Abschaffung Deutschlands: Qui prodest?

Notes towards an essay on "Ecstatic Defeatism".

[Dies ist bei weitem kein ordendlicher Aufsatz, sondern nur eine Tafel, worauf ich Zitaten und Gedanken kleben kann.]

Das ist alles nicht ganz neu.

Die angestammte Sprache  mag aufgegeben werden, es mag sich nicht einmal eine bemerkliche Sprachmischung vollziehen, dafür wird eine fruchtbare Kulturmischung nicht ausbleiben.    Unter allen großen Völkern der Erde  entnationalisiert sich keines so leicht  wie die Deutschen und, da die “vagina gentium” auch heute noch diesen Namen verdient, in solchen Maßen. 

--  Hugo Schuchardt,  (1884), in Leo Spitzer, ed., Hugo Schuchardt-Brevier (1921; 2^nd edn. 1928), p. 348

~

Ferner hätten die Parteien schuld,   

erst, zum Beispiel während der Schleicher-periode, durch das große Ungeschick ihres Manövrierens,

dann durch die Schwäche und Feigheit, mit der sie ihre Vernichtung hinnahmen:  ja, wohl gar noch eilten, sich selber zu vernichten,  bevor man sie dazu zwang.

--Golo Mann, Deutsche Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (1958; 1992), p. 798

Contemporaneous with that, was the baffling phenomenon of “premature” French defeatism in the face of a resurgent Germany, an enigma of mass psychology.

After all, they had won the last war against Germany  (albeit with a late assist from the Yanks);  moreover, throughout the ‘twenties and even into the ‘thirties, France had considerably superior military means, which they constantly undervalued (as William Shirer consistently emphasizes -- and marvels at -- in his magisterial The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)).

True, there were a few active partisans of Germany in France, even after the rise of Hitler;  yet France’s abject capitulation -- by degrees, over years -- was not the result of any conspiratorial Fifth Column.   The whole nation took psychological shelter in what we may term the “Maginot fantasy”.   Not as that lesson of military history is commonly misread (for which see here).   Rather, at the same time  the country told itself that it was safe behind its cosy walls -- it yet refused to complete the fortificaions.  It is as though your house had three walls and a stout oak front-door with many locks, but nothing behind.   The French might call it a psychose;  we shall be content with “cognitive-dissonance” (anglicè, “doublethink”).

The elites followed suit:

There are always people willing to throw good money after bad, and the situation became that Germany was  in reality  expanding its armament industry  by new borrowings.  The potential enemies of Germany in the next war -- France, the small succession states, Great Britain, and even Soviet Russia -- were financing the effort that Germany may make some day to destroy them.  The process reached its most extreme phase when, in December, 1934, the Bank of England granted a $3,750,000 credit to Germany in order “to facilitate the mobilization of German commercial credits”, i.e., so that Germany might have means to meet old debts -- and build airplanes that can cross the English Channel in seven minutes.

-- John Gunther, Inside Europe (1938 revised edition), p. 100

Notice that that was published in 1938 -- thus, without benefit of hindsight.  (Gunther’s whole book is both prescient and brilliant.)

Far-sighted

More on the shadow-play of German reparations  here:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2014/09/parallel-lives-protracted.html

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For over four years now, I have been following (and blogging about) the increasing  Überfremdung and Völkeraustausch that threatens Europe.   And marveled at the relative lack (until quite recently) of coverage (other than edulcorated coverage) in the European MSM.   Nor is it simply a matter of out-of-touch elites or a media conspiracy of silence:  for all those governments, from Sweden to France and Germany, who have been fomenting the inflow, and turning a blind eye to the spread of no-go zones, were popularly elected.   When Italy used its coast guard, not to guard its coast, but to serve a tax-funded water-taxi for illegals, an American could only marvel.   Then, when Merkel had her Mother-Theresa-epiphany, and conjured up an ingathering of all the wretched of the earth -- nebenbei tossing the Schengen agreement  unceremoniously onto the compost-heap of History --  her grand gesture evoked hundreds of giddily euphoric Milchmädchen & Teddybärschenker at the Bahnhofs, literally applauding the intruders like some victorious invading army, or perhaps the Beatles.   What are we to make of all this?

I still don’t understand it.   But increasingly (in the Readers’-Comments columns) we see similar expressions of bafflement by Germans themselves.  “I feel as though I have strayed into the wrong film,” one wrote.  “Is this really happening?”

~

The nation itself has as much right to nationhood as the fractional minorities have to autonomy -- to put it mildly.  You cannot follow the practice of self-determination to its logical extreme  without reaching an absurdity -- that the state itself is sacrificed to its minorities.

-- John Gunther, Inside Europe (1938 revised edition), p. 103n

[Update 28 October 2015]  A nice, tidy, non-intergalactic, non-Illuminati conspiracy-theory:

Assange: WikiLeaks vorliegende Depeschen zeigen Plan zur strategischen Entvölkerung von Syrien und EU-Flüchtlingskrise

„Gegner des Landes initiieren eine strategische Entvölkerung, um so die kämpferischen Kapazitäten der Regierung zu beschränken. Es ist vor allem die Mittelklasse die aus Syrien flieht. Ingenieure, Manager, Angestellte, da sie über die notwendigen Sprachkenntnisse, Geld und Verbindungen verfügen. Genau diese Berufsgruppen braucht man, um einen Regierung am Laufen zu halten.“
http://www.rtdeutsch.com/35254/headline/assange-wikilekas-vorliegende-depeschen-zeigen-plan-zur-strategischen-entvoelkerung-von-syrien-und-eu-fluechtlingskrise/

~

Possibly in the back of the minds of the ecstatic defeatists:

The decadent civilizations of the past  were not saved by their philosophers, but by the influx of simpler peoples  who had centuries yet to live  before their minds should be ripe for despair.

-- Joseph Wood Krutch, The Modern Temper (1929) (Conclusion)

[Update Dec 2015] See
http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2015/12/germany-welcomes-migrants-to-its-bosom.html