DBWI No Berlin accord

Since were two years away from the Centenial of the event I think its time to talk about it.

After the Great war Germany was quite simply put well screwed, they were in debt to their eye balls had to pay war reperations and their economy was in tatters, to the east russia had been taken over by the soviets. Things looked grim for the soviets, but they had a stroke of luck. American paranoia about the communist threat.

The americans wanted to prop up the defeated germans to keep the communists out of eastern europe but they knew they needed some kind of fig leaf to sell it to the american public. So a deal was cut with the German government.

The americans would handle the vast majority of their war reperations, and quite a bit of their national debt and in exchange for the next 100 years american citazins would be garenteed access and free education in german universities. Faced with economic disaster the German government agreed, and in a stroke of a pen over 90% of the reperations debt vanished. Leaving behind a smaller debt they paid back in 5 years.

But what if this didn't happen? What if the Berlin accord did not happen?
 
Germany would have collapsed. The Weimar Republic that the Allies wanted to set up wouldn't have had a prayer of being stable, and the whole thing would have gone straight to hell, probably even before the Depression. Germany would be a series of struggling states under different banners, some absorbed by their neighbors. You might have seen a few bad apples trying to make something of it - some rabble rouser wrote a book in prison about it; I found it on Google Books while I was looking for a German cookbook; I think it was called "My Struggle" but all I read was a bunch of whiny bullshit, like he was the Holden Caulfield of Weimar Germany.

Some of Germany would have gone Communist probably, although we saw how well that would have worked out. What intrigues me is this - what about Asia? With a collapsed Germany and the USSR doing whatever it pleases in Eastern Europe, would it have had the fortitude to start messing around in Asia? I know after the Pacific War, President Garner told the Soviets in no uncertain terms that they weren't welcome in Asia and threatened to seize huge chunks of the Soviet mainland in retaliation for any threats - and Stalin caved. Only Cambodia went Communist, and there was no stopping Saloth Sar from gaining power, even if it was thankfully short-lived.
 
How would this affect Coloured culture in the West? I mean, when you consider how many Coloured families scrimped and saved to book their children passage to Europe so that they could go to German universities, because so many universities in the US refused to admit them...

(OOC: AIUI, the most "neutral" term for black people in German is farbig ("coloured") and schwarz ("black") is somewhat pejorative when used to describe a person. So I'm assuming that the former usage would be more common among the African-American population if many of them had been educated in Germany. Native German speakers, please correct me if I have this wrong.)
 
How would this affect Coloured culture in the West? I mean, when you consider how many Coloured families scrimped and saved to book their children passage to Europe so that they could go to German universities, because so many universities in the US refused to admit them...

(OOC: AIUI, the most "neutral" term for black people in German is farbig ("coloured") and schwarz ("black") is somewhat pejorative when used to describe a person. So I'm assuming that the former usage would be more common among the African-American population if many of them had been educated in Germany. Native German speakers, please correct me if I have this wrong.)

God I forgot about that, that would really mess with black culture, just look at the average Rap video and then try to count all the german loan words, and then you think of all the black scientists and engineers and other things we would lose.

That said we have 2 years until this program ends, do you think that there will be some kind of extension or do you think that 100 years of free education in germany will end and with that all of the cultural bonds that the Berlin Accord created.
 
I doubt we have anything to worry about President Angela Kasner (D-ND) is a second generation American from Germany. Her Grandparents both sets came over in the thirties and settled between Fargo and Bismark.

The German people love her just like we love her.
 
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On the other hand, if the US hadn't pushed that much for that treaty, France wouldn't have forefully invaded the Ruhrgebiet.

I mean sure, the Germans have universities and whatnot but they have no industry anymore, it's all in French territory!

It's a bit counterintuitive but if the Americans hadn't try to meddle that much in post-war order, relations in Europe might be much more appeased than the long-standing stand-off. Not that anyone can really do anything against France on the continent though...
 
On the other hand, if the US hadn't pushed that much for that treaty, France wouldn't have forefully invaded the Ruhrgebiet.

I mean sure, the Germans have universities and whatnot but they have no industry anymore, it's all in French territory!

It's a bit counterintuitive but if the Americans hadn't try to meddle that much in post-war order, relations in Europe might be much more appeased than the long-standing stand-off. Not that anyone can really do anything against France on the continent though...

Well, people adapt. Germany gets by on education and tourism these days; it's really nice once you get over the fact that there's an authoritarian government next door and the chaos of the former USSR a few stops away. Sure a hell of a lot nicer than Italy, which never recovered from France sticking its collective boot up Mussolini's ass in 1938.

Really, I wonder if there would still be segregation. I mean, black folks who came back from Germany ended up being highly educated and eventually accepted as semi-equals after a while, with there being a lot of mistrust even now. It's better in the cities, or at least most of them; people still felt uncomfortable having a black boss for some time.
 
Well, people adapt. Germany gets by on education and tourism these days; it's really nice once you get over the fact that there's an authoritarian government next door and the chaos of the former USSR a few stops away. Sure a hell of a lot nicer than Italy, which never recovered from France sticking its collective boot up Mussolini's ass in 1938.

Really, I wonder if there would still be segregation. I mean, black folks who came back from Germany ended up being highly educated and eventually accepted as semi-equals after a while, with there being a lot of mistrust even now. It's better in the cities, or at least most of them; people still felt uncomfortable having a black boss for some time.
It's the same in France with the Arabs and the Cochinchinese. We actually have quite a few black deputies now, especially from Dakar, but we just got our first Arab deputy for the Arab citizens of Algeria and Tunisia and people were chaffing about it.

Even now, it's a major issue to have them as bosses. I think it's actually still forbidden in some of the most southern prefectures of Algeria for them to raise above a certain level.
You'd think the Cochinchinese would have a few deputies since they've been an oversea department in forever but the constant uprisings really screwed up the pot.

And to be fair, we're not a dictatorship or anything, you just have to be careful what you say about certain subjects is all. We're all free and we have way more money than the Krauts otherwise!
 
Well, people adapt. Germany gets by on education and tourism these days; it's really nice once you get over the fact that there's an authoritarian government next door and the chaos of the former USSR a few stops away. Sure a hell of a lot nicer than Italy, which never recovered from France sticking its collective boot up Mussolini's ass in 1938.

Really, I wonder if there would still be segregation. I mean, black folks who came back from Germany ended up being highly educated and eventually accepted as semi-equals after a while, with there being a lot of mistrust even now. It's better in the cities, or at least most of them; people still felt uncomfortable having a black boss for some time.

Germany has plenty of industry its just that said industry is pretty much all precision tech, stuff thats been so mechanized that you need really educated people to do it. Most of the worlds Xrays, hell most of the worlds high tech medical eqiuptment period is made in Germany. Sure you don't have german cars but if your crappy renault gets you into another accident its going to be a german EKG machine that helps save your life.
 
Germany has plenty of industry its just that said industry is pretty much all precision tech, stuff thats been so mechanized that you need really educated people to do it. Most of the worlds Xrays, hell most of the worlds high tech medical eqiuptment period is made in Germany. Sure you don't have german cars but if your crappy renault gets you into another accident its going to be a german EKG machine that helps save your life.

True. Though in Germany, it's as if you need a Master's degree to get a better job than stocking shelves at IKEA, and the next job up from there seems to be "civil engineer." No in-between.
 
BMW and Porsche's are still being made in Bavaria just because there mostly hand made and you have to be a millionaire to buy them should not discount them.
 
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