Yes, and it will be bad. But not as bad as IOTL because people still remember Jews with guns, and most Jews live in towns and cities where they are not facing as bad a discrimination. There aren't that many Jews left in rural areas after the wartime dislocation and the late unpleasantnesses.
Es Geloybte Aretz Continuation Thread
- Thread starter carlton_bach
- Start date
Yes, and it will be bad. But not as bad as IOTL because people still remember Jews with guns, and most Jews live in towns and cities where they are not facing as bad a discrimination. There aren't that many Jews left in rural areas after the wartime dislocation and the late unpleasantnesses.
It was never anything we were told in so many words, it was just something everyone understood. There were organisations that were on the right side, and organisations on the wrong side. You had to choose. It wasn't something you could pick and mix. Your father was in the SPD, you could go out hiking with the Sozialistische Jugend or play football with Rot Sport, your mother would be in a party women's organisation, shop at the PRO, and ideally live in a Genossenschaft flat. If your father was Catholic, you'd be out with the Franziskusbund, your mother was in the Frauenwerk and you cheered for the diocesan clubs. And if your dad was national, you'd be in the Deutsche Jugend and go to Wehrsport, your mother was in the Frauenbund, your club was called Teutonia or Vaterland, and your dad would hope to get a Siedlungshaus. And it was understood where you could go for help if you needed it. Nobody from a red family would do well in the civil service. If you were Catholic, you'd go to a parish school and maybe a diocesan Gymnasium if you were gifted. The son of a national father would be welcome, or at least not rejected, at a traditional school. Especially the Realgymnasien in Prussia were great if you wanted to make a career. Social Democrats would go to the Reformschulen and study at technical colleges, if they could. Or through the party's schools. You didn't meet the others, you didn't play with them. Sometimes you'd play against them, but that was all. That was how the world worked.
Now, it wouldn't have been all that bad if things had been fair. But when are they ever? The Deutsche Jugend had all the good stuff – cheap uniforms, and good quality, which you were allowed to wear to school. They got reduced train tickets and they got to sleep in barracks, ad their Feldwanderungen got to practice obstacle courses and shoot on army ranges and learn to use lorries and even serve artillery pieces. It cost almost nothing, and if you passed the course you could join the army as an Unteroffiziersanwärter. Some even got to fly aeroplanes or sail on navy training ships. The pilgrimages and choir practices of the Catholics couldn't beat that. So in the end, a lot of kids did cross over. It was a problem, some got beaten up by their parents or their former friends. Soon enough, though, they would be welcome in other schools and find new friends. That was what changed, really, the völkische were really welcoming if you were willing to come over. They didn't laugh at you for being working class – Arbeiter- und Bauernsohn was a badge of honour for them. Salt of the earth. And you knew that if your dad changed over, he'd have a better chance at promotion. And of course for young people, it was a different world: If you went Unteroffizier, you could get a civil service job after the army. You could go to technical colleges on scholarships if you were smart and dedicated. And the opinion of your youth leaders counted. Really, what was there not to like?
And then, of course, people had just had enough of the Social Democrats. Twenty years of promising a golden future, and I suppose it wasn't fair. They'd built all the houses and the undergrounds and trams, and people got gas and electricity and indoor plumbing. And after the war, there was just no money. But when the völkische took over, things just got better. Wages went up, you could really buy things with the money, and everybody was talking about technology, it came in really exciting ways. We had radio. Radio was really cheap – you could get a set for 30 marks – and it was really a game changer for everybody. Even if you lived away from the big cities, you could now listen to the latest music, hear theatre plays, listen to the speeches in the Reichstag. And there was cinema, the films getting better and longer and really cheap, much cheaper than the variety shows. If you were a little better off, your father might buy a car. And you never stopped hearing about how great the military was becoming, the armoured wagons, the aeroplanes, the new battleships. Very few papers still wrote about corruption and crime. It was a good time to be young.
Haller, Fritz: Ein deutscher Held, Verlag der Büchergilde, Altona 1957
Now, it wouldn't have been all that bad if things had been fair. But when are they ever? The Deutsche Jugend had all the good stuff – cheap uniforms, and good quality, which you were allowed to wear to school. They got reduced train tickets and they got to sleep in barracks, ad their Feldwanderungen got to practice obstacle courses and shoot on army ranges and learn to use lorries and even serve artillery pieces. It cost almost nothing, and if you passed the course you could join the army as an Unteroffiziersanwärter. Some even got to fly aeroplanes or sail on navy training ships. The pilgrimages and choir practices of the Catholics couldn't beat that. So in the end, a lot of kids did cross over. It was a problem, some got beaten up by their parents or their former friends. Soon enough, though, they would be welcome in other schools and find new friends. That was what changed, really, the völkische were really welcoming if you were willing to come over. They didn't laugh at you for being working class – Arbeiter- und Bauernsohn was a badge of honour for them. Salt of the earth. And you knew that if your dad changed over, he'd have a better chance at promotion. And of course for young people, it was a different world: If you went Unteroffizier, you could get a civil service job after the army. You could go to technical colleges on scholarships if you were smart and dedicated. And the opinion of your youth leaders counted. Really, what was there not to like?
And then, of course, people had just had enough of the Social Democrats. Twenty years of promising a golden future, and I suppose it wasn't fair. They'd built all the houses and the undergrounds and trams, and people got gas and electricity and indoor plumbing. And after the war, there was just no money. But when the völkische took over, things just got better. Wages went up, you could really buy things with the money, and everybody was talking about technology, it came in really exciting ways. We had radio. Radio was really cheap – you could get a set for 30 marks – and it was really a game changer for everybody. Even if you lived away from the big cities, you could now listen to the latest music, hear theatre plays, listen to the speeches in the Reichstag. And there was cinema, the films getting better and longer and really cheap, much cheaper than the variety shows. If you were a little better off, your father might buy a car. And you never stopped hearing about how great the military was becoming, the armoured wagons, the aeroplanes, the new battleships. Very few papers still wrote about corruption and crime. It was a good time to be young.
Haller, Fritz: Ein deutscher Held, Verlag der Büchergilde, Altona 1957
@carlton_bach in some of your old updates you talk about housing programmes and modernisation, in your even older ones it is mentioned East prussia was devastated specifically Konigberg, the city is a husk. So is east prussia the place the federal government is experimenting with there plans, or at least has east prussia specifically konigsberg, become the most modern place in Germany as they had to rebuilt from ground up?
Of sorts, but a little more complex.
Königsberg is getting a large number of modern buildings, but it's the towns around that will look even more futuristic. After all, the Russians never entered Königsberg proper. But the really big modernisation comes after the second round.
Not keeping their promises. People becoming disillusioned with them after a while. No infatuation lasts forever
What liberals? The German liberals always had a tiny voting base amplified only by their social influence, and ITTL they will have to cast their lot with the three big voter blocs. In simple terms, there are
Social Democrats - mostly based in cities and löarger towns (a growing segment), among working class and some petit bourgeois. Increasingly getting a foothold in the establishment despite every effort to the contrary. SPD voting is primarily based on economic status and secondarily on cultural affiliation.
Zentrum Catholics - mostly based on religious affiliation and opposition to Prussia. Dominant in much of the South, practically nonexistent in the northeast. Zentrum is a haven for many liberals, and its politics is consensus-based because it embraces everyone from the dirt-poor peasant of Franconia to the grand bourgeois of Cologne. Affiliation is mostly through religious identity.
National Conservatives - mostly based on identification with the state (Prussia, effectively), secondarily on a traditionalist, paternalistic and antidemocratic vision of society and social Darwinist economics. Also home to some liberals. Mostly rooted in rural areas, though also strongly represented among the salaried middle classes and petit bourgeois. Predominantly Protestant, though Catholics are not excluded as such. Mostly dominant in the rural northeast.
A gaggle of regional ethnic/national parties complete the picture: Danish, Polish, Alsatian, Old Catholic and a few others. And the old liberal parties, reduced to a few seats as their old FPTP constitutencies flipped red (cities) or blue (countryside).
Both. It is quite uncomfortable. But the accomodationist wing is winning.
Economic predictions are always most easily made in hindsight, and most modern economists – whether classical orthodox, historical, or Marxian – can agree that the crisis of 1927 was the unavoidable outcome of shortsighted policies that, at the time, leading economists supported. The traditional narrative blames British policies for the collapse of the global stock and bond markets: The federation of the Empire behind tariff walls and the comprehensive end of the free trade mantra under PM Long precipitated the maelstrom that swallowed up the world.
Modern economic history understands that things were not that simple. The decision to create an imperial trade zone was taken not least in response to the economic pressures of a world increasingly barricaded behind similar protectionist walls facing a rapidly worsening economic climate. Exporters of agricultural products were struggling to find buyers as decades of investment into scientific agriculture produced a glut across world markets. Wage pressures created by fierce competition among industrial countries dried up demand and popularised national mercantilist policies. It was Germany above all whose harsh austerity measures in pursuit of the ever elusive return to the gold standard that flooded European and global markets with cheap manufactured goods, forcing French and British competition to follow its ruinous lead. This strategy had seemed feasible while much of Central and Eastern Europe was rebuilding its war-ravaged infrastructure, but became less so as this fixed demand began to peter out. With neither the frugal middle classes of the West nor its ailing working class, let alone downtrodden colonial subjects, able to take up the slack, producers found themselves sitting on mountains of things nobody could afford.
For some time the booming economies of North America and the deep credit markets of London and Paris were able to counterbalance the worst effects, but a series of bumper harvests in 1924-27 depressed commodity prices, leading to a rise in farm bankruptcies that damaged many rural communities beyond repair. The collapse of the London and New York stock markets in spring of 1927 was as much a result of the bad loans and loss of demand working their way through the system as it was a direct response to the Imperial Federation Act.
What followed appears in retrospect to have been a competition for the worst possible response: Governments the world over raised tariffs, subsidised exports, and imposed strict austerity measures in an effort to return the markets to equilibrium. Cutting investments, depressing wages and expediting bankruptcies proved to be a recipe for disaster, but in many cases it took years for the leadership to realise this. While many potted histories repeat the facile narrative that the Classical Anglo-Saxon school of economics failed while the German historical school triumphed, reality was more complex. German economic policy was hampered by its determination to return the Mark to a defensible gold standard through export-oriented industrial policy. It was only when the government found itself facing the very real threat of violent revolt that these measures were partly reversed. The creation of artificial demand, facilitated by access to captive markets and sources of cheap raw materials to the east, proceeded through infrastructure investment, large-scale electrification, and an extensive paramilitary labour programme as well as expanded social insurance schemes and funding for cultural and scientific programmes. Other nations copied the approach in their own ways, some even preceding Germany. Certainly, this was not a case of Berlin showing the world how to beat a depression.
Even when agreement existed on the methods – in reality, not something that could ever be taken for granted entirely, and did not exist anywhere before the early 1930s – recovery was slow and arduous. The scars of mass unemployment, a credit crunch and thorough global market disruption did not fade until decades later even in countries that were largely untouched by the war that followed. It took longer than that for voters to trust economists again.
Modern economic history understands that things were not that simple. The decision to create an imperial trade zone was taken not least in response to the economic pressures of a world increasingly barricaded behind similar protectionist walls facing a rapidly worsening economic climate. Exporters of agricultural products were struggling to find buyers as decades of investment into scientific agriculture produced a glut across world markets. Wage pressures created by fierce competition among industrial countries dried up demand and popularised national mercantilist policies. It was Germany above all whose harsh austerity measures in pursuit of the ever elusive return to the gold standard that flooded European and global markets with cheap manufactured goods, forcing French and British competition to follow its ruinous lead. This strategy had seemed feasible while much of Central and Eastern Europe was rebuilding its war-ravaged infrastructure, but became less so as this fixed demand began to peter out. With neither the frugal middle classes of the West nor its ailing working class, let alone downtrodden colonial subjects, able to take up the slack, producers found themselves sitting on mountains of things nobody could afford.
For some time the booming economies of North America and the deep credit markets of London and Paris were able to counterbalance the worst effects, but a series of bumper harvests in 1924-27 depressed commodity prices, leading to a rise in farm bankruptcies that damaged many rural communities beyond repair. The collapse of the London and New York stock markets in spring of 1927 was as much a result of the bad loans and loss of demand working their way through the system as it was a direct response to the Imperial Federation Act.
What followed appears in retrospect to have been a competition for the worst possible response: Governments the world over raised tariffs, subsidised exports, and imposed strict austerity measures in an effort to return the markets to equilibrium. Cutting investments, depressing wages and expediting bankruptcies proved to be a recipe for disaster, but in many cases it took years for the leadership to realise this. While many potted histories repeat the facile narrative that the Classical Anglo-Saxon school of economics failed while the German historical school triumphed, reality was more complex. German economic policy was hampered by its determination to return the Mark to a defensible gold standard through export-oriented industrial policy. It was only when the government found itself facing the very real threat of violent revolt that these measures were partly reversed. The creation of artificial demand, facilitated by access to captive markets and sources of cheap raw materials to the east, proceeded through infrastructure investment, large-scale electrification, and an extensive paramilitary labour programme as well as expanded social insurance schemes and funding for cultural and scientific programmes. Other nations copied the approach in their own ways, some even preceding Germany. Certainly, this was not a case of Berlin showing the world how to beat a depression.
Even when agreement existed on the methods – in reality, not something that could ever be taken for granted entirely, and did not exist anywhere before the early 1930s – recovery was slow and arduous. The scars of mass unemployment, a credit crunch and thorough global market disruption did not fade until decades later even in countries that were largely untouched by the war that followed. It took longer than that for voters to trust economists again.
The primary reason why the Russian government poured vast amounts of treasure into its arms industry in 1928 was political; It was the year that the last of troop restrictions stipulated in the Treaty of Baden-Baden expired. That it coincided with the onset of a global economic crisis was coincidence, but it certainly helped the standing of the Integralist school to have pioneered what later generations would call military socialism. With the state ideology calling for all resources of the realm to be subordinated to the guiding will of the monarch, there was no need for balanced budgets, moderation in tax revenues, or parliamentary appropriations. Money was found, through a system of transferable bonds that eventually did duty as an alternative currency and proved a godsend in the impoverished and cash-strapped economy of the interior provinces, and through voluntary contributions politely extorted from all ranks of society. The luck of the Russian government would have it that this massive influx of demand came at a time when international and domestic markets contracted and the potentially inflationary effect of the bond issues was largely counteracted by an unplanned expansion of the cash economy into previously underdeveloped rural areas. When Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolayevich claimed in a speech to the Duma in 1932 that “Russia alone among the great powers of this world stands untroubled by the present economic crisis because she understands money is a servant, not a master of politics”, he was partly telling the truth.
The experience of the last war had taught Russian planners to be wary of concentrating their arms industry in too few places, and twenty years of development, aided by Germany, of extractive infrastructure designed to bring reparations out of the country served the needs of a decentral manufacturing base well. Factories springing up in provincial towns or plonked down in rural areas as far as Western Siberia aided modernisation as effectively, sometimes more so, than they cranked out the sinews of war.
Russia's military needs as understood by its government were all-encompassing. Grand Prince Nikolai, the unofficial brains of the endeavour, focused on a deep-seated need to avenge the stinging defeat Germany had administered, but the general staff pursued a wider agenda that aimed at subduing China, dominating the Western Pacific, contesting control of Central Asia against the British Raj and its Persian catspaws, and recapturing the Caucasus. In practice, this required the development of a versatile, mobile and well-integrated force that could punch above its weight. Needless to say, this was never fully realised. Russia's modernisation had proceeded impressively, but the realities of the country could not be overcome by a sheer exertion of will. Nonetheless, the results that were achieved made the world tremble.
While the new Russian army continued to rely heavily on proven designs – neither the Maxim heavy machine gun nor the Nagant rifle were retired – it added an impressive array of high-quality hardware to its arsenal. Especially the Tula Automatic Rifle added to the firepower of the individual squad, and machine pistols suitable for mass production were issued to armour and artillery soldiers. The Gigropir 34 flamethrower, in itself an unremarkable weapon only slightly superior to the German Kleif II, was turned out in numbers that made it terrifyingly ubiquitous. Automatic weapons, hand grenades, Nogi mortars and the revolutionary Raket 37 portable anti-vehicle rocket launcher were not only developed, but turned out in vast numbers.
Artillery, while holding on to conventional designs, was turned out in great numbers. Strategy was developed around the 120mm towed howitzer, a weapon that could be hitched to lorries, drawn by horses, or dragged by its crew at need. Infantry units received 20mm and 37mm antivehicle cannon while the fearsome new 76mm anti-armour gun was served by dedicated artillery units. Air defenses relied on weapons of a very similar design, with ammunition and many parts interchangeable, and were often pressed into frontline service to blunt the thrust of German G-Wagen. .
Russian armour proved a powerful new weapon. Designers experimented with heavily armoured vehicles, but the requirements of transport and the expectation of using them in Manchuria or Turkestan meant that they were invariably required to handle hostile terrain well. This stood them in good stead against less rugged German designs during the war. Many early types produced in quantity turned out all but useless, but the B39 Dobrynya and the heavy B43 Svyatogor chars became fearsome opponents to the German armoured force.
In naval matters, the constraints of production capacity after decades of enforced idleness meant that the government could not hope to match even the limited strength of Germany's battlefleet, and decided not to try. Full-scale battleships were commissioned only for the Pacific fleet, while the Baltic and Black Sea fleets were built up with coast defense ships of limited offensive capability. Heavy cruisers made up the bulk of the main battle force, a design that turned out to be less capable than its proponents had envisioned, but the main investment in the Western naval establishment was made in light vessels and submersibles designed for a jeune école style of cruiser war. This proved a headache for the Germans longer than anyone expected.
Russia's air forces actually profited from the restrictions placed on them, skipping a period of development focused on airships to begin their full development at a point when aeroplanes became fully dominant. The engineering prowess of their design bureaus went underestimated for a long time, but many of their products proved top-notch. Again, the requirement of relative simplicity and versatility turned out a blessing in disguise as both strategic bombing and long-range naval operations were excluded early in favour of focusing on tactical air support for ground troops. Frontal aviation, as the Russian term went, concentrated aerial firepower in the hands of an army leadership determined to use it to its fullest, leading to advances in both technology and doctrine that came as a shock to the Luftmacht.
The experience of the last war had taught Russian planners to be wary of concentrating their arms industry in too few places, and twenty years of development, aided by Germany, of extractive infrastructure designed to bring reparations out of the country served the needs of a decentral manufacturing base well. Factories springing up in provincial towns or plonked down in rural areas as far as Western Siberia aided modernisation as effectively, sometimes more so, than they cranked out the sinews of war.
Russia's military needs as understood by its government were all-encompassing. Grand Prince Nikolai, the unofficial brains of the endeavour, focused on a deep-seated need to avenge the stinging defeat Germany had administered, but the general staff pursued a wider agenda that aimed at subduing China, dominating the Western Pacific, contesting control of Central Asia against the British Raj and its Persian catspaws, and recapturing the Caucasus. In practice, this required the development of a versatile, mobile and well-integrated force that could punch above its weight. Needless to say, this was never fully realised. Russia's modernisation had proceeded impressively, but the realities of the country could not be overcome by a sheer exertion of will. Nonetheless, the results that were achieved made the world tremble.
While the new Russian army continued to rely heavily on proven designs – neither the Maxim heavy machine gun nor the Nagant rifle were retired – it added an impressive array of high-quality hardware to its arsenal. Especially the Tula Automatic Rifle added to the firepower of the individual squad, and machine pistols suitable for mass production were issued to armour and artillery soldiers. The Gigropir 34 flamethrower, in itself an unremarkable weapon only slightly superior to the German Kleif II, was turned out in numbers that made it terrifyingly ubiquitous. Automatic weapons, hand grenades, Nogi mortars and the revolutionary Raket 37 portable anti-vehicle rocket launcher were not only developed, but turned out in vast numbers.
Artillery, while holding on to conventional designs, was turned out in great numbers. Strategy was developed around the 120mm towed howitzer, a weapon that could be hitched to lorries, drawn by horses, or dragged by its crew at need. Infantry units received 20mm and 37mm antivehicle cannon while the fearsome new 76mm anti-armour gun was served by dedicated artillery units. Air defenses relied on weapons of a very similar design, with ammunition and many parts interchangeable, and were often pressed into frontline service to blunt the thrust of German G-Wagen. .
Russian armour proved a powerful new weapon. Designers experimented with heavily armoured vehicles, but the requirements of transport and the expectation of using them in Manchuria or Turkestan meant that they were invariably required to handle hostile terrain well. This stood them in good stead against less rugged German designs during the war. Many early types produced in quantity turned out all but useless, but the B39 Dobrynya and the heavy B43 Svyatogor chars became fearsome opponents to the German armoured force.
In naval matters, the constraints of production capacity after decades of enforced idleness meant that the government could not hope to match even the limited strength of Germany's battlefleet, and decided not to try. Full-scale battleships were commissioned only for the Pacific fleet, while the Baltic and Black Sea fleets were built up with coast defense ships of limited offensive capability. Heavy cruisers made up the bulk of the main battle force, a design that turned out to be less capable than its proponents had envisioned, but the main investment in the Western naval establishment was made in light vessels and submersibles designed for a jeune école style of cruiser war. This proved a headache for the Germans longer than anyone expected.
Russia's air forces actually profited from the restrictions placed on them, skipping a period of development focused on airships to begin their full development at a point when aeroplanes became fully dominant. The engineering prowess of their design bureaus went underestimated for a long time, but many of their products proved top-notch. Again, the requirement of relative simplicity and versatility turned out a blessing in disguise as both strategic bombing and long-range naval operations were excluded early in favour of focusing on tactical air support for ground troops. Frontal aviation, as the Russian term went, concentrated aerial firepower in the hands of an army leadership determined to use it to its fullest, leading to advances in both technology and doctrine that came as a shock to the Luftmacht.
75 at that point and a few years past his 1929 death IOTL but not insanely old...
The Germans will develop everything. They have the resources and cash to make their army the most advanced in the world (though always worried about France, with its own high-tech establishment). But there are inherent disadvantages to complexity...
Oh, no. Strengthens Socialism, increases the interventionst role of governments, and gives war-ravaged, cash-strapped Central Europe a more level playing field against the vastly wealthier Western neighbours.
If you intend to go toe-to-toe with Germany twice, you will need all the luck in the world. Think of Japan in the early twentieth century.
A cranky old man with an obsession... great to have at the head of a government if you need to get one thing done.
Integralist Russia iTTL, like Soviet Russia iOTL, is iirc, a command driven economy, not very well connected to the world economic system. As such, they both should weather a Great Depression much better than the rest of the world.
So, no, I don't think natural 20s is a reasonable description.