Modern Imperialism
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Like the title saids, how do you think German culture would develop without the world wars?
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The other is German cultural influence internationally. This is more focused towards within GermanyDon't put double posts. It's against the rules here. I should know, I also did this, when I was new , and was warned against it.
Oh. Sorry , they look the same and are by the same username, so I thought it would be the same. So, let's see. Without the world wars, I imagine German society may be more aristocratic. The monarchies across it would remain and so would the Junkers. There's more stuff , but I honestly don't understand the intricacies of cultural change in the sense of how culture changes outside of economic or military events.The other is German cultural influence internationally. This is more focused towards within Germany
I think Germany would stay militaristic but slowly remove the monarch later on due to the military constant growth which eventually leads to a coup when a Kaiser becomes too incompetent. I don't know how likely this is but I see a Kaiserriech eventually being overthrown by the military leaders then replaced by a military government for a short time before switching into a hybrid regime where daily life and matters are usually handled by a elected civilian government but when it comes to military, national security, and foreign relations it is handled by the head of the military and advisors. The military only steps in or stops the elected government when they think they are too extreme or causing them issues. Similar to military coups Turkey use to have or maybe military has veto power but rarely uses it. Other interesting take could Germany ever become like the Starship Trooper government. I imagine Junkers are still very influential even if Germany becomes a republic but I think meritocracy would still become big in Germany but full modern democracy not so much. I imagine Junkers adapting to a republic government is possible especially in one dominated by military leaders.Oh. Sorry , they look the same and are by the same username, so I thought it would be the same. So, let's see. Without the world wars, I imagine German society may be more aristocratic. The monarchies across it would remain and so would the Junkers. There's more stuff , but I honestly don't understand the intricacies of cultural change in the sense of how culture changes outside of economic or military events.
I don't think they would overthrow the Kaiser as that's too big and dramatic. At most, they'll make them live in a guided cage, where the Kaiser basically acts as a public face for big announcements, but who will be ignores by the military whenever they feel like it. Publicly, the monarchy and it's trappings still matter, but in reality, they don't. A full blown republic is unlikely.I think Germany would stay militaristic but slowly remove the monarch later on due to the military constant growth which eventually leads to a coup when a Kaiser becomes too incompetent. I don't know how likely this is but I see a Kaiserriech eventually being overthrown by the military leaders then replaced by a military government for a short time before switching into a hybrid regime where daily life and matters are usually handled by a elected civilian government but when it comes to military, national security, and foreign relations it is handled by the head of the military and advisors. The military only steps in or stops the elected government when they think they are too extreme or causing them issues. Similar to military coups Turkey use to have or maybe military has veto power but rarely uses it. Other interesting take could Germany ever become like the Starship Trooper government. I imagine Junkers are still very influential even if Germany becomes a republic but I think meritocracy would still become big in Germany but full modern democracy not so much. Imagine adapting to a republic government is possible especially in one dominated by military leaders.
I just don't see a monarch lasting throughout the whole century in Germany. I think the Kaiserreich will last to the late 30s at earliest and late 50s at most. A Kaiser will eventually do something stupid especially considering who the Kaiser will be without ww1. Didn't he not die until the 1940s? I also feel like incase of a military coup the military will just take over many of the rights and privileges the Kaiser use to have over government. It would be a republic but not a fully democratic one.I don't think they would overthrow the Kaiser as that's too big and dramatic. At most, they'll make them live in a guided cage, where the Kaiser basically acts as a public face for big announcements, but who will be ignores by the military whenever they feel like it. Publicly, the monarchy and it's trappings still matter, but in reality, they don't. A full blown republic is unlikely.
I agree I dislike total utopia and dystopian worlds. I find them boring and unrealistic. I like to look at the cons and pros of each situation. I imagine German Namibia becomes majority German and Tanzania also has a large white German population maybe even majority in the inlands and around Lake Victoria. In Europe I imagine Germany doesn't have to deal with many ethnic problems domestically due to having much larger numbers and makes Germanization a lot easier. Even if Austrian half of Austria-Hungary is annexed if they fall part I imagine the Czechs become a minority in their own nation and possibly Germanized. I do imagine Germans investing and building up colonies more. Also more education given to Africans too. The Germans might not treat Africans as equals at first but I see them wanting them to be good workers, fluent in German, and somewhat educated.What would it even mean to be German without the world wars?
A German nation in pre WWI borders? An 2nd Reich that never ended? A modern federalized constitutional democracy? A communist regime done right or wrong? What about the colonies?
Would such a scenario still include persecution of minorities as it did under the Nazi regime just without the war? Would it include involvement in minor wars if there are no worldwars?
Most scenarios here and in similar places either like to show what might have happened and have it turn out into a near utopia or a near dystopia, because those are the most interesting bits. A more realistic scenario would be somewhere in between.
The loss of the first World War helped shape the German Republic and the Nazi regime and the horror of the latter helped shape the Germanies that came after that.
Without that pretty much everything is fair game.
Some point to consider though. Germany was the birthplace of Karl Marx and his ideology. Without a WWI Russia would be a lot less likeley to have revolution and Germany might be more likely to have one with perhaps less horrible results.
Germany also had some colonies pre-WWI not many compared to the other European powers, but they had them. The way they acted in those colonies are frequently overlooked, because of the much worse horrors that later happened closer to home and because other western powers aren't exactly in any position to cast the first stone from the inside of their glasshouses, but still, there is no way around the fact, that being a colonial overlord inevitably goes hand in hand with "being the bad guy".
Also the territory of the German empire pre-WWI contained a multitude of people with different languages and cultures from the French in the west to the Poles in the east. Either these gets forcibly repressed and Germanized or the country develops some sort of system where being a citizen of the empire does not automatically equate with speaking a particular language. The first road is an ugly one and the second road is quite difficult and would require reinventing what it means to be German to give everyone something in common. Difficult without some common enemy.
There is also the problem that WWI and WWII are not entirely the reason Germany developed the way it did. Anti-Semitism was a thing long before WWI for example.
Things could go in a multitude of ways. Many of them would include some quite horrible stuff. It would be a mistake to imagine that without the World Wars everything would be perfect of even just better. On the other hand it would be a mistake to somehow fall into the trap of thinking a wars a necessary evil that taught a lessons that needed to be learned.
Like the title saids, how do you think German culture would develop without the world wars?
What about a party system like that of the Netherlands?Pretty much like a giant version of Sweden or Denmark. It would be dominated by the Social Democrats for most of the 20th century, who would change Germany in similar manner to how the Social Democrats changed society in the Nordic countries. CDU would not be a thing, instead the right would be split between the Catholics voting Zentrum, and some other conservative party which the Protestants would support. Beside that we would see a left and right wing liberal party consolidate.
Religious Germany woukld have far more Protestants with them making up a majority or strong plurality,
What about a party system like that of the Netherlands?
I suppose I could indeed be a victim of Entente propaganda here, but there are many dimensions to being a problematic Kaiser besides just warmongering as such. Lots of people attribute much of the reactionary resistance to moderate liberalization of the Second Reich to Wilhelm in particular. Looking at the situation in Elsass for instance--it was annexed (against Bismarck's wishes) as a strategic territory and also of course as a Germanophone region, but subordinated to Reich control directly instead of having its own internally chosen self-government on the usual pattern in Germany. Politically, looking at election statistics, it seems dubious to say the least to me the people were reconciled to their place in the Empire. That is not at all the same thing as saying they all yearned as one for reunification with France--I suppose by 1914 only a minority wanted that. But politically the only mainstream, pan-Reich party they voted for was the Social Democrats; more conservative people there voted for local parties mainly. And as a Reich possession, all standard accounts make out the overbearing authoritarian attitudes of the imposed rulers a major point of contention. Granted that the region could not simply be normalized as another Land of the Reich, couldn't the central authorities choose people less irritating and arrogant? Apparently not under Wilhelm II they couldn't, because he believed he could rule the annexed territories in the manner he apparently wished to rule all of Germany. It was his handpicked people who made the trouble and whom he personally shielded from consequences for trouble. It is conceivable to me that if either Wilhelm II had had different attitudes, or if he simply recognized that for the good of the Reich he had best keep hands off and have the central authorities pick more conciliatory viceroys, Elsass-Lotharingia could have been far better reconciled to being part of Germany, perhaps to the point that it would be plainly impractical for France to take the territory back.Well, the suffragette movement and the social democratic movement were already going well before the war. Women already had the vote in several places, including New Zealand and two Australian states (of particular interest here is South Australia, which was in large part settled by German immigrants, at this point many still with strong ties to their homeland), and the Sozialdemokratisches Partei was one of the largest in the Reichstag. Also, Wilhelm II was much maligned in Entente propaganda, and the echoes of that are still visible. He wasn't the brightest, but he also wasn't a warmonger, and he took great pride in being called the Friedenkaiser, the Peace Emperor. A good place to start might be to read up on prewar German society.
Germany was maybe not the Netherlands, but it was pretty pillarized prior to Nazism - NSDAP was the first true big-tent party in Germany. The Imperial-era and Weimar-era SPD in particular was much more of a workers' party than the post-1945 SPD.No German never had pillarisation and was much more a industrial society than Netherlands (at least in how the country thought of itself).
What would it even mean to be German without the world wars?
A German nation in pre WWI borders? An 2nd Reich that never ended? A modern federalized constitutional democracy? A communist regime done right or wrong? What about the colonies?
Would such a scenario still include persecution of minorities as it did under the Nazi regime just without the war? Would it include involvement in minor wars if there are no worldwars?
Most scenarios here and in similar places either like to show what might have happened and have it turn out into a near utopia or a near dystopia, because those are the most interesting bits. A more realistic scenario would be somewhere in between.
The loss of the first World War helped shape the German Republic and the Nazi regime and the horror of the latter helped shape the Germanies that came after that.
Without that pretty much everything is fair game.
Some point to consider though. Germany was the birthplace of Karl Marx and his ideology. Without a WWI Russia would be a lot less likeley to have revolution and Germany might be more likely to have one with perhaps less horrible results.
Germany also had some colonies pre-WWI not many compared to the other European powers, but they had them. The way they acted in those colonies are frequently overlooked, because of the much worse horrors that later happened closer to home and because other western powers aren't exactly in any position to cast the first stone from the inside of their glasshouses, but still, there is no way around the fact, that being a colonial overlord inevitably goes hand in hand with "being the bad guy".
Also the territory of the German empire pre-WWI contained a multitude of people with different languages and cultures from the French in the west to the Poles in the east. Either these gets forcibly repressed and Germanized or the country develops some sort of system where being a citizen of the empire does not automatically equate with speaking a particular language. The first road is an ugly one and the second road is quite difficult and would require reinventing what it means to be German to give everyone something in common. Difficult without some common enemy.
There is also the problem that WWI and WWII are not entirely the reason Germany developed the way it did. Anti-Semitism was a thing long before WWI for example.
Things could go in a multitude of ways. Many of them would include some quite horrible stuff. It would be a mistake to imagine that without the World Wars everything would be perfect of even just better. On the other hand it would be a mistake to somehow fall into the trap of thinking a wars a necessary evil that taught a lessons that needed to be learned.