanasia (ärztlicher Gnadentod) by the request of parents or guardians remains on the books.
The degree of organisation and public influence of the disabled in Germany is low. There are several associations that represent their interests, but they are fragmented and have little clout. The most influential is the Verband der Kriegsgeschädigten (VdKG), an organisation of war wounded whose membership is dwindling and whose role mainly symbolic. The Reichsbehindertenbund (RBHB), though larger in number, commands less public respect. It specifically includes all disabled persons, but its public advocacy is mostly for victims of accidents and illnesses and its key interest almost all align with the needs of a growing elderly population. The Verband der Erbbbehinderten (VdEB) advocates for equal rights for hereditarily disabled, but has so far been met with more public sympathy than political success. None of these groups can match the clout of demographically similarly large organisations, let alone the status of American disabled organisations. Public protests like the demonstrations of 1998-2001 that resulted in the passage of the Assisted Living Act of 2002 are unthinkable in Germany.
(from: Handicapped Rights for Dummies, Simon & Schuster: New York 2008)
To many visitors today, Germany appears a paradise for the handicapped. Public amenities – wheelchair ramps and elevators, acoustic guidance systems, Braille signage and barrier-free entrances – are almost ubiquitous in urban areas and found even in rural areas and old buildings where one would not expect them. Housing for the severely disabled is often located centrally, combined with workshops and farms where its inhabitants can find gainful employment. Laws descending from the original Kriegskrüppelverordnung regulate rights and standards in thousands of details Yet these appearances are deceptive. The German approach to disabled rights is very different from the American, and it can be shocking to learn the details.
First and foremost, German law makes a strict distinction between acquired and hereditary disability. The former is considered deserving of assistance, and the initial legal differences between disabilities suffered in war and through accident have largely been removed. The underlying assumption is that if you ever had a ‘normal’ life and have lost that capacity in the service of the nation or through some misfortune, society is obligated to make every reasonable effort to restore it to you. German health insurers pay large sums for rehabilitative measures. Hereditary disability, on the other hand, is given no such consideration. It is largely treated as a public health problem, subject to preventative measures and regrettable in every instance. Help, though by now available, is far stingier, and while universal institutionalisation is no longer the norm, it is still common especially for mentally handicapped to be warehoused far from cities. The standards for judicial commitment are low and recourse difficult. Health insurers, meanwhile, provide generous access to genetic screening. Abortion, strictly regulated otherwise, is universally legal and covered under public insurance if the risk of disability exceeds a certain low threshold. Support for parents who choose to bear a disabled child, on the other hand, is meagre. Disabled people can be forbidden from having children by court order (Fortpflanzungsverbot) and until very recently were routinely sterilised in childhood. Though no longer commonly used, the option of medically indicated euthanasia (ärztlicher Gnadentod) by the request of parents or guardians remains on the books.
The degree of organisation and public influence of the disabled in Germany is low. There are several associations that represent their interests, but they are fragmented and have little clout. The most influential is the Verband der Kriegsgeschädigten (VdKG), an organisation of war wounded whose membership is dwindling and whose role mainly symbolic. The Reichsbehindertenbund (RBHB), though larger in number, commands less public respect. It specifically includes all disabled persons, but its public advocacy is mostly for victims of accidents and illnesses and its key interest almost all align with the needs of a growing elderly population. The Verband der Erbbbehinderten (VdEB) advocates for equal rights for hereditarily disabled, but has so far been met with more public sympathy than political success. None of these groups can match the clout of demographically similarly large organisations, let alone the status of American disabled organisations. Public protests like the demonstrations of 1998-2001 that resulted in the passage of the Assisted Living Act of 2002 are unthinkable in Germany.
(from: Handicapped Rights for Dummies, Simon & Schuster: New York 2008)
From the following, the answer is yes, although no longer in quite as extreme a form as earlier. Note the in universe source the quote comes from is 21st century, 2008
The Freudian Controversy
The early science of psychology and its applied form, psychotherapy, suffered from decades of what participants described as internecine warfare, a rift known today by its shorthand designation as the ‘Freudian controversy’. The anodyne term fails to do justice to the feuds, the drama and ferocity with which these battles were fought. For many moderns, accustomed to functioning pharmaceutical therapies and evidence-based therapy approaches, it is hard to see how a fundamentally philosophical disagreement could trigger such outrage. Many writers ascribe the outbreak to personal jealousies, status contests, and especially to the vain effort of Sigmund Freud, founder of the field, to retain control over it. Yet as one reads contemporary accounts, one cannot help but conclude that the battles were fought with real conviction. Far from scheming academics, these were true believers locked in a holy war.
At the heart of the controversy lay Freud’s assertion, supported by some of his closest associates and most influential acolytes including C.G. Jung and Karl Abraham, that the human psyche followed a specific, invariant developmental path that led to a final outcome in adulthood. They disagreed on some points (specifically on Jung’s universal hereditary concepts as opposed to Abraham’s view that the ontogenesis of the soul followed the phylogenesis of the species much as it did in the body in utero), but defended the basic assertion of their school with great unanimity. Though they poured vitriol over the publications of Salpetrièrian hypnotherapists and Charité-school neurotherapists alike, their greatest ire was reserved for the heretics of their tribe: Alfred Adler, Josef Breuer, and above all Sandor Ferenczi. These men had concluded and publicly asserted that, contrary to Freud’s recent and categorical claims, the psyche was neither invariant in its structure nor permanent. Instead, they viewed it is a highly individual, malleable and above all fragile construct. Ferenczi’s 1908 essay On the Traumatic Aetiology of Neuroses represented the opening shot of a battle that would rage for half a century. It was occasioned, like so many other terrors of this unhappy century, by the Russo-German War.
It is obvious in hindsight that the patient pool on which early psychotherapists based their observations – bourgeois private patients, primarily young women whose primary symptoms were psychosomatic – would skew their perception. Conclusions that appeared certain in the light of a decade’s worth of analytical therapy crumbled in the face of an entirely different group of sufferers with comparable symptoms: the Kriegszitterer. Soldiers suffering from severe forms of what is today classed as psychotraumatic injury exhibited a variety of problems familiar to the Freudian school from a very different, sheltered existence, but rarely could any early cause be discovered even when this was attempted. It was obvious that the trauma of war was the proximate cause. Freud initially dismissed these cases as purely neurological, categorically different from his own patients, and though Jung later admitted that the syndromes were functionally similar, he defended the idea that susceptibility – the inception of the disease – was created in early childhood. Ferenczi, on the other hand, embraced his Damascus moment with the earnest intensity of a convert and argued that all neurotic disease was traumatic in origin. He was joined by Adler, initially a hesitant critic of his teacher, but later a towering figure of resistance against Freud in the name of the individually structured soul.
Interestingly, the Freudian controversy, though mainly fought in Austria-Hungary and Germany, had its greatest impact in the United States and the British Empire. German psychotherapy especially quickly dissociated itself from any practical implications of these disagreements driven by the budgetary reality of treating a large number of psychiatric trauma patients. Government funds were made available both for psychotherapeutic and pharmacological approaches, with proponents of both the Viennese (analytical) and Charité (neuropharmacological) school often forced to work together. Commonplace today, this combination was occasioned by necessity, an unthinkable idea in richer, more sheltered countries. Freudian practitioners, erudite and attuned to the needs of a wealthy clientele, were welcomed in the Anglophone countries. Especially American psychologists flocked to study in Vienna or the newly created school in Saratoga that Jung supervised for sixteen years. Under the impression of the failures of early drug therapies, their graduates instilled a reflexive opposition to pharmacological remedies in American psychology that persists to this day. This more than anything else is what created the dichotomy of the psychologist treating fundamentally sane, rational patients in a voluntary, noninvasive and benign fashion versus the psychiatrist, responsible for pharmaceutically shackling insane, involuntary patients that society needs to be protected from. Central Europe, where psychiatrists and psychotherapists often work hand in glove, does not know or understand this prejudice.
The early science of psychology and its applied form, psychotherapy, suffered from decades of what participants described as internecine warfare, a rift known today by its shorthand designation as the ‘Freudian controversy’. The anodyne term fails to do justice to the feuds, the drama and ferocity with which these battles were fought. For many moderns, accustomed to functioning pharmaceutical therapies and evidence-based therapy approaches, it is hard to see how a fundamentally philosophical disagreement could trigger such outrage. Many writers ascribe the outbreak to personal jealousies, status contests, and especially to the vain effort of Sigmund Freud, founder of the field, to retain control over it. Yet as one reads contemporary accounts, one cannot help but conclude that the battles were fought with real conviction. Far from scheming academics, these were true believers locked in a holy war.
At the heart of the controversy lay Freud’s assertion, supported by some of his closest associates and most influential acolytes including C.G. Jung and Karl Abraham, that the human psyche followed a specific, invariant developmental path that led to a final outcome in adulthood. They disagreed on some points (specifically on Jung’s universal hereditary concepts as opposed to Abraham’s view that the ontogenesis of the soul followed the phylogenesis of the species much as it did in the body in utero), but defended the basic assertion of their school with great unanimity. Though they poured vitriol over the publications of Salpetrièrian hypnotherapists and Charité-school neurotherapists alike, their greatest ire was reserved for the heretics of their tribe: Alfred Adler, Josef Breuer, and above all Sandor Ferenczi. These men had concluded and publicly asserted that, contrary to Freud’s recent and categorical claims, the psyche was neither invariant in its structure nor permanent. Instead, they viewed it is a highly individual, malleable and above all fragile construct. Ferenczi’s 1908 essay On the Traumatic Aetiology of Neuroses represented the opening shot of a battle that would rage for half a century. It was occasioned, like so many other terrors of this unhappy century, by the Russo-German War.
It is obvious in hindsight that the patient pool on which early psychotherapists based their observations – bourgeois private patients, primarily young women whose primary symptoms were psychosomatic – would skew their perception. Conclusions that appeared certain in the light of a decade’s worth of analytical therapy crumbled in the face of an entirely different group of sufferers with comparable symptoms: the Kriegszitterer. Soldiers suffering from severe forms of what is today classed as psychotraumatic injury exhibited a variety of problems familiar to the Freudian school from a very different, sheltered existence, but rarely could any early cause be discovered even when this was attempted. It was obvious that the trauma of war was the proximate cause. Freud initially dismissed these cases as purely neurological, categorically different from his own patients, and though Jung later admitted that the syndromes were functionally similar, he defended the idea that susceptibility – the inception of the disease – was created in early childhood. Ferenczi, on the other hand, embraced his Damascus moment with the earnest intensity of a convert and argued that all neurotic disease was traumatic in origin. He was joined by Adler, initially a hesitant critic of his teacher, but later a towering figure of resistance against Freud in the name of the individually structured soul.
Interestingly, the Freudian controversy, though mainly fought in Austria-Hungary and Germany, had its greatest impact in the United States and the British Empire. German psychotherapy especially quickly dissociated itself from any practical implications of these disagreements driven by the budgetary reality of treating a large number of psychiatric trauma patients. Government funds were made available both for psychotherapeutic and pharmacological approaches, with proponents of both the Viennese (analytical) and Charité (neuropharmacological) school often forced to work together. Commonplace today, this combination was occasioned by necessity, an unthinkable idea in richer, more sheltered countries. Freudian practitioners, erudite and attuned to the needs of a wealthy clientele, were welcomed in the Anglophone countries. Especially American psychologists flocked to study in Vienna or the newly created school in Saratoga that Jung supervised for sixteen years. Under the impression of the failures of early drug therapies, their graduates instilled a reflexive opposition to pharmacological remedies in American psychology that persists to this day. This more than anything else is what created the dichotomy of the psychologist treating fundamentally sane, rational patients in a voluntary, noninvasive and benign fashion versus the psychiatrist, responsible for pharmaceutically shackling insane, involuntary patients that society needs to be protected from. Central Europe, where psychiatrists and psychotherapists often work hand in glove, does not know or understand this prejudice.
Yes, but no longer as a matter of policy. The options remain on the table, the laws unchanged ("they served us well"), but the state is no longer actively driving the effort. Mostly. Much depends on the judge you meet.
This Germany is giving me a certain ultra-Prussian vibe, somewhat like Starship Troopers. Your worth in a society comes from your ability to serve that same society, and the potential for that must be nurtured and if gone, try to be salvaged. I won't be surprised if a Wahlreform gives an extra vote to servicemen in peacetime.
And as a Germanophile Overseas Chinese, a German influenced, Self-standing China is the stuff of dreams.
And as a Germanophile Overseas Chinese, a German influenced, Self-standing China is the stuff of dreams.
By those standards, most of Europe practices eugenics today. Something like 90% of mothers choose to screen for potential birth defects including, for example, down syndrome, and choose to abort if any are found.
The possibilities exist but there is practically no social pressure or even legal pressure to use them or to choose an abortion as a consequence. At least not in my environment.
However, it is clear to everyone that no matter what kind of help and support is granted it is never enough.
That is actually a pretty good image of what ITTL's Germany wants to be. Not necessarily what it manages to be; Germany is a very traditional place and Germans are surprisingly difficult to rule. Not rebellious or noisy, most days, but stubborn.
In Germany, prenatal genetic screening is heavily circumscribed by law today, illegal in the case of IVF. Some wealthy couples go abroad for treatment to have these assurances.
Abortion in the case of predicted birth defects is legal. Complicated law, though, and not for the faint of heart. https://www.familienplanung.de/schwangerschaft/praenataldiagnostik/schwangerschaftsabbruch/
Deleted member 94708
Jesus, even the US issues fewer restrictions, aside from the never-ending efforts to whittle down on the availability of abortion for lower- and working-class women...
Well, in the US, abortion is legal. In Germany, it is not.