August 02, 2004
Watch out for angry Germans.
It's been a pet theory of mine, more humor-based than not, that Germany would start World War III just as they had started the first two. My reasons included the supression of speech (you're not allowed to say anything that would be considered praise of Hitler or the Third Reich or imply in any way that the Holocaust did not happen) and outsider political movements (obviously I am no fan of neo-Nazis but making their thoughts illegal would seem to me to only encourage their growth) and the fact that while other countries got a vote on whether to join the Euro, the most powerful economy in Europe did not. I was in Germany right after the decision was made to lose the Mark. They were not happy.
Now Instapundit reports that 70% of Germans want a referendum on the new European constitution but Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is against the idea, despite Britain and France allowing their citizens to vote on it. Adding salt to the wound, Michael Muller, the deputy head of the Social Democrats' parliamentary party, said: "Sometimes the electorate has to be protected from making the wrong decisions."
This is not going to end well.
UPDATE: I know Germany didn't 'start' the first World War, but they were involved in it immediately via their bond with Austria-Hungary (so don't start with me Von Bek).
Posted by Karol at August 2, 2004 12:29 PM | TrackBackTechnorati Tags:
Austria-Hungary started World War I.
Posted by: Dawn Summers at August 2, 2004 01:23 PMRefresh and read my update.
Posted by: Karol at August 2, 2004 01:26 PMI actually happen to agree with you on this one. German imperialism and rabid nationalism was a large part of the road to war. Along with pan Slavism, the alliance system, the ungenerous terms of 1870 and other stuff. I really think WW1 was one of the great tragedies of human history.
Posted by: Von Bek at August 2, 2004 01:34 PMI love the Willy-Nicky letters
http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/willynicky.htm
the cousins - the czar and the keiser - correspond, trying to avoid war. Victims of incest in high places at their best.
speaking as a european the best description of the causes of WW1 (agree with pretty much everything said so far btw) comes from blackadder goes forth.
for those who are unfamiliar with the reference The Blackadder series is a British comedy series starring rowan atkinson. The 4th of which depicts edmund blackadder as a captain in the trenches in ww1.
anyway he is asked by private baldrick why there is a war and one of the answers given was "it was too much bloody effort not to have one."
one thing people ignore is britains motive for war. quite simply beat germany.
Posted by: Nick Saunders at August 2, 2004 08:23 PMOne of my housemates at uni last year is german. He mentioned the red brigades and other extreme left terror groups. He said to me that the police and security services -BND I think- always resisted government attempts to ban these groups from meeting and even existing.
when i asked why the security services would possibly do this his response was, "the security services have these groups infiltrated and have done for years. If you ban them then they will not only almost always start up again in secret, but it becomes much harder for the BND to infiltrate and stop attacks." Much easier to limit the effect of a nut group if you know what they are going to do before hand.
BTW the 70 percent of germans don't need to worry. If we Brits vote no as is almost certain, the constituion in its current form cannot be implemented at all.
Posted by: Nick Saunders at August 5, 2004 05:29 AM
