“We need to change our image of the old militaristic Germany.”
Germany before the world wars and the rise of the Nazis “was one of the most advanced countries in the world, and certainly no less democratic than Britain. Its workers were better treated than any on the Continent, with sickness insurance and old age pensions, and its trade unions were the strongest in Europe.”
Just about everyone could read.
“A country of readers with a 99 per cent literacy rate, it was also the land of Thomas Mann and Richard Strauss.”
And it was a land of opportunity, according to Dominic Sandbrook of The Times, reviewing a book by a young native German named Katja Hoyer who lives in England. It is her first book. Ambitious!
“If you were Jewish in the year 1900, there were few more welcoming places than Germany. And if you were born poor, few countries on Earth promised you a better future.”
I have always been wary of the obsession among some Americans, particularly the diplomat class, of “Prussian militarism” and the need to break up the territories in the East known as Prussia. American policy resulted in continued human suffering after the Second World War, including the expulsion of so many civilians from what had long been established as German communities and the emerging dominance of the Soviet Empire on Eastern Europe.
It was a diplomatic disaster. By the so-called experts.
ajh
AARON HILL’S NOTEBOOK 