Did Germany suffer a bigger national trauma after World War 1 or 2?
- Thread starter Admiral Bloonbeard
- Start date
Deleted member 1487
@those saying WWI had a greater national trauma because it lead to instability, vengeful mentality, and ultimately Nazism and WWII, whereas WWII """just""" resulted Germany turning over a new leaf:
How much of that is down to what the Germans were ALLOWED to do, rather than how more or less scarred the populace was? I think you're overlooking that the occupying powers were never going to allow revanchism and political violence to be the order of the day. So of course there was no obvious manifestation of the people's trauma. But does that actually mean that it didn't exist/was much reduced compared to post-WWI?
If the Entente had somehow occupied Germany in its entirety and policed German politics to makes sure Weimar worked, would that mean that the trauma of losing WWI wouldn't have existed?
If the Western powers and the Soviets did agree to a united neutral Germany, would the Germans continue turning over a new leaf? Or would members of Der Stahlhelm 2.0 be killing members of the Neo-Roter Frontkampferbund in back alleys like its the late 20s/early 30s all over again?
How much of that is down to what the Germans were ALLOWED to do, rather than how more or less scarred the populace was? I think you're overlooking that the occupying powers were never going to allow revanchism and political violence to be the order of the day. So of course there was no obvious manifestation of the people's trauma. But does that actually mean that it didn't exist/was much reduced compared to post-WWI?
If the Entente had somehow occupied Germany in its entirety and policed German politics to makes sure Weimar worked, would that mean that the trauma of losing WWI wouldn't have existed?
If the Western powers and the Soviets did agree to a united neutral Germany, would the Germans continue turning over a new leaf? Or would members of Der Stahlhelm 2.0 be killing members of the Neo-Roter Frontkampferbund in back alleys like its the late 20s/early 30s all over again?
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Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
Honestly I'm not quite sure what exactly we're discussing now, so I don't know whether to agree or disagree 😂
Certainly not that strictly separated (there were overlapping figures like Ludendorff), and those more traditional nationalists prominent during and after WWI helped the Nazis come to power in '33.
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
Certainly! But for decades, they weren't widely discussed in public, so it didn't amount to a national trauma.
TDM
Kicked
I think the Trauma is still there under the surface and in effect at a national level though (same for other trauma's in the WW2 defeat)
I voted WW2,
so OK the trauma of WW1 was used as political tool but didn't inherently change Germany but IMO the trauma of WW2 changes Germany entirely.
It's interesting to see how it varies in different countries, I'd say it's the other way round for Britain (WW1 trauma worse than WW2) and the popular nationally held image is certainly that way round
France is an interesting one because their experience was traumatic in both but also very different.
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Far more war dead, hundreds of thousands of civilians killed post war, hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed post war, 10 million people forced from their homes, JCS-1067, bombing of all industry, mass rape of hundreds of thousands of women, shame of the crimes your country committed, permanent loss of sovereignty, being divided for decades (or to the present if counting Austria).
WWII had to have been worse.
WWII had to have been worse.
WW2. My personal opinion is that in some ways it absolutly broke them -and I mean mentally. Their historians became obsessed with the nazi question and I have tried more than once but I have failed this far to find any sufficiently objective and worthwhile history from a german author that delt with Prussia, the 2nd Reich or Frederick the Great (Im sure they exist but as a non german I have limited acess to german material though I speak german). But all the books I came across could not get ower the questions of: was Hitler an inherent result of german history and prussian militarism as a dogma (I also had a run in with a communist historians work - that was at least different though equally useless). After a few tries I simply gave up and prefer english authors for german history.
Deleted member 94680
Fair enough.
They don’t have to the “strictly separated” to be different, people can move between ideologies and groupings.
So, I think WW2. Reading people talking a decade after WW1 and a decade after WW2, I find the way Germans talked about the wars and what they meant as showing a very different scope of trauma.
That said, the trauma after WW1 was allowed to do more damage. The militarists in German politics carefully nurtured the trauma for close to a generation before the country was consumed by the storm of hate they'd helped to brew.
After WW1, Germany was still a "normal" country. The trauma of losing the war was on par with, say, the British losing their empire and provoked similar reactions from different sections of society.
Whereas after WW2 Germany was not "normal" in their eyes or in foreign eyes. To this very day Germany is an occupied country with very specific limitations in the current world system and with different cultural expectations placed on them by people inside and outside the country.
On the other hand, hundreds of thousands if not millions of women were raped. And not all were in the East. Even if that's not spoken of, everyone would have known several people who were processing the personal trauma of their rapes.
That's going to effect a culture, like air effects people even though we can't see it.
fasquardon
That said, the trauma after WW1 was allowed to do more damage. The militarists in German politics carefully nurtured the trauma for close to a generation before the country was consumed by the storm of hate they'd helped to brew.
After WW1, Germany was still a "normal" country. The trauma of losing the war was on par with, say, the British losing their empire and provoked similar reactions from different sections of society.
Whereas after WW2 Germany was not "normal" in their eyes or in foreign eyes. To this very day Germany is an occupied country with very specific limitations in the current world system and with different cultural expectations placed on them by people inside and outside the country.
On the other hand, hundreds of thousands if not millions of women were raped. And not all were in the East. Even if that's not spoken of, everyone would have known several people who were processing the personal trauma of their rapes.
That's going to effect a culture, like air effects people even though we can't see it.
fasquardon
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
And as of today, most of these limitations are imposed by Germany upon herself. There are quite some voices that call for Germany to take up a more important role in both Europe and the world, but Germans refrain from (openly) transposing their economic soft power into more substantial influence because they fear of being perceived as aggressors again.
German patriotism and the drive for "Weltgeltung" (i. e. having an outstanding position internationally) are dead right now. That's probably a direct effect of the Second World War. So that might play into the hands of those who argue that WWII caused a much deeper "national trauma" than WWI. But this "trauma" didn't lead to apathy or hate against the former enemies, as it did after WWI, but instead encouraged the German nation to find a new mission internationally; so the effects were much different and also much more positive.
TDM
Kicked
I think that's fair, but as you say I'd argue that all points to the trauma or "effect" being greater to have such a change national outlook.
Hitler was basically jut trying to replay WW1 to get teh result he thinks should have happened first time around and avenge those historical wrongs i.e a 2nd round which many agreed with (of course because the nazis were different from those in charge in 1914-18 the extremes of behaviour are different).
The German Trauma: https://www.newstatesman.com/europe/2013/09/german-trauma
Germans were recently asked to rank their anxieties in order of intensity. Their foremost fear, it transpired, was of helplessness in old age. Second – taking precedence over cancer, or terrorism, or unemployment – came the fear of inflation. This extraordinary finding was published by the respected Allensbach Institute, 90 years after the great German hyperinflation came to an end in the autumn of 1923.
Germans were recently asked to rank their anxieties in order of intensity. Their foremost fear, it transpired, was of helplessness in old age. Second – taking precedence over cancer, or terrorism, or unemployment – came the fear of inflation. This extraordinary finding was published by the respected Allensbach Institute, 90 years after the great German hyperinflation came to an end in the autumn of 1923.
It's a bit hard to answer.
One, losing WW1 is part of a larger national trauma of defeat, revolution, coups, countercoups, coup-inside-a-coups, general strikes and hyperinflation.
Two, the WW1 trauma is a large part of the reason why WW2 ended the way it did. You thought the WW2 Japanese were averse to surrender? Meet the WW2 German leadership, and no, it wasn't just Hitler. It was the whole lot of them. All of them, except for the tiny minority that was the July 20 plot, preferred the Allies meeting up at the Elbe to the idea of a repeat of the WW1 armistice. Dönitz literally had people shot for desertion while British military police was observing him through binoculars and debating when to move in to arrest him.
One, losing WW1 is part of a larger national trauma of defeat, revolution, coups, countercoups, coup-inside-a-coups, general strikes and hyperinflation.
Two, the WW1 trauma is a large part of the reason why WW2 ended the way it did. You thought the WW2 Japanese were averse to surrender? Meet the WW2 German leadership, and no, it wasn't just Hitler. It was the whole lot of them. All of them, except for the tiny minority that was the July 20 plot, preferred the Allies meeting up at the Elbe to the idea of a repeat of the WW1 armistice. Dönitz literally had people shot for desertion while British military police was observing him through binoculars and debating when to move in to arrest him.
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Deleted member 1487
That's modern education, not 'collective memory'. Very few people alive lived through or even remember the 1920s inflation, which was nearly 100 years ago at this point. And it isn't considered proper to talk about the trauma of WW2, just to feel guilty about what the nation did. Besides there is a modern propaganda machine to keep modern Euros in line for the EU project that has some influence on this sort of thinking, otherwise people in Germany might start asking for stimulus spending rather than keeping to Mutti's austerity program to keep the debt down. Ordo-Liberalism, the theory that has dominated German economic thinking since WW2:
Ordoliberalism - Wikipedia
That's modern education, not 'collective memory'. Very few people alive lived through or even remember the 1920s inflation, which was nearly 100 years ago at this point. And it isn't considered proper to talk about the trauma of WW2, just to feel guilty about what the nation did. Besides there is a modern propaganda machine to keep modern Euros in line for the EU project that has some influence on this sort of thinking, otherwise people in Germany might start asking for stimulus spending rather than keeping to Mutti's austerity program to keep the debt down. Ordo-Liberalism, the theory that has dominated German economic thinking since WW2:
Ordoliberalism - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
You are quite right that German thinking for many decades has been much more influenced by modern German messaging which I would agree is focused on the subordination of German national self-interest and identity to a more EU identity and policies.
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