Personally I suspect that for PODs after the unification of Germany, it's rare to have a 20th century in which something profoundly shitty doesn't happen.
It never ceases to amaze me how much you can improve on the events of our TL's 20th century while also waving in our faces how awful everything in this TL will be for a generation or three.
What's the long term consequences of this collectivization?
Though I think these days, the past tense is more appropriate. There is a reason why Vereinsmeierei became popular as a word.Germans are prone to creating organisations.
Though I think these days, the past tense is more appropriate. There is a reason why Vereinsmeierei became popular as a word.
Hm, I suppose it depends on what. The classical mass organizations, like parties and trade unions have hemorrhaged members for decades now, of course, and a lot of classical free time activities clubs, things like dancing or cards or wandering and so on, only seem to have elderly members anymore. But I suppose sports (i.e., mostly football) clubs are doing alright, as does smaller scale political/social activism. Then again, that single issue lobby groups like Bürgerinitiativen are replacing mass movements seems more like an American tradition taken over than something specifically German to me.I'm not entirely sure there. A lot of the organisations of the past rendered themselves obsolete by succeeding, but many are still treasured (in Hamburg, membership in a Baugenossenschaft is the kind of asset you bequeath your children). And there seems to be a Bürgerinitiative or Freie Wählergruppe for every problem in the world right now.
I am half convinced its absence explains why life in the GDR was so shitty).
That explains German womenhood. I would appreciate a reference to amuse myself further.Darwinian mate competition terms
IOTL, the US Army calls it cohesion. It may be the Genius of State Building that the Germans as Aryan people possess. Kipling should know this, after his long residence in India.Left to their own devices, Germans make labour unions, mutual insurance funds, political parties, sports clubs and leagues, cooperative banks..
That and the fact that the GDPR had racked up so much foreign debt that, at the end, it was borrowing money to meet the interest payments. That is not (to put it mildly) a sustainable economic strategy.With all due respect to your personal opinion, but life in the GDR wasn't "shitty".
Or at least not because of the lack of these institutions!
Those institutions existed one way or another also in the GDR.
The GDR had completly different starting conditions economicaly speaking, e.g. no mashal fund help, but was still able to achieve the highest social and living standards of all eastern block states. (Comparably to Bulgaria and Romania today)
The main reason for its collaps was the controlling and spying nature of its government and its ministry for statesecurity (Stasi)
Likewise with all due respect, I think Istariol illustrates a point I try to make by ancient sources: namely that Germans are prone to stay true to a common cause until five minutes past twelve, whereas other Germanic nations or peoples in general switch to self-interest earlier.That and the fact that the GDPR had racked up so much foreign debt that, at the end, it was borrowing money to meet the interest payments. That is not (to put it mildly) a sustainable economic strategy.
With qualifications, I agree. The First World War did however reveal the existence of both a left wing "peace party" and a "right wing" or "elite" group who also wanted a change of direction who were not blindly committed to the common cause. The Second produced both the Communist underground and the July (and earlier plotters). But the bulk of the German population tended to remain loyal until the writing was on the wall I agree.Likewise with all due respect, I think Istariol illustrates a point I try to make by ancient sources: namely that Germans are prone to stay true to a common cause until five minutes past twelve, whereas other Germanic nations or peoples in general switch to self-interest earlier.
That and the fact that the GDPR had racked up so much foreign debt that, at the end, it was borrowing money to meet the interest payments. That is not (to put it mildly) a sustainable economic strategy.
Has there been much discussion of rationalising the internal borders of the German Empire?
Has there been much discussion of rationalising the internal borders of the German Empire?
Berlin was becoming a frighteningly savage place, and it was not the only one, apparently. He could get reports of this level of detail only from within Prussia, but Cologne and Duisburg, Frankfurt, Altona and Breslau all showed similar developments and reading the papers alone suggested that things were little better in places like Hamburg, Dresden, Munich or Bremen.
I believe W3 runs this timeline through his Hausmacht of having combined legislative/executive power as King in Prussia. His imperial powers are under greater scrutiny. Messing with the empire's internal borders would be as unwise as if the EU would seek to detach the Channel Islands from Britain.
Indeed that was the case OTL, regardless of Kaiser; it is not so much an ATL thing as a condition of the Prussian built Empire. You'd have to have PODs in the first half of the 19th century--different 1848 at the latest--to have it otherwise. Maybe '48 was not the absolute latests but trying to change it after that would become exponentially more ASB with time. Whereas possibly even '48 is too late.
It was pretty much true of Weimar as well; Germany was basically Prussia wearing some accessories.
It was only changed by first of all Hitler atomizing everything into personal dictatorship followed by the postwar abolition of Prussia.
The Gaue were administrative divisions of the party, not the state. Only the Reichsgaue were both. The states continued to exist as administrative divisions of the state - both states and Prussian provinces got centrally appointed stadholders, who could rule them dictatorially - in accordance with the Führerprinzip.I know Nazi Germany was de facto ruled through new Gaue divisions after 1934, but were the Lander ever officially abolished?