German Global Cultural Influence and Perception Without WW1

How would German culture influence others nations without the world wars? How would people view German culture and people? With the Kaiserreich or its successor avoiding any world wars or winning them how would German cultural influence develop on the international scene? How would German Americans and their culture develop without the world wars leading to them Anglicizing/Americanizing? Could German culture be become looked at in the same way as Americans look at Anglo Saxon culture? Could Americans see Germanic culture being a huge part of American culture in the same way many Americans tied themselves to Anglo Saxon culture? Maybe German becomes the most taught second or even the second most spoken language in America especially among upper class families. Could we see America become more influenced by German society and culture? Would the United States and Great Britain consider themselves Germanic? How would Germans in Russian Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Brazil develop? What media would come out of Germany? Would Berlin be a big movie center in Europe? Would German still be spoken very widely across Europe and the world?
 
Well, Germany was always considered the land of "thinkers and poets" and the list of German scientific achievements is quite high. With no Nazis guys like Einstein aren't forced out of the country. That's a start.
 
Well, for one thing, no otl world war 2 leads to American influence on European culture being much more minimized as American movies and music won't be able to go to Europe at a time when the European film and music industries are paralyzed by war. Fritz Lang and other artists would stay in Germany , and the same goes for many Europeans , be they scientists or artists of a sort. American influence would be greatly reduced no doubt. I imagine that the German language would still be widespread in eastern Europe and still be popular in the sciences. I can't think of how German culture in the US would evolve without the world wars, but I would think that there would be at least a few more German loan words in American English. Depending on how strongly the Germans win world war 1, I imagine that French would lose a lot of prestige that Germany would receive in turn. The spread of the German language can range from France to Ukraine , to much of Africa , if the British were to lose badly, or at least just let the Germans take French colonies ,so as to appease them. I don't know if it would spread far in Asia.
 
It would be almost incomparably better than OTL. Not only would two German-speaking Great Powers persist, but the territorial range of the German language as a first language and the number of people who spoke it as a second language would not have stagnated or even contracted.

I do not see German necessarily expanding at the expense of French, for instance, but I do see German remaining a presence, not being displaced by English in the west then Russian and finally English in the easy. German may will remain the most common second language in central and eastern Europe, for instance.
 
It would be almost incomparably better than OTL. Not only would two German-speaking Great Powers persist, but the territorial range of the German language as a first language and the number of people who spoke it as a second language would not have stagnated or even contracted.

I do not see German necessarily expanding at the expense of French, for instance, but I do see German remaining a presence, not being displaced by English in the west then Russian and finally English in the easy. German may will remain the most common second language in central and eastern Europe, for instance.
I could see many Americans and British speaking German as a second language especially among wealthy families due to many people still being sent to German schools for education from overseas. I could also see German becoming second most spoken language in America and maybe majority in some areas due to German Americans retaining culture in the United States. Could German become a majority language in states like North Dakota? I imagine many Americans and some Britains would consider themselves a Germanic country. German would probably stay an academic language across the world and big trade language within Europe. Additionally, I think Austria-Hungary will eventually become a Yugoslavia times 3 which I think leads to empire being divided up with Germany being the big decider in it. I see a Germany taking Austrian German parts and most of the former Holy Roman Empire lands while giving Italy most of their claims. They would probably puppet the rest of it. A German Banat state would be interesting and so would a multi ethnic Transylvania German puppet. I could see Germany fighting against Hungary if Austrian Empire falls apart and Germany comes in to stabilize the place. Germany probably defeats Hungary then puppets it and cuts it down in size. I could also see them protecting Germans in these puppets by any means to help control the region. If Germans are preserved throughout the former Austrian Empire that would make German even bigger especially if under German Mitteleuropa or hegemony system.
 
I'm not so sure Austria-Hungary would dissolve. It was a far more stable state than many posit post-facto. The biggest issue was Hungary, and even then most Hungarians didn't actually want to leave the empire, both Hungarians and the minorities they repressed saw the Empire as their best support against eachother. A similar story is repeated in the other Reichsländer, with nationalists seeking increased influence within the empire, not independance from it.
 
IMO Germany and A-H would after some time be regarded as 1.5 empire by everyone else, not politically unified but connected to each other at the hip by necessity (big bad Russia to the east), language, economic interdependence and maybe a single currency and any falling out would be unthinkable. Like today the special relationship between the USA and the UK... if the UK would be right at the US border.

That's potentially 250 million people who today would speak German as first or second language (A-H minorities) in European states alone. Then you have the German colonies which might or might not be independent but with decades of German rule behind them they have the language firmly in place and in China you have Tsingtao which would have become the German Hong Kong. Todays number for people in all those places is around 140 million.

So instead of OTL ~100 million people speaking using German in some or most of their daily life you'd have up to 400 million, not counting minority regions in Russia and the USA and people in foreign countries learning it in school.
 
IMO Germany and A-H would after some time be regarded as 1.5 empire by everyone else, not politically unified but connected to each other at the hip by necessity (big bad Russia to the east), language, economic interdependence and maybe a single currency and any falling out would be unthinkable. Like today the special relationship between the USA and the UK... if the UK would be right at the US border.

That's potentially 250 million people who today would speak German as first or second language (A-H minorities) in European states alone. Then you have the German colonies which might or might not be independent but with decades of German rule behind them they have the language firmly in place and in China you have Tsingtao which would have become the German Hong Kong. Todays number for people in all those places is around 140 million.

So instead of OTL ~100 million people speaking using German in some or most of their daily life you'd have up to 400 million, not counting minority regions in Russia and the USA and people in foreign countries learning it in school.
I imagine a bunch of people would still send their kids to Germany for education and school. Wouldn't that increase German speakers greatly and make it an academic language?
 

Driftless

Donor
An indirect change for the US would be cultural. Sooo many young men lived the life change humorously called out in song: "how ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree!" The "foreign" experience for those folks was a generational eye-opener. By extension, there would be very little to no "Lost Generation" of artists, writers, etc. Those folks had a profound effect on American cultural development.
 
The German culture in Texas will not shrink due to anti German bias. The Texas German dialect would be stronger in Central Texas.
 

Driftless

Donor
Without the stifling of German culture in general for the US during WW1, does Prohibition take the same path as OTL? The Germanic beer culture and extended brewing business(barley as a crop, malt houses, cooperages, breweries, etc) in several parts of the US were severely disrupted by Prohibition
 
Without the stifling of German culture in general for the US during WW1, does Prohibition take the same path as OTL? The Germanic beer culture and extended brewing business(barley as a crop, malt houses, cooperages, breweries, etc) in several parts of the US were severely disrupted by Prohibition
I think prohibition only happens at a state level which mostly restricts it to the south(less Germans there) and a few other states before federal or state laws eventually repeal them in these places. It would be much harder to pass without the war. America without world war 1 will be much more Germanic in nature. Imagine the beer industry here will be bigger and better off. I also see heavy beers being more common in the US.
 

Driftless

Donor
How does public perception of Kaiser Wilhelm II evolve? In our history, he was easy for Allied sources to caricature as the pompous war-mongering wingnut (and by extension all Germans).
 
How does public perception of Kaiser Wilhelm II evolve? In our history, he was easy for Allied sources to caricature as the pompous war-mongering wingnut (and by extension all Germans).
Depends on country and how the rest of his reign goes. Probably more positive in Britain. France he is probably still depicted in a negative way. Russia could go either way. I feel like he would be depicted as a tyrant or arrogant aristocrat by Americans even by ones of German background. Most Germans who came to the United States were more liberal. I imagine they probably don't view the Kaiser well but Americans would view the German culture and people in a positive light. I could see Germans in America waving modern German flag while Germans in Germany still wave the Kaiserreich flag. In Germany he could have very mix legacy among his people.
 
A non-totalitarian Russia would still have a large Volga German presence as well. They were German speaking Lutherans invited as farmers during Catherine the Great's rule who saw themselves as Russian subjects. They would've been an eastern European analogue to French Canadians.

The power of the nobility was decreasing everywhere for economic reasons, but the Baltic Germans would still be around even if they had lost their estates in Latvia and Estonia.
 
A non-totalitarian Russia would still have a large Volga German presence as well. They were German speaking Lutherans invited as farmers during Catherine the Great's rule who saw themselves as Russian subjects. They would've been an eastern European analogue to French Canadians.

The power of the nobility was decreasing everywhere for economic reasons, but the Baltic Germans would still be around even if they had lost their estates in Latvia and Estonia.
They could still stay a strong class of capitalist and military officers in Russia. Also if Baltics break away from Russia somehow especially with German help, Germans in the Baltics might become the ruling class there.
 
The South Australian German dialect might also survive, along with a lot of German placenames. There'd certainly be a lot less hostility to German culture in the mid 20th century Commonwealth, and German might not be characatured as a harsh, aggressive language. Another small thing is that Danish might well continue to capitalise all nouns, and the fraktur script might well remain predominant in central Europe.
 
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